Abba the Almighty

Today is the first day of the last month of the year. I climb out of bed at 6:30, nearly a full hour past my normal reveille. I put on some clothes and go downstairs to throw to the dog. We walk out onto the deck, a bit slippery from a heavy frost. Here in the south, this is as close as we usually get to a winter landscape, the grass and fence posts crusted in a blanket of crushed diamonds that will melt at sunup.

Overhead, a faintly jeweled cobalt glove clings to the western sky as the sun casts fiery nets of dim light from the east, the color of a toasted peach. Our breath – the dog’s and mine – hangs heavy in the air, almost frozen in this windless realm. It’s as if we’ve stepped into a photograph and are the only animate objects.

In the pasture, a white tail doe stands erect, craning her neck, weighing our intentions. Persuaded we pose no threat, she resumes her silent breakfast, double checking us now and again.

A few tosses to Winchester and I retreat back into the house for a cup of tea and some time to meditate. I read Ezekiel 6-11, a bone chilling proclamation of God’s jealous, nation-savaging wrath. Juxtaposed against the stillness and beauty of the morning, it makes the hair on my neck stand up.

My mother’s people were Quakers from rural North Carolina, so named because one of their early leaders admonished everyone to “tremble at the word of the Lord.” I felt those roots stirring deep inside as I read Ezekiel’s terrifying prophecy against Israel.

Could this really be the same God who calls me his beloved child? I was gripped in fear of the Almighty, more than aware of my short-fallenness and unable to grasp my belovedness. How can my Abba be the Arbiter of Armageddon? And how can I choose to sin against him, knowing of him what I do?

To be deliberately selfish or greedy or lustful or jealous is so brazen, even suicidal in an Old Testament context. And yet I make those choices – we all make them – regularly.

I think we underestimate the gravity of sin as the prison into which we are born, the epidemic infecting the entire world, holding us in its constant sway. So pervasive is its influence, so deeply entrenched and far-reaching are its tentacles that we have assumed an unrealistic and unbiblical sense of normalcy.

To get through the day having only coveted a guy’s watch instead of his wife, a woman’s handbag instead of her house, to have told some small, victimless lie (I ran into traffic) or gossiped just a tiny bit about some casual acquaintance seems, in our economy, a call for celebration. But in the presence of holiness, our degrees of sin vanish in the blinding light of perfection and those miscalculated trophies that we made of our best efforts at sin management evaporate and we are left holding high our empty hands to the God of the Angel Armies.

Now the voices in our head crank up and we must lean heavily into the Holy Spirit to discern the Father’s voice from those of our own self-interest and self-loathing, and the swelling chorus of our accusers. In this moment, our flesh and spirit are both consciously present. Our sin and salvation meet head on and we must decide what we truly believe.

Will we cringe in self-disgust, trying to further earn grace through our penitent groveling? Will we check our watch, turn our back and convince ourselves that it’s really not as bad as all that? Or will we present ourselves boldly before the throne of grace as beloved children and cast ourselves headlong into the arms of our merciful and loving Father, confessing our sin and asking for his pardon and the power of his Spirit to overcome as we get back up on our feet and fight another day?

I’ve exhibited all those responses at one time or another. But it’s only when I accept my place as his little child and go to him with my dirty hands, skinned knees and bloody lip that am I filled with the peaceful certainty that I am loved and forgiven today and have hope for a different experience tomorrow.

I’ve always struggled with defining what’s my part and what’s God’s part in the ongoing process of sanctification. I know that spiritual self-effort for its own sake is close to worthless. “Having a quiet time,” has no true, transformative power. If it did, then could we not simply fix ourselves, given enough time and discipline? Lord knows I’ve tried numerous times and come up short on lasting change.

Today, for the first time, I think I understand a little more clearly. If I’m spending time in the word out of duty, just to say I’ve done it and check it off my list of self-saving activities, I shouldn’t expect to be changed in any profound way. I may glean some new piece of interesting information, maybe even be inspired to feel better about myself for having done it. But absent an encounter with the Person of God, true transformation will not – and can not – happen.

If, however, I view my daily time in the word as an opportunity to boldly make my way into the presence of the Father, everything changes. If I can navigate the sometimes violent gauntlet of distractions, diversions, temptations and accusations, I can find my way into the presence of utter holiness, pure power, absolute truth and the fiercest, most loyal love in existence.

In this instance, he provided a beautifully placid, silent day, inviting me to be quiet and still before him. Then he painted a living picture of his power and hatred of sin and double mindedness that left me speechless and hungering for holiness.

Until we understand the desperation of our distance from him, he will continue to be a picture on a Sunday school wall, an elusive theory, a vending machine, a punching bag, or a bobble head on the dashboard of our busy lives. But when we get famished enough in spirit to find – and fight – our way to him, he promises we will find him.

So now in his presence, how do I relate to Abba the Almighty? Like the parent of a child chasing a ball into a busy street, our Father loves us enough to scare the hell out of us now and again to keep us from hell’s own harm. He thunders after us, shaking the earth with each step, calling out to us with a voice that could shatter Everest. Then he snatches us off our feet with a force that may well crush us. The last thing we see is our toy being flattened by a truck.

As the shock and fear fade, we open our eyes one at a time only to discover that that we are held fast to the breastplate of his own righteousness, clutched in mighty arms that hold the universe. He places his hand on our head and speaks peace, tender with mercy, eyes alight with unfathomable love.

