Nothing new under the sun? Time to look above it

Ancient Israel’s King Solomon, reputed to be the wisest monarch of his time, once lamented that there was “Nothing new under the sun,” and “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

That’s the familiar literary recitation from Ecclesiastes I, anyway. The Message paraphrase might make a bit more sense in the 21st Century: “There’s nothing to anything — it’s all smoke . . . the sun comes up and the sun goes down, then does it again, and again — the same old round.”

Live long enough, and it is inevitable to nod and sigh in agreement with the jaded king of old.

Still, I turn back to that initial King James Version phrase, “Nothing new UNDER the sun.”

I believe your perspective must take flight, ABOVE the sun, to grasp truth, and hope.

Keep your gaze in front of you, or more likely, at your feet, despairing at the path your are on, and like Henry David Thoreau, you will find yourself one of those characters who live their lives in ‘quiet desperation.”

In his work, “Walden,” Thoreau — though of an existential, not religious worldview — urges looking above the sun, too, in the sense of climbing beyond the mundane to the true treasures of living.

Rather than being resigned to our “present low and primitive condition,” he writes about the almost metaphysical ecstasy of “the spring of springs arousing them” and the yearning to “rise to a higher and more ethereal life.”

I am reminded, anew, that it is time again to look above the sun.

Time to see, taste, touch and hear beauty, to cherish and embrace family and friends, and to let my faith in God carry me beyond mere sunrises and sunsets to other, eternal realms — whether experienced within the next breath or heartbeat, or in the passage of eons to come.

And, it's a journey best experienced hand-in-hand. Don't be afraid to reach out.

Choices in entertainment: Moral equivalent of garbage in, garbage out?

OK, just in case you forgot, let's quickly review the Ten Commandments:

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make idols.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.
    

There. Now we have context.

My wife and I have a few favorite television shows we regularly watch. The NCIS family of shows are at the top of the list, along with "Blue Bloods,"  “Person of Interest,” “The Black List,” “Forever,” and “Elementary.”

We trimmed the list of situation comedies, which increasingly seem thinly-veiled means to propagandize particular political, social and cultural causes. 

If you made a steady diet of such shows, you'd likely come to think there's not a single functional family existing that is made up of a happily married mother and father; respectful, focused children; and certainly not one with a meaningful (i.e., reflected in actions) faith in God – unless the latter is portrayed as something to scorn or dismiss as delusional at best, or bigotry worth a trip to re-education camps at worst.

But before we congratulate ourselves on that revelation, I've come to wonder what is, afterall, truly consistent for our Christian beliefs within the worldview of an increasingly radicalized secular society.

I'm talking about the one that ignores the erosion of moral standard;, expanding, greed- and corruption-driven gaps between rich and poor; and growth of violence fed by an epidemic lack of accepting personal responsibility for our actions. Screw up, and it's someone else's, or society's fault.

So, do our choices in entertainment, in form of 42 minutes (plus ads) of dramatic storytelling, underscore the value of moral standards – or work to relegate them to mere situational ethics and self-serving relativism?

The same can be said of our choices in music, reading material, etc. But let's stick with the TV, or universal escape from reality.

One recent episode of one our remaining favorites portrayed people violating eight of those Ten Commandments listed above. Another one, nine – leaving only the fourth, keeping the Sabbath holy, unsullied.

So, there's that. But one could argue that scorecard is, after all, an accurate reflection of what our society has become.

And, to be fair, most of those shows we watch do have some moral components, with the protagonists seeking to protect the innocent, fight evil schemes, sustain friendships, making sacrifices, etc.

TV dramas, like human beings, can reflect a battlefield of the soul. That can be instructive. It may even indicate that despite all the degradation, hopelessness, violence, corruption around us, there still is that flicker of desire for “good” that transcends the individual and reaches the Other.

But it is, too often, merely a flicker. 

That's hopeful, certainly, but still not the kind of raging, love-driven inferno we need to turn things around.

Yet.

Human history is replete with eras of reform, revival and restored hope, usually driven by the purer facets of faith.

Oh, how we need that.

A walk with my grandson: Of Faith, Love, Integrity . . . ducks, geese and sunlight

My grandson, Gabriel, and I had a nice conversation as we walked along the Jordan River Parkway after I got home from work yesterday afternoon.

A perfect autumn day, the river placid, the soft, golden glow of a retreating sun backlighting the cattails and illuminating the canopies of aspen, willow, cottonwood and oak trees overhead. On the water, geese and ducks foraged and engaged in halfhearted territorial disputes, generally at peace with each other and the season.

In the trees, juniper and sage, Meadowlarks, swallows, mourning doves and the occasional magpie darted through the branches or took short flight as we approached, grandpa and stroller-borne grandchild, in conversation perhaps as nonsensical to each other as human speech is to the river's denizens.

