An Early Christmas Gift

       “Is there an instruction manual or anything?” asked Cyndi. She was talking to the installer at Liquid Audio, in Midland, who had just put a new audio system (Alpine iLX0207) in my 2010 Toyota Tacoma pickup, bringing me a few steps further up and in to the future. It was my early Christmas present from Cyndi and Byron and Katie.

      The man paused and then asked, “How old is your husband?” I suppose he wanted to know if I was capable of understanding the 21st Century.

      “He’s 63 and he’s an engineer. He likes to read manuals, and he likes to figure things out.”

      And so, my new adventure began.

      Right away, the new audio system wanted me to connect my phone so I could make “hands-free,” calls, which I suppose is an asset and something I should look forward to. But, at least for now, I prefer my old way, which is to wait until later to answer calls and check text messages. It isn’t so much about safety as it is I simply don’t want to be accessible every moment.

      My phone relationship lies somewhere between Cyndi, who runs two businesses and cares for her mother so she is on the phone all the time, and her friend Patti, who regularly leaves her phone at home and wants to live everyday as if she is relaxing on the beach.

      But Cyndi was right about me and owner’s manuals. I tend to use them, read them, along with assembly instructions and all that, and I have very little patience for someone who complains about how hard it is to put a piece of furniture together, for example, but won’t bother to look at the pictures (as in, IKEA).

      In my closet man-cave I have a plastic tub filled with owner’s manuals, ranging from handheld digital recorders and pocket multi-tools to washer/dryers and garage door openers. I dig through them regularly hoping to solve a problem or two.

      Unfortunately, the owner’s manual for my new audio system was, like too many sets of instructions, written by people who already knew the product well and needed little help. In other words, the owner’s manual, at least for now, is marginally worthless. It assumes I already know and understand before it bothers to tell me anything.

      However, much of life is like that.

      I found this quote in an article from one of my favorite writers who has been a huge influence on me, Austin Kleon. He quoted Karen Armstrong, who said, “The rules of a board game sound obscure and dull until you start to play, and then everything falls into place. There are some things that can be learned only by constant, dedicated practice.”

      Spiritual life is like that, too. Armstrong went on to say, “Religion is a practical discipline in which we learn new capacities of mind and heart ... If you don’t do religion, you don’t get it.”

      Jesus said, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17 NIV)

      Most often, we must engage, do something, before we understand.

      And so, what I’ve learned from my many manual-reading years is this: I often have to fool around with a new product – such as my audio system – before the owner’s manual makes sense. I have to start doing before I can start learning.

      And who knows. I may even learn to enjoy a new phone hands-free life. Old dogs like me should be learning new tricks every day.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Living On The Edge

This was first published in March 2004. I'm proud to say that it still fits.

      “I have been tiptoeing across the edge lately and I’m feeling very brave about it,” I said.

      “You don’t tiptoe,” said Cyndi. “I’ve never seen you tiptoe. You don’t even dance on your toes.”

      “What I mean is that I have been treading lightly into the unknown,” I said.

      Cyndi is seldom convinced by mere talk when I talk about making changes in my life. For some reason she has it in her head that I don’t make changes and all I want to do is the same thing I did yesterday, the same old things day after day. “Can you give me an example?” she asked.

      “Well, one day last week I changed my running route. I cut a tangent across Kelly Park instead of following the sidewalk all the way around.”

      “That isn’t adventure. You were just taking a short cut home.”

      “Ok, maybe that wasn’t a good example. But I’m telling you I am learning to be a man of adventure. Just yesterday when I taught my men’s class I used completely different paper to prepare my lesson,” I said. “Completely different!”

      “Was it yellow paper?”

      “Yes.”

      “Did you use a blue pen to write your points and a red pen to write your questions?”

      “Yes.”

      “So, what was so completely different?”

      “The paper didn’t have any lines on it. I was writing freely across the page without guidelines.”

      “Ooh – no lines. A donkey on the edge! How did you control yourself without lines?”

