Thanksgiving as it Swirls About My Feet and Climbs Upon My Shoulders

Sweet rolls for breakfast, strong black coffee, way too much snacking, and a little target practice with the b-b gun out back... now that's a relaxing mornin'. Today I woke up amidst the pines of East Texas and strode downstairs to the beautiful aromas of strong black coffee and the smiles of my children... a kiss from Penny and life was once again in balance for a new day!

It is the little blessings of God's providence which speak the loudest to me these days. The feast is the late-comer to a party already celebrated in the eyes of my wife and children. My heart is full before my stomach begins to smile at the yummy smells of the day. Mine is the life I dreamt of when just a boy, and for that I am beyond thankful, indeed I am simply drawn to a place of quiet amazement as the providential blessings of God spin around me in an orchestrated cacophony of life. I am blessed to pastor both my family and my church, and to hear the voices of my children ask questions and reveal the praises of the God who made us. I am blessed with a fellowship which would seek the simple profundity of the Word of God with me before the spectacular emotionalism of the world. I am blessed with a woman who loves me completely and looks bravely with me into the future of a life ordained for sacrifice. Through the natural accounting of pain and blessing, often intermingled, I find myself in awe that the Almighty might allow me such a life as this.

Well, the turkey's almost ready, and my children would rather their Daddy be off the computer... and I hope they always do!

May our hearts take note of the favorable providence of God, as did our forefathers who landed at Plymouth; and may our hearts find gleeful camaraderie with the cranberry sauce and apple pie!

Pax Christi ad Nobis!

John

Minutia

This week I've been in Job. The oldest of all the text of Scripture hammers home the simplest, most massive foundation stone of life... that God is God and I am not.

What's really amazing to me is that God cares at all about us.

I mean really... think about it... I must be the rough equivalent of a super-miniature ant, size-wise, compared to His massiveness. Why does He care, concern Himself, much less love us???

Yesterday I asked God about something that was massive from my temporal, human perspective, and He showed me quickly about His great love for me... He stepped right into my comparatively insignificant minutia, which of course is huge at my little level, and showed me His love and faithfulness. It was really cool!

Job asked God why He would give a rip about man, too (check out chapter 7). In the end, it is enough that God does, that God loves, that God chooses to involve with us. He is God. Through good and bad, He is God. Through the sun on our faces to the dirt on our knees, He is God. Sometimes it feels great, and sometimes it hurts for no discernable reason, but He is still God.

For this miniature ant, that's enough... its simply amazing that He actually cares!

John

The World Stopped but for a Moment

Today my life sped by in unparalleled color and blurring fusion as a morning I have hoped for and dreaded came and went with barely the inkling of an evidence that my heart had somehow torn and stretched all in a blink as my daughter took up her uniform and her back-pack to go to kindergarten.

Oh, I know, its a little thing... but so was she just yesterday.

When did the little pink tennis shoes that sit on my writing desk and warm my heart get traded for the black leather mary-janes she wore today? When did the precious purple quilted jacket get traded for the plaid of the private school uniform? When did she suddenly grow that tall?!

Each step I remember as if it were just yesterday... and sometimes it feels as if it were. I remember buying each new size of shoe, and the day her acceptance letter came from the school; but oh, how much more quickly it all ensued than my heart had somehow expected.

As she clung to my arms this morning, nothing inside of me wanted to leave her side. It was as if the insides of me were battling with the situation, saying, "Would someone just scoot a grown-up chair over to the end my daughter's table, please? I'm just going to stay and take the class with her!"

I am so proud of my little girl, but sad to the point of tears that press upon the surface of my eyes as I tell them not to fall. I guess that as the grey hair finds me ever-more-quickly, so too must the growth of my children. I wouldn't have it any other way, I know; but the heart within me wonders... for this morning, as she clung to me and I knelt beside her table, we held hands and the world, for me, stopped but for a moment... and there in the suspension of time and space I drank deep of the moment and wondered why it could not have been longer as I reluctantly walked away.

A final whisper, "Ich bin sehr stolz von dir"... and my heart was left on a kindergarten table.

Beauty is for a moment and then it grows and becomes again. And such is the state of the beauty walking through my heart as it giggles and laughs, and grows again, never realizing that my heart has stretched and ached, and smiled along the way.

Ich bin sehr stolz von dir, Jordan! Hoo-ah!

Daddy

A Walk in the Sun

This morning I have that particular delight of spending focused time with my children.  We've cooked pancakes, stirred the batter with chopsticks for no particular reason, watched copious episodes of our favorite cartoons, and finally exhausted our little energies with a nice walk in the sun, up on the levee, overlooking the Mighty Mississippi.