As the miles passed beneath foot and wheel, I told Gabriel how blessed he was, in this age of family unit breakdown and eroding moral and ethical values, to have two parents who loved God, him and each other.

I promised, for as long as I live, to be there for him; to do my best to live Faith, Love and Integrity . . . in prayerful hope that he, too, will embrace those.

I told him I would always pray that he will have the fortitude to live those values, even when the mass of humanity chooses to chase the lies.

The Lies? That happiness depends on temporal possessions, self-gratification, and lifestyles that worships materialism and greed, rather than seeking eternal values, and the eternal destiny that comes only with trust in the God of Love.

He occasionally responded: Enthusiastic imitations of the ducks in the river, geese honking overhead in their "V" formations, the occasional dog that would pass with its jogging human."Quack," "Honk," Woof." Excited yowls and giggles came with a scurrying squirrel or a bird landing briefly on a nearby branch.

 It was a fine conversation, perfect for our last time together for, probably, quite a while, as he and his mother fly home back East this weekend.

Yes, eloquent, my grandson.

We understood each other, perfectly.

My cousin Rob died young, but learned lessons for the ages

The first time I met my younger cousin, Rob Castor, he rushed up to the table where my aunt had made breakfast for my dad and me . . . and, with a big toddler grin, unleashed a spit-laden raspberry all over my toast.

He ran off giggling, his plastic pants a blur.

Over the ensuing 50-plus years, my contacts with Rob were better. Along with his three younger brothers, they were the closest thing I had to male siblings.

The fun-loving kid grew into a sometimes wild, partying teen and young man. He always had a smile, laughed at everything, seemed to love everyone.

No judgment from Rob, who was all too aware of his own foibles.

Like many on the maternal, Scots-Irish side of my family, he had a weakness for, and lifetime struggle with addictive behavior. It was a gene I, too, have had to fight.

Alcohol. Tobacco. Drugs. Food. Whatever would fill the gnawing hunger inside.

Rob paid a heavy price, his health suffering as he grew older.

His 56th year, this year, would be his last. Just a couple weeks after we had a wonderful, upbeat talk on the phone, he suddenly passed away. 

We had talked about growing up in our strange clan, the good times, some of the bad. He was considering weight loss surgery, something I had gone through a few years back. He was optimistic, motivated.

I encouraged him. He shared his rekindled Christian faith with me.

He never had the surgery. They say a complete renal shutdown did him in.

The last thing I remember, now, is his laughter, and concern for my parents. "I love them so much!" he said. "I'm praying for them."

Rob died young. But he did not leave us before learning, and practicing, a lesson — perhaps The Lesson — many of us never embrace:

Loving and accepting each other, flaws and all, is what it's all about.

I'm proud of that about my cousin. And in that love of life and others, without judging them, he will always be my mentor.

God bless, cuz.

I'll see you again, soon enough.

I'll just listen for that deep belly laugh, step into the Light and give you a bear hug.

Will meeting E.T. be the end of faith? Depends. How BIG is your God?

I firmly believe in God. I am a Christian, albeit a rational one.

I have faith in Christ, not magic. I am convinced that the Truth has nothing to fear from the truth, in other words.

So, I've never subscribed to the fear some of my coreligionists have that the discovery of intelligent extra-terrestrial life would be the undoing of faith, somehow.

It depends on your "faith," I would argue. How BIG is your God? And does the idea that a finite human mind cannot comprehend the thoughts, means of creation, capacity for Love and Justice of the Infinite One also threaten your belief system?

If so, time to open your eyes and marvel at the cosmos. Time to open your heart, gaze into the eyes of a child, and experience wonder.

That we may not be the center of the Universe, or the only special, beloved creation in it, does not diminish the love for a special creation — whether us, or us and others created in the mystical image of God.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in that conviction.

Read this article, and soar.

http://www.space.com/16285-alien-life-discovery-religion-impact.html

Love, work and deeds: Do you 'play for mortal stakes'?

The late Robert B. Parker, who created the literary Boston detective Spenser, entitled one of the series' novels, "Mortal Stakes."

Not the first time, curiosity over a title or phrase or quotation in a Parker book spurred me to investigate further.

This weekend, while reading a collection of Robert Frost poems, there it was:

"Only where need and love are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sake."

I read it several times. It had the feeling of . . . scripture.

The stanza above comes at the conclusion of Frost's recounting his joy of chopping wood -- until two unemployed lumberjacks come down the trail.

Silently, they watch him work . . . and silently, he understands that what he does for joy, they need to do for making a living -- mortal stakes. In the end, their need overcomes his joy; he pays them to finish the work.

This poem ("Two Tramps in Mud Time")  has so touched me that I've posted the above stanza at my work station.

Somehow, it makes me feel much better about starting another week of labor.

