From Hear to There

Let’s start with I am not preacher, I am not a teacher, I am not good student, in fact, I can’t figure out the most basic magic tricks.  Those shells, and the little thing underneath one or all of them, I haven’t a clue.  The second you tell me to keep my eye on it, it’s gone.  

But what I am NOT is stupid.  What I am is quieter than I appear, louder than I should be and more stubborn than what is good for me.  I hear, I ignore, and then, only because of a Very Strong Right Arm on my head, I bow, and I listen. 

I was told once by someone that I “just don’t respect the process.”  He was right, I didn’t because THAT process was stupid and a waste of time.  But the process above:  Hear; Ignore; Bow and Listen, I love that process. There is something about a process that contemplates “the good of all” that makes it less of a process and more of a really narrow, grassy, cool summer path.

What prompted me to write again--I only do rarely because frankly I don’t have much that I want to hear me say--is the thinking about the process of what makes a sacrifice.  Someone said to me recently that they “have never sacrificed anything for God.”  Wow, I thought what a heathen.  What a sad lost soul.  I kind of had a "Thank you that I am not like this wretch" moment.  Right then a process began. I felt a Strong Right Arm, firmly pressing not on my neck, not gently tugging on my heart, but crushing from me the life of which I was so proud.  And a voice, loud and strong and angry.  And I knew, like I did when I was a boy, I was in trouble because I was wrong.

It was the pressure from the hand, the press with anger on my entire person, near panic, near failure, utter loss.  I had never really sacrificed anything for God either.  So in total darkness I asked, what does it look like?  That is one of my favorite questions because you can’t answer it with trite, stupid replies.  You have to describe it in words that are visible and understandable.  And they can’t be under a shell.  They can’t include, “look over here.” 

I thought about what a sacrifice really was.  Typically a lamb.  It was to be killed, bled, cut up, burned and totally eliminated.  One right after the other, death after death after death, because the “Good” could not be fully satiated.  Not yet.

So I asked myself, what makes a sacrifice.  The friend who rightly said that they “have never sacrificed…” was right.

I set out to list all of the things I have sacrificed for God. And the list is absolutely astonishing because it is identical to my friend’s.  So I knew I have to change that.  And then the press of the Strong Right Arm came down on me again.  And this time, I felt real terror. 

It is not the Sacrifice that matters; it is the One that makes the sacrifice.  And I knew in a flash, a serious flash, a blink of an eye, I neither have an appropriate sacrifice, NOR DO I WANT TO BE A SACRIFICE! 

"I heard a ROAR and I looked and I saw a Lamb standing as if slain"  A sacrifice I cannot make, a sacrifice I do not want to make, a sacrifice I do not want to be made.  And that lamb reaches out with His strong right arm and touches my head and then I hear, I bow, and I listen.  A whole new process, allowing me to make it from "Hear" to There.

What's in a name?

What a totally rewarding year.  My son got married to a fabulous, Godly woman who will help him carry on our family name.  That is HUGE!  My youngest is getting married next month to another young, Godly woman.  And my oldest boy will be married soon to a beautiful Christian woman that
is precious and makes him smile like he did when he was a boy (with real joy and a slightly diabolical bent).  On top of that, my oldest brother is alive and healing after a terrible accident.

I have an adversary in the business world that is angry at me and thinks I have really been out to get him.  It’s not true, but it is how he feels so he is fighting back.  Against nothing really, but he is fighting.  At first I was mad, then I took stock of the situation. 

What a sad situation he has.  He was abandoned by his father and mother.  He was taken in by a Sacramento Businessman and raised without rules.  He is, for all intents and purposes, an orphan.  His adoptive father threatened to sue him in court if he used his last name.  It is tragic at best and a tragedy that I can’t take part in.

My father on the other hand, provided for me, wrestled with me and loved my mother until the day he went to heaven.  I was allowed to bear his name from the day of my birth and that was a badge of honor to him.  What a life I was given.  While others are despised by family, I was made a part of one. 

I came across a letter my father typed to himself 47 years ago wherein my father states "God's blessings to me and my family is unabounding, and yet as is said of the disciples, 'they forgot the miracle of the five thousand.' It seems that we shrink in our faith as we encounter the obstacles of life. Allowing others to be our assurance." [sic]   As I read that I thought how proud I am of him and how blessed I am to have been his son, to watch as he and my mother raised us in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  No threat of loss of our name.

Then I realized that I have a more valuable name that I am allowed to bear, in part because of Mom and Dad, but more because of a great God and Father who took dead and lifeless bones and breathed life into them and called him His child.  Not based on any personal merit in the man, it was a gift.  And I can say with my father “God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart."

