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.

Happy New Year!!!

2012, what a year this promises to be. If you're like me, you get a little nostalgic when you stop and think that time and space as we know it are scheduled to end this year. The Mayan's were very clear about this; December 21, 2012 is the last day that anyone will ever be able to calendar an event.

That's right; the Mayan's predicted a total end to calendars. I'm saddened by this because what will people that don't know me give me for Christmas now? I like the calendars I get each year. My favorite of course is the Ronald Reagan commemorative calendar with many of his notable quotes. I also like the little ones I get from insurance carriers and that place we buy pet food. Gosh, I'm gonna miss the Word of the Day. But I wax nostalgic.

I also get a little scared because "Hey: When will it be ok to start singing Auld Lang Syne?"

It has been said that "necessity is the mother of invention" and I am confident in the people of this country. Someone somewhere will pull themselves up by the boot straps and will draw a grid of 31 boxes and place a number in each box and we will dance. We will all start setting appointments again.

Until then I say, "Thank you Microsoft Outlook, I will use you!" "I will use you until the end of time."

Who is This King?

There is a song that starts “Who is this King of Glory that…” and I thought that is a great question. That is something that great men have contemplated for centuries. I can picture David sitting on the rock overlooking his sheep and asking himself, Who is this King?

I love the Ocean; I love the smell of it, the sound of it and the vast expanse. I sometimes am blessed to go to that place on Earth where God speaks to me the loudest, Bodega Bay, CA. Gorgeous, it is gorgeous. I love to put on my jeans in the morning, not early, and my T-shirt and Leather bomber jacket that was my grandfathers and go down to the ocean. I sit on a certain spot, on a certain outcropping of giant rock and I stop. And I hear the voice “as it were the sounds of many waters” and I seriously marvel. Don’t think I am some strange spiritualist that thinks that sound is Actually God. I don’t, I just imagine. I move closer to Him on that rock.

The ocean really does hold clues. He is the great distance between me and that edge of the earth where the water falls off and pours out into eternity. He is the depth that can not be searched or ever fully known. He is every hidden thing that never surfaces, and every known thing that jumps from the water and reflects the morning sun back at me. He is the one that has raised men up and pulled them down. He is at once calm and tumultuous.

What is amazing to me is that you can’t even come up with enough words to describe all that He is. But what is even more amazing is that like the ocean, while He can’t be fully known or ever tamed, He can be gazed upon and enjoyed. He supplies all that the mariner needs. He cares to be ridden from place to place. He longs to be searched and to those that will with fear and trembling, He opens up and meets the deepest desires of the heart.

So, I go on looking and contemplating this King of Glory? As I think about Him, my mind explodes with thoughts about him. So many I am unable to report them all.

He is the height of beauty. He is the spark and flame of wisdom;
He is the giver of knowledge and the Knowledge itself;
He is a friend and confidant;
He rules over every thought and action of mankind;
He quickens the beast and the spirit of man alike, but not the same;
He is the One who must be known but can’t be grasped;
He is the giver of life and that very Life;
He is the door, the only portal to the Throne;
He is the supreme oracle of the Father;
He is the very first and the very last;
He is the flower on the hill and the hill itself;
He is the Lilly of the valley and the Bright and morning star;
He is the Rose of Sharon and the Rock of Gibraltar;
He is my Deliverer and my Captor;
He is the Servant while Master of all;
He can be fed upon but never exhausted;
He provides out of His wealth and spends nothing;

Then the waves crash again, and I flinch at the thundering sound of it. It is His voice telling me “Yes, all of that and more.”

He is Jesus, the Christ, the King of Glory, the Alpha and Omega. Nothing that is, is, apart from Him. He is the one that quickened my dead heart and gave it life. I did not seek Him, I did not know Him. I could not. But while I was still dead, He died and I lived. And He moves closer to me on that Rock.

The 7 Wonders of the World (We've All Seen Them)

Pick a town, and dirt road, and stream, a creek and put it back in time like 100 years ago. Take your mind there, picture that road. Walk down it, kick the dust smell the brush and trees. Look off to the left at the garden in the midst of the trees and fields. See that little chicken house surrounded by roses? Does it bother you there are only a few chickens and they don’t go in the chicken house, but those 7 silly lanky kids do.

Look at those kids, look at the faces. Those faces, 2, 4, 7, 10 years old are serious and weathered, worked, tanned, smooth and so full of joy.

Imagine them standing, waiting, each with a hoe, at least the ones old enough to hold a hoe. They have to be ready. Water is not something that comes from a faucet here, it comes from the man up stream. When he releases the water you better be ready to pull as much as you can into your garden. They need that water.  They need as much as they can get because it will feed them.  As the water flows at-will toward them, they all move swiftly and divert it into the garden watching as it washes over the soil that covers the seeds that they planted with their own hands.  Like the belly of the young child swooshing down the rollercoaster for the first time and feeling the fear that is drenched in the exhilaration followed by the gasp for air, they work hard.  This is not a joke, there is no time for frivolity now.

There is no food. Crops are not ready. There is no refrigerator they can run in and open and, without giving one thought to the God that provides, pull out a gallon of milk and drink up.  There is no fresh bread they can just grab and make a sandwich "Today is a scary day, a hungry day." They don’t have “too many of them, but they are real.”  They all looked at the sun, blazing on them and punishing them and they smile at each other. Only a few hours of chores left.