A painful lesson in Grace, 'truth,' and anger

Some lessons in life, seemingly, need to be repeated time and time, and time, again.

Case in point: Before you go off on someone about something you are just sure is true . . . confirm it, regardless the apparent veracity of your source. Then, think twice, three times, before going off on someone, period.

You can apologize after, that is true.

But you can never take back what was said, emailed, whatever. It still scars, regardless of a mountain of subsequent remorse and pleas for forgiveness.

I have, more times than I will allow myself to think about long enough to count, been on the receiving end of this phenomenon.

And I have been the perpetrator, too. Even lately.

Makes me slap myself, and appreciate Grace all the more.

We all deserve a coach ticket to hell, many times over, based on what we have done, thought, or even deliberately ignored or dismissed in our relationships with other human beings.

It's a good thing, a very good thing, that our Judge offers us forgiveness, not because of what we do, but through Grace, i.e. unmerited favor. Because of who He is: Love.

Doesn't mean, though, that we cannot improve. Day by day, decision by decision, we can choose.

I am going to try to choose better, and to do that with renewed commitment.

How about you?

Faith: A choice, a yearning to be more than an evolutionary dead-end

Take an evangelical, fundamentalist preacher's kid and mix him with a liberal arts education. 

Season him with more than a few decades of living, and you either come up with an agnostic, a metaphysical schizophrenic, or a believer, stripped down the basics of his faith.

I confess to, at times, flying like a confused, sometimes angry or at least disheartened moth, too close to the flames of the first two fates. The journey to faith — my own faith, not necessarily that of my parents — has been occasionally exhilarating, often painful, and all too human.

It has been, philosophically, an eclectic odyssey. That likely was inevitable, considering my History and Journalism double major and a minor in Psychology, followed by a career in journalism (a petri dish for cynicism, as professions go).

Ultimately, it is human nature that convinces me my faith — albeit skinned of what I concluded were doctrinal and theological assertions created not by an infinite God, but by finite human minds — makes more sense than pure secular humanism.

I could (but don't worry, I won't) write reams on why I find this so. Let a couple observations suffice:

— The fact that our species has not ceased warring with itself since it began, committing genocide on ever-larger scales, makes me bitterly laugh at the idea we are the pinnacle of sentient evolution on Earth. 

 

We may boast how much more sophisticated and civilized our high-tech, educated society is now compared to our stick-wielding, tree- and cave-dwelling ancient ancestors, but we continue to produce the same rotten fruit.

It's still about territory and resources, and who has the right — or might — to claim them. And since such brutal calculus always makes our "better angels" wince, we still use politics, religion, culture and racism as excuses and justification for dehumanizing and dismissing the Other.

— Yet, we desire to be more. I would argue that we were created for more, but are broken. Despite all the pain and madness humankind inflicts on itself and its planet, goodness persistently bubbles up within individuals, and reform movements. 

Changes for the better, history teaches us, are as finite as our bodies . . . yet we continue to reach down to the fallen with one hand, even as we bludgeon our enemies with the other.

So, faith. Because without it, without the saving grace of our Maker, we will remain stuck, either as an evolutionary dead end, or a creation to be ultimately redeemed, reborn and perfected.

I prefer to believe the latter.

Lessons from a mountain hike: The earth, friends and faith abide

It has been a long time since I have been able to go hiking with another guy of my generation.

Last time, in fact, was when I was just 20 years old. That three-week excursion was with my best friend, Clark, and we backpacked all over northern Idaho's Kaniksu National Forest, sleeping on the ground next to a campfire with our rifles nearby, in case the occasional bear, coyote or cougar should happen by.

We shot (well, I shot) and skinned, cooked and ate a squirrel, and had quite a collection of marmot skins we hunted in a logging slash high above Priest Lake. (Clark's dog mauled the skins, which had been scraped, salted and stretched to dry . . . but since that springer spaniel also chased off a big brown bear we surprised on the trail, all was forgiven).

We bathed in lakes and icy mountain streams. We slept under the stars, and a couple nights under pup tents as thunderstorms rocked the mountains with sheet lightning and torrents of rain, only to rise at dawn, shoulder our packs and head higher.

Now, I'm 60. Old knees and a repaired aortic heart valve have slowed me down, but that just means it takes longer to get up the scrub oak-dotted slopes of the Wasatch Front to the firs along the ridges. The elevation is higher and the air thinner in Utah's mountains, the rivers, streams and lakes not as numerous as the lush pine mountains of my youth; my boots now crunch on dry undergrowth rather than spring from a moist carpet of moss and evergreen needles of the Pacific Northwest.

What has not changed, though, is the pure, simple joy of a hike with a friend. The smell of fresh air and wild flowers, the thumping of your heart, pulsing of the blood in your legs, the tightening of muscles, even the aching of your feet and rivulets of gritty sweat soaking into your shirt, are serendipitous companions to discovery.

