-from the Grave

 

Memories are something God gave us created human beings in His image that has always been a curiosity to me. They are snippets of the past that have so many lessons to be learned in the present. Their inherent power to affect our mind and spirit is inclusive of the entire spectrum of life value and purpose. 

 

Some memories are rich and rewarding in the replay of them. Moments of happy and warm invitations, enveloping our minds with reflections of joy and positive inspiration in present time. Some have the power to change the trajectory of our life. The onset and birth of these type of memories, chart courses of regret; and also potential paths of purpose and direction. Many review memories that have deep pain, and those who replay these; spend a lifetime running from them and the ongoing pathology they serve to embellish.

 

Most of us never escape the power of memories, nor the positive or negative value that has magnified in its intensity…each time they renew their message in our thoughts. Few of us ever understand the power God also gave us to change the story of our memories, within the reality of present life. It has become clear to me, that redemption in our present is woven through the forest of our memories.

 

In fact…if you do even a cursory review of a concordance regarding the word ‘remember,’ you see that God uses our memory, and the opportunity to delve into its bank of truth, as a tool of redemption; as a point of clarity in faith and practice that is always able to be present…not just past, in its usefulness for God’s work in us.

 

Today is the day this memory came forth…in fact, a few then merged in the presence of today…in a ‘drop to your knees’ sort of way.

 

Yesterday, I bought tickets to go see Mercy Me in concert. I don’t go to many concerts, as I just cannot justify the cost to the benefit of immersing myself in the midst of that many people. That’s another story for another time. Two days prior, I attended an Amy Grant concert. Amy was a music force in my early years of being a believer, and much of her music was reflected in the messages I was given in my faith in those early days. So her concert was a true reward and was like seeing an old friend.

 

I have a past with Bart Millard and the Mercy Me band. I would clearly be warranted to say that…whereas Mercy Me would respond, “Brent who?”

When I was a ruddy youth pastor and then even into our work with the youth of Savanna Bible Church, we took our teens annually to a youth conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Good speakers that motivated our teens in the Word and a worship team: Mercy Me. Yet unknowns then, and so impactful in their music and message for young minds seeking something. They had not yet recorded their first single that brought them the wider global audience they reach today…but Bart had written it and they were singing it to us: “I Can Only Imagine.” Soon after, I would hear it on the radio as it was first recorded by Amy Grant. Who shortly thereafter, at her first public singing of the song, called Bart Millard up on the stage and asked him to sing his song to the audience. She then gave it back to him, and it is forever etched in our memories as a Mercy Me song; thanks to the beautiful heart of Amy Grant.

 

This morning, I awoke and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and took Bella outside for her first morning necessity call…when I heard music coming from my son’s workshop and man cave building. That’s not unusual, but the music I was hearing was not his usual faire. It was Mercy Me’s song, “Word of God Speak.” A beautiful song of Bart Millard’s heart, and I walked in to see my son being totally immersed in this song and its powerful message. I felt I was interrupting, but I felt drawn to the moment…in a way I cannot speak about clearly.

 

You see, I had told him the night before, that I had bought tickets and was going to see Mercy Me in concert. And his mind began to experience memories from his past that are important. So, I said we had a past with Mercy Me. As one of the pastors on the leadership team for this conference in Cedar Rapids each year, we sort of rubbed shoulders with Mercy Me. One morning; our family likes to recall (and I’m sure its etched into Mercy Me bands memory as well), was the morning we ate breakfast with “our boys” Mercy Me. Well, in our minds we went on tour with them…we were the inspiration for their music…we were the reason they sing to this day.

 

I have a recurring memory that is associated with Mercy Me, that is not a good memory…in fact it is a most powerful memory that defines in perpetuity my failure as a father. It’s a big one, that I’ve never been able to release, because it is a microcosm of my parenting, no matter how many times I justify why I was a good parent. 

 

I was taking Jordan to school some years after this relationship we had as a family with Mercy Me had its origins, and “I Can Only Imagine” came on the radio. Jordan began to belt it out from his middle school heart, and I criticized how he was singing it. Yep…my own insecurities as an OCD perfectionist, who could never measure up to his own potential…decided my words to be the tool I used to crush my son and his dream to be like Bart Millard in singing from his heart. I did that. Former pastor Brent, now a student at a seminary to earn a Masters degree in Christian Psychology…so I could help people be free to serve God as they are called…in one moment took my son and told him he wasn’t good enough. 

