Flaws

We went to see the movie named The Jesus Revolution. I liked it. Part of my positive response was because it was about the renewal that brought Jody and I into the journey. We remember the vibe of those days. We look back with fondness.

Nevertheless, there were things about the movie that provoked thought and sadness. It brought back good memories of a spiritual energy that emerged in a time that was dark and cynical, but it also reminded me of the realities of human nature.

The characters were flawed. If you know the rest of the story, you know that they did not all end well. It’s hard to accept that. Still, that is the reality of life in this dying world. People are flawed. They may succeed for a time, but stumble. Sometimes they never regain their footing.

car accident, car crash, shocked

The Bible is full of such characters. There are few paragons of virtue in the pages of scripture. In the end, the real hero is Jesus. He took on all of the flaws, the besetting sins of all the characters that ever lived. If there was punishment to be given to those who failed he was there to receive it. That’s a hard message. We want perfect Christians. We want heroes of the faith. We would rather not look upon their weakness because, I suppose, it’s a bit like looking in a mirror. This should be a comfort. To know that even imperfect people can be of use to God should encourage us. But encouragement sometimes cannot rise above disappointment.

Words of Life. Words of Death

 Words plant seeds.

They are themselves seeds that, when rightly spoken, germinate life in the hearers. There is more than one way to conceive life. Seeds can nourish the body, but they themselves can propagate life. Similarly, words can nourish the heart and soul and propagate life. Words of encouragement or knowledge, even stories can nourish the reader or the hearer.

At the same time, careless or thoughtless words; degrading or insulting words, carry death. There is a plant that I saw growing alongside the road in Ethiopia. It looked fruitful, but I was told they were toxic–poisonous.

Words are seeds of the heart that can plant life or death.

Masterpiece

How can we say that we are good enough to awaken the admiration of a perfect God? The best we can hope is that we arouse his Mercy, which we are told, He is eager to extend. We are the burning bush that is not consumed. We are the sheep without a shepherd that awakened the compassion of Y’shua as he looked at the masses. It’s foolish to imagine that we can earn anything from God. It is wise to whisper in his presence a petition for mercy. And the great news is that he does not extend mercy reluctantly, but willingly, even eagerly.

cartoon, doodle, sketch

I think of the times that small children, just learning to wield a crayon and paper, bring to me their scribblings. I know this is not Van Gogh or Rembrandt. I  know this is childish effort. It is the best they can do. Wonderful! A child has offered me their very best! Perhaps that’s the way God sees our tiny efforts at being pleasing to him. No matter how hard we try, we are still but children. We honestly don’t know the difference between our scribbling and the perfection of God. Even so, just as our grandparents take those early efforts at art and hang them on their refrigerator, so God takes our feeble attempts at righteousness and turns them into a masterpiece.

Watchword

Setting a Course

I have found myself drawn to writing. Nevertheless, I have been reluctant to create with words–who cares what I write? Who wants to read it? Probably nobody. What does it matter? Still, I take pleasure in words and the telling of stories.

I love words. Ideas mined, dug from the Earth; passed through the fire; smelted and refined; shaped and formed; hammered.

man forging metal

I feel drawn to the keyboard and to the shaping of thoughts and stories. I get a feeling that to create with words, written and spoken, would be a blessed relief from trying to implement ideas that cannot succeed without acquiescence from others. I can read a paragraph or chapter and say, this is done. It is good. It speaks.

Lord, have you brought me to this place? Yesterday I got the feeling that I may have been wasting time by not writing and giving myself to the task. The question echoes back, what if I am a writer? Have I been a writer all along and not allowed myself to be? Or has Father brought me to this day purposefully? How many men come to a place of beginnings when they thought they had already begun? Thought they were nearing the end?