Here, a new view of the Great Salt Lake Valley and Western Desert; there snow-capped peaks above Emigration Canyon and the highlands to the east. Or, following a game trail that leaks into an arbor of trees and a shady alcove, you catch your breath, sip warm water from a canteen and share a few words, a laugh and the moment with a friend.

Tuesday's excursion, a rare day off during the week for me, was with such a friend, Rich. Obstensively, the purpose was to sight in his new pistol, and for me to inaugurate my own compact 9mm "conceal carry" and sight it in as well. We hiked into a likely area, a couple miles away from the road, found a safe place with a good bank of dirt, and did that.

The hike was the thing, though. Blue wildflowers were bursting from the greenery erupting from recent rains, and a stream along the trail was full with spring runoff. Birds flitted through the branches, seemingly frantic in their nesting, food gathering and the exercise of territorial imperative.

After walking back to his truck and safely storing the weaponry, we trekked up the side of another slope, perhaps half an hour or so, to check the condition of Rich's archery tree stand.

It was a good spot. Elk and moose tracks, some less than a couple weeks old judging by the most recent rainfall and the slippage evident from the hoof prints, were everywhere. I listened to Rich's observations, picking up on his knowledge -- and respect for -- wildlife, the terrain, and the unspoken joy of sharing the outdoors.

One more, important thing my friend and I share is an understated, yet resilient faith in God. We talked a bit about that, too. Simple faith, perhaps, but it has grown profound and deep with decades of pain, joy, grief, triumph and most of all, trust in and acceptance of our Creator.

And in those moments we climbed the trails and smiled and drank in the vistas where northern Utah's high deserts blend into forests, I better understood the musings of an ancient king who wrote of things temporal and eternal.

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever." (Ecclesiastes 1:4 KJV)

Across continents, white, red and black, we are family

Irony seldom disappoints me. Often, it delights me.

I'm just back from a recent trip to see my daughter Brenda, her husband Idal, granddaughter Lela, 6, and our grandson Gabriel, who is closing in on his first year on this planet.

Our grandson's full name seems a perfect segue for this post: Gabriel Idal Mims Tchoundjo.

-- "Gabriel," in Hebrew, translates to "God is my strength," or alternatively "man of God." As an archangel, he appears whenever something big, indeed history-making, is about to occur: Daniel's prophecies of the future, including the End Times; announcing John the Baptist's unexpected coming, and then Mary's coming role as mother of the Messiah; he also is to trumpet in the End of Days, according to St. John's Revelation.

-- "Idal" reflects the given name of our grandson's father. It is a name that appears, in various forms, throughout both African and European cultures, often meaning "noble."

-- "Mims." That was a blessing from my son-in-law and daughter, a way for our family name to live on in the next generational bloodline. The family name goes back to the the Middle Ages, perhaps starting with a folks operating a ferry over the then-significant Mims River in the vicinity of modern-day Wales (Mymms), though DNA and genealogical records show more instances of the name in Ireland, as well as Middlesex, England (Mimms). In America, the name embraced lineages of the Cherokee, too.

-- "Tchoundjo." The family name of my son-in-law, whose origins go back to west-central Africa and the Republic of Cameroon. The history of his people is hundreds if not thousands of years older than the United States, and today they are united by their shared French and Bamileke languages.

West-central Africa generally was the origin point for the slave trade, though most of America's African slaves came from the Ghana-Senegal regions. Still, in the 1700s, some coastal peoples in Cameroon were abducted, by other tribes or white-led raiders, and sold to slavers headed to the Deep South. In other words, it is possible that some of my southern forebearers may have worked their plantations and farms with African labor bought on the auction blocks of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia.

Most Mimses fought for the South, but there are about 30 who donned blue uniforms -- a few of them whites from the Northern states, but more than two dozen of them African slaves who had escaped, or in rare instances been freed by their "masters." Recruited by the U.S. Colored Troops Divisions, they shed their blood for freedom under the only surname they had ever known, Mims.

The circle has closed with a union of love and bloodlines that stretches across continents, time and space, in the smiling, laughing form of a child named Gabriel.

One day during our trip, our rainbow family visited Harpers Ferry, where in 1859 abolitionist John Brown and his band tried to seize the armory with the goal of arming a slave rebellion. He failed, his followers either slain or imprisoned, and he was hung. But his act arguably accelerated the ultimate break between North and South, eventually leading to the end of slavery in America -- and the beginning of the long, tortuous path toward racial equality.

Somehow, it seemed very right to share that visit with my son-in-law, especially. A young man I have become so proud of in the short time I have known him. He is a brilliant medical professional, a newly sworn-in 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves, a man of integrity and faith, patience and compassion. All those things, and more -- a loving husband and gentle, yet firm father.