Stream

3:30 AM, November 12, 1930 and 11:12 AM, February 27, 2009. These two singular moments in time are connected by one singularly unique event in human history: my father’s life. No other person, event, regime, nation or idea in the entire history of the world occupies that same exact time period. I don’t know why this thought struck me today. It’s kind of odd. And kind of big.

Sometime back in 1966 this unique line intersected with another. On June 10, 1967, those lines chose to run parallel for a season, and nine months and one week later, the singularly unique line that is me started tracing its way through the world. Some years later there were five lines scooting along together, more or less parallel to one another, like a stream.

In the early nineties, the five lines kind of went crazy for a little while. Like a river running into a huge rock, the lines split and bounced in divergent directions until, a few years later, they found themselves running parallel again, but on opposite sides of the river and a few spots in between.

I’m a fly fisherman. At least I used to be. It’s one of the things I’ve let “life” crowd out of my schedule. On closer reflection, I’ve let a pile of life sucking “action items” squeeze most of the life giving things out of my schedule.

I need to get back out on the water soon. There’s lots of time to think, lots of beauty to soak in, lots of room for your soul. 

The funny thing about those big rocks in the stream is that you can often catch some whoppers just downstream from them.

Generally speaking, it’s easiest to set up a little below the rock and fish upstream. You can look back up the river, see the currents and eddies, the shoals and pools and get a pretty good idea of where the fish like to hang out. Study them long enough, and you will be rewarded.

In a way, you’re standing in the present and casting into the past, in the hopes of finding a prize. You try to trace a course that’s natural, that follows the flow around the rock and into the seams between the rapids and the eddies, where a big lunker’s just waiting to clap on and rocket out of sight. 

If you’re patient, and a good study, and lucky, you can stay right there in the moment, watching the line disappear from your reel in it’s mad dash down stream, into the future. Then, when the moment is right, you can slow it down, stop it, and bring it right back to where you are.

Tomorrow I’ll be wading through photographs and casting back into the past, before the big rock, before the craziness and tracing our path downstream to where I’m standing now. I suspect it will look different than it did at the time. From here I can see and make sense out of what was just blind forward motion then.

They say a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office. I have to agree. Half the times I’ve gone out, I’ve gotten skunked and still couldn’t wait to come back for more. I’m not sure what treasures I’ll find – if any – as I cast back through time and memory, but I’m looking forward to the hunt.

I’m thinking of a picture of dad and I on a riding lawnmower when I was probably three or four. I close my eyes and trace downstream to me and my son on our mower. I hope I can find that picture. I hope for it the same way I hope to find a twenty two inch rainbow at the bottom of a pool behind that big rock over there.

I imagine finding it, my face incandescent with memory, and holding on while it rockets down stream and shows me a glimpse of my son and grandson on their lawnmower some years from now.

Then I’ll slow it down, stop it and slowly bring it back to the moment, grateful for the fun of the fight. I’ll take a long, satisfied look at the beautiful creature, take the hook out and cradle him gently as he swims away.

I love you dad.

Gift

Hello all-

Well, the last five days has been quite a roller coaster ride. Friday afternoon I dropped by to visit dad and his stats started plunging not long after I got there. At about 6:00, he asked me to call my brothers. He can’t speak, so I had to ask 5 or 6 times to make sure I understood what he was asking. When it was clear that was asking, I fell apart. I took a few minutes to make sure he knew who he was to me and how much I love and respect him.

I called my brothers, not realizing my brother Zack was in San Francisco. I asked the doctor if dad would survive till Monday afternoon and he said probably not. I called Zack back, he got a sub for his shoot and got on the next plane home. My brother Mitch came and stayed till pretty late.

It was touch and go all night. Saturday was touch and go all day. Sunday was touch and go all morning. I was watching my flight tracker widget constantly and praying that dad would make it another 3 hours and 45 minutes. Another 2 hours. Another 45 minutes.

Saturday afternoon, we decided to bring all 13 grandkids in to see Papa and say goodbye. Some of our broods made it Saturday, others Sunday. One time on Saturday night, Andi and the kids were still out in the waiting room and dad started to crash. I came to get them and told them he might not have much time. I fell apart again. Again, he stepped back from the edge.

Sunday, the cavalcade of kiddies started again. Then an amazing thing happened. Dad started making faces at the kids. He started hamming with the nurses and technicians. He started moving his arms around. (that morning he literally couldn’t lift a finger)

By 4:00 on Sunday afternoon, the whole room was laughing as we watched him cut up, wiggling his eyebrows, making faces, interacting with everyone. His numbers slowly rocketed up into the really good range, relatively speaking. He just rallied and rallied and rallied.

About 7:00 my brothers and I went to dinner. It was probably the most joyous meal I’ve ever eaten. We couldn’t remember the last time we’d been out to eat together. It was truly a celebration. On the way back to the hospital, I began to wonder why the end of every day isn’t a celebration. “Wow! I got to spend another day with my family. I have an amazing wife and three astounding children. We still live in a comfortable home and I still have a job doing something I enjoy immensely. Thanks, God for such an incredible day!”

I know what it is that gets in the way of daily gratitude, I just don’t quite understand HOW it manages to rob our joy. I’m reading a book right now called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. Last week, there was a passage that that leapt from the page and bowled me over. Re-reading it again in the light of the week’s events, it rings even louder.