      “I didn’t. I wrote all over the page with reckless abandon. I didn’t even worry about keeping my lines perpendicular with the paper. I was a wild man.”

      “Ok, that is pretty wild for someone like you. Anything else?”

      “Just last weekend I went backpacking into the wilderness all by myself. I was really out beyond the edge on that one. And there was snow on the trail! It was just me and the wild scary world.”

    “How far away from your Jeep did you hike?”

      “Well, a couple of miles at least.”

      “And how many nights?”

      “One.”

      “And didn’t you take your cell phone?”

      “Well, yes, but most of the time I didn’t have a good signal.”

      “Ok, no signal sounds very edgy to me,” Cyndi said. “Anything else?”

      “In my new office, I feng shui-ed my office.”

      “Feng shui? You’re telling me you replaced ritual with reason using the ancient tradition of feng shui as a tool for creating harmony, good health, wealth, and peace of mind?”

      “Mostly I put the couch at an angle instead of up against the wall. It was very exciting, by the way. I’ve never arranged furniture at an angle before,” I said.

      “Did you draw a room plan on graph paper before you started arranging furniture, or did you just move furniture around allowing your heart tell you where it should go?”

      “I used graph paper. I’m not crazy; I’m just adventurous.”

      “Have your new office buddies noticed your radical furniture placement?

      “I’m sure they’ve noticed it, but no one has said anything to me because they are embarrassed at their own conventional wall-hugging furniture,” I said. “They just avert their eyes and pretend not to notice. I am sure I can see envy in their gait.”

      I could tell I was about to lose Cyndi’s interest even though she is usually enraptured by stories of my adventures. Sometimes she acts bored just to throw me off guard so she won’t give away what she is thinking.

      “And I will give you another example,” I said. “I bought a new notebook to keep my phone log and meeting messages.”

      “Where is the adventure in that?”

      “That’s the best part. I bought a notebook with all blank pages. No lines.”

      “O Berry, stop. You are killing me with all this crazy talk. Next you’ll tell me your new notebook is spiral bound.”

      “That’s right. My new notebook is spiral bound.”

      Cyndi jumped across the room and wrapped her arms around my neck and said, “Berry, I love you. You really are a pirate. You are so wild.”

"You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." … Augustine

Being Courageous

      It’s a fundamental question: Do I have what it takes? Am I enough? Everything we do comes down to that question. For me, it even affects the type of movies I like.

      We recently observed another Iron Men Late Night Movie. We went to see Midway, at 10:15 pm, and of course, we had the theater mostly to ourselves except for a slight scattering of other men.

      I really enjoyed the movie. I know it’s been battered by movie critics, but I don’t care about that. Those same critics probably wouldn’t like Iron Men class, either.

      I used to watch the 1976 Midway movie every time it came on television, as in, “Mom, dad is watching Midway again, and he’s hogging the TV.” It didn’t matter if I carefully explained why the Battle of Midway was so important and how it changed the trajectory of WW2 in the Pacific, and how we owed it to the young men flying the airplanes to know their story. They’d heard it all before.

      An interesting thing about war movies: I realized several years ago that Cyndi and I see different stories when we watch. She hurts for the loss of life, the cruelty, and the pain. I wonder how I would behave under the same circumstances. She worries about other people; I worry about myself.

      I prefer war movies over action thrillers or superheroes. There is nothing contrived or fake about the violence of actual historical battles, like Midway, Chancellorsville, Omaha Beach, Bannockburn, or Guilford Courthouse. The scenes in the movie, while certainly adapted for cinema, are based on real events that happed to real men just like me. I don’t see violence and death straightaway. What I see first is courage and bravery and dedication to companions and scared men making life-or-death decisions on-the-fly without enough information or training … and in the back of my mind I wonder if I would be so brave

      My airline pilot friend, Jeff, saw the movie with his 94-year-old dad who served in the south Pacific during WW2. He wore his veteran’s cap to the movie and got lots of attention from other attendees. He was, after all, hanging with an appreciative crowd. Jeff wrote, “I remain in his shadow.”