I confess to feeling encouraged when I hear of people who step into a vocation late in life. The idea that Benjamin Franklin joined the revolution as the oldest member of a group of founding fathers is heartening. And there are others who, late in life, wrote a book or painted a picture, started a business or stepped into a new passion. I should like to be one of them. Perhaps that is why I am so inspired by words of Mark Twain:


“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”


Open the gates. Let the words flow out. Let’s stories be told; ideas be kindled and stoked. Become a writer and teacher. Let your voice be heard before it is stilled by time. What can be lost by letting the words flow? More importantly, what can be lost if you don’t?

black and red typewriter

Another Revolution

The Path Around Our Star

Another year ends. Another begins.

Based on past searchings, will you ride the clouds to a different horizon? Most of us settle uneasily into resignation. Things will likely be as they have been. We move inexorably along the plane of another revolution around our star.

photo of night sky

Some of us will leave the cyclical journey. Indeed, we don’t know which revolution will be left undone. Will you plunge inward to your fiery center, or be flung outward into cold darkness?

Or, perhaps there is another way: .A spiral upward. Rise to the summit where our darkness and light are clearly seen in their beauty.

Trust Your Compass

And Check the Newspaper

I am pondering the season of my life this morning. I have just finished the book on time [How to Inhabit Time- Understanding the Past; Facing the Future; and Living Faithfully Now, by James K.A Smith]. It exhorts me to be conscious of WHEN I am, not just ‘where.’ The author argues, we are the composite of our life and experience up to now. Our experiences make us who we are. Rather than try to escape them we can allow them to shape us.

Occasionally, I wonder what would have happened if I had taken different course. I pondered this some time ago with respect to my parent’s decision to move us to Portland, Here’s the link to that post. That choice was made for me, but what about the decisions I’ve made for myself? What would have happened, for example, if I had continued teaching until retirement? I would have retired 10 or 12 years ago. If that had been my choice, what would I be doing now? Probably, exactly what I am doing. Moreover, my trajectory from this point is really up to me.

I realize that I am blessed with the ability to remember things. I don’t remember Bible verses exclusively. There are other quotes and snippets that are important to me as well. I have the Bible to interpret my experiences. Sometimes, I believe the Holy Spirit delivers on my doorstep–like a newspaper–certain ideas and thoughts from books and people. That the things I remember are not from the Bible does not mean that they aren’t biblical. The thoughts about character, and uses of time, and clever turns a phrase, are designed to be used. They serve as a kind of compass.

 I remember when I worked in the woods, we needed our compass to set an azimuth that would lead us (if we did it right) to the place where we were to work that day. North, south, east, and west, were always the same. But the specific direction changed. The points of the compass were immovable, but our movement gave us direction.

shallow focus photography of black and silver compasses on top of map

The various thoughts and ideas that inform our lives are similar. The four points of the compass are established in the logos of God. But, often our direction is determined by what the Lord has delivered to us in experience, knowledge and memory.

Homecoming

Transitioning into the new.

“Upton Abbey”

After a year, beginning with a painful, but necessary parting from our home of 35 years, we are finally settled in our new place. I call it “Upton Abbey” since it’s mostly up above the garage at our daughter and Son-in-law’s house. Many have questioned the wisdom of being above anything at our age (how old do you think we are, anyway?) but notice we have a ramp. Our offices are at ground level. Mine is in the front; Jody’s is just behind it.

It’s cozy. One bedroom, walk through closet and a bath with laundry. There’s a deck and living, kitchen/dining space which is big enough to have family dinners and host the house churches from time to time like we used to. It’s all that the two or us need.

We’re grateful that our kids don’t mind having the “old folks” next door!

Family dinner in the making.

The Home We Left Behind

Today, I realize that I have not posted an entry in my “Word Carver” blog in over a year. The last one was a glimpse of a difficult time: the closing of the door on 35 years–half of my life–spent in my home on 78th Avenue. I was awash in melancholy.

The days of purging before that last post were fresh and aching. The yard sale, when our belongings were carried away like the spoils of war; each trip to Goodwill–these were like tearing out pieces of my life. I experienced something like guilt. The moving felt like betrayal–ruthless rejection. The house had sheltered us; provided comfort and safety. It had embraced us. Now, I was ripping away scraps of it like necrotic tissue. It stung.