“The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.”

There’s something about the insanity of the daily grind that steals our attention. I’m convinced, to some degree, that our attention is somewhat of a finite resource. It’s interesting that we “pay” attention. It implies an account or a store of attention that is replenished every day. And all through the day we pay it out in pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars.

It seems some days we run out sometime in the middle of our day. So we go in the hole and pay attention we don’t have. It’s like an attention credit card. It’s not *really* the same as cash. Like a credit card, we can spend the same amount but with the lingering knowledge that we’ve created a liability that will need to be paid at some future point. We create a defecit. Hmmm. Attention defecit. Where have I heard that before?

Plastic attention is often what we are running on by day’s end when we have the opportunity to take a look at the day, and it seems to render us unable to pay attention to the phenomenal blessings that we take for granted.

I spent 72 hours watching my dad breathe, watching his monitors, running for a nurse or technician whenever something started getting out of balance. I noticed so much more about my dad’s face, his hands, his hairline, his eyes. I began to pick up on minute, subtle expressions of joy, pain, fear and sadness. I noticed the crimson-amber buds popping out of the tree outside dad’s window. A hawk circling overhead with a snake in his talons.

I unwittingly spent three days paying attention to something that actually mattered. I’m losing my dad. And the world – even the minute slice I can see through his window – is beautiful and life giving.

I came home Monday night and spent yesterday catching up. I ran out of real attention at about 4:00 PM and worked on until 4:00 AM. While I was very thankful to fall into bed last night, it was far from a celebration of the life I still get to live. I hope I can leverage the lessons of the last few days into living differently.

Dad is still on a slippery slope and any day may be his last. He continues to fight a good fight and may yet pull through. Dad’s journey is an amplified voice in the world right now reminding us of something our hearts have always known, but whose message is drowned out by busy lives full of attention stealers: Every Day Is A Gift. Live Gratefully.

Freedom-

chris

The Idle Critic

 

One of the places where I regularly work provides the incredible perq of a free, professionally catered meal in a beautiful ballroom-like dining hall. It’s something for which I’m always grateful whenever I work onsite.

Today, the operations manager tried a new caterer and solicited some feedback from the staff. I was waiting on a file and, thus, had some time on my hands. So I had a few therapeutic minutes of fun…

Enjoy-

***********************

Gail-

Some thoughts on today’s lunch:

Fish – very tasty, if a bit soggy and over-steamed. The breading should accompany the fish on the journey from the steam table to one’s plate, not drop off enroute as if it has somewhere better to be.

Chicken – marvelous. Tender and moist, neither swimming in sauce, nor drying like tobacco in an empty pan as is sometimes the case.

The sauteed onions, too, were just right, still firm enough to hear when you chewed them, yet bereft of bitterness or heat. 

Potatoes – yum yum yum. Perfection. What more can I say?

Fried green tomatoes – the batter – (Panko I would suppose) was excellent; light and crispy and not at all greasy.

The tomatoes themselves, however were a bit too sweet – a bit too close to ripe, thus lacking that tangy ZAP that defines the dish. Some were also cut a bit thick, rendering them less than crisp. A disappointment.

Soup – uhhhhh. Still trying to figure that one out. Perhaps it requires a more sophisticated connoisseur to truly appreciate it’s genius. My decidedly middle class palate found it odd and distracting.

Like an angular, obtuse jazz pianist in  a Dixieland band, the soup seemed to have shown up for the wrong gig. I returned to it four times hoping to have acquired some understanding of the counterpoint it was meant to bring to the meal, but alas, I returned in vain, finding it both out of tune and tempo with the rest of the ensemble.

All that said, the overall experience was pleasant, the price unbeatable, the surroundings elegant and the company most agreeable. I thus consumed the entire meal with grateful complacency.

I would mention the doleful and irritating funeral parlor music, but then you did not ask our opinion of that, so I shall refrain from comment.

 

Thanks for asking-

Chris Arias

Composer

Wannabe Food Critic / 19th Century Novelist

A Shock to the System

My brother called at 12:30 Wednesday morning to let me know that our dad had been admitted to the ER at Emory and had nearly gone into cardiac arrest when he arrived.

We got there about 2:00 and didn’t meet with a doctor until 6:30. He has been stabilized and is on a ventilator. They have him heavily sedated so he won’t try to remove the tube.

Dad is 78 and has had COPD for several years but is in generally robust health, so he has that in his favor. As of this afternoon, his blood gasses are improving steadily and the prognosis seems generally hopeful.

The main reason for his distress is that he would not go to the doctor at the first signs of trouble. He thought he was experiencing a passing episode and would shake it off in a few hours. By the time he decided to go, he was in more trouble than he realized.

I add this detail for all those of us who are medical procrastinators – myself included. Whatever you’ve been putting off till later, make the appointment today, okay? May a word to the wise be sufficient.

For those of you who are so inclined, please pray that his lungs will continue to improve and remember how to do their job so he can be weaned from the ventilator. And please pray that once he pulls through – Lord willing – the conga line of friends and family who are ready to smack him for being obstinate with his health will err on the side of being gracious and loving and remember how grateful we are to have him.

He and my stepmom are planning for their full retirement at the end of ’09 and we’d be very grateful to the Lord if he allows them the opportunity to have their romp around the country together. Still, this is a timely reminder that while it is great to make our plans, tomorrow is not promised.

