Parental

Twenty-four years ago, we held Gretchen and Kyle in front of church dedicating them, praying for them.
I told the church how I had been asking young fathers, “how long did it take before your kid started recognizing you?”
Above all things that mattered, I wanted them to recognize me as Daddy.
Then I remarked how our Father, or Creator, waits on each of us. How long before our eyes finally open?
How long before He sees us recognize Him as Abba, as the One who loves?

The Proof of God

Dad took his last breath early Thursday morning.

After Kyle flew down from Seattle, we sat by the ocean, as he pondered how conversations went up there with his dear atheist friends. He told them about “gravity”– how there can be no scientific proof displayed for such a thing.   No, you live with it, and constantly see its effects, but you cannot prove it.  It simply exists.  And that is considered “proof” enough for most human beings.

And so I have proof of God.

It is in the empathy given towards me and my family from friends who have been robbed of their own fathers, not at age fifty, but at age fifteen. The ones who watched as their own dads dropped into the effects of dementia and didn’t recognize the faces of their own sons. And these are the ones whose hearts broke for me, the lucky one.

And I’ve seen the effects of God in my own son, when we met for tacos in a bad neighborhood. There was a middle-aged Hispanic security guard in the parking lot, and it went like this:

I finished putting my cell phone away in the car while Kyle wandered the parking lot. The guard came up to Kyle and commanded him to leave, “must go”. Kyle didn’t get it.

“No MONEY here… must GO.”

The guy thought Kyle was a panhandler.

When I exited the car to enter the conversation going nowhere, the guard saw Kyle’s presence there was legit, just waiting for his dad.

“Oh… okay,” is all he could apologize in faltering English.

“No, WE want to EAT tacos,” I explained.

It’s easy to see our own as ones who can “do no wrong”. But they, like us, can do PLENTY of wrong. We can cop attitudes when being judged unfairlly.

But when he at last realized what the interaction was about, he didn’t leave it with arrogance.   He turned back to the poor guy-just-trying-to-do-his-job and smiled, “It’s alright… IT’S alright.”

And this is just one way I see God.  I see the effects all around me.   I see the effects in friends who could have pulled into their greater grief than tend to mine.   I see Him in my son, who felt worse for the security guard’s embarrassment than for his own.

This is proof of God, for anyone who chooses to see it offered.

These are the riches in which we are baptized.

Permission to Laugh

We tend to get embarrassing as we get older. Facial wrinkles exaggerate expressions, the mind slips out of gear with age.

I give permission to my sons to laugh.

While still, there’s a better way.

We pass the offering basket and there is much study given to how we are no longer required to follow Old Testament law of tithing. But as the basket moves past us and we are free, it is not BEST for us to exercise the freedom not to give anything.

Laughing may exercise our freedom, but it may not be our blessing either. Loss is is not best for us.

And there is a better way.

As my dad is being lifted from one stretcher to the next, there is nothing funny about his facilitation into aging. Only honor, only respect, and only love.

This is the better.

The Ungracious Call of Grace

I was praying for somebody I love very much, that they would be drawn closer in relationship to Jesus.  Suddenly I just asked the Lord, “why can’t you come with … a little force, like you did with the Apostle Paul?”
It may well have been another time when I would hear only silence, except that I began to wonder if the person I prayed for was loved, or offered as much potential worth to His kingdom.   And He knew I needed a rescue.
“If my Spirit comes ‘forcefully’, a person STILL must consent. Paul would consent, but our beloved would see it as pressure, as they have seen Christianity shared in the past.”
Now you see, that’s why He is the boss and we are, like, stewards.

Shambalaya

It has been a couple days of subtle revelation. I keep thinking that I need to wash the old motorcycle, but something wants to put it off. Something more than not wanting to make the effort.
It’s kind of like knowing the room needs to be cleaned, but not really, deep down inside, wanting to pull the trigger.
I suspect that there is something inside me that likes the unkempt. But what?
This morning I’m thinking that, simply, “things in their place” is boring. That clutter, being temporary by necessity of space, or appearance of dirt, being temporary by its need to multiply, is actually visually interesting to me.
There’s also the possibility that a clean, tight ship mentally invites more work, with the psychological demand that one must put everything back “just so” after you’re good and tired of working.
And then there is everyone’s favorite reason, laziness. But I will consider that one tomorrow.
And tomorrow may never come.

God and the Timeline

When I text my daughter in the morning, I translate everything into East Coast Time.  When I say, “I’m trying to text you before 8:15 am”, I’m actually writing this in the dark at 5:15 am, because for me, it’s not really 8:15 am at all, but for her, it is.
That makes me think about how God reaches us.  He created this amazing operating system called “time”, and the fact that it is “not His native tongue” doesn’t inhibit His ability to speak in it at all. It just inhibits OUR ability to understand things like “predestination”, or “foreknowledge”.  Sometimes it’s like an operating system of a PC understanding the operating system of a Mac.  Different platforms, different languages.
And so we begin to translate what we think we can, and then, in turn, translate to others what we think it all means.  And before long, we get everything all haywire and confusing, forgetting that God is so far higher than us, and we’re His children.  Oh, children can learn and be instructed many great and marvelous things.  But they have to start from being children.

(And then sometimes we just need to be content with, ” ‘Cuz I told you so.”)

I Stole This from Lindsey Today

The other day, Katie and I were walking along the park when we saw and smelled the most beautiful white flower. “It smells like jasmine, but it doesn’t look like it,” I said. “No no,” Katie said, “the blossom is far too large.” Instinctively, we both reach for our iPhones, assuming, of course, that there would be some sort of app to tell us what type of flower it is. Perhaps the phone could “smell” the flower and identify it (a la Shazam)? Or maybe I could take a photo and it could match it up (like Identifont).