We are Family.

A lesson in grace: Alzheimer's a sorrow for caregivers, a horror for spouses

A lesson in grace.

I am one of those Baby-Boomers trying to oversee the care of my elderly parents. 

 

In my 91-year-old father's case, it is a matter of a still sharp, though unchallenged mind trapped inside a frail, failing body.

The opposite is true of my 86-year-old mother. Her physical health is fairly good; it is her mind, rapidly being destroyed by Alzheimer's disease, that is the biggest challenge.

And, it is a challenge beyond resolution.

My epiphany this week is NOT those realizations, however.

Rather, I have learned that the grief, helplessness and frustration I feel over their not-so-golden years pales when I allow imagination to let me live for a second or two in their minds, their spirits

.

Inside a small room, my father is more than just trapped in a body too weak to move more than a dozen steps at a time. He is trapped 24/7 with the shell of the woman he married 65 years ago, a remarkable woman once vivacious and mentally sharp, but now unable to speak a coherent sentence or remember what she did five minutes before.

That does not, however, stop her from babbling, stringing words together, all day long -- and in her sleep -- that apparently only she knows the meaning of.

And that, I realize, would drive me mad. Quickly.

Finally, it has driven my always stoic, generally positive father into depression.

Dad had endured for the past year and a half as Mom's Alzheimer's ravaged her mind and memories. Last night, it was just too much.

"I'm just tired of opposing," he said when I made one of my bi-weekly calls.

In the code language we have adopted (since Mom has, occasionally, flown into a rage at any perceived criticism overheard) he was telling me he's exhausted by the losing battle to find some emotional equilibrium for Mom and himself.

Then, unable to speak any longer as he choked up, he put down the phone. Mom picked it up.

"Er, Mom, how are you?"

"Mom?" Confused.

"Yes. You are my Mom. I'm your son, Bob Jr."

"What? That's funny. Who?"

And so it goes.

She hung up.

At least, in forgetting her children, she doesn't have the pain of missing them. So, there's that.

But I mourn her. So much of her has died, even as what little remains continues to fade within a body that has outlived its owner.

You do what you can. 

 

In this case, it was calling the medical provider for my father and asking he be evaluated for anti-depressants.

Then, I prayed.

Suicide: The challenge to the faithful, and faithful survivors

It was little more than 10 years ago that I lost my best friend, Ken, to suicide.

It happened one bright spring weekend. The day before, knowing he had been uncharacteristically out of touch, I tried calling him, no answer. I went over an knocked on his door, rang the door bell. Left phone messages. Emails.

He loved action movies. Let's go out and see a flick, I offered. You know. Escape life's stresses and worries for an afternoon. Laugh, like we always did. Talk, sometimes about deep things, other times just memories.

Ken had some great stories. Stories so great, you would wonder if they were apocryphal . . . until you learned from someone else that, "Yes, he did take on four guys in a park and sent them running." Or, "Yes, he did break a sack of cement over the head of an obnoxious boss once."

He loved practical jokes. Me, too. We victimized each other from time to time, and he always bellowed that deep laugh of his, and grinned widely . . . even as his eyes told you, "You're next, bud."

He was a big man. Big tall, 6-foot-4, and big physically, a man mountain. When he laughed, people noticed.

But there was no answer from Ken that March day in 2003. Finally, the fire department arrived. They found him in his bedroom, dead, from a massive overdose of over-the-counter sleeping medications.

He had gone to several stores to get enough; the empty bags and cartons and receipts were nearby.
In the days and weeks that followed his funeral, we learned of his dark, abusive side. It was a hidden horror his family had endured.

Those times came in cycles, at first rare, but as his mental state deteriorated, more frequent. I remain convinced to this day, that he finally decided to end it, at least in part to protect his family -- before one of his black moods ended in bloodshed.

Nothing, of course, is ever so clearly defined. Some suicides are plain acts of selfishness, a desire to punish from the grave. Others come at the precipice of hopelessness, grief. Yet others are unexplainable, brought on by psychotic breaks with reality, desperation to end the hell of perception when reality flees and gives way to madness. And some are all these things, and more.

In my current role as a public safety reporter, hardly a week goes by where there is not a murder-suicide. The most recent was an elderly couple. She was in terminal, failing and painful health; he wanted her pain to end, and his own.

That almost seems understandable. My own parents, one in the late stages of Alzheimer's, the other enduring painful arthritis and failing eyesight, might be such a couple but for their enduring love for each other and trust in God. Faith sustains them, helps them endure, and trust that their time will come when it supposed to -- by His hand, not their own.

To this day, I am convinced Ken could have been helped. But in the sad equation of his life, he refused to do the therapy, take the drugs, and he had lost faith. Perhaps he was not capable, at that point, of reaching out for help. I don't know; and I will not judge.

But I still miss my friend.