Assuming I’m like most people, we tend not to number our days, or better put, we tend to over-number them in our minds. If we’re honest with ourselves, we take for granted that we have 70, 80, 90 years. Against that backdrop, a few days of workaholism, a few moments of procrastination or inertia don’t seem too sinister. But our culture drives us to turn those moments and days into weeks and months and years before we even know what has happened.

A single day out of ten or twenty thousand available in the future is cheap. A single day out of your last seven is beyond value. We usually assume the 20,000 until someone tells us it’s less – assuming we’re even given the luxury of a warning. Maybe we work a few too many hours and call it wise planning for future security. Maybe we take a few too many naps and tell opurselves there’s plenty of time before the harvest of our golden years. Whatever future our minds are fixed on while our tomorrows become yesterdays, it is astonishingly simple to lose the reality and beauty of today, no matter what it holds.

We often hear people lament the things they never did or said, relationships they chose not to pursue, missed opportunities. It seems like all of these are symptoms of not being present at the moment of choice. “Should I tell her how I feel right now?” Our minds jump to the future, no matter how near or far wondering what she “will” think. And in those brief moments of considering the ramifications of an imagined future, we miss the moment, and it passes un-experienced and un-lived. An un-lived moment is an incredible waste.

To be sure, we each have a list – maybe a long one – of things we wish we hadn’t done or said. Speaking for myself, when I make a quick inventory of regrets and break them up into “Wish I Had” and “Wish I Hadn’t” lists, I realize that they carry very different weights. Most of the things I wish I hadn’t done or said have, in the long run, led to opportunities for understanding, healing or forgiveness that would not likely have happened without some seminal moment or event.

Indeed, the one consistent characteristic is that they were things I actually did, that I actually said. For better or for worse, they were nonetheless moments that I actually lived, spoke and acted. And while there are a few that will forever remain dark and sordid pictures in my past, the great majority taught me something valuable about myself, about God, about others or the world around me that I may not have learned otherwise.

In contrast the “Wish I Had” list holds a surprising number of items that still haunt me, that still leave me wondering what would’ve happened, what could’ve happened. There is no recourse for the things that never actually happened. Only a foggy hole in my memory with nothing to fill it.

The other distinction is that those items on the “Wish I Hadn’t” list propel me to live differently and live in the moment. Most of the “Wish I Had’s” pull me into longer periods of lingering in the past – stealing even more moments from the present. It’s like they’re doubly destructive.

Truth is, I have missed lots and lots of todays with my dad, always assuming that I could have another one tomorrow if I wanted to. Many of those tomorrows became yesterdays before I even realized it. I hope I have more opportunities to be present with him in the truest sense of the word. But not knowing whether I will or not casts that pile of un-lived yesterdays in sharp relief. It’s staggering.

I am filled with the same desire to truly be present with my wife and kids, my mom, brothers, nieces and nephews, friends and cowworkers. In short, I’d like to actually be present in the moments that make up a lifetime, not straining to focus on tomorrow’s goals or future fears or obsessed with some triumph, hurt or sorrow from the past.

No new or original thoughts here…They’re just real and personal in a way that’s new for me. Sometimes it takes a shock to the system to see things with clarity if only for a moment. This is my feeble attempt to share my shock with you in the hopes that it might help you actually experience the gift that is this very day.

Be goofy. Be sappy. Be corny. Be honest. Be fearlessly yourself.

Sorry for the long note. Didn’t have time for a short one.

Freedom-

chris

A Voice In The Thunder

This is an extended journal entry from June 2004, my first time in the Selkirk Common Riding

}•••{

The alarm went off at 5:30 AM, releasing my face to break out in the huge, morning-mouthed smile that had been growing for hours. Despite going to bed near midnight, I was already quite awake, like a kid on Christmas morning. The sun had risen an hour earlier, but it wasn’t the sunlight that had hindered my sleep. I’d been waiting for that alarm to go off for weeks.

My wife Andi killed the alarm and rolled back over with a smile of her own. “Are you showering today?” She was excited too, but I could hear the tinge of apprehension in her voice. Everyone else seems to appreciate the danger of this but me. More ignorance than bravery, I suppose.

In truth, I had been on a horse all of six times prior. Three of those were nose-to-butt trail rides where a guide baby-sat six aging nags hobbling through the woods at a snail’s pace. I had taken one thirty-minute English riding lesson ten days ago and had cantered for the first time just the day before.

At any rate, I saw no point in showering since I was just heading out to get smelly anyway. I scooped my tousled locks into an unkempt ponytail and donned my long wool underwear. Though we were only three days from the summer solstice, it was an unseasonable forty-five degrees outside and raining. Jeans, boots, rain jacket, helmet. Check. (I would soon learn that this was well less than proper attire, but no one seemed to mind.) Downstairs, my gracious host had a cup of tea waiting. Two bananas and four ibuprofen later I was off to discover a new part of my adventure with God.

}•••{

Before allowing a foreigner to take her horse off into the countryside for a day with four hundred other riders, Zeena’s owner wanted to make sure that I was a competent rider. Of course, I didn’t let on that I had never cantered, nor that this was my second time perched on that Spartan swatch of leather the English call a saddle.

A local lady named Kate who boarded her horse there was asked to take me through the paces and assess my competency. Try as she might, she could not hide her laughter as she observed my poor form in the trot. I explained that I, “mostly rode western” back home and was new to English riding. But after being paddled like a freshman fraternity pledge for two miles, I finally arrived at the foot of the hills where we would ride a wooded two mile circuit.