 

The irony of this story is that Bart Millard’s father told him the same thing…his whole life. That song was written for Bart’s father who died shortly after Bart and his dad reconciled and his father received redemption for his sins to his son and for his life in Jesus.

 

I realized often that I parented from the wrong side of redemption. My message to my kids was more often, “you are not good enough.” “You have to do better. You are failing.” I never believed that…but I messaged that always to my kids. I still seek redemption from those most damning of memories in my mind.

 

I have learned something recently, that my kids have known their whole life. Their dad is far from being perfect…in fact my flaws have become so glaring, as I’ve aged and made countless new bad decisions; that the memory of who I was, overshadows my ability to be who I need yet to be…as I face the last years of my life.

 

So Jordan and I watched the movie of Bart’s life this morning together. As I realized anew how I was not so different from Bart’s father as a parent…I cried during the movie as my son slept. I saw him in these convergent memories as a middle school boy that I crushed…as he lay asleep on that couch this morning. I prayed again that God would continue to change my heart to be the right dad…and that my son, and my daughters will get to have the father in my last years, that they all deserve. 

 

You see…God’s redemption is right in front of us for the taking. Its our decision to rewrite our future memories. For the good of those we love. For the good of our own dreams yet to be released in our full potential of faith and practice. For those who need to see Jesus in us…in the moment.

 

“I can only imagine, what it will be like, when I walk by your side. I can only imagine, what my eyes would see, when your face is before me. I can only imagine.

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for You Jesus, or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Hallelujah, or will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine….I can only imagine!

I can only imagine, when that day comes, and I find myself standing in the Son, I can only imagine, when all I will do is forever, forever worship You. I can only imagine, yeah, I can only imagine!!”

Well…found myself in tears again at church this morning. This time I was set off by a trigger to a second-hand memory. Those are rare and often have a lot of inherent emotion attached to them. Back in 2017, I was traveling pulling the RV toward Atlanta, Georgia and to a campground reserved at Lake Lanier. It was a horrible traffic day. The interstate was stop and start with multiple accidents…and eventually longer and more frequent became the stops over the starts. Upon arriving at the campsite (right on the lake), I got everything set up and decided to go down to the picnic table by the lake. The moon was shining across the lake, and I could feel the strain of the travel day just drain away.

My newfound bliss was interrupted by a phone call from my brother Blake. He asked me how my day of travel was and I gave him the short version: “One of the worst travel days ever….Im exhausted and yet cannot sleep.” He spoke these words, into the phone to my ear, which are forever burned into my memory with that scene on a picnic table looking at the moon on Lake Lanier: “Im going to have to make it worse….Dad died today.”

Im tearing up write now just typing this recount of that day. Isnt it funny how these watershed moments of one’s life burn themselves into the very senses you experienced that day. I cannot see a beautiful moon shining across a lake without thinking of that day. I cannot smell the burning rubber and diesel fuel of an interstate highway, without reviewing the trip to that destined news delivery. The sound of frogs by a lake and the chirping of crickets…remind me of my anguished cry as Blake spoke those words.

The death of a precious and needed family member, is so profoundly impactful, that Jesus, upon seeing Lazarus’ family grieving because their brother had died, John 11: 33-35, groaned in his spirit as he met them at the gravesight, and it was recorded, “Jesus wept.” Jesus wept. He knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead…but he still allowed himself to profoundly and completely understand the intense pain in hearts when someone they love dies.

This morning in church that moment came flooding back….from of all things, simply singing the childrens song ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ The tears poured out and I couldnt sing. You see, my sister was there with dad in his last moments, as he passed from this moment of mortality into his immortality in God’s glorious presence. She described for me the most precious moment; as my mom Helen (as her beloved husband was passing on) knelt by his hospital bed and sang, ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ Well… anyone who knew our mother or had sat near her in church, knew full well, she had a pretty annoying singing voice. But she would not be stopped from singing the hymns in church. Nor did it matter so much in 2017, as the last thing dad heard as the angels gathered him into their arms. “Jesus loves me, this I know! For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me…the Bible tells me so.”

In that moment….that very sacred of times of being in a moment… even for me; as I have that visual burned into the folds of my brain and can hear my moms voice singing that simple child’s song of faith, and the smell of the hospital…with the background monitors flat lining on their tonality….that second hand recounting of that day is prompted by the hearing of that song. I wept.

