Standing at the Gate

This morning, I smiled remembering a recent event.  Bill and I had a very tight connection while flying to California to visit our son and his family.  As we got off the plane on the first leg of the trip, Bill said that he would run to the next gate and make sure they kept the gate open for me.  As soon as he could get past the lady on the escalator with the large suitcase, he took off leaving me in the dust.

When I arrived, he was standing in the opening with the gate agent making sure they waited for me.

So, this morning I pictured him running up to heaven’s gate.  Although, I know they would not close that gate, I pictured him standing there, as he did at the airport, saying, “My wife is coming.  She’s a bit behind me, but she is coming.”

The mental picture makes me smile through tears.

Why...and yet

Why don’t I hear his footsteps on the stairs,

The rhythm so familiar?

The youthful, lively tempo of his feet,

Denying his age.

 

Why isn’t he walking in the door,

His blue eyes twinkling in amusement?

“Why are you telling people I am gone,

I have passed into another place?”

 

Why doesn’t he wrap me in his arms,

Or plant a kiss on my lips?

Why don’t I feel his warmth,

As we sit on the sofa or lie in bed?

 

I must be having a bad dream.

Surely I will wake up soon.

My heart breaks at this new reality.

At the silence and stillness and emptiness.

 

And yet, I delight in the memory,

That he was once mine and I was his,

That our love was a gift of a gracious God,

And one day we will rejoice together in His presence.

Thoughts on Numbers 10:1-10

The silver trumpets sound.

We gather all around,

 Awaiting your direction.

 

The silver trumpets sound,

Though the enemy surround,

We trust in your protection.

 

The silver trumpets sound.

Reveal a glory that astounds.

We bask in its reflection.

Zane Grey and I

In preparation for leaving our apartment on Amelia Island, we are starting to think about how we will get rid of everything here.  We already have our home in the retirement community in Fort Myers furnished, so there is very limited room for items from this apartment to be moved there.  One of the boxes here contains quite a collection of Zane Gray books which Bill acquired.  Some of these appear to be First Editions, so they might be valuable, and we don’t want to just put them in a dumpster.  Yesterday, we sorted through them and made a list with publishing company and copyright dates.  This exercise brought a memory back.

As a high school student, I was very diligent.  I did not take the easy way out when completing assignments.  So, when it came time to pick a book for a book report, I opted for weighty material.  I don’t remember what all I waded through, but I do remember Walden Pond was one of the mental challenges I tackled.  I had the same English teacher for both my Junior and Senior years.  He and I engaged regularly in mental jousting.  He delighted in baiting me by bringing up topics he knew we would disagree on.  He referred to me as his “worthy adversary.”

However, as I thought about the final book report for my high school career, I decided it was time to give myself a break.  I got a Zane Grey novel…I think maybe it was Riders of the Purple Sage…and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I knew my English teacher would be shocked, and I thoroughly enjoyed that too.

When I got the book report back, I had a 95…that was actually the highest grade he would give.  He claimed no one ever deserved 100, because there was no such thing as a perfect paper.  I had to laugh though when I saw what he had done.  He had circled my name in red.  He had circled Zane Grey in red.  He had drawn a line between the circles, and on the line, he had written “incongruity."

If he thought that was an incongruity, he didn’t know me as well as he thought he did!

Thoughts on Ecclesiastes 12:1-8

Give some thought while you are young,

To the swiftness of your days.

All too soon that time will come,

The slow and painful phase.

 

Your vision will diminish,

Your teeth are not your own,

You walk with steps uncertain,

Your joints will creak and moan.

 

You awaken all too early,

Or don’t sleep well at night.

The sounds of birds grow faint.

You’re now afraid of height.

 

You tremble when you walk,

But no longer with desire.

The advancing of your years

Has quenched that youthful fire.

 

And then there is the moment,

When something truly breaks,

A back, a hip, a heart, a mind,

And your whole being quakes.

 

The time has come to turn to dust,

You know that you will die.

Will “everything is meaningless”

Be the last thing that you cry?