The ride through the dark, lush forest of the Peebles hillside was breathtaking. Never had I been in so dark a wood. Though it was high noon, the air in the heart of the forest took on the dim look, sound and smell of dusk. Once at the trailhead, Kate asked if I was ready for a canter. Seconds later we were blazing down a dense path scarcely six feet wide.

What lay around the next corner took me quite by surprise as I thought this was a trail dedicated exclusively to horse and rider. We met a pair of elderly ladies out for an afternoon stroll with their Terrier. We abruptly halted and spun our horses in opposing circles, averting the disaster by a narrow margin. The ladies continued as though we had walked up on foot. “Lovely day for a ride, yeah?” The dog, however, stood trembling, his life most likely shortened by the distress.

Once certain that no one lay ahead, we gave our mounts a “wee kick and a bit of reign” and we were off again. A half-mile into this second canter, I noticed a large object fly past me on the left. When it hit the ground ahead, I quickly realized the sound to be that of a horseshoe. Duchess had blown a tire. Unfortunately, the bare hoof was up front, necessitating a dismount. The four-mile hike back in was considerably less fun than ride out. But on our return, Kate assured the owner that I would be fine.

Bolstered by this brief victory in the woods, I was blindly confident that the needed ability was woven into the fabric of my being. This was something my heavenly Father told me I could do. He had made an invitation I couldn’t refuse and he seemed to think I’d be fine.

}•••{

The Borders region in the south of Scotland has stolen my heart. The swaggering singsong of the local dialect gives both weight and levity to the language. The rugged climate, rolling hills and plentiful quiet are like some miracle elixir for the soul. If I could bottle it, I’d surely be hocking it wildly to any and all who would listen, rich beyond dreams of avarice. Perhaps in my darker moments, I would simply hoard it as my own precious trove of renewal. Thankfully, it cannot be so contained or exported, only experienced firsthand.

And there was hardly a better day to experience the Borders than this. It was the Selkirk common riding, an annual equestrian event dating back to 1540 which, in the estimation of some, has surpassed Christmas in popularity and cultural value. As it has for generations, the pipe band passed through town at 4:00 AM and over the next two hours, better than four hundred horses and riders, and nearly three thousand spectators converged on the town square in this hamlet of just over six thousand.

}•••{

With the rain and cold, my saddle had begun a slow migration to the left a half hour into the ride. Till then it had been manageable, but as Zeena bolted into an uphill canter and then into full gallop, I had a feeling my point of view would be changing for the worse and soon. Though I was only listing three inches or so, balance is everything in an English saddle. That three inches, coupled with my inexperience would seal my fate for this particular run. In my struggle to coax the saddle back to center, I finally lost my sinking left stirrup. My right was surely soon to follow. I spent all of three seconds trying to convince myself I could work my way back atop and ride out the quarter-mile sprint with naught but a fistful of mane and two dangling feet. God knows I didn’t want to hike it. I barely knew Zeena, but I’d got to know her well enough to know she wouldn’t likely stop to wait for me. She loved to run, and hated to follow.

Realizing that exiting my mount uncontrolled could put me under her and in the path of the three hundred plus horses in our wake, I quickly made preparations for as controlled a “dismount” as I could manage at speed. We had moved from the gravel path to rain-soaked sod, so this was about as easy a crash landing as I could hope for.

As we accelerated, I knew landing on my feet was out. For the first time since my last spanking, I was thankful for my more than ample posterior. If all went well, I would slowly swing my right leg over her hinders and drop off to the left – bum first, back second, head last and roll away from the oncoming traffic. I hoped the uphill lie would prevent my legs from flying up and pivoting the rest of my body over on my head and neck. Fortunately, all went more or less as planned.

Zeena, as I had guessed, stopped just long enough for me to grab her reigns, but not long enough for me to remount. The taunts of her peers blowing by us both were more than she could resist and she soon left me in a clumpy spray of peat and sod. My riding partner tried to catch her, but it was no use. Like it or not, I was climbing this hill on foot. As I appraised the terrain, which rose better than a hundred feet in the next quarter mile, my zest for being here vanished in a flash.

“Son of a BITCH,” I muttered with increasing frequency and fervor as I slogged my way up the hill to Tibby Tamson’s grave. As I went, the ground seemed to rise on a curve making each new step harder than the one before. The alternating bogs of ankle deep muck and hummocky tufts of slick grass made it ever so slow going, adding to the displeasure of it all. Each begrudging yard of progress was underscored by other riders, young and old asking, “y’ardate?” as they flew past in groups of four to twelve. That’s Scotspeak for, “are you alright?”

Insofar as I had not broken any bones I could smile and wave in the affirmative. Left to my own thoughts however, I was most decidedly not ardate. I couldn’t make this hike. Half way up the hill and all the way out of shape, I was sucking wind like an asthmatic hyena. Even if Zeena had come to her senses that very moment and returned to me, I don’t think I could even have mounted up. I was beginning to have visions of a lone horse riding back to town with my limp body strapped across her rump.