We are in a tumultuous time, with political divisions, family challenges, and people equating disagreement as a reason to hate. Strong feelings over things that will be forgotten some next day, as the newer, more devastating believe becomes the fashion of that new moment of time. I want to just simply believe that Jesus loves me….in this present world…as he loved me when I was a little boy watching my dad cry (the only time I witnessed that was that moment) as he stood in front of my Grandma Beulah Sunshine Hall’s open casket. Jesus loves me…and here is the crux of this truth to my faith: “because the Bible tells me so.” John 3:16 “For God SO LOVED the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believes in Him….shall NOT PERISH, but have everlasting life.” Its so simple and clear and uncluttered….virtually impossible to misinterpret or translate wrong this text. My faith is born of my belief in His Word. So was my mom’s faith as she sang worship and praise in her tone deaf voice unto God. I think I can say that when Jesus saw my mom kneeling by my dad’s bed and holding his life scarred hand while singing (and clinging to) the truth she clearly understood…that Jesus’ wept with her. He knows. He’s been in all of our moments.

The very next hymn was another one that I couldn’t sing, as I was overwhelmed by Jesus’ presence by my side in that church: “It is well! It is well! It is well, it is well with my soul!!!!”

Ok, my readers….you’re in real-time with me right now. After all, that is the literal manifestation of “in-the-moment.” So, here you are, with me, breathing in and out…in-the-moment.

So I wrote last week in my real time experience and mentioned at the end, “the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” It seems that I’m not listening to what God is messaging as I write, live, and breathe.

The preamble to this moment began with me moving into Monday from my Sunday writing and profound literations…to “It’s Monday and reality bites….again!” Maybe you’ve been stubborn before and can accept having a thick skull…this is my first time (I’m lying to you) and I’m stunned by how easy it is to miss God’s messages and ignore His sent messengers.

Have you ever listened to a song and found that it so completely resonated with you, that when the music crescendos usually at a bridge or in the chorus or refrain….you can FEEL the rush of the crescendo in your breaths in that moment? It’s a rush, rather a tsunami of meaning and pounding in the chest of over-wrought meaning! Well that’s coming, but first…the promised preamble.

Monday I had a dermatology appointment because I’ve reached an age where every physical manifestation of growing old will probably result in cancer. I’m not making light of that…it is often a resulting cold hard truth when people get a diagnosis that is hard to swallow and changes plans.

But, here I am, in a hospital gown with just my underwear on underneath, my cold spindly chicken legs sticking out, and perched on top of an overweight midsection, which serves as the foundation supporting a adequately large head (I literally own prescription glasses from a company label called ‘FatHeads,) with a crop of thinning white hair tosseled atop. In walk….not one, but 3 young girls (I suppose they were women) that looked to be in high school and came to work straight from cheerleading camp.

With a rush of horror in my heart, the lead cheerleader introduced herself as Dr. ????? (I honestly couldn’t hear anything after she said doctor) and these other two cheerleaders were going to assist her in closely scrutinizing my body (MY BODY??) to assess if there were any concerning (albeit microscopic) spots. Of course I’m concerned….i have old age spots cropping up everywhere. Wait….are they going to scrutinize everywhere??

I’ll spare you any further descriptors as suffice to say…it was a humiliatingly humbling horrific experience. I know this; my son Jordan and daughter Sarah will guffaw loudly as they read this with utter glee. Lyssa (the good daughter) will circumspectly let loose a small chortle in comparison. So that was Monday and since I haven’t heard back regarding the 3 biopsies taken…I’m assuming, of course, that I’ve 30-90 days left on the planet.

Thursday, again with the amazingly open to interpretation (literally) hospital gown adornment, I spend 30-40 minutes in a grinding and banging and chunking MRI machine having my trick knee (that’s old man talk for I’m falling apart) scanned, so they can once again get back the results that indicate I’m old and parts of me are dying.

Now, those of you who know me, understand that I’m at home now on the Mayo Clinic web page and clicking on “bone cancer of the knee,” “age spots are not your friend,” and “what to expect after 60.” and then I’m off and running in my mind.

I’ve also spent the week not getting calls back yet from companies wanting to hire someone for the 30 job applications I put out there (for the benefit of every potential company) so that I can try and recoup the retirement funding I no longer have. So this week I came close to scraping the bottom and by Friday, I’m in a full-blown mini existential crisis ( look it up…I don’t have time left to explain) and I’m in full “I have 20 years left to live if I’m lucky” mode.