 

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth!  (Ecclesiastes 12:1)

 

The Land Will Vomit You Out

If you defile the land, it will vomit you out.. Leviticus 18:28 

I know that we no longer live under Old Testament law, but this strikes me as a very relevant warning.  The preceding verses in this chapter have detailed various ways in which a land can be defiled.  They deal primarily with sexual sin of many types…all of which are freely practiced in our society today.  Some of them are even applauded today and viewed as “normal” expressions of sexuality, rather than perversions.  Child sacrifice is also mentioned in the midst of all of the sexual sins. 

I wonder what it means for a land to vomit out a people.  In the case of this passage, it meant that the idolatrous people living in Canaan were destroyed by and for the Israelites who came in to inhabit the land after their exodus from Egypt.  This passage was God’s warning that the same could happen to them if they took up the evil practices of the previous inhabitants.  Of course, they did, and the nation was eventually destroyed, and its people dispersed.  It was centuries before the nation of Israel was restored, and it exists now in constant peril from some of its neighbors.

But, I am wondering today whether we in the United States are at risk of being “vomited out.”  Or, perhaps, the whole world is in danger of being “vomited out.”  Whether global warming is man-made or a normal variation such as has happened during the world’s history is not something I wish to argue.  But, is it a natural consequence of the way in which humanity has defiled the earth with their rejection of God’s standards?

People talk about Mother Nature being angry.  We all know she is a myth.  God is not a myth, and he certainly must be angry as he sees mankind flaunt its disregard for the principles he knows are for our own and the earth’s good.

He, of course, knows we are broken.  He knows we are powerless to bring about our own salvation, so He sent his son to pay the price for our sin.  We each need to come to a personal understanding and acceptance of this immeasurable gift.  As we enter into this relationship with him, we begin to learn how he wants us to live.  We do not need a set of laws such as we find in Leviticus.  The Spirit of God convicts each of us.  We respond out of love and gratitude for the sacrifice he made on this day (Good Friday) centuries ago.

A Hairy Situation

 

Yesterday in church, I was reminded of one of the traumas of my youth. 

A little girl, perhaps about 6 years old, was seated 2 or 3 rows ahead of us.  Her hair was absolutely beautifully styled.  I am making the assumption that her mother spent considerable time with her “do.”  A French braid began above her right ear and encircled the back of her head.  At the left ear it turned into a traditional braid which was several inches long.  The braid had then been placed across the top of her head.  Because her hair had been more blond when she was younger, the end of the braid was lighter than the other hair and looked like a golden tiara.  It was held in place with several golden butterflies, which I thought at first were clips, but later decided must be pins.

Part way through the sermon, the little girl said something to her dad, and he removed most of the butterflies.  Mama was not sitting with them, so there was no opportunity for her to veto this dismantling.  Eventually the long braid hung down behind her left ear, but the French braiding was still in place.  I actually was paying attention to the sermon, so I didn’t see the next step, but as they left the church after the conclusion of the service, the braid was completely undone.  The little girl’s long hair cascaded down her back in lovely waves.

I thought, “Oh, boy.  Mama is not going to be happy.  She expected her hard work to last more than a couple of hours.”

When I was a child, I had very long hair.  By late grade school and into 7^th grade, my mother was still doing my hair every morning.  She braided each side, pulled the two braids together into one braid at the back of my head and gathered up the remaining hair along with the braid into a bun at the back of my neck.  There was no way I could have done this myself.  She never made any attempt to help me figure out how I could do something on my own.  Also, she was adamantly opposed to me just letting my hair hang down my back.  One day, I was too vigorous in gym class and the bun fell out.  The rest of the day I had the braid in the middle of a cascade of long wavy hair.  I received many compliments from my fellow students who thought my hair was beautiful.  My mother did not share this opinion.  She was furious with me for walking around all day looking like “a mess.”

Combined with this, was my Dad’s increasing anger that I was getting older and not taking care of my own hair.  In his mind, I had no right to expect my mother to do it.  I have no idea why they couldn’t see that between them they were putting me in an impossible position.

I finally figured out myself that I was in an untenable situation and asked to have my hair cut.  I was afraid this would make them unhappy too, but they agreed.  Thereafter, my hair never went beyond shoulder length and has sometimes been even shorter.  When I arrived at middle-age, I decided that having my hair short was a non-surgical face lift.

I sure hope that little girl wasn’t in too much trouble for dismantling that carefully crafted hair style.