So…town was four miles behind me and my horse may as well have been four miles ahead. I stopped, stooped, placed my hands on my knees and hung my head in disgust. This, of course, prompted a new round of “y’ardate’s.” It was at this moment that I began to concede that this might not have been some great God-ordained flight of destiny, but rather a deranged excursion into self-absorption. Did I think that I was above riding lessons? I thought I had some innate sense of horsemanship that God had woven into my DNA. I told him I was sorry, but I suspect that deep down, I was just sorry I had gotten caught.

That slightest humility seemed all the invitation he’d been waiting for. He walked up behind me, my Father did. “What do you mean you’re sorry? You think I didn’t indeed invite you here? What about that first ride a couple of years ago? Was that a fluke? Of course I invited you here. And I have much more for you if you can climb the hill. Don’t worry about the rest of the day, just take one step at a time and get up the mountain. I didn’t bring you half-way across the world to leave you here. You are stronger than you think, Tiger, and the life you’re longing for is available. But you have to fight to keep sight of it. In that moment of clarity, everything turned. After some brief contemplation, I was no longer shuffling about, kicking a discarded tuna can across the dark ally of my failure.

Increasingly, I was aware of the trembling earth beneath my feet. And the sound, oh, the sound! I have yet to hear anything that can rival the thunderous, unfettered strength of three hundred horses pounding the blood-soaked soil of Scotland. The movies only hint at the truth of it. I would never have gotten this from the saddle. In a moment, the Father’s voice had transformed the earthen nemesis that rose before me into a mere obstacle beyond which lay some prized mystery.

The thick, precipitous air once breathed by Wallace himself now entered my lungs afresh and filled my heart with hope and valor. I forged ahead ever faster as though the Promised Land itself lay beyond the hill’s crest. At last I reached the top.

Now I had to find my horse.

It’s surprising how similar horses look when you’re standing eye-to-eye with their rear ends. I was lucky not to have been kicked, stepped on or shat upon. Thankfully, Alan (my riding partner) saw me wandering through the herd and came for me. It took a few minutes of pointed exertion to resituate my saddle. With what seemed to be the last ounce of strength I had left, I mounted up. Once my full weight was in the saddle, I collapsed onto Zeena’s withers with my arms dangling on either side of her neck. When you’re tired enough, you’d be surprised how comfortable this is. For the first time, I found something I liked about an English saddle: no saddle horn.

Fortunately, this was our first stop on the day’s journey, so I had a few minutes to rest and take in the spectacle. Several townspeople had driven up a rutted little shepherd’s track to meet their friends and family. Many riders were dismounted, catching a quick nip from a pocket flask. Some of the horsemen were adjusting saddles or sitting down while others were going to the bathroom for all the world to see. The horses, on the other hand, looked like something out of a Greek myth, their bodies hot from the gallop steaming profusely in the cold and damp.

We were only four miles into an eleven-mile trip and there were lots of canters and full gallops left. What would those be like? I pondered them with nervous optimism.

I remembered the day’s first canter. I nearly soiled myself. As we moved toward the wide path where the horses broke into their run, a shockwave of mania rippled through the herd. The minute they see one run, they all want to run. It was a surprising chore just to keep Zeena steady as we waited our turn. Once we were 20 feet from the threshold, I realized I was no longer in control. She was going to do what she was going to do and I could but hold on for dear life. I yelled and screamed her name and all but bent her neck into a pretzel – to no avail. Though terrified, I had survived. The next two were a little better. The fourth was where I came off. So I went into that fifth of thirteen runs more than a little apprehensive.

It was glorious.

As we approached the clearing ahead, Zeena began to snort and cajole and turn in tight little circles. Dad showed up again with some last-minute advice. In retrospect, this was the defining moment of the day, perhaps of the whole year. This is what the whole experience was all about. “Don’t try to be in control. She knows what’s going on. Just let her do what I made her to do, surrender to the ride and enjoy it.”

I lengthened the reigns, relaxed and gave her permission to do her thing. I could feel her smile, taste her pleasure as she broke like mad, determined to pass at least four horses in the next furlong. All I worried about was staying centered and keeping my balance. God, what a gallop. I was ear to ear all the way, whooping and hollering the while. I gave her the slightest kick to see if she had a little more in her and she was all too happy to oblige.

Just a hint of left reign and we were outside of the pack, running on our own track of virgin sod, making up for lost time and lost heart. We hammered past lesser horses and better riders. As we made our way back onto the beaten path and were closing on the next horse, I saw a baseball-sized clump of peat headed straight for my face. I tucked my head and grinned all the more as it exploded on my helmet.

Looking back on the day, that moment in particular, Jack London’s mythic Buck leaps to mind. “Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth generously over the world.” Indeed, this was life to the full.

God Says Good Morning

photo by Dan Bush

Today I ran across this journal entry from November 2004. It was, in most ways, an ordinary day, a workday. But it got off to an extraordinary beginning. It was one of those rare and treasured moments of clarity, truth and beauty. For the record, this is not where I live every day. There are days that I am disappointed with my ambivalence towards God, my wife and family, or my work. And there are still other days when I’m downright negative, angry, or sullen. But it’s because of the days that are not bright and clear that it is so vital to capture something from the ones that are, else we forget to hope for them.

}•••{

A crisp fall morning is awakening outside. Its cool, dense air carries the songs of jays and cardinals the swifter to our ears. My wife and I are in our living room “having our quiet time.” To be honest, it’s not all that quiet. We are, in fact, listening to the song “Six Foot Town” by Big & Rich, a rowdy pop country band. Crazy as it sounds, we’re both misty.