This year, suicide also touched the life of internationally known pastor Rick Warren, of the Saddleback Church and "Purpose Driven Life" fame. His youngest son took his own life.
How this man of faith, along with his remaining family are dealing with this at Thanksgiving time is poignant, and faith- and life-affirming. In a piece requested by Time Magazine, we wrote in part:

"This year became the worst year of my life when my youngest son, who’d struggled since childhood with mental illness, took his own life. How am I supposed be thankful this Thanksgiving? When your heart’s been ripped apart, you feel numb, not grateful.

"And yet the Bible tells us "Give thanks IN all circumstances . . . ." The key is the word “in.” God doesn’t expect me to be thankful FOR all circumstances, but IN all circumstances."

Warren goes on with this list what he is thankful for this season. Here are some of them:

I’m thankful that, even though I don’t have all the answers, God does. In tragedy we seek explanations, but explanations never comfort. It is God’s presence that eases our pain.
 
I’m thankful for the hope of heaven. I won’t have to live with pain forever. In heaven, there are no broken relationships, broken minds, broken bodies, broken dreams, or broken promises.
 
I’m thankful for my church family.  ... in our darkest hour as a family, they gave all that love back in a split-second, the moment Kay and I returned to speak after a 16-week grief sabbatical.  We can handle anything with prayers and support like that.

I’m thankful that God can bring good even out of the bad in my life, when I give him the pieces. It’s his specialty. God loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections, and then benefit the whole world. God never wastes a hurt if we give it to him."

To read Pastor Warren's article in full, click on this link.

Believe or not believe: It's important to know what you really embrace, or reject

Believe, or not believe.

Your choice, and I'm certainly not going to judge anyone's choice. It's highly personal, and your value as a living, breathing, sentient being does not change, regardless. 

That said, this video simply shares the unadorned, basic Christian message -- without the politics, without the holier-than-thou attitude, and without compromise.

Not everyone can accept it. Even those who do accept it too often add other agendas, political, social, ethnic, etc. agendas they wield like clubs against others.

Secular activists browbeat believers, Some believers demonize skeptics. It makes me think of errant believers and Christianphobes alike being condemned, some day, to writing on a galaxy-sized blackboard, for eternity, John 11:35, "Jesus wept."

As much as "accepting" Christ, living a life afterward that honors his love, sacrifice and embrace of all of us "sinners" is the point, at least for this cynical preacher's kid who has seen way too much judgment and far too little grace and humility.

A journey of awe, love and faith: Forty years with my best friend, lover and mother of our children

Musings on 40 years of marriage.

It really isn't that time flies. Rather, it is that SO much living can be crammed into a mere four decades; that so much of the beautiful and wonderful and exhilarating could come, seemingly just when needed, to wash away the pain and disappointments that are part of all our destinies, our Fate, and yes, our legacy to our children and grandchildren.

How the power of Love, between a girl of 18 and a boy weeks removed from 19, could endure so much, empower so much, and takes us so far -- despite not-always-conquered temptations of self-obsession and selfishness.

Faith we have shared, in God and each other, even as we were exasperated and awe-struck by trials and blessings, mountain peaks and valley pits, sweet sunshine and flower-scented breezes and thunderstorms, lightning and deluge.

It has always been, even if not always realized, not the destination we set out upon on Sept. 1, 1973, in Spokane, Wash., but the journey -- and that we have taken it together, hand in hand, comforted by each other and that occasional warm Hand on our shoulders.

I do not know what lies ahead, but I know that children we remain, despite the years, the gray, the aches that may make us slower (just a little!), and for all of it, only a bit wiser.

I think back to the summer of 1972, when I went on a three-week backpacking trip into the wilderness of the Kaniksu National Forest, trekking with the friend who would later be my best man. It was an intentional break, from everything, to be sure that when I asked Barbara to marry me, I was indeed ready to be committed to her in all things, for all time.

The journey, then, was imagined, both exciting and terrifying, but unknown.

Today, I call back to the youth, building the extra-large campfire to dry out clothing soaked by a mountaintop storm that shook a small pup tent with the crack of sheet lightning. The flames crackle, the heat comes in waves from coals glowing red and white.

Listen to the breeze in the pines, kid. She will be your lover, your best and truest friend on earth. She will be the mother of your children. She will surprise you with her strength, move you with her tenderness and compassion, and being the perfect receptacle of that torrent of Love you sense within yourself.

Years later, you will still marvel at her deep, green eyes, that still undiscovered country that beckon, assure, calm and inspire, always there, even at the end of life's squalls of madness and the pain.

Young man, you have no idea of what is ahead. But God has indeed brought you your soul mate. Laugh at the night, breathe deep the scents of fresh rain, sodden pine needles and feel the warmth of the fire spreading inside.

