Has anybody seen my good friend …

Curtis & I met the first week of 7th grade, and by the end of the school year we were inseparable. For 5 ½ years the two of us were our own little clique, unaffected by the “jocks”, “hoods”, “hippies” or any of the other little subcultures of the time.

Together we explored nature, rock & roll, puberty, counter-cultures, and Christianity. We once tried experiments in developing ESP so we could communicate without talking, but gave it up because we already thought so much alike there didn’t seem to be any point. We made “bombs” together - very unsuccessful ones, fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your gender and age), played with knives, bows & arrows, swords - all the usual boy stuff. We joked and laughed together. Curtis introduced me to Bill Cosby on a sleepless night in the pitch black of a pup tent by reciting, verbatim, the entire “Bill Cosby is a very funny fellow” album. To this day, when I hear recordings of Cosby’s “Noah”, in my memory Curtis does it better.

Curtis lived and breathed motorcycles. He could tell me the make, model, and displacement of any approaching bike by the sound of the engine before it came into sight. After he got his license, I was attached to the rear of his BSA like a piece of velcro. If we weren’t in school, working, or sleeping, we were on that motorcycle going somewhere. The only exceptions occurred because of the occasional girl friend; not quite enough room on one motorcycle for 3 (or 4) people.

In the middle of our Junior year, Curtis’s family moved away. I was absolutely devastated, as if I’d been torn in half. I spiraled into a horrible depression and came within inches of committing suicide.

I saw Curtis only two or three times after he moved away, the last time in 1973; we eventually lost touch altogether. On a drive through central California many years ago, Yvonne & I stopped in his old home town and looked through the phone book, hoping at least to find a relative if not Curtis himself, but there weren't any Ellis's listed.

He has been on my mind a lot lately. Not sure why. But if you happen to see him, please tell him I miss him.

What goes around...

Our youngest, Megan, was born at home (an event that deserves a whole story), so we didn't have the usual data collected that a baby born in the hospital would, such as birth weight. When Meg was a couple days old, her aunts took her down to the local grocery store and weighed her on the meat scale. When I found out, I was horrified. It seemed so demeaning to take my little baby and put her on a meat scale! As I recall, I made a rather big deal of it.

So you can imagine my chagrin as, many years later, I'm reading my mom's entry under "Weight" in my own baby book: "Eight and one half pounds on the scale at Safeway"!

Who defines reality

While browsing the New Book table at Borders recently, I flipped through several pages of "God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist ". The absurdity of the idea made it fairly compelling reading.

Using science to disprove God is like using a ruler to prove that the ocean is not wet. That water is wet should be self evident, but those who will not believe in wetness are insisting on proof using methodology that is totally irrelevant to the properties of water. God, simply by definition, is completely Other, wholly and forever beyond any capacity we mortals will ever have for measuring and testing. If we cannot accept that our mere existence is sufficient enough proof of God's existence, then there is nothing more that the laboratory can produce that will be any more convincing.

Prevailing Western culture believes we became enlightened when we enshrined human rationality and eliminated from our definition of reality everything that could not be seen, touched, measured, observed or tested. Such enlightened people now relegate things of the spirit to the annals of mythology as relics of primitive, ignorant savages.

And therein lies the problem, of course, because (to paraphrase Tozer) it is the spirit that apprehends God. It is the soul that has the ears and eyes that hear and see God.

Science is far too limited in what it can know for me to let it define my reality.

"I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone, causing the omens of boasters to fail, making fools out of diviners, causing wise men to draw back and turning their knowledge into foolishness..." Is 44:24,25

Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you; for you have said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me.'" Is 47:10b

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 1 Cor. 2:14

We sing about God because we believe in Him. We are not trying to offend anybody, but the evidence that we have seen of Him in our small little lives trumps your opinion about whether or not He exists. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

Unresolved Tension

In the initial shock of a crisis it’s natural, and easy, to call for help. In the immediate aftermath of a crisis as well, it’s natural and easy to share with others the good news of a crisis overcome, or even bad news of loss and defeat. But when the immediate crisis becomes a prolonged battle with no end in sight, it’s not so natural or easy to keep asking and sharing.

When a crisis evolves into a long slog of a battle that seems to have no end, when there’s little or no progress – or even worse, when there are losses and defeats – the battle turns inward and weariness, discouragement, frustration and depression become the enemy. Hope and the will to fight are inevitable casualties.