Some people live inside a tiny little box
They’re preoccupied about mismatching their socks (Grammatically, this line drives me nuts)
I never been one to worry about much
I just wanna’ laugh and love
I just wanna’ live it up

It’s hard to get around in a six foot town
When your ten feet tall everything is so small
I’m always bumping my head
I’m way to long for the bed
It’s hard to get around
In a six foot town.

This is our heart. We’ve been saved from a tiny and dull existence as the headliners in the traveling one ring circus of us and invited into a world beyond belief to play a small part in a huge story that will never end.

It’s not that our life is easy and carefree. In the last year, we’ve buried Andi’s father, my best friend and his father as well. In many ways this has been a year of death and loss. We have never lost anyone close to us before, so to lose so many in so short a time is an experience with which we have yet to fully come to terms.

And too, we are in the midst of much uncertainty. At this particular moment, we are standing at a four-way fork in the road staring at four wonderful opportunities. It’s an undeserved blessing in itself to have such choices. The only thing we can bank on is that in choosing one or two, we’ll be walking away from the others. This is life. Joy in the midst of loss, purpose in the midst of uncertainty. It’s too much to be lived by mere mortals.

Which is why God came to live through us.

Sometimes I stumble just because of my size
But hey y’all that’s alright
That’s the way God made me
I am what I am
And I can’t do nothing bout that

We wipe our cheeks and confess that we feel like arrogant jerks to openly admit that we actually perceive life to be so large, bursting at the seams with joy, purpose and victory. Yet to deny it would be so disingenuous. The overarching, overpowering fullness and abundance that permeates our life in seasons like this are the truest things about it. This is when life on earth is closest to life in the Kingdom.

Andrea begins to pray, imploring God to give us clarity and take “us” out of the equation. She’s confessing our hearts’ cry to desire nothing more and settle for nothing less than his highest and best, to be emptied of ourselves and let him do whatever he wants. While she prays, God tells me to read Psalm 18 – he even goes so far as to tell me to read it in the Message. While I’m comfortable navigating scripture, I haven’t a clue what this passage in particular might hold in store. So it is with mixed anticipation that I find my way there.

I love you, God – you make me strong…
But me he caught – reached all the way from the sky to sea; he pulled me out of that ocean of hate, the enemy chaos, the
void in which I was drowning…
He stood me on a wide-open field; I stood there saved – surprised to be loved! God made my life complete when I placed
all the pieces before him…
Now I’m alert to God’s ways, I don’t take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works; I don’t miss a trick.
I feel put back together…God rewrote the text of my life
When I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

The good people taste your goodness,
The whole people taste your health,
The true people taste your truth,
The bad ones can’t figure you out…

Suddenly God, you floodlight my life, I’m blazing with glory, God’s glory! I smash the bands of marauders, I vault the
highest fences.

What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth…

Is there any god like God?…Is not this the God who armed me,
Then aimed me in the right direction? Now I run like a deer, I’m king of the mountain.

Live, God! Blessings from my Rock, my free and freeing God, towering!…That’s why I’m thanking you, God, all over the
world. That’s why I’m singing songs that rhyme your name…

God’s king takes the trophy; God’s chosen is beloved…

Big & Rich are just finding a new way to say something David said a few thousand years back.

Normal life with God is, in human terms, extraordinary. It’s a world where the Creator of the universe will pick up his needle on an exquisitely average day, thread it with a sunrise, a loud country song, prayer, scripture and tears and sew a page into the story of your life that’s just for you, just to say, “Good morning, kiddo.”

A Letter From Snowball

 

 

Wow, kid. It’s been quite a week. I still don’t know what to make of it all. I want so badly to talk to you, to see how you’re doing and to let you know I’m okay. That’s one downside of being a dog. I can’t use a phone. But in my wandering, I met this crazy old guy who said he spoke dog. We talked for a couple of minutes and I realized that either he had had way too much to drink or he was telling the truth. 

Having nothing to lose, I asked him if he could write a letter for me. He grabbed a pad an pen, got down on all fours and told me to let ‘er rip. I hope he finds a way to get this to you. He looked like a street-bum, but I don’t know. He might just be an angel.

I’ve never seen so much water. Shame I can’t drink it. But, hey don’t worry about me. I have some advantages that you humans don’t. For one, there’s very little that I can’t eat. I can eat rotten meat, or squirrels and birds and survive just fine. Though I did enjoy the dog food – particularly the canned stuff – when push comes to shove, I have LOTS of options. I’m happy to drink from a mud puddle or out of tire after it rains. I can even lick dew off of the grass! And everybody knows we’re not real particular about where we go to the bathroom. So I’m doin’ alright.

Boy, I miss you more than you’ll ever know. When that bus took you away from me, I was mad and scared. I tried to follow the bus for a ways, but it was a madhouse out there. I finally went back to the parking lot to figure out what to do. 

I met some other dogs from the Superdome. We’ve been sticking together for the last few days. Most of them are in the same boat – no pun intended. They came with their humans and had to stay when their humans got on the bus. We’ve started calling ourselves the Supa-Dawgs. There are eighty-eight of us! We have everything from St. Bernards to Chijuajuas and everything in between – even a Yorkie in a pink sweater. Two words: What-Ever…

There was this really mean dog named Spitz. He was always growlin’ and showin’ his teeth. But then he picked a scrap with a police dog. The policeman didn’t take too kindly to that. Needless to say, we no longer have to put up with ol’ Spitz’s shenanigans.