A good Christian friend called to see how I was doing, and could hear in my voice that I was leaning hard on the panic button. I was invited over for a face-to-face assessment and the pot boiled over. My friend listened to my fears of old age. Words and phrases like, “I’m not relevant anymore,” and, how will I survive retirement if I can’t retire,” followed by the biggie, “my body is falling apart.”

My friend recognized my fear, but more importantly; this friend heard my grief…felt how palpable it was in that moment, and chose to not talk…but to accept my tears as my truth. After several minutes of joining in my pain of heart, this wise Christian simply looked me in the eye and said this message to me: “This isn’t you.” That was God’s first messenger.

I left there, and went to my daughter’s house to do a few daddy-do’s projects, eat dinner and watch the NFL playoff games. In the process, she (off the cuff) gives me an idea for a job she knew about and thought I’d be really good in the position. Just a few hours earlier my pot boiled over because nobody will want this old irrelevant has-been with dermatological danger spots on his body. And suddenly I’m feeling like I could do that job. Unbeknownst to my daughter, she was servant messenger number two.

I went home from my daughter’s place and saw a text from another Christian friend and I decided to brag about my football team being great. He queried how I was doing? I shared my disappointments and he literally became God’s third messenger when he wrote,

“I knew that you were spiritually starving (before you moved away). I watched as your countenance kept falling. My respect for you grew during the time you were here because of the man you continued to be during the challenges you were facing here.You handled that situation like a GODLY MAN. You’re number one in my book!”

I pondered all these things from one day. That was Saturday.

I awakened Sunday morning and read a devotional that comes daily to my phone from Chuck Swindoll. He has decided that day to discuss how we should face old age and its frustrations. Are you kidding me right now? Lord…. Are you speaking to me?

Chuck said this, “God, however, brings about birthdays . . . not as deadlines but lifelines. He builds them into our calendar once every year to enable us to make an annual appraisal, not only of our length of life but our depth. Not simply to tell us we’re growing older . . . but to help us determine if we are also growing deeper. These lifelines are not like that insurance policy you invested in last year. There’s no automatic promise of annual renewal. Obviously, if God has given you another year to live for Him, He has some things in mind . . . He has some very special plans to pull off through your life. Surely it includes more than existing 1,440 minutes a day!”

I drive to church that morning and my pastor decides to deliver the exclamation point to God’s message in this “existential crisis” I’m wrestling with as he opens his sermon, literally, with these two questions:

1. Have you felt like life is spiraling ŷout of control?
2. If so, have you asked God, “Where are you?

Of course I sat there with tears dripping down my cheeks and mouthed these words: Lord, I’m listening.

I’ll close with the prayer that was in my heart, “O Lord…I know you can hear the words that I cannot sing or speak today. Thank you for the relentless pursuit of me with your messages of love and promise to me.”

A worship song the congregation sang today, was a new chorus to me…and once again I felt the meaning feeling in its big crescendo moment: “Lord, I want to sign your name to the end of this day…knowing that my heart was true. Let my life song sing to You!!!

I’m present and in the moment with you.

One of my seminary professors, as I earned my MA in Clinical Psychology, gave us an assignment to try and accomplish. He told us to observe closely, the next time we found ourselves in our family of origin unit, as to the behaviors of each family member, as we reunited from our now diverse adult lives we’ve developed. Mostly, without exception, we all were surprised to see that we adjusted to the family order and personas we each developed as children in that unit. These behaviors were now being exhibited in the original family unit….often time foreign to our outside original family unit personas.

This is called “homeostasis” which simply put, is a rebalancing either or both our early developed need or drive base behaviors. We do it through our lives and often the underpinnings of which, define in some measure our behaviors throughout our lives; with some calibration.

Therapists have been able to build a rather substantial an unending revenue stream by; not only honestly helping someone in unhealthy need or drive status, but also, by exploiting or taking advantage of someone’s maladjustments…for personal financial gain.

David White writes, “In a physiological context, homeostasis is disrupted by what is referred to as a need state, which is an innate need, like hunger. Psychologically, however, the disruption is caused by drive states, which are secondary states built on learned behavior and beliefs. Because they are often triggered by arousal, drive states can cause people to engage in negative behaviors, like over-eating or excessive consumption of alcohol.”

Ok….let me land the plane.