Anyone left still watching this blog may have noticed a bit of a hiatus recently. Fighting several battles at once, each one seeming never to end, has brought on a weariness that can’t bear to face the struggle, a fatigue that begs for relief or escape.

Into this depression came my last post (How Great is our God). More than just my own wondering, I felt like God was confronting me, asking whether I would continue to believe in his goodness, whether I would continue to trust him, whether I would continue to obey him and stay on the front lines even if I couldn’t see the end. Even if the end looked like a defeat. Even if I was certain that, in the end, there would be defeat.

I don’t know where this fits theologically, but I feel God calling me to the battle whether or not there is any hope of winning. I could very well lose Yvonne to cancer. Relationships that I desperately wish were healed may never be. Friends and family that I dearly love may never respond to God's invitation to redemption and wholeness.

Comprehending this call from God to live in unresolved tension is a new thing for me; I want to believe that God always, sooner or later, answers prayers and resolves these conflicts, these tensions in our lives. Well... maybe; maybe not. All I know at the moment is that for me to be faithful means to continue to trust, to continue to pray, to continue to do whatever I can to bring God’s kingdom to bear in these battles, and to do it as though I intend to win them.

Dear God, grant me the courage.

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Hebrews 10:35,36

How great is our God?

I was following along the theme of our morning worship service just fine until we got to the 3rd song, where I was diverted and never quite made it back (sorry, Gregg).

Somewhere in the middle of singing “How Great is Our God” I suddenly wondered, Do I believe in God’s greatness? Really believe? (Warning: inadequate, somewhat silly analogy ahead) If I could place all the seemingly overwhelming issues in my life on one side of a scale and place God on the other, do I believe that God would outweigh them? More to the point, do I really believe Jesus understood as fact what he said when he announced that he was the fulfillment of God’s promise to preach good news to the poor, release captives, restore sight to the blind, release the oppressed, and restore us to our place as His children?

Or do my actions (or lack of) testify that I believe he was just putting us on?

"... this is my prayer. ... that you may receive that inner illumination of the spirit which will make you realize ... how tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God. That power is the same divine energy which was demonstrated in Christ when he raised him from the dead..." Eph 1:16-20

Vacation

One of my stated purposes with this blog was to post photos from time to time. I haven't done much of that, mostly because I haven't had time to take any. This has been especially frustrating because I bought a new digital slr a year ago and haven't had the opportunity to really get familiar with it. But a recent vacation gave me opportunity to play with it - almost to my heart's content. Hope you enjoy!




If you click on the slide show, it will take you to my google photos where you can see them much larger.

Now, isn't this better than sitting you all down in my living room and putting you to sleep with a slide show? :)

Coasting

There’s a place in Eastern Oregon where the road leaves the high desert and begins a long, gradual descent through a wide valley, then begins a somewhat steeper ascent into the foothills of the Cascade mountains. The whole of this stretch of road, from the descent on the East to the ascent on the West, is perhaps 5 or 6 miles long and straight as an arrow.

Once, returning from visiting relatives in Eastern Oregon, I stopped the car just where the road begins its descent, put the transmission in neutral, and let the car begin coasting. If I remember correctly, the car was moving at roughly 40 mph when I reached the valley floor. I was still coasting when I reached the foothills of the mountains. Once the car began climbing, though, it wasn’t very long before it slowed to a stop, then began coasting backward.

Just a few years ago, God brought the image of that road to my mind as a way, I believe, of showing me what my life had become. I had been coasting spiritually for many years. For a time I may even have had the appearance of making progress, but when life became an uphill climb, not only did I stop moving forward, I began to fall backwards.

There were many reasons – none of them good – for choosing to coast. Now, of course, I deeply regret it. It was wasted time. There were people who needed help I wasn’t prepared to give. There were things God might have done through me, but I wasn’t ready. It pains me to realize I wasn’t the example of a spiritual father that my kids needed to see. Worst of all from my current vantage point, though, is that I now deeply need the foundation of relationship with God that I should have been building all that time. Not that God doesn’t shower his grace and love on me (read all the other posts here to see otherwise) but like everything else in life, the strength and character that marks the kind of man I wish I were only happens after years of walking with God; there just isn’t any other way.

And from experience – both automotive and spiritual – I can tell you that trying to restart any forward momentum while coasting backwards down a hill is not an easy task.

Don't coast. Nothing in this life can make up for lost time with God.

Spring time in Oregon

Since I'm having a hard time keeping up with posting, I thought I'd cop out and post some photos instead.

Springtime in the Willamette Valley means Daffodils, and Mir & Yvonne went nuts when given permission to pick all they wanted for free.