Our Days are Numbered

You tell me.  What are your thoughts about it?  Have you looked it up?  These are the questions and comments we would get when we had a question about anything, but mostly Scripture.  Dad loved to read, and talk about the Scripture.  Dad and Mom, never let us think lazy.  He would not offer an answer when the world was our encyclopedia.  We needed to bring something to the conversation and he would gladly discuss it, dare I say debate it?

People have only so many days to live, but what people do and think and ask during those days can live beyond them.  18,108 days ago, I was given to Jim and Dee Lewis, I am forever their son.  How they lived, how they loved has kept right on living in and through me each and every hour for 434,605 hours.  That’s ominous if you think about it, and thanks to dad and mom, I think about it a lot.  What will live on after you?  That’s what I ask myself.  What have I been doing for 434,605 hours?  As I look back, I think so many things.  I dislike myself more and more with every thought.  I wish I could hide.

After about the first 3,650 days of my life, Dad used to take us on Sundays to the local Convalescent hospital where we would sing, and laugh and feel sick and watch as people at the very end of their days would “Well up” as Dad would say.  They cried, as Mom played the piano and 5 kids sang “Why should I feel discouraged?  Why should the shadows fall?  Why should my heart feel lonely, and long for heaven, and home?  When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He.  His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”   They cried as dad proclaimed to them that Jesus loved, could and would save them from eternal death, if they would only reach out to Him and ask Him to forgive them.  They would forever be sons and daughters.  Probably some heard, by God’s grace, and believed.  Who knows, but Dad and Mom did the work of an evangelist in those days.  That is how they lived and loved.

365 days ago, my Dad had 2 days left on earth.  24 hours earlier he left me a message because I did not have my phone with me.  “If you have time, maybe you can call the Neurologist and check on his findings from the tests. Don’t feel like you have to, I know you’re busy.”   He had lived 27,304 days the last 40 were the most challenging.

How could it be that the events of 15,000+/- days ago, singing, and laughing and crying during that simple little church service for dead people, at the end of their lives, could mean so much more to me, than it could ever have meant to them.  By God’s great grace I can look back, on those hours that formed me because of how a man and his wife, just a man and his wife, lived and loved.  And those Sundays continued on in my life and heart and mind as will that day 363 days ago when that man and his wife read together for the last time Ephesians 4:4-7 "There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it."

Just 2 more days and my Dad would, fall on his knees, with his head bowed low and “well up” and cry out in anguish, mixed with fear, and ask what does all this mean? And then in my mind’s eye dad would feel the fingers on the strong hand of Jesus reach out and lift his chin toward His own face and Jesus would ask dad in reply, What are your thoughts about it?  Have you looked it up? 

He had, more than 18,108 days before, many times.  He is forever a son.

From each according to his ability...

It’s freezing cold and windy out there.  There is not a single cloud above me but there are dark clouds way out there at the edge of the earth and right where the Pacific Ocean ends.  It’s amazing.  The wind is blowing east off the water at about 15 MPH.  The water is crashing hard on the rocky coast and I literally love every sight and sound.


As I sat, and looked out at the water, the wind blowing in my face, freezing my brain, I started thinking about the ocean again.  Did you know there are species of sea life that can not live at 20 or 30 feet below the surface?  They have to be miles below to survive.  Still others can’t live below 30 to 50 feet below the surface for too long.   There are multiple strata of Sea life that require different things from the ocean and give different things to the ocean so that the circle of life can continue.  Each is appointed to his lot.

As I looked at the water and thought, I saw a red-tailed hawk, there are lots of them out here on the west coast, soaring in one spot.  It is alone in the sky to my view.  There is no other bird flying overhead, or on the ground, or even at this moment in the ocean.  It is all by itself in this endeavor.  It did not move an inch; it just hovered, freezing cold wind blowing in its face.  It steels itself, immovable, tipping its wings to keep the wind flowing under it keeping it aloft while tilting its tail side to side to hold it steady.  Six minutes passed and I almost forgot about the ocean.  In an instant its tail tipped and its head pointed down to the earth.  It dropped like an arrow and deeply sank its talons into the flesh of a small field mouse.  The hawk now readied itself to eat.  Then an amazing thing happened, it was not 2 seconds and in flew a large black Raven to claim some portion of the prey. It was amazing.

