Lovers Make Growing Older Better

I have been thinking a lot lately about the heroic and humble efforts it takes to fulfill all the roles age requires of you.  I can remember fondly the role of self alone; playing, eating, sleeping.  Now I am a Christian, husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, artist, employee, chairman, and taxpayer, and more recently, an active son with his own set of good and grave responsibilities.  Each of these roles I play alone and each requires learned skills in order to be good at them.  Many of these require leadership.  I never knew the great difficulty of the aged, especially those of us who stay the course, keep involved, and remain open-armed to all.  I remember my mom crying every time a certain family member’s name came up, physically shuddering in overwhelming grief.  I didn’t understand it and thought her to be overly emotional.  How small my heart was while all my family's burdens lived under my roof.  Now only my lover lives under my roof and lives that mean more to me than mine can easily make us both shudder in tears as we move once again to our knees.  This is not a sad or difficult tale, it is one filled with ecstasy, hopefulness, and unrivaled joy.  Yes, the difficulties are now more acute but are part of growing old as your tent expands.  It is a fairy tale because at the beginning of this tale I said “I play alone” and at the end of the tale, God reminded me that my lover was given to me for all roles I have to live and there isn’t anything that Betty doesn’t make better.  

     

Turn Off and Tune In

There is one great need in this world, a daily realigning us toward goodwill.  However, our devices are always pitting us against others, those our device controllers make to be our enemies, those dumber than us, meaner than us, wronger than us.  That is their point.  Over the years I have become more and more aware of God’s great force on me to every morning turn alone to him.  Give him a chance to change me.  His great aim is to reconcile.  First, reconcile me to him and then for me to help him reconcile others to him.  He is for all people; he wants all people to be reconciled (restore friendly relations between).  First between Him and us individually, and then between me and you.  It is the only way.  I like this so much better than the anger and frustration my devices continue to feed into me.  Turn off and Tune in is the only answer to our great need to be reconciled (restore friendly relations between.).  Turn off.  Tune in!

 

Inside The Serene Violence

Once again in this early fall morning, darkness still not giving in as he pals around with cold, I sit quietly beside a roaring kiln fire, the majesty of it transforming the roar to a powerful presence.  Unless one has spent years beside a kiln it would be impossible to perceive the beauty of the basic elements, earth, water, air, and fire, being mightily constrained inside a box.  The box roars, the fire spews forth every hole seeking air enough to burn, the heat continually drives you further and further back as these elements are violently but serenely rearranging atoms, neutrons, and protons with earth metals of copper, cobalt, and magnesium to produce colors unimaginable in any canvas painted by man.  It is truly God’s work going on inside this magic box and roar is a sound His creating well produces.  And I have been allowed to sit beside His workspace quietly reading His Ancient Text, having a cup of good coffee, and imagining the wonder of what my Savior's up to inside that box? 

Staggering Reality

As I grow older clarity of meaning grows clearer.  All of life, for all people, is a quest for God.  If one refuses redemption it eventually becomes a hollow search for self meaning through attempts of self-realization.  I have traveled that road briefly denying myself nothing I desired.  Self realized is a difficult and offensive one to live with after even a few years.  God in Christ, however, is as dear a companion as one could ever hope to have.  I, like most, used to consider my relationship with God in Christ a religion.  It was not until my late 20’s I began a slow understanding of relationship with God as a relationship between Him and me alone.  It certainly has a small religious part; I regularly attend and work in and for a local church but that is more maintenance than relationship.  The relationship with God that I have been given by Christ is more like God revealing infinitesimally small parts of Himself to me and me becoming staggard by His reality.    

God allows you to know Him even in 
a bird's home built like a sculpture.

          

The Coming Eternal Opening Act

I often think of the great power it takes to tilt our earth to fall and winter’s rest.  The unreserved kindness is what strikes me as odd as if the forest might someday decide to turn itself into brilliant colors.  I can never seem to be as grateful as these random kindnesses demand.  It is like the dawn, or warmth or love in my heart, whole-hearted love that causes a longing for fulfillment.  My life often seems a tryout for a grand play of euphoric gratefulness, as if someday I might be called for the lead.  Oh, the sets would be something else and the opening act eternal.         

Dawn in Milos this summer.

Big Old Jet Airliner

Up in the high rise, overlooking a great river and surrounded by one of America’s famed cities.  Our sliding door opens us to the ocean breeze and the healthy aroma of inland waterways, living the high life, many stories above the fray.  My lover sleeps.  My mind drifts away to the mountains.  I flew away yesterday.  I am not a big fan of flying but do like aspects of it, two or worth mentioning.  One is the idea of going to or coming back from an adventure and two, which prompted this short blog, is the ability to see things from above.  Above is a great perspective, you see everything.  Everything is mostly wide open empty spaces, forests, rivers, mountains, farms, lakes, and oceans.  The earth is mainly empty wilderness, but from above you miss the people.  I imagine that is one of the reasons God sent Christ; he missed his people.  That is always meaningful to me, God feeling so much like I feel, loving the wilderness but wanting to share in it with those I love.

         

Who Will Save Us?

I travel regularly to America’s large cities and stay for days in their centers.  In the last several years I have seen a troubling trend; large sections have been given over to decaying squalor.  I do not understand.  Why does a culture, a community, a country decide there are certain parcels of its domain that ceases to be civilly addressed, abject surrender to degradation.  Our media devices feed us an ever-increasing gruel of political slop pitting you against me, which we lap up, while our country decays around us.  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”