The reasons for the move are still valid. Having decided not to share our home with other “tenants”–some 85 people over the years— the house was too big for two of us. Five bedrooms and three bathrooms were more than we needed. Moreover, we were less inclined to maintain the space, a requirement for homeowners. Inside or outside, an older two-story house is a lot of work–we had other things we would rather do.

Furthermore, Portland, as I am fond of saying these days, “ain’t the city she used to be.” In the waning months of 2020, the city was rocked by riots and hooliganism. Symbols of heritage and authority were being toppled. Statues of Washington, Jefferson, even an elk, were defaced or demolished. The police department of which our son-in-law was a part, had become the enemy. A homeless village was forming a block away. The question loomed: how long will property values hold, particularly after the coming election? The fabric of civil order was already coming unraveled. What would happen if the disastrous administration were to win another four years?

As turned out, we needn’t have worried. Property values held steady or even increased after we moved. Still, there had been reason for concern. As the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20.

There was a more important reason to move, though. Did it make sense to wait another ten years to make this move? We would be in our 80s. Moving then would certainly be a bigger challenge. And as the time of our relocation drew nearer, we would likely have become more reliant on our children and others for help with maintenance, not to mention the move. Moreover, it made more sense to do this while we could steer our own destiny–earn a hernia in the process– rather than be swept along by circumstance. It did, and does make more sense to be “the master of our fate and the captain of our soul.”

And then, there were the ghosts of the future: One of us left alone in that big house, left with only memories and quiet. The somber removal to hospital deathbed or funeral home. The estate sale with its parade of strangers picking through the remnants of our lives, bartering our existence.

No. Moving was the right decision.

But there was grief. The last day, I walked through the deserted rooms and halls; inspected our 5000 square foot homestead. I sat on the steps in the side yard, which had been mostly for storage and constantly needing tidying. I thought of the empty house; the newly mowed yard; the last items in the back of the car waiting to be taken away. I remembered the hundreds of people who had been here. I remembered…

Evenings glad with music.
A hearth-fire that’s ablaze.
The gifts that come to mortals
in a thousand different ways.

… laugher and contentment,
And the struggle for a goal.
… everything that’s needful
For the shaping of a soul.” *

I wept.

Occasionally, in the transitional months that followed the move, while we remained cloistered in a 26′ trailer waiting for our new house to be built, I would sense a familiar tightness in the back of my throat, a choking feeling. I first noticed it after my sister passed away. It was grief. Sometimes, foolishly, I would succumb to temptation. I would search my computer for the photos of the old house that our realtor took when she listed the property. I would wander through the rooms and remember the unseen details of every closet and corner — spending my grief. Emptying it. Hoping it would eventually subside–knowing it would.

It’s been over a year. We are now in a wonderful new place near family. We live in the country amid trees, birds and even chickens. There are new sounds and the scent of earth and trees. From our living room window, we see a new world stretch out before us. I am finally able to call it “home” without feeling guilty for abandoning the house on 78th–the house that loved us. There are days I still feel like a guest for a moment or two. But as winter turns to spring, I can feel the changing of the seasons. The prospect of summer, autumn and another winter reassures me. I feel the promise that, as the pandemic wanes, we will, again, throw open the doors and welcome friends and family to share our place on earth.

The thought brings me home.

~~~

  • Living, by Edgar A. Guest

A Tough Day

Saying Goodbye to My Home

Sometimes it’s a good idea to just let yourself grieve over the passing of time and places. So, here is one of those times.

Driven Back to Our Roots

Surrendering what we’re satisfied with…

I realize I have been lamenting the destruction of our national symbols. But, could it be this is not a bad thing relative to the Kingdom? If we remove the idols of nationalism, may we find our way back to Y’shua? If we can no longer rely on the American creed, and we cannot embrace what is coming, then will we not be driven back to the roots of our faith, the Kingdom message? If we must surrender what we’ve been satisfied with, might God give us what we are hungry for?