KEEPING LIFE IN BALANCE

 

Scottie, 2025 Open Champion

As a graduate Industrial Engineer, I consumed most of my early career optimizing the time and cost of a product or process.  This is a discipline whose mantra states that “time is money”. Consuming a working life around this mantra was in opposite conflict with the need to balance my time with other priorities.

I’ve since learned that the opposite point of view is adhering to a mantra that “time is life”. And "time is love". To live a balanced life, we need to be conscious of the time we clock on our job life, our family/relational life, and our spiritual life in order to have a full and satisfying life. It’s important to take inventory of where we spend our time; for where we spend our time is where our heart resides.

We need to pause life occasionally and shake ourselves awake to the reality of time and its precious availability to us all, so that we can live it to the fullest. Each of us is born with a variable number of grains of sand in our hourglass. And the hourglass is always in motion until the last grain is spent.

The Texas golfer, Scottie Scheffler, just won The Open Championship in Ireland, but his pregame presser caught not only my attention but much of the world.  In short, he stated that “This is not a fulfilling life.  It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.”  I’ve previously written that not every available job provides both a good income and ideal life satisfaction, but it can provide the money to acquire meaning in the other two areas if we look for the life balance. 

He noted that golf doesn’t define him as a person and that if it interferes too much with his family life it will be “the last day that I play out here for a living.” That’s also good advice for someone planning to retire soon. I’ve often noted that finding satisfaction in things of this life lasts about as long as it takes to remove the price tags and then we move on to the next thing.  His reply on winning the Open was “It’s going to be an awesome two minutes.  Then we're going to get to the next week.” 

Scheffler summarized his state of mind before the final round of golf’s prime major as “I’ve been called to come out here, do my best to compete, and glorify God.  That’s pretty much it.”  That all shows me that he’s doing a good job of “keeping life in balance”.

FIELD OF DREAMS

Chihuly Dreamscape, St. Louis, MO 

Field of Dreams, American Heartland

There’s been a lot written and discussed about the dreams we human beings have in life. Many of those dreams of course get translated into prayers. And much has been written about unanswered dreams and prayers because the answer can be no, or maybe, but let’s wait and see what happens. In the movie Field of Dreams, the old country doctor gets another opportunity to turn back the clock and fulfill his earlier dream of spending his life as a professional baseball player instead of a health care professional. When confronted with the chance to replay his life differently, he still chose the healing path instead of the base path. If he had gotten a hit on his one big chance at baseball, many people whose lives he had touched in such a positive way would never have known him.  And he finally understood that his ultimate destiny ended up being his most fulfilling after all.

 That scene brought back a childhood conversation I had with one of my uncles after we had all played a pick up baseball game at a family reunion. Even then, my dad had displayed a proficiency at shortstop that was still impressive. I was told in that short exchange that my dad had been asked to try out for the Saint Louis Cardinals farm club. The scout hit him scorching line drives and grounders for a couple of hours with none getting past him. He then offered my dad the chance to leave home and join the baseball club. But times were tough, and he passed on the dream, stayed at home and helped the family. When I questioned my mother about the decision, she noted that baseball simply didn’t pay the kind of money in those days that it does today. 

 That major decision in my father’s life quite probably resulted in our family’s creation. And mine. It’s good to have goals and dreams in life, but when life throws you a curve ball, it just might not be strike three. It might be ball four and a pass to begin a new path around the bases that leads to a new home. Only later after his too early death did I begin to also understand the time and patience he spent with me to teach me the baseball skills he had acquired. I didn’t become a professional baseball player either, but I learned that we’ve got to work hard at something to be really good at it, sportsmanship, a love for athletics, how to be a team player, developing lasting friendships with teammates, the thrill of competition, how to be a good winner as well as a good loser, the main player to beat is the person you were yesterday and the love of a father to impart his dream to his child after he had chosen another path so that the dream remains alive. 

 And like the movie, the best times involved the simple act of playing catch in the backyard. It’s a very human act of “I give to you and you give back” connectedness, many times discussing something about life and many times in serene silence, with just the sound of the rawhide ball hitting the leather glove. The final act of redemption in the movie unfortunately doesn’t happen all too often in real life. The prodigal son gets a second chance to say, “Hey dad, you wanna have a catch”? And his dad replies, “I’d like that”.

A THREAD RUNS THROUGH IT

Fly Fishing, Missoula, Montana

Spirit Line, Four Corners NM

We all unconsciously weave a tapestry of life with a thread of infinite length which supersedes this mortal life.

Joseph Campbell encourages us to “Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else…People say what we're all seeking is the meaning of life...I think what we're seeking is the experience of being alive."  

Life is a great adventure and death is the last great adventure. In the meantime, we are in pursuit of the divine that is within all of us and the fulfillment that the adventure brings. Campbell notes that if you have embarked on a well-worn path, it is not your path. Seek out your own path in life that has been mapped out exclusively for you. When your life seems to be in rhythm with the heartbeat of the universe, you have found your path to divine destiny.