It’s Thanksgiving, I’m walking Bella (my most beloved border collie) and I’m looking at the homes I walk by and imagining their Thanksgiving day. Traditions will be followed by many, some will take time to gather their inherent gratitudes and be blessed. But some may harbor resentment…others may not have such gratitude, or even the ability to recognize it in the midst of their past and present storms. Their homeostasis of their family of origin may be filled with fear and pain…and they find themselves constantly reverting to it because it is the only constant balance they have ever had.

I was blessed, in that my homeostasis of family of origin, was by and large, a positive foundation that I’ve been privilege to build and adjust my whole life….though some adjustments were less than positive, and for some seasons, I found myself out of balance. But I have a foundation, that is built on rock….its not easily affected by the storms of life.

This has been a bit of a heavy dose of mumbo jumbo for folks who like that sort of thing. Let me speak my heart to you.

You are not stuck with the pattern of life treadmill you find yourself on. Your fears, your maladjusted habits, your unmet needs, your disruptive drives….can be made new. Sounds too easy. And by our own steam in our hearts and minds….its most probably unattainable.

I’ve often pondered the simplicity of one of the shortest sentences in the Bible referring to God: “I Am.” Yahweh. The beginning….and the end. The origin of our story, your story, mankind’s story….and the last chapter, how the story ends.

There is another short sentence in God’s Word that intimates further ponderment (I definitely made up that word….get over it).

“Be Still, and KNOW that I AM God!”

Being “born again” is not a physical rebirth, at least not presently; but rather a spiritual rebirth. It is a fresh start on a new foundation…a newly created homeostasis that we can revert to, when the wind and the waves threaten to overwhelm us. It is a life of brilliant balance. Light for our steps…an answer when we seek knowledge and understanding.

Jesus, God’s Son, was crucified, buried….then rose from the DEAD (definitely a last chapter), giving us the ability to receive a new foundation to build upon.

You are not stuck where you are presently.

One of my favorite biblical characters of historical note is King David: a shepherd boy who became a giant slayer, a sinner that sometimes followed his perceived need rather than the path of righteousness, a writer of Psalms….sonnets of his heart), whom God Himself described him as, “a man after God’s own heart.”

This Thanksgiving, start a new story…a homeostasis that will keep you in balance.

Reflect on a shepherd boy’s song of praise!

Psalm 139:1-6, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.

You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.”

Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Today, be Present-in the moment. Be still…….and KNOW that I AM GOD.

I’ve written of my comfort of walking among the granite stones of remembrance that remind us who are living….its just not a permanent condition. Cemeteries stir a connection from the past to remind us that, we too shall pass. In that moment…in the twitch of an eyelid, we move swiftly through the first death…a gift of Adam that all people of all time agree on whether you are agnostic, atheist, or higher power folks….This absolute of scripture no human can deny.

I am comfortable in black and white dicotemous spaces. It’s clarity and that feels settled.

No place does this powerful message hit me so dead center; as when I sit, leaning against an old gnarled tree and ponder my parent’s graves…and the granite marker that proves they were here and they were my people. It is this place where I encounter face-to-face the sacred. It is a safe place to reach deep…honestly facing who I am in the present and very palpable audience of those who left me a litany of legacy.

I can hear the psalms, the songs if you will, that magnify my memory, and even add clarity to the message given me then by those who loved me…that was not fully understood. A cemetery is a concert, an orchestra of music that is being sung in the presence of eternity.

I was recently in a training class, and the facilitator of the training (I called her professor, as it seemed to inspire her to an even greater desire to teach) asked us to share with the class our favorite song, as an ice breaker-an encouragement of participation.

Mine has been a song I’ve loved and claimed as my “All-Time Favorite Song” since I was a kid. I’ve heard a lot of great songs in my time on the planet….but this one without fail caused me to carefully pick up the needle and rest it on it’s vinyl start over and over again. Now I just have to hit the repeat button as often as I want to sing it aloud with CCR on my playlist.

“Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” by John Fogerty.

Yes…that’s the song that moves me. No real definition why…it just defines something in me.

The pastor this morning declared his big idea in sermonic dissertation as this: God makes Psalms Out Of Suffering.

David, the shepherd turned king, of Old Testament fame was a notable troubadour. He wrote the country ballads of ancient Israel. The Psalms are replete with the words of David’s heart songs…. many of which were cries of despair, followed by praise for redemption.