      The Bible reminds us, in 1 Corinthians 16:13, Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Every time I read this verse I can’t get past asking myself: Have I done anything courageous in my life?

      I never served in the military, so never dive-bombed an enemy ship, but I did train and run nine marathons. Is that enough?

      I’ve made multiple solo backpacking trips, none of which seem especially risky or dangerous to me, but the way some people ask about them indicate they might be courageous. I’m not so sure.

      I campaigned for political office door-to-door, which was not only terrifying, but also energy draining and exhausting. Was that courageous? I certainly don’t want to do it again.

      I’ve made a couple of decisions for next year that will change my self-identity and there is a small bit of risk in that. However, I don’t know if that counts as courageous, or just my next stage of life.

      I suppose I’ll continue to test my courage as I get older - at least, that’s my hope. Don’t expect me to see me base jumping from the Guadalupe Western Escarpment or slacklining between buildings in downtown Midland. Those are for someone else. But I want the challenge of living as God has called me. I want to find ways to give myself away every day. I want to improve my music, and my writing, and my teaching. Those are hardly the equivalent of flying a torpedo bomber, but scary enough.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Can We Change the World?

I first published this piece in 2014. It seem appropriate to publish again on this 30th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall.

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      On my bookshelf in a small clear plastic box I keep a piece of concrete that my daughter, Katie, brought back from her visit to Germany. She spent 2011-2012 as a Rotary Exchange Student in Odense, Denmark, and at the end of her tour she joined other exchange students from around the world for a quick tour across Europe. Her special gift to me was a piece of the Berlin Wall. I think one of her friends grabbed it from a pile and snuck it in his pocket. Or something like that.

      A piece of the Berlin Wall is a big deal for someone who grew up during the Cold War. The Wall was the symbol of tyranny and political slavery and injustice. Through the seventies I remember hearing news stories about the possible reunification of Germany, but it never sounded like a good deal for anyone. The assumption was that the combined country would look and feel more like the communist East than the democratic West. Democracy as a system took a beating during those years and it was inconceivable that communist governments would decrease in number.

      From today’s perspective the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union seems inevitable and unavoidable, but no one thought that during the seventies except Ronald Reagan. He forecasted that Communism would someday collapse under its own weight, but few publically agreed with him. At every turn the USA and Jimmy Carter were outfoxed by the USSR and Leonid Brezhnev. Democracies seemed to have outlived their usefulness and were on a worldwide decline.

      So the peaceful revolution that changed so many governments in the late 1980s was a huge surprise. Even more shocking was that so many began in church prayer meetings that spilled out into the streets.

      This past Sunday morning I heard a news story about a man who served in the East German army, Lieutenant Colonel Harold Jaeger. He was in charge of the Berlin Wall border crossing at Bornholmer Street, which on the night of November 9, 1989, was being crowded by about 10,000 people in the streets. They were responding to a vague and premature promise made by an East German government official that the gates would be opened. Colonel Jaeger asked his commanding officers what he should do about all the people who were becoming unruly and shouting, “Open the gate.” His chain of command ignored his questions and told him to solve his own problems.

      He said, “At 11:30 PM I ordered my guards to set aside all the controls, raise the barriers and allow all East Berliners to travel through.”

      Before the night was over, more than 20,000 people had crossed over. Many of them hugged and kissed the border guards and handed them flowers.

      I remember watching the images on television and it was unbelievable. Once the gates opened, they stayed open. The world changed for Berliners that night. It took a while to realize it, but the world changed for all of us, too.

      In my writing and teaching I use the phrase “Change the world” often, maybe too much. But I believe individuals acting in courage can literally change the world. Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger didn’t mean to make a permanent political statement that we could read about 25 years later, he was simply trying to prevent thousands of people from getting hurt. He solved the immediate problem in front of him by choosing peace and kindness instead of force and anger, and your life and my life are better today because of him.