Robert Frost concluded his famous poem The Road Less Taken with:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

The Pulitzer Prize nominated book by Norman Maclean titled A River Runs Through It and the subsequent movie directed by Robert Redford illuminated the spiritual experience of fly fishing on a Montana trout river for an American family.  Once immersed in the experience their soul became one with their beautiful environment.

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.  I am haunted by waters.”

The river less traveled is where we’re meant to be.

Jill Bolte Taylor writing in My Stroke of Insight perceived life through the restricted lens of only her right brain after a stroke incapacitated her left hemisphere. She observed that her self-concept was no longer a solid with boundaries, but a fluid. Operating without the constant "brain chatter" from her left hemisphere left her feeling one with the universe. Mystics and serious practitioners can also reach that ultimate present moment state of nirvana. Could it be that we are all in fact continuously in that state, but we simply do not generally experience that awareness?

"My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea… Our right brain perceives the big picture and recognizes that everything around us, about us, among us, and within us is made up of energy particles that are woven together into a universal tapestry. Since everything is connected, there is an intimate relationship between the atomic space around and within me, and the atomic space around and within you—regardless of where we are."

We are not only IN this universe, but we are OF this universe. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he writes, "There is one body and one spirit...one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (4:4-5)."

Perceived from the altitude of a commercial airliner, rivers that crisscross this great planet have the look of threads that wind their way back to their origins in the vast oceans.  So too, the threads of our lives follow the path of our destiny into the eternal flow.  

All creative artists put their heart and soul into their unique works.  Navajo weavers are no exception and frequently add what seems to be a flaw or mistake.  We almost passed on purchasing a rug years ago because of this anomaly. Only later did we discover that this “spirit line” or thread was purposely woven into a corner of the rug to allow the artist’s spirit an exit path once the rug (or the life) was completed.

 

FATHERS, MOTHERS, SONS, DAUGHTERS AND BASEBALL

Cubs Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL

Little League Baseball, Emporia, KS

We’ll celebrate our parents individually in the next thirty days, along with the beginning of baseball season.  The game of baseball has long been celebrated as America’s pastime, but as with all things, there are many other activities that occupy the present generation.  My father directly had a hand (and an arm) in teaching me the game, but in retrospect my mother drove me to practices and games when my father worked random shifts on the Santa Fe railroad.  One of them never missed a game.

As a young man playing baseball, my father was scouted by the St. Louis Cardinals and he was offered a low paying position at shortstop on their farm club.  He decided to abandon the dream and stay at home to help the family.  That major decision in my father’s life quite probably resulted in our family’s creation.  I was emotionally struck by the parallel life-changing decisions of my dad and Archie “Doc” Graham, played by Bert Lancaster in his final film, Field of Dreams.  One critic’s consensus of the movie is “sentimental, but in the best way, a mix of fairy tale, baseball and family togetherness.”  Archie gives up his baseball dream for a medical career, helping countless others including children. 

Ray Kinsella is a struggling Iowa corn farmer who hears a voice saying “If you build it, he will come.”  Both Ray’s father and mine seemed to live vicariously through their sons on the baseball field, and both sons sought other paths.  It was only later in life that they understood that connection they had severed in their search for independence, which is the end goal of all good parenting.  And it was only at the end of the movie that Ray realized the voice was referring to his deceased father.

Ray’s wife Annie supported his crazy dream to plow up part of their life-supporting corn field to build a baseball diamond in the middle of nowhere.  As the banned ghost players of the Chicago Black Sox emerged from the corn field onto the baseball diamond, they asked “Is this heaven?”  Ray simply replied “No, it’s Iowa.”  He later concluded that it was heaven, a place where there is no more fear, tears or shaming, but a place where families can enjoy togetherness.  I can still remember watching The Game of the Week at Wrigley Field on a black and white television with my grandfather as Dizzy Dean made the calls.

And like the movie Field of Dreams, some of the best times involved the simple act of playing catch in the backyard. It’s a very human act of I-give-to-you and you-give-back connectedness, many times discussing something about life and many times in serene silence, with just the sound of the rawhide ball hitting the leather glove. The final act of redemption in the movie unfortunately doesn’t happen all too often in real life. The prodigal son gets a second chance to say, “Hey dad, you wanna have a catch?” And his dad replies, “I’d like that.”

Ray and I didn’t have sons but we passed along our love for the game to our daughters.  And a game of catch between a parent and child is priceless.  I know she and my son-in-law are passing the torch of athletic games on to my grandson and we’ll all soon enjoy a Cubs baseball game together in Chicago!