It struck me that here you have in the ocean so many species each living out its life, each is appointed to its place and each cannot live or thrive outside of its place.   And with this backdrop to this scene of one hawk, willing to risk everything, work hard and brave the storm and claim the prize a Black Raven watched and lay in wait to do what it does best, steal.

I Saw…

Grandpa used to say a silly little limerick to us as kids “I see said the blind man to his deaf wife, as he picked up his hammer and saw.”

St. John tells us that the Angel said to him, LOOK, and I turned and I saw…
 

I am at the ocean today and all this past week.  Anyone that knows me knows that I love the ocean.  I sat on the Rock that I always sit on and I listened again.  It seems like it would be easy to swim out and reach the Horizon.  It’s not that far away really, it is really just right there.  The problem is that when you go looking for something you aren’t satisfied with the object of your first glance.  The further you go the further the Horizon is to you.  It moves away from you.  That’s what I saw as I looked at it from that Rock.
 

I looked at the Seals in the ocean; they peek out of the water and float like a bobber on the top of a small wave.  They dive directly into the big waves, not sure why I can’t see what they're doing.  Similar dilemma with the birds:  they float, they fly, they dive, they always eat.  They seem to be right where they want to be.  But they are still short of the Horizon by a long shot.  It’s like they have no clue what is out there for them.  I do. 
 

Walk with me for a minute along the shore.  It's easier to walk on the sand that has been washed by the ocean.  There’s that line where the tide has soaked the ground and made the normally loose sand more firm.  But the closer you get and the easier it is to walk the more imminent the potential danger “Rip Tides” the signs warn “NO LIFEGUARD.”  It’s the most dangerous place near the edge.   As I walk further from the shoreline the sand is dry and harder to walk in.  But you can smell that ocean so clean, and so self-sufficient.  It contains all that it needs to survive and to thrive.  The closer that I walk to the ocean, the more firm and solid my footsteps become and my feet don’t sink and slide back as I try to walk.
 

So that’s the beach, that’s the shoreline, but the goal is always the Horizon.  I want to reach that.  Not by plane or boat, or some other form of transportation, but me, I want to reach it.  It can’t really move.  It doesn’t really get further as I move toward it.  It just makes no sense.  That edge is where I need to be, and I will reach it.
 

Looking down from the Rock, and having been sitting here for about one hour, and listening to the crashing tide hitting the base of the Rock.  The Rock never moves, it is so incredible to sit on it and look out at that Horizon.  But back to the tide, listen to the sound of the tide when you are here.  It always sounds the same but never the same.  The sound is great.  The smell is just as good, salty, fishy, sandy, and full of clean oxygen.  Man, you can really breathe out here.  The sound and the smell are great but you can’t get over the feel of that tide as the waves crash on the Rock.  A mist, almost imperceptible, cools your face and any exposed skin on your body.  For me it’s typically my face, neck and arms.  Never really on the small of my back, that would be weird.  Sound, smell, feel, it nearly transports me from the Rock to that Horizon. 
 

Then I looked down and I saw the Tide from the Rock.  It was hitting the Rock but not angrily rather like it was saying “We’re together like we always have been.”  See, Creation is all about God, it is NOT God, but it proves God, His glory, His power, His beauty, His sweetness, His very character to the extent we can see it.
 

And for what seemed like the first time I Saw the Horizon in the Tide.  It doesn’t move away, It comes to us if we are on the Rock and it speaks to us, and breathes with us and touches our face and neck.

The Ring

To the Three Knights of Carmichaelia

…As they came into the clearing where the battle was being fought, they looked and saw the small, lifeless body of one of the best scribes ever to serve the King.  Giarc Siwel is gone…

Pulling his body behind the horse, they carried him to the Hill of Bones to place his body among byegone warriors.  Large rocks surround the hill, huge outcroppings as high as the highest trees, 10, 12, 15 times as tall as a man, and no entrance--it must be scaled.  In a way, it forms a giant crown, with its diadems polished by the flesh of those dead.  Moss covers the rocks partially; rain falls and grips the stones making it nearly impossible to climb.  The bodies of the dead are pulled up the sides of the stones; fresh blood dripping down them permanently stains the sides of the green slick boulders.  As they reach the top, they fall, and find themselves nestled among the remains of great men who served the King and died.

For a warrior, death is the next promotion.  The men know not to remove sword, rings or personal belongings, not even under garments, a warrior must be put to rest as he died, no change.  

The lifeless body Giarc is hoisted up, scraping the stone and aiding in the polish of the stone wall.  Slowly pulling the rope until his body drags up over the crowning edge and falls to the bottom on the opposite side of rock with men each greater and yet more humble than the other.  On his right hand Giarc bore a gold ring.