      As so, is it possible for you and me to do the same thing? I believe it is. But I don’t believe world-changing actions happen when that is the goal. Rather, I believe our greatest opportunities to create permanent change comes when we live our lives in the mercy and grace of God, choosing peace and kindness, making daily decisions that pull us further up and further in to our relationship with God.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Volunteer Stories

      “Every time I look at carrots growing in our front yard, I think about Captain Kangaroo.”

      Cyndi laughed when I said it because she remembered the same images of Captain Kangaroo keeping carrots in his giant coat pocket, until Mr. Bunny Rabbit tricked him out of them. Rabbit, who always got the carrots, fruit and stems and leaves, the whole plant, surprisingly wore glasses.

      I think of those scenes from 1950s and 1960s children’s television every time we dig up a carrot even though I haven’t seen the program in over fifty years. It’s weird sometimes, the images our brains decide to hold on to.

      A few years ago, Cyndi decided to make better use of our front yard by building raised-bed gardens and planting vegetables. That summer we had corn, squash, carrots, and I don’t remember what else growing in the front of our house. In the mornings, when I went out front to get the newspaper, I heard the song in my head from another 1960s TV program, Green Acres, about a couple from New York City who moved to the farm to change their lifestyle: “Farm living is the life for me.”

      Sometimes when I went to get the newspaper, I startled the cottontail bunnies who were munching on our vegetables. Cyndi took care of that problem, though, by sticking plastic picnic forks in all the beds, tines facing upward. She said they would scare away the rabbits. I thought it was ridiculous and figured the rabbits would simple knock the forks over and keep eating. But once she stuck the forks, I never saw another rabbit. It’s a mystery still.

      Cyndi planted different things each year, experimenting to see what would grow best in full sunshine and clay soil of our front yard. But for the past two years our calendar crowded out planting season and we missed the window of opportunity to plant another vegetable garden. We had volunteer carrots, though. Apparently, the plants from previous years threw their seeds all around our yard, even across the sidewalk into flower beds. We’ve been harvesting ever since, and they taste great.

      In fact, just last week Cyndi made the tastiest beef stew, and it was full of front-yard carrots.

      Thursday night, October 31st, we watched the movie, Coco, in honor of Día de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration I never understood, even scoffed at, until I saw this movie. Now I long for a time and place for our family to gather and tell stories and teach those stories to our littles. I want to make it a longstanding tradition.

      Why? Because the stores we tell are a significant part of the legacy left behind by the people we loved, just like the stores our kids and grand-kids will one day tell about us. Stores are an indicator of the real effect we have on each other.

      After the movie, Cyndi and I talked about the multiple generations affected by our lives, and how those effects last longer than stories or memories.

      The carrots Cyndi planted five years ago couldn’t have known – that is, if carrots can know anything – that their descendants would be important ingredients in a delicious meal we enjoyed while watching Coco. Like carrots, we can’t know where our seeds will land.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Growing Up

      The most fun part of walking around a pet store is the baby animals. Especially puppies. They are so cute and all they want to do is play, and it’s hard to resist taking one home. Unfortunately, more people want puppies than want dogs, and so many who are adopted end up abandoned. I often hear, “I wish they’d stay puppies forever, they are so cute.” Of course I’m sure the puppies’ mother, if she could speak, would never wish for a set of permanent puppies.

      I don’t think I’ve ever heard parents (of human babies) say, “I wish they could stay babies forever.” Certainly no one says this during the diaper years. If they do say it, most likely they are talking about someone else’s babies, not their own.

      Cyndi and I enjoy reminiscing through our old photo albums, remembering how much fun those kids were when they were little. One of the easiest ways to chase a teenager out of the room is to say, “You were so cute back then.” For some reason we never took pictures when they were pitching a fit, or screaming and running naked into the street, or overturning grocery carts. Our fondness for small children might be different if we kept some of those pictures.

      So it is good news that we all get bigger, even if some of us never really grow up. Eventually we all turn into adults, whether humans or puppies.