As I held the hands of my children, was repeatedly rewarded with handfuls of rocks and seashells found along the way, and walked the morning away in the ever-heating sun, I found myself enjoying a sense of the true blessings of the Almighty.  I cheered as JeeP showed me how he can "go fast", and wowed and exclaimed over Jordan as she discovered beautiful white seashell after beautiful white seashell... and then accepted their hands back in mine as we continued our walk.  Cyclist after cyclist rode by, but instead of wishing I was training for another triathlon, I found the peace of the love of my children and considered how our walk in the morning sun had become so much more to me.

In the years to come, the expressions of the blessing will undoubtedly change with the growth of them, but for today, it is enough that a smile of the heart was imbued with little hands holding rocks and shells on a walk in the sun.

On a cooler day, we'll walk farther perhaps... but today we have walked together, and that is more than enough.

In the peace of Christ,

John

My Bride

This morning during prayer time, I read about my bride.

Today's readings were wonderful for me.  As we read about the descendants of Levi, the heritage of that house of Israel, and the descendants who fulfilled it, I found myself praying for my own children, and celebrating before the Lord the heritage He has given in their wonderful little lives.  I prayed for them individually, praised God for them, and proceeded to read the rest of the day's Scriptures.  As I journeyed through, I came to Proverbs 19:14... and the face of my bride filled my mind.

"House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord." (Prov. 19:14, NASB)

I waited many years for Penny, because I had from an early age discerned God's calling on my life into the clergy.  I had read from my earliest days about the paths of the Lord's clergy, and of the Bible's standards of a Godly wife.  In the end, I had determined from the time of my youth either to find that person whom God had set aside to work with me, live along side of me, and celebrate life together, praying that He had prepared just such a woman, or to live out my days in this temporal life in the sole intimate companionship of the Lord.  The day I met her, my soul jumped with fireworks.  A woman of beauty, of joy, of strength, and as the Proverbs said today, of prudence, or understanding, stood before me and suddenly worked along side of me!

Far beyond the blessings of this world, are the blessings of a good wife; and such are the blessings which God has attended unto me.

May my children, and their children to them be so blessed, and may the blessings of my God be visited continuously upon the bride who fulfills the heart of my youth and the joy of my grey.

Pax Christi,

John

The Cross of Christ - Part IV

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The 4th Sermon in the One Sermon Series by Rev. John

Back in the Saddle

This morning, I was awakened to the gentle nudge of my bride, the gleeful tones of my children playing, and the smell of fresh-brewed chicory coffee... it's been a good morning!

I got up and walked into the kitchen to receive a kiss from Penny, and hugs from the kids, and I found there at my chair a gift they had all prepared for Daddy while I was on the road from Sunday evening 'till yesterday morning.  Hanging over the back of my chair, was a beautiful pair of US Cavalry Saddlebags, circa 1915-ish, from the US 109th, which have miraculously lived out the last near-century in someone's barn in relatively perfect aged condition!  Inside of each saddle bag, was a picture of me with each of my children, in frames they painted themselves, and on top, slid gently beneath one of the straps, was a note from my bride... now that's somethin' to wake up to: old leather & a love note from my bride, and presents from my children!  And lest I fail to mention it, a necklace my daughter made for me (and yes, I'm wearing it right along with my Barbie band-aid!)  It was enough to get this old Texan emotional.

As I left this morning, then, I packed my saddle bags with the books, and needed accoutrements, of the day, and wondered how many times they had been packed by their original GI in the old US 109th.  I thought about the fact that so often the old things just seem to work better than the new things.  How an old wind up swiss watch will tend to keep perfect time, how real books don't "crash" and get lost on a computer's hard-drive when a virus hits (if you're not a mac user of course), and how almost 100 year old leather, properly cared for, is immediately ready to get right back in the saddle again... only this time carrying the Bible of a simple clergyman in his Jeep.

This morning's reading in the Scriptures was, in part, about the days of Moses, how old he was when he got his 'big assignment' and so forth.  I guess its impossible to tell whether we're at the beginning of our life's 'big assignment', at the end of it, or even in the middle, but I know this thing for certain, that when I slung my saddle bags over my shoulder, I was glad they had been tested, I was honored to bring them back into service, and their beauty is in the scars earned from many a trail ridden to guard the freedom my children now enjoy.

Perhaps as good leather grows better with good aging, so my soul grows closer to God with years along the journey... and in the end, it's simply good to be in the saddle, on the trail of the Almighty, and packed well for duty.

May God go before us all on the journey he has set before us!

Pax Christi!

John