In Psalm 22, this pattern holds true. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me?” Read it and you’ll see more.

But later in the Psalm, David writes; after all the variations of “ my dog died, my truck won’t start, my girl left me, I’m so lonesome I could cry…”: “You have answered me!”

You HAVE (past tense, declarative) answered me!

Wait, David just wrote regarding his being and mood and circumstance all being regarded as the “dust of death.” And the next sentence out of his mouth is, “You have answered me.”

For several years, I’ve been wandering in a desert (of my own making) that has, as David describes, been filled with words of groaning, loneliness in grief and despair. Feeling shut out from God’s presence. Understanding what that perceived silence from God feels like.

“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it has melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue clings to my jaws; You have brought me to the dust of death.” The desert of desperation!

“You have answered me!”

In real estate sales we called this successful manifestation of future success: the assumptive close. It hasn’t happened, yet, but your experience (trust) speaks to assured reality.

“Therefore (v.22 of Psalm 22), I will declare Your name to my brethren, in the midst of the assembly, I will praise You!”

You see…the Psalm of suffering is the Psalm of declarative exuberant praise in the moment and speaks for evermore.

David closes his country song with the chorus that makes you hit the repeat button:

“A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted by the Lord…to the next generation, they will come and declare His righteousness to the next generation. They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this.” (Psalm 22: 30-31).

I sit at my father’s grave, reminded of his legacy to me…

And I can here his favorite Psalm-song of suffering unto trustworthy redemption. Song of praise…..mind you…an orchestra of heavenly worship….the combined assembly of sacred songs of praise.

I leave Stark cemetery with renewed purpose, with a reinvigored passion of trust…a message for those who will be born. Trust God! He will give you a Psalm.

Ernest Hemingway wrote, “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

Christine and I started an adventure a decade ago that we labeled: LIFE II. We decided to live full on with adventures fueled by passion and integrated with our love of God, faith in Jesus and our connection to His creation.

Not everyday has been easy and we have traversed many dangerous precipices along this pathway. Some of our seasons have been foggy and step-by-step; while others have stunned us by their clarity of color and peaceful energy. There have been moments where we’ve wandered at the edge of darkness with God’s light faded and obscure. While other times we found ourselves experiencing the grip of His hand on our shoulder leading us in grace and truth.

NEVER has it ceased to be an adventure! We have NEVER taken for granted that which we have been given as temporary gifts to be enjoyed and employed for God’s glory. We are thankful and grateful for each step of this great life adventure.

We are saying “so long” to Lover’s Key as we felt the time was right to move on to a new adventure. This morning I walked the beach that became a precious friend back in 2010 when I first walked it’s shores and collected its treasure of shells and memories. It’s salt water has calmed my soul more often than not. It has been at times a soothing spa of calm in the midst of turbulence.

I visited the most familiar of its beach relics this morning. I’ve photographed it’s beckoning branches every time I’ve walked this seemingly sacred sand.

My kids and grandkids have passed by and played in its sun bleached arms with memorial shells adorning their fingers.

I have become wealthy many times over with the joy of collecting sand dollars and shells to fill my pockets and treasure bags. We have shared our beach and it’s blessings with countless friends and family, and even strangers from around the globe.

The new residents of Lovers Key Beach Club 106 take their keys to future memories, sand in the toes, and shell collecting. Christine and I will ALWAYS love Lovers Key and will most likely visit from time-to-time…but it will no longer be our home away from home. We will return as guests…old friends if you will…recounting days past.

Today…Present-in the Moment.

“You are as close to us as breathing, yet You are farther than the farthermost star.”

—Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayer Book

I am not a professionally trained medical expert, so anything I have to say about a human’s breathing function, is strictly based on self-analysis and awareness through focused experience.

Yep…I wear a CPap to bed at night and go to sleep looking very charming…and sounding like Darth Vader entering his galactic album REM cycle. My wife Christine has reconciled herself to the lesser of two slumber-time evils: Darth Vader breathing or hibernating grizzly bear snoring (which is also her description of me the first time in our relationship when she attempted to wake me to stop the horrendous volume). Apparently my subsequent growl was frightening. Sorry.