      That is, except for Christians. Too many Christians stay babies their entire lives, never learning a grown-up walk or grown-up talk, and God doesn’t think permanent baby Christians are cute. He wants us to grow up in Christ to become fully developed mature believers. Ephesians 4:14 says, “No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods.” (The Message)

      Why is that so important? For one thing, baby Christians are easy to fool and lead astray. Ephesians 4:14 goes on to say that they are “an easy mark for imposters.” They don’t know enough to know what not to believe. They are easy to fool, easy targets for false gospels and lies from the world.

      Another reason God wants us to grow is so that we can learn deeper things from Him – “to know the whole truth and tell it in love.”

      I remember how excited I was when our own kids first learned to walk (except that it meant they got lost much quicker) and how happy I was when whey learned to ride a bicycle (they could get lost really fast). Both of those skills allowed me to spend more quality time with my kids. Their increasing skills meant we could enjoy each other more. I could walk around with a toddler on my finger and have a great time exploring the world. Cyndi and I could ride our bicycles alongside the two young riders and make epic journeys across town to McDonald’s.

      I was also happy when their intellectual skills increased so that we could talk about something besides cartoons; we could talk about religion and right-vs-wrong and politics and responsibility. Of course, their growing ability to think and reason also meant prolonged arguments, but that was a fair trade for the privilege of discussing deeper things.

      When they started learning music I was happy that we had one more thing in common. I encouraged them to practice and work hard and now they both play very well. I was privileged to have the opportunity to play trombone beside both my son and my daughter in church orchestra and college jazz band.  We even went Christmas caroling together, the three trombonists! Playing music together meant we had one more thing in common, and our relationship could grow deeper in yet another category.

      God feels the same way about us. If we stay baby Christians, He is limited to changing our diapers and making goofy faces to make us smile. It is only when we grow up as believers that He can share with us on a deeper level, and walk with us, and take long epic bicycle journeys with us, and play music with us.

      Just like all human beings, it’s possible for Christians to get older and bigger without growing up. Maturing takes effort and practice. I don’t think any of us will grow up in Christ unless we are reading His Bible regularly, and I don’t think we’ll grow very fast unless we are involved in some sort of ongoing Bible study. For most of us that means being part of a group study so we’ll have someone to hold us accountable. We will also grow in God better if we are reading books about Him – both hard books as well as easy books. We should be consistently pursuing knowledge about God. As Paul said, “No prolonged infancies among us, please.”

“You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” … Augustine

Dreaming Too Much

      How well do you remember your dreams? Long enough to pester innocent victims by describing them?

      A few nights ago, I dreamed that someone I knew and trusted asked to borrow something from me, and I squirmed in my sleep the remainder of the night deciding whether I could loan it. I’ve learned not to loan anything to anyone unless I’m prepared to lose it forever. Otherwise, I run the risk of resentment and lost relationships.

      That question was all I remembered from my dream. I have no idea who was asking, or what they wanted to borrow, or why it was so important to me. The details vaporized immediately.

      The fact that I even remembered as much as I did was remarkable since my dreams have an extremely brief half-life. Details disintegrate faster than I can recall them, certainly faster than I can write them down. That’s why I’m always impressed by the great dreamers of the Bible, such as Daniel and Ezekiel, who remembered page after page of complicated details long enough to record them on papyrus using a dip pen.

      I asked on Facebook: What do you own that you won’t (or are highly unlikely to) loan out, even to a friend you know and love and trust (besides underwear, etc.)?

      People responded they wouldn’t loan their flute, list of passwords, dog, chef’s knives, sewing scissors, official Star Wars costumes, vintage muscle car, trombones, cast iron skillets, or DSLR camera. It was a wide variety of answers revealing volumes about the person answering.

      Through the years I’ve grown increasingly generous with my life and possessions, but I still have valuables I cling to. Mostly it isn’t about monetary value, but my own invested time and energy and insight.

      My mother-in-law used to borrow my clothes when she visited. She would stay for several days bringing nothing with her, and then ask to borrow a toothbrush or hairbrush or clothes. She couldn’t wear anything of Cyndi’s so she would ask me if I had any T-shirts she could wear. I kept some in a special section of my closet, ready to go and never see again. However, I wouldn’t, and won’t, loan any of my marathon shirts, or favorite race shirts … I had too much invested in those.