We’ve found some pretty comfortable places to sleep too. There’s furniture all over the place! Couches, chairs, beds, you name it. I found a leather club chair that suits me to a tee. It floated into the parking lot of a gas station. Sure, it ain’t much to look at, and most folks wouldn’t want it in their livin’ room, but hey, for me, it’s like the world’s largest Ethan Allen showroom!

I know you’re scared and worried, kid. But don’t worry about me. The Supa-Dawgs are getting’ along pretty well. People don’t pay us much mind and when a dog goes into an open window and walks out with a piece of three-day-old meat in his mouth, it ain’t lootin’…It’s just livin’. 

By the way, I tried to go check on the house, but I couldn’t even get close. I hope there’s something left when you come back. Just try to remember one thing, kid: the most important things in that house got on that bus. You’re all I really care about. I’m just glad you’re going to a safe place.

Anyway, I know you have a lot going on…A lot to think about. But I tell you what. You take care of you and I’ll take care of me, deal? We took real good care of each other for a while, but life had a new chapter for us. It doesn’t have to be a bad chapter, just a new one. Who knows what will happen next? But whatever happens, I want you to know two things: 1) I’m going to be just fine. Us dogs can make our own way in crazy times like this. And 2) I will always love you.

Stay cool-

Snowball

Our Hearts Going Out

Last night I read an AP report about a boy whose dog, Snowball, was tragically – though understandably – taken from him when he boarded a bus at the Superdome to go to Houston. He yelled the dog’s name over and over and cried until he vomited. If you’re like me, the enormity of loss and suffering in a disaster of this size and scope actually hinders a heart-felt response. I don’t know how to connect or empathize with a million suffering people. But I lost a dog when I was a kid and the indelible memory of my first true loss in life lingers on nearly thirty years later.

 

For four days I had, like many, watched and listened to the unfolding epic of tragedy and uncertainty, straining for a genuine response. I felt like an awful human being because I couldn’t feel anything for anyone.

I genuinely wanted to help. I decided to donate some money I had been saving to the Red Cross. The donation, though genuine, still left me hollow inside, which led to another, more disturbing question: was I trying to do something good just to make me feel better about myself? 

On the verge of self-loathing, I realized that my heart was designed to bear another’s burden and that this unrelenting hollowness was merely it’s hunger to do so.

It seems that it is only the individual story that has the power to penetrate the overwhelmed heart. And it is only in the opening of the heart that we can move from a well-meaning but superficial sense of helpfulness to a palatable and truly helpful expression of authentic compassion. Maybe that’s why the Bible says to “bear one another’s burdens,” rather than, “bear everyone’s burdens.” God knows that we’re just not able to take it all in; that compassion is, at its core, a person-to-person transaction.

And so, in the midst of the reports of death, disease, anarchy and mass-hysteria, my heart found that sought-after connection and absolutely broke for this kid. I just felt the weight of it. And maybe – just maybe – in God’s economy, some of what I was feeling was a small portion of a much larger weight that had been lifted from the shoulders of a nameless young man in the Houston Astrodome.

With that one tiny hole in the levy that hems in my heart’s pent up store of strength, honor and sacred duty, the broader story is able to begin breaking through more tangibly, more divinely, as a broadening surge of many, many individual stories. Maybe for the first time in my life, I finally understand what it means for my heart to “go out” to someone. 

Though there’s certainly not enough in any one human heart to bear up under every affected person, I honestly believe that when enough people who are interested in living in God’s economy let their hearts “go out,” something miraculous happens and the unbearable becomes less so.

In what may well prove to be a fruitless attempt to do something – anything – I wrote the kid a letter from Snowball and sent it to a number of news organizations to see if they could find him. It was what my heart had to offer and I decided it was better to try and fail than not to try at all.

Three Poems

Sleep

Sleep can be a woman, it seems
Who lies in our bed
Enticing me with the hope of dreams
Drawing me in
Wooing a weary head 

I draw back the sheets and find my hold
Moving the pillows
The foreplay of slumber
Now, she receives me

Nights like this, I fall asleep in shame
Beaten and exhausted
Having been my day’s slave

But sleep can be a warrior king
Whose kingdom we pursue
Fighting the day’s battles we bring 
Our foes underfoot
Great challenges subdued

I draw back the flap to the meeting tent
Joining the troupe
The fellowship of grief
Now, we receive each other

O for nights such as these!
O for knights such as these!

}•••{

Easy To Be Ruthless

Easy to be ruthless
Not so to be as bold
As a Hunter, wise and old
Who draws the bow
Or strikes the blow
With tender, callused, peaceful hand
Old wounds undressed

Easy to be ruthless
When eager yet uninvited
To the dimly lighted
Fire-side,
Wide eyed
Marveling in fear and silence
Casting long shadows like the rest

}•••{

Who Knows What Grief Awaits

Who knows what grief awaits
To despair is certainly
To drink the slow death of fear’s uncertainty
Rather let us on worst days subsist
Upon morsels of grace 
And on best days feast 
Upon the bounty of yesterday’s bright blessings
Forgetting the dead old man, forever bought away
Reveling in today’s purpose 
And with an eye towards growing glory
Let us drink our fill of the sweet wine of hope
Until it runs down our chin
Staining our chest with its crimson hue 
And lingering perfume