Don't be afraid to take her hand. It's going to be one wonderful, crazy, breathtaking ride.

"End of Life" decisions? Ultimately, we decide nothing. Thank God.

I learned Wednesday that by this time next week, if all continues to go as hoped, my 91-year-old father will be able to return to his assisted living facility, rejoining my mother.

I learned this in a late-afternoon conference call with his medical staff at a skilled nursing facility, where he has been for the past two weeks after nearly a month in and out of the ER with internal bleeding issues.

At one point during this sojourn, I had a call from his doctor asking about how far we wanted him to go with care, should he stop breathing, or have heart failure. We spoke about DNRs ("do not resuscitate") orders, should Dad's Living Will kick in at some point.

We came to a general threshold for letting go: severe brain damage, to the point of losing sentience. We hung up, and I have spent the next few weeks wondering “when?” . . . .

In those tender, plaintive and grittiest of conversations with Dad of late, he wondered himself about longevity vs. quality of life. And, considering my mother's progressive Alzheimer's, he would occasionally confess, in his rasping voice, that living with his frail health and failing eyesight (macular degeneration), and watching Mom drift away, neuron-by-neuron, was not the promise of the so-called "golden years."

Our miraculous medical technology has been wonderful for prolonging life, when intellect and wonder are still intact. But what happens when life implodes into a world of pain, constant hospitalization and increasing helplessness?

Worse, perhaps, what happens when our bodies become earthly tents, sewn shut by artificial longevity as the mind dies inside?

Our ability to extend physical life beyond the spiritual, or for the skeptics among us mortal "sentience," poses moral and ethical paradoxes seemingly unique to our generation. Life is more than machinery, more that mere heart beats and another breath, we are learning.

I am convinced that no thing, and no one is ever "lost." The former is a case of science, in that neither matter nor energy ends; the latter a conviction of faith, perhaps extrapolated into the metaphysical realm from the physical.

My mother seldom recognizes me anymore, has lost so many memories . . . here. But I firmly believe that someday, when the machinery finally fails, what is left of her here will be reunited with what has already passed on, There.

So, all these musings and internal, and ultimately external, debates about What is Life, and End of Life decisions, seem to pale in those undiscovered countries of being.

Ultimately, we “decide” nothing. We may delay the inevitable, but our clocks began ticking toward the great Transition from the moment of conception. And, at the beginning -- and the end -- it indeed comes down to a matter of the heart.

Physically, and metaphorically.

As I heard the medical staff conclude that Dad could be returned to assisted living, and my mother, within a week, something else drowned out the words.

It was my father, in the background, weeping, stuttering out how the news was "wonderful," how he missed my mother, was worried that she would finally forget him, too, and that he always saw "her sweet face" in his mind.

So, “When?”

Not yet, Dad. Not yet.

Miracles: They start by recognizing the miracle that is Life -- and the Lifegiver's love for us

My daughter, Brenda, is in the hospital for at least a couple days. Started having contractions one week into her third trimester. Naturally, docs in Baltimore want to prevent a premature birth, especially this early. 

She is holding it together, but a father can hear the worry in his little girl's voice.

 My son-in-law is the same steady, encouraging and loving man in a crisis as I have come to know in less trying times. And, our shared faith binds us together.

For Barbara and I, this is a deja vu moment. Thirty-eight years ago, my son was born at about 6 1/2 months. Three weeks in infant intensive care and the docs then refusing to say more than "we will do what we can." He made it and has thrived.

Docs then told us the "miracle" word was not to be dismissed, and God knows we prayed for one.
So many years later, the science of prenatal care has advanced far . . . but the outcome, as always, remains outside our hands.

In other words, friends, we find ourselves once more praying. We welcome your prayers as well, whatever form they may take.

I am reminded of the 139th Psalm, David's to the wonder of God and life, and the assurance that whatever we face, He is with us and cares for us:

"Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. 

 I thank you, High God--you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration--what a creation! 

 "You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. 


" Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day." (Psalm 139:13-16, Message)

It's NOT my 60th birthday . . . I'm just 39, for the 21st time

Sixty years old. 

Sounds old. So, I'll express it this way: I'm marking my 39th birthday . . . for the 21st time.

Honestly, a few years ago I did not expect to make it this far. Except for, IMHO, miraculous intervention and skilled docs (they do work together, you know), I would not have done. Since age 55, really, I've felt I was on borrowed time, and I became convinced of it a little more than a year ago when an aortic valve replacement helped me avoid what the cardiologist said was imminent death.

It's been a strange journey. My profession has made me an observer. My faith has made me an uncomfortable participant, as belief has wrestled with that human feeling (certainty?) of cosmic incompetence.

You do your best. You depend on faith to bridge the gap between comfort and conviction, insecurity and aspiration, fear and courage, mediocrity and the dream.

You don't want to leave anything important undone.