      What else is on my list? I won’t loan my King silver trombone, my Daily Bible, my journal, or books I’ve spent a lot of time with and made notes in the margin and taught lessons from. I’m sure there is more to put on my list, but that’s all that came to mind.

      So, I had the dream Saturday night after Cyndi and I spent several days in Tennessee at the National Storytelling Festival. One of our favorite speakers, Donald Davis, told about the destruction and resulting cleanup at his home on Ocracoke Island after Hurricane Dorian scoured the village before drowning it in five-to-seven feet of water. After spending days cleaning neighborhood possessions piled in his front yard, Davis said one of the things he learned was this – we have too much stuff.

      “Here’s the problem,” Davis said. “We’re not going to get rid of it. We need something to come along, like a hurricane, and take it away.”

      Cyndi and I have been moving furniture to the middle of rooms, boxing books and (what my grandmother used to call) whatnots, in anticipation of repainting the interior of our house – the one we still call our new house even though we’ve lived in it eleven years.

      One day Cyndi, looking at the full shelves of dishes and bowls and kitchen gear, said, “Some of this won’t make it back into the cabinets. Maybe repainting will be our mini hurricane, taking some of this stuff away.”

      I hope she’s right. We have enough. It’s time to loosen our grip and release a bit more. Maybe I can simply loan it all out, and then forget to collect it. Would that be possible, or am I still dreaming?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Settled

      Somewhere out of Jonesborough, Tennessee, Cyndi and I ended up on the wrong highway. We don’t know how or where we went wrong, except to claim there were no landmarks to catch and hold our attention. All we could see while driving were miles and miles of trees and mountains, a confusing scene to desert-dwelling flatlanders like us.

      We were in Tennessee for the National Storytelling Festival, which we enjoyed immensely, but which we had to leave early and fly back to Midland Saturday afternoon because we needed to do some adulting (isn’t that what the kids are saying nowadays?)

      We stayed at the Festival as long as we could, until 12:00 noon, listening to Bil Lepp describe how he creates stories, then dashed off to our rental car (which was actually a manager’s special minivan) hoping to make the Charlotte airport in time for our 4:25 departure.

      Once we discovered our navigation error we were able to vector our way back to I-26 through the magic of iPhone GPS, but we were concerned about making the flight home. There was no sense worrying about it, though. We were on the shortest route and driving as fast as seemed reasonable.

      According to the highway signs, we passed several towns, but all we ever saw were trees and mountains. In west Texas we put our towns out in plain view to show them off, but these Appalachians tuck their towns behind tall green obstacles.

      As we neared the airport we stopped to fill up with gasoline before returning the rental car. Cyndi had her credit card in her left hand and the door handle in her right hand as I pulled beside the pump. By the time I turned off the engine she had jumped out, dashed around to the driver’s side, grabbed the nozzle, and was entering our zip code in the keypad. I removed the gas cap and she filled the tank. We were back on the road in less than one minute. We weren’t late yet.

      We made it through the airport maze and found Rental Car Return on our first pass, literally a good sign. As we screeched into the return lane, leaping out of the car like a swat team, Cyndi told the young attendant we were racing to catch our flight so she typed madly into the hand-held computer and called out as we took off, “I’ll email your receipt.”

      I had my boarding pass on my phone thanks to my Southwest Airlines App, but I couldn’t pull up Cyndi’s pass, and neither could Cyndi. That meant I could go straight through security, but she had to have her pass printed at the check-in counter.

      Cyndi wanted me to (not wait for her but) go on to the gate, but I didn’t want to do that. What if she got hung up and didn’t make the flight? I said, “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

      Cyndi maneuvered her way through the check-in switchbacks, slinking and stretching like an experienced yoga teacher, to an unused kiosk. Looking over her shoulder she suggested, again, that I go to the gate. “Tell them I’m coming so maybe they’ll hold the plane.”