As the body of Giarc fell inside the citadel, each man struck the rock with his sword.  Seven strikes, three times, and the men sighed, deep, agonizing breaths, knowing the job on this battlefield, on this day was made more difficult by the loss of one of their own.  And the rock remained immovable. 

As they looked down, small bits of the stone lay there--some larger than others but the significance of this stone was immeasurable.  It was on this Stone that the King’s own Son swore off the finality of Scratch’s deadly bite.  Here, at this rock, He won the battle’s end, yet by His own mercy, allowed the battle to rage on.  These stones drizzled with the blood of the fight that they embody, were gathered to present to the Knights.  One stone for each Knight; each to remind them of the battle which rages, while won, no substitute could ever replace these first stones.  There is no “new stone” of this kind.

Careful selection was made of the gold that would hold the bits of stone for the Knights.  Gold previously won in battle, to remind them that only victory labored for is at once beautiful and savory, while painful and sweet.

They forged the rings, which held the stones.  The King personally inspected each stone, considered it, and commanded that His servant bless it.  Each shone with a color different than the other but each bore the blood of a warrior which had stained the stone of the great hill.  In each stone the King saw the Son, and in the Son He saw His martyrs, and the servant, and the Princess, and the Knights.  And in that Rock they remained, immovable.

And at the King’s command the servant said out loud:

Blessed art thou oh Lord Our God ruler of heaven and earth,
Who gives children as a gift;
Who makes each a diadem more valuable than diamonds;
Who forgives sin where no forgiveness is sought;
Who remembers the faithful;
And Who restores what is lost.

And with that, all that was lost was restored, and a new beginning began, and a Knight was returned to his place, never to be brought low again.

My Hero

Dad loved his family. He defended each one: their character, their position within the family, and their right to make their own choices.

He made us a team. He kept us together and we always played, and ate dinner, and went to sleep each night together without fail.

I remember (kind of) being dressed in a white T-shirt, tucked into my perfectly pressed jeans, and my Hoss Hat. Dad wore a yellowish short sleeve shirt, pants, and tennis shoes. I sat on the handlebars in front, and I knew I didn’t have to worry about a thing, so I guess I just fell asleep. Totally relaxed, because I also knew that dad was right behind me holding that bike up. He was my hero.

We lived in a small house on 1101 Silver Lake Dr., and I remember it like I lived there my whole life. So many good times. Dad hated it because it was a dangerous area and we could have gotten hurt. Looking back though, I can see that he kept his eye out for me and I never even thought about being in danger. He was always right there with me, and I never had to worry. I just rested.

After work sometimes, Dad would come home and I remember he almost always had candy in his pocket. He would hand it out to us, and that was nice, but we really loved when he would wrap his arms around us and wrestle us to the ground. Playing like that probably only lasted for a minute, but it seemed like the greatest hour of our day. He was really there. Really present. We would all play, and eat dinner, and sleep.

There was always the pallor of financial stress, but Dad kept things going like he does. We were a team He was right there with me and told me everything was going to be fine. He never responded with judgment or anger to my rants. He just stayed with me and I never had to really concern myself with the things outside the team. Outside in the world. I just slept and everything would be ok the next day.

I was right there with Dad the day he and Mom made the decision to leave town for a city far away to start over. I felt so empty and so very alone. I was afraid, but he encouraged me like Dad does, and in the end I still didn’t have to stress. I could always rest and sleep.

I called Dad a lot. I like to talk to him. I would just invent problems to run past him. What the problem was didn’t matter so long as I could hear him work it out with me. He always had ideas, and would hear mine. He stayed with me through all my problems real or not and the answer was the same as it always was. Just rest and sleep.

Dad always made sure I remembered that other people mattered more than me. Not to him, but to that innate selfish desire we all have just beneath the surface of our instincts. Work was first for God, then for others, then for me. This is not an easy lesson to learn, and I am still learning it today, but he always reminded me, and taught me, and all I had to do was grow and rest.

This year was tough. Dad got sick. He faced what really scared him. I could see it in his face, and hear it in his voice.  He would call me often and always opened with “O, hi son.” And then would ask for my help with something. That’s how we always talked when one of us was scared. I heard in his voice that morning that he was facing a real lion. The Lion was victorious as He inevitably always is, But to Dad, that day He was was a lamb, waiting to usher Dad to Himself and into the only place where Dad can play, and eat dinner, and rest.


That Lamb, that is a Lion, is my Hero.