I think of Hemingway's character, "Harry," in the short story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," who awaits death from a gangrenous leg wound on a cot in an African hunting camp. He laments having waited to write things, thinking he had to wait for accumulated experience before he could do those things justice. Now, those things would go unwritten.

Now, that he had weighed his life, seen what was truly real, judged himself, punished himself. He faces the end, dissatisfied with his spiritual sloth, and yet, as he drifts toward the end, acceptance and peace and perhaps self-forgiveness come.

That was Hemingway's hope, for Harry and himself. The horror, the truth is that the realization of dreams unsought due to personal cowardice, insecurity and procrastination are too often the last thoughts before the end.

There's a hyena that skulks around the camp at night, coming closer each night. Like Harry's leg, is smells. In the story, the foul odor and death personified become one.

One passage I like a lot from the final moments of Harry's life is part of a prolonged conversation with his wife. I find it particularly poignant:

"Do you feel anything strange?" he asked her.

"No. Just a little sleepy."

"I do," he said.

He had just felt death come by again.

"You know the only thing I've never lost is curiosity," he said to her.

I wake up, every day, curious. Curious about what life will bring to me and my loved ones that day. Curious about how news events I will witness, report on and read about and see that day will affect the Story of Humanity.

That's the baseline, the purely human part of me, I suspect. Add to that a sense of awe, adoration of God and his creations, the rare wonder of life in all its varieties, and regardless of the really minor irritations that we perceive as mountains, it's worth getting up and walking into the dawn.

And so it goes: Of pigeon-holing, limitations and unmet expectations

As an editor and writer, the thing I hate the most is being pigeon-holed in the eyes of others about what I can, and cannot do.

I've found this frustrating phenomenon inside the journalism biz in the past (as have many colleagues), and more recently outside the office in freelance work.
Certainly, folks DO have limitations and should accept them (like Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" Callahan advised, "A man's got to know his limitations.")

But I want to protest, nonetheless. In my decades I've worked a dozen beats, written books of fiction and non-fiction, technical papers, poetry, in-depth investigative articles, briefs, cops-and-robbers yarns, medical and high tech stories, magazine pieces, won more than my share of awards
.
I know. Yada, yada, yada . . . still, I don't see the same limitations.

But that's my judgment, based on what I've done and know; others make their judgments based on what they perceive. And ultimately, you can't really counter those gut assessments.

Life is like that, regardless your profession. You do what you can do, and move on -- always keeping in mind what is truly important: the ability to make a living for your family, love of wife, kids and friends, taking pride in your work and walking humbly before your God, or at least consistent with your principles.

And, so it goes.

Still, it sucks, as least for a moment or two.

Onward.

"Blind faith?" That's superstition. True faith has no fear of reason.

Learned today that for some folks, "faith" means blind faith, a resolute, eyes-closed, suspension of reason and refuge in circular arguments (i.e., why, if you aren't healed, you lack faith . . . and if you seek to confirm your healing through the docs, that's a lack of faith and, voila, no healing for you!)

Sort of an Evangelistic Soup Nazi approach, I guess. (A Seinfeld reference, folks).

Sad. For me, "blind faith" is more akin to superstition than belief and practice I believe Christ called his followers to emulate.

 

So, to those souls to afraid to test their faith with reality, I offer this from St. Augustine:

"Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."

And since I'm on a rant, this from Lee Strobel, a self-described former atheist turned believer: 

"Is that what faith is all about—fooling yourself into becoming a better person? Convincing yourself there’s a God so that you’ll become motivated to ratchet up your morality a notch or two? Embracing a fairy tale so you’ll sleep better at night? No thank you, I thought to myself. If that’s faith, I wasn’t interested."

For Strobel, it was the evidence and reason behind open-minded faith that led to his conversion.

And finally this, from C.S. Lewis:

"You can have faith with or without religious affiliation - faith is a state of being. Faith is putting hope and power into that which we can not see now...but know we will see in the future.
"Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods."

Beauty and imitation: Real world unrivaled when God's 'special effects' are displayed

One of the reasons I enjoyed the movie "Avatar" so much was the stunning special effects, the beauty of the exotic, extraterrestrial jungles, floating mountains, plants, animals, etc., created for the backgrounds.
The same appreciation was evident in the "Lord of the Rings" movies in the mammoth sculptures on the rivers, mountain fortresses and especially the abodes of the Elves with their surreal light and detail.
All fiction, those things.
But, to me, they pale next to the reality of breathtaking beauty in our "real" world. I was reminded of that when I stumbled upon this website, featuring the photo above -- and more than 20 others.
Stunning scenes, all the more so because they are places we can visit, touch, see, experience and . . . wonder.
So, take a look, and then, I dare you, go back to your daily tasks without a lingering sense of the inexpressible beauty of our planet, and gratitude to its Maker.