      I’ve been around long enough to know not say no twice, so I took off. I made it through TSA Pre-Check quickly except for when they had to dial up the body scanner just for me since my after-market knees tend to set off the standard metal detector.

      It turned out to be a long, long way from TSA to the departure gate. Even worse, the Charlotte airport, while delightful in every other way, has mind-numbingly slow moving-sidewalks. They are so slow you might fall over if you stood still. Fortunately, I was running and not walking so my balance was fine.

      I tumbled into Gate A3 just as the last people in line were boarding, and before I asked them to wait for Cyndi I look back down the long hallway and saw her running toward me. She was beautiful, and smiling, and knew, finally, she would make the flight home. Our reunion was like one of those videos where two lovers run toward each other in a flower-filled meadow, arms outstretched, music playing … only we weren’t in slow motion and I had my foot stuck in the entrance like a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman keeping it open.

      We made it.

      As we slid into two adjoining seats, I remembered how one of the storytellers, Jerron Paxton, told a joke about using a dating app on his phone. When no one laughed he looked out across the room of gray-headed and white-headed couples and said “I guess you folks don’t have a need for a dating ap.” And then he added, “You seem pretty settled.”

      It was a great trip … one we will do again. It turns out that listening to stories, navigating new highways among winding mountains, and racing through airports can be fun if you’re with the right person. And Cyndi and I, we’re settled.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Stamped and Sealed

      Our daughter, Katie, lived as a Rotary Exchange Student in Odense, Denmark, for a year after she graduated from high school. It was an adventure she’d talked about for years, maybe since ninth grade, after she heard a presentation at school from an international exchange student living in Midland.

      I’ll admit it was unnerving to send my daughter so far away for an entire year. Cyndi and I had many long conversations about it, as in, which countries we felt comfortable with and which we didn’t, how Katie was brave and smart and solid in her beliefs, and even how I was jealous of her big view of the world at such a young age. Being the modern era of 2001-2002, we had email and phone access so we would have no trouble staying in contact. Even more important, to Katie, at least, was the relatively new ability to transfer money around the world through readily available ATMs.

      While she was gone I went to the post office every Wednesday to mail a manila envelope with the current issue of Time magazine, a personal letter from me, an occasional newspaper clipping about her school or her friends, notes and letters from Cyndi, and maybe a cartoon or photo. It cost about $6.00, and if I mailed by noon on Wednesday, Katie had it in her “Danish” hands by Monday.

      My friends at the Post Office were so used to my routine they didn’t even ask how I wanted to send it – airmail, guaranteed-overnight, or slow boat to Copenhagen. They just took care of me. They gave me a stack of U.S. Customs Forms so I could fill them out at home and showed me how I could use pre-printed address labels instead of hand printing the address every time.

      I didn’t attach the Customs Form to the envelope myself, however, because I was too nervous I would stick it on crooked or on the wrong place. I let the professional postal guys stick it on. I wanted it done right. I didn’t want to get the customs part incorrect since Federal Customs Agents aren’t the kind of people who joke around about procedures.

      After the Post Office guy carefully slapped the Customs Form on the front of the envelope and after I’d paid my money, the exciting part began. He started pounding the envelope all over the front and all over the back with big red official stamps – one said “Airmail,” and the other was a round governmental-looking seal of some sort, apparently an international postman code that meant acceptable.

      They loved stamping; it was their favorite part of the transaction, even more fun than taking my money. They stamped with vigor and boldness so that the boom boom boom echoed around the room. Businessmen standing in line flinched when the percussion wave hit them in the chest. I liked the stamping part, too, because it meant my job was done. From then on the US Postal Service professionals handled the envelope; it was no longer up to me.

      Those red stamps were like magic; they guaranteed the envelope would go all the way to Denmark without further delay. Once the Post Office guy finished stamping that envelope and tossed it into the outgoing mail bin, no one ever scrutinized it again. They didn’t reweigh it in New York to see if Midland got it right. They didn’t call me from the airport to make sure I wanted this to go by airmail instead of by slow boat. Once the stamps were in place, the package travelled all the way without any more questions.