When you cease the all-important function of breath moving to and fro providing combustion and exhaust…your engine can fail….heart attack, stroke, etc. And so I bought a CPap and have slept like a quiet baby ever since. When I go to my state of repose, and mask up with a long hose extending from my head to a distant air managing unit; I purposefully consider each and every subsequent breath as it ebbs and flows from my nose covered with a sealed air mask. It relaxes me instantly. If I did not go to sleep instantly, I can imagine being so in sync with this most important and vital God-created mechanism for our life existence here in the mortality of earth’s atmospheric realm, that I would praise and worship Him marveling at the order and mechanism of His creation from the birth of our existence.

I have become increasingly aware of the intimacy of breathing.

Genesis

This morning, I took my customary stroll in the mountains (always a huge smile on my face) and as always I break out in worship praying and singing my praise to God!

“All the way my Savior leads me; cheers each winding path I tread…”

He intimately meets me in His creation! Everywhere I look I see His glorious hand, mind and heart! I see His love for me and feel His breathe on my very skin! I breathe Him in and expell my fears, my weaknesses, my lusts, my unforgiving nature…my impatience and my darkness.

For my social agenda tree-huggers out there, please do not start rejoicing in my conversion to Pantheism or some over-wrought aura of environmentalism (though I love and treat with respect my environment). I am not a Pantheistic, whereby I believe everything around me in creation is God or that God is in everything. No. But God created Everything!

In fact, as I sat by my mountain stream within the forest yesterday, I marveled at the great and amazing faith of an evolutionist or an agnostic…one who believes this all just happened by accident…a cosmic expanse of a cell….whatever explanation “science” has provided to direct one’s thinking. Quite a lot less evidence to support that science-fueled faith!! Especially as I am sitting where I sit. Especially as I breathe…in and out. As my senses are assaulted with fresh pine and mountain water rushing over great boulders and little pebbles, I marvel at the great faith of an atheist. As the birds sing and I see a swaying wildflower blooming from a crack in a rock at the river’s edge.

I breathe in and out…and rejoice in that intimacy (in the moment) with my Creator, my God, my Savior and the Holy Spirit.

“All the way my Savior leads me, and He cheers each winding path I tread!” Hallelujah!

Back in the mountains, time to write as inspiration abounds!

This year we found ourselves bogged down in Kansas City with projects, very little time with kids and grandkids, and temperatures reaching toward 100 degrees. It was stifling to our lifestyle! Don’t get me wrong…the time with kids, grandkids and dear friends is always precious and irreplaceable; but we found ourselves traveling down a blistering highway across a scorching hot Kansas as fast as we could to get to the higher elevations of Colorado!

Without thinking, in our brain-boiled fog, we drove in one day from 3000 ft elevation, to one of our favorite camping spots at 10000 ft elevation. Remember, that’s us wintering in Florida at 0 elevation, then planting ourselves in Missouri and Kansas at 500 ft elevation. And through that whole period of time I abandoned my diet for the most part…and it has consequences. The type of consequences that are negative anywhere, but at 10000 ft? Priceless!! And Breathless!!

I do not remember where I first latched onto the moniker “rare air,” as referencing being in higher elevations where oxygen is in shorter supply, but so invigorating…but I use it here in the mountains. Rare air is a big part of our love of the mountains!

But it has magnified my unattended physicality and resulting high blood pressure (complete with battling swelling feet due to “venous insufficiency”) and general aching joints.

Therefore, in the rare air of the mountains it is “do-or-die” and get back to the basics of health and fitness. In reality…I am carrying far too much baggage to be in this atmosphere requiring me to be at my 63 year old best.

Hebrews 12:1: “Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. Let us run with endurance then race God has set before us. (NLT)

In simplifying terms, RARE AIR = SPIRITUAL LIFE! Taking stock of my spiritual health requires me to first of all identify those things I’ve been doing that cause me to sin and weigh me down from the rare air of spiritual living.

Wish this part was easier, but as Charles Swindoll once wrote, we humans “have a bent towards sin.” It comes natural to sin, to degrade, to break down, to stall, to live rotely…to breathe shallowly stagnate and dead air. We become accustomed to doing that which we were created NOT to do!

Secondly, striving for “rare air” must become my most expedient task; both physically and spiritually. Once you get a breath of fresh rare air…you do not want to leave! It changes how you view the world…in the moment.

We, more often than not, take for granted the Wes Albrights of our lives!

We go about our business believing we understand freedom to be and do that which presents itself in our paths. We think we understand our rights and the equality of all persons. We rationalize the ease of our lives as earned through our own efforts and hard work. We believe we conquer strife in our daily walk…not having ever tasted the salt of sweat and the sight of blood born battles.