Finally, they have done what must be done for a family to survive. They don’t, not even one of them, work for themselves and what they might gain, they work for 8 other people, each loving 7 others, 7 precious people to whom they have a connection that will never find an equal. Without a word, the sense, the invisible communication, the plan opens up wide in each of them and at once as if commanded by a superior officer they run and shed the skins of labor. They tear off the shell of concern and they cast them on the floor, and run to the creek. Yes, it is the creek that you all pictured, the creek with the rope and the bank and the mud. With adolescent callouses on their hands they grab at that rope and swing out into the water where so many other beautiful kids from the “neighborhood” are swimming. In this creek, they were rich and ready to live and no one would tell them any different. You see at the creek, there were no castes, no wealth, no possessions, no title and no rules. They were all "Chicken-house, Brown-house kids."

Only four of them are left to tell the stories they lived. My grandma told me and my boys so many stories. I could tell you each of them as if I was there. She could tell a story. She didn’t think so; she didn’t think much of herself at all, but she was a treasure chest. Pregnant with history and adventure and love.

In her life, long, full and filled with trials. She smiled and laughed and loved. She traveled the entire world over and saw sights that were big and wonderful and amazing. She loved a man that was by all accounts bigger than life itself. But somehow nothing compared to the 7 wonders of the world. The 7 wonders that lived in that really little town, way down that little dirt road, close to the little stream, that ran into that creek with that rope and that beautiful mud, that took us back in time like 100 years ago.

Today is a full day, with food and drink and the absolute absence of fear about tomorrow. I sat with her frail fingers wrapped around her glass of water, no ice, as she tells me that “growing old isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” I sit with her in my little yard, outside my little house, watching my little boys swim in my little pool. And I cry in my heart, thankful, because God let me swing on that swing, and swim in that creek and redirect that water into that garden, that grew into vegetables, that fed 7 wonders of the world and us.

A Knight to Remember?

“A Knight to Remember” What does that mean? I have been asked that by a few people. In their eyes, I see the squint of mockery. They’d be right if I was the Knight to remember. Heck no, I am not. I’ll tell you if you want to know. No, never mind. I’ll just say this:

There is a great King. There is a Prince who loves the King more than He loves His own life. And there is a people, small creatures, not stately in appearance, nor impressive of speech, but fervent in their desire to serve the Prince and meet the Great King face to face.

There is an evil. It is a gray cloudish power that wraps itself around you and chokes the life out of you. It will at once make you tingle with desire to know more of it and shiver in terror. As you read this, you will feel a harsh but soft, hot breath on the back of your neck. The hair on the body of a human is created to sense the blackness and hatred of the one that rules the shadowy region in which he dwells. In this land, a legion of dark and bitterly hateful spirits live and serve. Their weapons are potent. They wield a sword that cannot be seen by human eyes but can be allowed to sink deep into the flesh of the man piercing all the way to the soul and shadowing the light which makes men grow with belief, hope and love.

But, there is another realm ruled by the Great King and loved fervently by His only Son, the Prince. This world is far more real than the one you sit in today. It is more comforting than the bed you sleep in, or the arms of the mother that holds you. Life wriggles and moves and grows spontaneously, instantly and constantly there. There is Water to drink. There are fish that dance, and have danced, the same dance since they were put there. They wave each fin to move and pump air into themselves, yet not without each intricate motion being first ordered by the Great King Himself. There are birds, such beautiful birds. Pure white, soothing blue, and black with yellow throats, red and light grey. So many different shapes that to describe them would only force images into the mind of the reader which would not do them justice. Long legs, short legs, long beaks, short ones, fat ones, thick feathers or no feathers at all. There are creatures of every kind, small and large, weak and powerful. It is a place all at once calm and bustling with busyness. We don’t live in the world I am describing, but it is the world to which some of us belong.

But, in our present world Death lurks and waits to exact its price from every man.

“Death” was not by order of the King yet the King rules over it and ruled over its conception and creation. It is in itself an enemy of the King; an opposite if you will, yet in no way an equal. I suppose it acts as a servant to the King while acting on its own. It can’t do whatever it wants, but whatever it wants it does. It longs to take from the King His voice, because it is that voice that restrains it. Oh and what a voice it is. Low and powerful but smooth as honey and bellowing at the most soothing end of a scale that does not exist, it really just becomes.

In His most righteous anger He need not raise his voice, for if the King was to raise his voice, one millionth of an octave, in anger, the whole of creation from His world to ours would be changed. Not changed in the sense of changing one’s mind, changed in the sense that NOTHING would remain as it was. No substance would be the same substance, no element the same element. No one would be who he or she was. And no one who was, would “be” again.

And there are three Knights. They are all noble, loving and fair, to all they meet, and to the servant, you will learn of him later. But they are human, bound to both a body of flesh and of rules, neither from which can they escape. And they, and only they, can fight the fight for which they have been conferred the title of Knight.

And there is a Knight to remember.

Hell

Is Hell literal? I have been asked this question over and over again by the same guy lately. His eyes are cold but not calloused, more scared. "I want to know" He says. I do too. But I think soon I will.

I believe in punishment. But eternal damnation? It doesn't make any sense. "What's the point?" I think I know, because if there's ever anyone that deserved it, it is me. I deserve it. My heart filled with obvious, visible, palatable iniquity must needs be damned.

What then is this grace that is spoken so highly of? Why am I even breathing? Why am I able to sit and look at this screen and type this ridiculous rambling list of questions?

I do believe in my total depravity. My total, total inability to live up to a standard. Even my own standard. It is not possible.

Jesus, appeal my case! I am so dead, so devastated, so deserving of being crushed in the wine press of Your wrath. Clothe me, or destroy me. I only deserve the one. I can only attain the one. I can only desire the one. You can not be taken hold of, You can only take hold of. You are the Beautiful One.

God, have mercy!

Hell is not about punishment, but about the goodness and greatness and beauty, and perfection and righteousness of God. I am so bland.

READ THIS: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-echo-and-insufficiency-of-hell-part-1