We soon realized our idiocy—and our dependence on the iPhone as a quick-reference tool—and hung our heads in shame. Till I remembered the Zippo lighter app, and like a baby with a pacifier, I was once again content.

the Text Message

This morning I was texting Lindsey, as I usually do before she sits down to her work desk.

In the middle of it all I started a tired-but-hopefully-still-funny standup-style joke:

“I know this is off-topic, but how did ‘Bon-Bons’ get such a bad rap?”

“Well, ‘Bon’ means ‘good’.”

“Strange… and not the least bit fair.”

“Ha ha I love you”.

Okay. But then I replied this… and remember that I am still inept at fluent text message skills:

“Sometimes it seems I endure an awful lot of typing for the ‘ha ha’, but I think it’s the ‘I love you’ that I’m really after.”

And so… well, I’m just brooding on that thought right now.

From the Heart of the Father

There’s a verse in the New Testament … at least one … which appeals to our sense of how much we love our own children to reveal the greater love our Father has for us.  It’s a kind of a “revelation portal” when I think,  ”if I can feel that way about my kids, how must our perfect God feel about ME?”

Each of my children have illustrated the following in varying measures, but an occurrence last Friday really brought it home.

Damon and I rode our motorcycles up to Seattle last week to visit Kyle over the weekend.  We met him at a recording studio because as we arrived in the city, Kyle was finishing up drum tracks for the first “To the Sea” EP.  We got there in time to hear his last couple of takes of the last song.

This was the first time I’d actually heard Kyle play since he left home to study drums five months ago.  He actually practices more than he sleeps, and I was startled by how skillful he had become.  In fact, if he was a good drummer before,  he was now amazing.  In fact, all I wanted to do is call my cell phone contacts and tell ‘em all about it, right there from the studio.

Two mornings later, during prayer, I thought about the excitement I felt hearing my son’s progress.  He was perfect.  The band was happy with the tracks.  Still, they talked about parts on a passage that were slightly “off time.”  I have a pretty good ear, but I couldn’t tell.  Although I could see the waveforms being slightly rushed compared to the click track on the computer, but it sounded perfect to me.  I was forced to come to terms that, as his dad, I was impossibly biased when it comes to critiquing the performance of my son.

During that morning prayer, as our Father often does, He turned that all around in perspective toward me.  When I think He’ll only see my mistakes in my performance, it is impossible for Him to see because He sees me as “holy.”   I can point to graphic evidence of my sins and He … well, He kind of knows it happened, but doesn’t really see it.

I don’t know what has happened to us where we walk into a group of Christians and look for what’s being done wrong rather than what’s being done right.  But I don’t think it’s what the Father does.  Oh, He knows about the mistakes and sinful stuff.  I think He’s just too busy being wild about His kids that the “bad” doesn’t win His attention.

About Proverbs 3

   There’s a verse in Proverbs that often comes to mind: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight”.
   It is finally time for me to actually go out and buy a new motorcycle. I’ve accumulated nearly 100,000 miles on my beautiful Heritage Softail over 22 years.  It still makes me happy to look her gorgeous styling.   But I want to keep her, and although I think the American Iron has plenty of life left, I kinda want to show a little respect.
   So the past year or so has been slowly unfolding with understanding that it is time to be looking for some relief for her and relief for me, since the ride has gotten a little harder every passing year.
    I don’t mind riding a less-beautiful tour bike, since I still have the Heritage to keep light and lean around town. But I was undecided between four different models.

    Originally, the “Street Glide” captured my eye, but I heard that it caught EVERYBODY’S eye and, because it has been a hot seller, I figured the prices would be raised to steady demand. It’s very close to the Standard, and I figured I could swing a better deal on the less-popular contender.

    On the other hand, I would have a much better chance coaxing Lori or the girls into hopping on the back if I got a Classic or an Ultra, with the granny seat in the back.
    I’d be happy with any of them, and figured maybe I should just poke around and find the one with the best deal.
    But Tuesday night, as I was riding back from Laguna Niguel where I hugged Jimmy Lester and family before they returned to Florida, I decided to lay it all out on a prayer-ride home.
    I had been asking people to pray for me to get “just the right bike”, but that night I outright asked God what bike I should get, and I told him that whichever bike He thought best, I’m trusting and going with it, even if I don’t understand why.
    Almost immediately the FLHX came into my mind… the Street Glide.  And of course, my immediate reaction is, “I don’t WANT that one. Are You SURE?”
But along with the thoughts of the FLHX was a vision of those silver gauges I always thought were so strikingly in good taste… the ones which you would never pay the money to change to if you bought another bike. And they stared me in the spirit.

    Soon enough, the thought entered my mind again how the “passenger issue” was uncertain, and even if the girls LOVED the back of the bike, I would be riding solo 99% of the time anyway, and “why buy a bike based on the comfortable passenger seat if the occupancy is a question mark?”

So I decided to test out my communication with the Lord. Although it was late, I pulled up photos of the bikes from the H-D website, and asked Lori which bike she liked the best. She not only picked the Street Glide, but she picked the same color I preferred as well.

    I had arranged to shake hands with the sales department guy this afternoon. Before long it was becoming real clear that he and the GM recognized me as much a part of the dealership’s family as I figured I was, and there was no way they would let me buy a bike from a competitor. They guaranteed me the right price on whatever I decided.  When I spelled out the kind of bike I wanted, I figured there would be some phone negotiations around SoCal, finding this bike. But the salesman told me he THOUGHT they HAD that bike in the warehouse. Amazing and wonderful. We do the paperwork and I pick it up Wednesday.
    I am happy, but not just about the new bike in my life, but because I had prayed that I would avoid all the dealership price wars, and I could JUST walk into the deal, that God would just make it happen.  And that is exactly how it unfolded.

This bike will mean a lot.