Wes Albright is daily all these things: courageous, ready, competent, trained, steady, straight, trustworthy, caring, generous, and fair, firm, and consistent.

Wes Albright is a soldier every day! A warrior when called upon to excercise his gifts…for mankind and country. A patriot not afraid to question …of whom you could trust: with orders received and orders given.

Colonel Wes Albright is a soldier and a gentleman!

My friend Wes Albright received his honor and reward a few days ago as he left this field of battle and passed into the peace of eternal life with our Creator God and His Son, the Savior Jesus Christ!

I never knew Wes as a soldier in battle as he served faithfully in our armed forces securing the ease of life and freedom I enjoy.

But when I met Wes some 12 years ago…I recognized a man of distinction and worthy of my utmost respect…though he demanded neither. Through Wes I understood patience and saw what it meant to be a husband…through thick and thin. He exhibited a wisdom of life experience most of us could not possibly attain…or appreciate fully.

Each word and sentence he spoke to me seemed measured and provoked by thought and deliberation. So much so…that as he communicated his message, I found myself pondering it’s clarity and depth with more intention than the usual.

I did not always agree with Wes Albright…but I always took time to re-evaluate my position more carefully based on his ideas and thoughts. In essence, a man of life depth such as Wes would either confirm, challenge, or strengthen your convictions.

Wes’ heart spoke so clearly to my wife Christine that she considered him THE father-figure in her life. He has left a void that will never be replaced and a legacy that will never be surpassed in measure and breadth.

I found Wes Albright the man to be spiritual…though he didn’t wear theology on his sleeve. He exhibited the values of faith more clearly in life action than most theologians I’ve met. He breathed his faith in and out as he walked and spoke and reacted to those who were dear and those he barely knew. The very definition of character is understood by WHO YOU ARE when no one is looking. That is who you ARE.

Wes Albright had faults, I’m sure. We all are frail creation marred by the reality and eventuality of a sin nature that often exceeds our ability to dim it in essence. We cannot live among family and friends without others having a glimpse of our battle-bent armor. That is the privilege and blessing of grace…and more importantly, forgiveness.

My mind goes to a larger-than-life Old Testament Biblical figure, chosen by God as yet a ruddy-faced youth shepherding sheep in the wilderness. God knew David the sheep herder long before He made him David the warrior and King of Israel…His chosen people!

David was exceptional as a warrior though had a strong independent mind at times…and sometimes withstood against the plan of God. He made great and small mistakes in his life as he succumbed to the temptation and the great things of power this life may offer one of great gifted ness.

But here is the thing…David was ALWAYS a man after God’s own heart. God knew all that David would do as a warrior, a man, a husband, a father…and a King. And still chose him. He gave him exceeding and abundant grace. He gave him the strength and courage to face the consequences of his wrong actions. And brought David into the light of His mercy upon his seeking God’s forgiveness. David ALWAYS loved God.

Micah 6:8 has always seemed a clear scomatic for living an acceptable life before mankind and God. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Easier read than accomplished. But in my experience, it defines who Wes Albright was to me.

I would be remiss to not express how very clear it was to those who knew Wes in recent years, that it is his devoted mate, partner, and best friend Mike that completed him in so many ways. She drew the best out of Wes allowing us to experience his best version. She is a virtuos woman of whom Wes worshipped the ground she walked upon. She was the queen to her King. He needed her so much more than she required of him. Most will not understand what that means. They married to give to the other..not to get what they thought they needed.

Please read Psalm 61 with your mind upon soldiers and warriors like Colonel Wes Albright … and pray for our country to stand upon the solid foundation that has been established through the blood and sacrifice of others.

I close with a warriors prayer as I imagine Wes entering Heaven with a thankful and praising heart…dropping to his knees before the King he so valiantly served in this life. What a privilege it is to have known Wes Albright and to serve a gracious Savior in Jesus Christ. Be always in the moment!

Warrior’s Prayer

Brave warriors,
should fate find us in battle,
May our cause be just.
May our leaders have clear vision.
May our courage not falter.
May we be triumphant an earn victory
as we show mercy to our enemies.

May our efforts bring lasting peace.
May our sacrifice be always
appreciated by those we serve.
May we return to our loved ones unharmed.
Should we be harmed, may our wounds heal.
Should we perish in the struggle,
may God embrace us and find for us
a place in His Kingdom.