      One particular Wednesday when I left the Post Office, my ears still ringing from the stamping ritual, I realized that Katie’s envelopes were a lot like being sealed and stamped by God. I had been reading Ephesians, and verse 1:13 says, “In Him, when you believed, you were marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. (NIV)” Even better, the Phillips translation says, “you were stamped with the promised Holy Spirit as a pledge …”

      Once we are in Christ we are sealed by God and stamped with the Holy Spirit. We are free to travel all the way with Him, all the way to eternity in heaven. No one has to check up on us five years from now or fifteen years from now to see if our stamps are still good. Our packaging may get damaged from the travel, but because our stamp is the Holy Spirit, we never ever have to be re-stamped. We don’t have to prove our acceptability over and over, again and again.

      Just like Katie’s envelopes were accepted at the Post Office in Midland, and that acceptance cleared the envelope through all other checkpoints, we have been accepted by God and redeemed by the blood of Jesus, once for all time. He has chosen by His sovereign will to set us aside as holy and blameless, and there is no earthly power or spiritual power that can undo that acceptance. It lasts forever. Even more, the Holy Spirit has been given to us as pledge of our inheritance, and He will not leave us.

      I think God, like the Post Office guys, likes the stamping and sealing part. It may be His favorite part of the transaction. I like it too, because it means my job is done, and I can trust Him to handle things from now on.

“You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” … Augustine

A Hot Ride on Monday

      The Midland Reporter Telegram said the temperature on Monday at 5:00 p.m. was 113 degrees, making it the third hottest day on record in Midland, Texas. The two hotter days were back-to-back: June 27, 1994, temperature 116 degrees; and June 28, 1994, 114 degrees.

      The readout in my pickup said it was 115 degrees when I drove home from downtown but those extra two degrees were probably a gift from the parking garage.

      As soon as I got home about 5:30, before I could change my mind, I left for my regular bike ride. I knew it was too hot; maybe even dangerous, but I was determined to ride. It's always too hot, except for the days it's raining, or the days when the dust is blowing 35 miles-per-hour, or it is freezing cold. There’s always a reason not to, so I just go anyway. When people ask why, my stock answer is – “It doesn’t cool off until October and I don’t want to wait that long” – but my unspoken reason probably has more to do with arrogance.

Monday’s ride was, at least in the first half, more fun that I’d expected. Nothing felt oppressive for the first ten miles right up until I bonked. I pulled over under the first shady tree and drank water and caught my shortened breath. I considered climbing off my bike and sitting on the grass against a fence but decided I’d probably fall asleep and some Good Samaritan would call 911 about a cyclist who passed out from heat exhaustion and I would be embarrassed when the paramedics arrived, so I didn’t.

      When I got back home, as I put away my bike, I promised myself not to do that again, at least not this year, or this month. Although once I was inside under the air conditioner and sitting next to my fan and eating ice cream, I felt much better and already planning my next ride.

      And those two days back in 1994, the hottest days in history? I dug out my logbook and found my entry for June 27: 5 miles. Hot. But good. Ran 3 miles, then run/walked back home at 3:00 intervals.

      And for June 28? My logbook shows I ran five miles again, but I didn’t leave any comments. There was nothing left to say, I suppose.

      We all do something that everyone else thinks is crazy. We each have our own bizarre behaviors. I shake my fist at the sun and yell, “You can’t change my plans. I’m going to ride!” as if I know what I’m doing.

      Don’t misunderstand me – I don’t love the heat. Every year by mid-May I’m already tired of hot days and ready to move to cooler climes. I believe I’d enjoy living in a place where the temperature never climbed above 75 degrees, except if I did, I would be single. Cyndi won’t live anywhere that gets cold, and she thinks 75 is too cold, even inside the house, even in the summer. She once asked me not to interview for a job in Wichita Falls, Texas, because it was “too far north.”

      Here is the amazing part of the story. I rode again on Tuesday and it was 93 degrees, 20 degrees cooler; and again, on Wednesday at 83 degrees. I hope this a trend.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32