Hannah turns 19, and Miriam 25, chafing a bit at the affront to her dignity :)

(ugh) Politics

One of the promises I made to myself when I started writing this blog is that I would never mention politics. For one thing, it is so pointlessly divisive. For another, it turns my stomach.

Politics has always been a rough and tumble game, but in the last 10 years it has taken on a much uglier persona, one marked on all sides by venomous hatred of the opposition, where name-calling and character assassination passes for discourse.

I thought I had reached bottom in my cynicism, but the news this week about the bitter bidding war between the two leading democratic candidates for the endorsement of a prominent black pastor brought me to a new low. How can anyone believe in the integrity of the political process - or the church - when endorsements go to the highest bidder?

But I felt like I should at least make an attempt to remind myself and my children (and anyone else who cares to listen) of a few truths:

• “With whatever measure you judge, you shall be judged”. A recent letter to the editor in our local paper opened with , “…most Republicans and/or right-wingers I encounter are too intransigent and egotistical and seldom, if ever, willing to acknowledge errors, much less apologize for them”. What struck me was that I had just read almost the exact statement online – virtually verbatim, describing Democrats and liberals. I wish people could remember that intransigence, ego, arrogance, hypocrisy and stubbornness are hardly the exclusive domain of any political party; they are all very much ingrained in human nature.

• Demonizing the opposition is a cheap copout. I know both conservatives and liberals who are involved in political and social causes, who work very hard to educate themselves about current events, who care passionately for the downtrodden and weak, who make every effort to ensure that government does the right things for all concerned, and yet have reached completely opposite political conclusions from one another.

• The political pendulum always swings back. Always. The party that rides into Washington on its moral high horse to rout out the lying, egotistical hypocrites always find that, four or eight years later, they themselves have become the evil, lying hypocrites who are being ridden out of town.

Our desperation for government to fix all our problems becomes more shrill every year, yet our country continues collapsing in on itself. Will we never learn that government cannot fix our problems? Our social sicknesses are caused by our twisted and broken human nature. Our only hope is a new nature, and for that, Jesus is the only answer.

Lord of the storm

December & January were horrible months. What was handed to me as a 40 hour project in early December became, after analysis & research, a major undertaking requiring approximately 300 hours work, but the deadline stayed the same. Ambiguous, incorrect and unstated project requirements, an unhappy Customer, an unsupportive project manager, and the added frustration of technical problems, all combined to thoroughly wipe out my Christmas spirit. I had more migraines in December than I’d had the previous 11 months combined, and often went 3 or more days on less than 4 hours sleep because of anxiety attacks. I was angry and resentful (after all, what sadist schedules a major business software implementation for Jan 2, adding to what is already the most stressful time of year?!!) and more than a little rebellious (No, I cannot work on the weekend!!). It was not pretty.

I’ve been praying a lot: prayer for strength, sleep, creativity, solutions, endurance, and of course praying for deliverance from the pressure. And God has answered those prayers in various ways (I was delighted and grateful to learn a few years ago that God understands computer technology). Yet in the agony of it all, I kept feeling that God was trying to tell me something, to show me something of Himself that I wasn’t seeing. And I think I finally got it…

One morning last week, as I was praying and thinking about the storm of stress swirling around me like a hurricane, I had a mental image of a man in the middle of a chaotic swirl of angry and frustrated faces and voices, standing calm, unperturbed, and totally free from anxiety and stress. And I thought Yes, that’s it, that’s how I want to be. Then I looked up at my bulletin board, saw the woodcut image of Jesus saving Peter from drowning, and realized that I’d had the answer in front of me all the time: The man I saw in my mind’s eye is a man who understands that Jesus is Lord even over the wind and the waves; and because he understands and trusts Jesus’ lordship, he is calm and confident in his assurance that God is greater than any of the storms that threaten to overwhelm us.

There were many storms in my life last year, and even though I’d looked to God for help in each one, I hadn’t come to the point of truly comprehending and believing that God is Lord over the storms; nor had I accepted that he is entirely trustworthy to keep me safe, or - even better - that he actually desires to meet me in the storms and walk through them with me. The calm assurance that I want only comes when I trust Him completely; and that unshakable trust only comes as I consistently walk with Him through the storms and experience his grace and love – and yes, his deliverance. It's an assurance - not that I won't experience any more storms, but that the storms won't have any more power over me.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God."

“Take courage, it is I. Don’t be afraid. … How little you trust me. Why did you doubt?”