IF THE FATES ALLOW

                                         New Beginnings, Philadelphia, PA

I have now knowingly celebrated over seventy holiday seasons.  Those seasons have covered many miles, many smiles and many relationships, beginning with those first simple family Christmas Eve gatherings around a real pine tree with bubble lights, colorful ornaments and silver icicles streaming off the drying branches.  My father was a railroad engineer and my widowed grandfather gave me an electric train for one of the earliest Christmas memories that I still retain.  And my grandmother always gave me a monogrammed handkerchief with a present which I still possess.  They sustained me through innumerable winter colds and still do today even though my grandparents have long since passed away to their eternal reward, along with my parents, all of my aunts and uncles and my wife of forty years.  Christmas and the holidays always will evoke sweet memories of them all as they have indelibly influenced my life.  I’ve been blessed to still hold those precious memories and it’s a privilege that is denied to so many, including uncles decimated by war.

I’ve experienced the joy of worshiping and feasting with my extended family for countless holidays.  Those memories of gathering around the table and sharing a meal always bring a reflexive smile to my face.  And later in life my wife and I enjoyed the company of countless friends we encountered as life unfolded in our work and social lives and as our daughter grew.  Christmas Eve candlelight services at many churches completed a day of anticipation and opening presents under our own family tree after re-experiencing the story of the Bethlehem gift.

Now I have the pleasure of being with a new grandson to celebrate his first Christmas.  I can’t begin to describe the immense joy that prospect brings to my life.  He has such a challenging and exciting adventure ahead of him and I have lived to experience its beginnings.  

And the lyrics of the standard holiday song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas still prompts me to pause and reflect every holiday season.  Those words had to be written with the hindsight of someone like me who experienced a full life:

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us,
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years we all will be together,
If the fates allow.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough,
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

As we continue to experience life, fate continues to remove those many people who are permanently woven into the tapestry of our life.  And those ties that bind will always remain in our hearts, especially during the holidays. Whenever I find myself thinking of them during these sensitive times, I remind myself to celebrate the happy golden days we enjoyed together in the precious olden days.

Everyone dies twice. The first time when you stop breathing. And the last time your name is spoken. We can’t control the first, but we can control the last. The holidays are a wonderful time to pause in remembrance.

A link to my favorite version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas:
https://youtu.be/dTHrecJXFTE

THE SUMMER PORCH

Summer Porch, Internet Domain

I grew up in the Midwestern days before central air conditioning, garbage disposals, attached garages and a lot of other amenities we now take for granted. We all have the tendency to look back on the good old days, but realistically the only thing that was really good about most of those days is that we were younger back then. The neighborhood I terrorized, or rather roamed around, had shared alleys in the back which provided access to the detached garages and breathing distance from everyone’s garbage cans.

My grandparents lived next door in a house that had a wraparound sheltered porch. We cousins enjoyed slipping out one of the upstairs windows onto the flat porch roof and harassing the minions below. That porch was a gathering place for all the neighbors, aunts and uncles and cousins. Sunday afternoon family dinners that exceeded the home’s interior occupancy rate inevitably found the outside porch filled to capacity as well. It provided a swell place to gather and discuss politics and weather along with everyone’s personal lives. There was always a lot of love and laughter swirling around that summer porch and there were always new additions to the family as we cousins got cheaper by the dozen.

Neighbors walking the tree-lined sidewalks would generally find someone sitting on the porch to stop by and chat with on a summer’s day. Or relatives would drive up the alley and park in the back driveway to visit. The summer porch was different than today’s air conditioned shopping mall where you stroll around with total strangers on a hot August day. And folks now-a-days leave their air conditioned office in their air conditioned vehicles and drive home into their air conditioned houses where many will stay until they repeat the isolated air conditioned cycle all over again the next day. Summer porches still exist, but mainly on vacation homes surrounded by a body of water.

The summer porch was a wonderful place to sit and enjoy a late afternoon rain shower, heralded by the sharp call of a distressed Blue Jay high atop the towering Elm trees. The air was crisp and clean and the sound of the rain drops on the flat roof was melodious. An occasional gust of wind would even provide a hint of the interior air technology to come. Once the rain clouds passed, cicadas would begin their evening serenade among the towering elm shade trees. Their soothing songs sounded like a team challenge match between one group that would have the stage only to be silenced by another group joining in from across the street. Then the sun would lower in the west and cooler air would begin to penetrate the summer night. On some of the hottest summer days when even the nights didn’t cool off very much, we would stay outside on the porch and continue the casual conversations into the night. Sometimes my grandfather would place the AM radio by an open window and we would listen to those grand old audio shows like The Shadow, Amos and Andy, Gunsmoke with Chester and Marshal Dillon and the Jack Benny Show. They actually left some room for a young boy to engage his imagination.

I drove by our old homestead a few years ago. The house I grew up in had burned to the ground and was replaced by university student housing. My grandparents’ home was still standing, but like the old neighborhood it wasn’t aging well. What really caught my attention was the summer porch that I had envisioned many times in my mind since I left to follow my bliss. It was actually rather Spartan and much, much smaller than my youthful memories. So I’ve suppressed that memory in favor of those from my youth and continue to retain those Camelot images of that summer porch so full of life and all those people that I still cherish even more than I realized.

SANDS OF TIME

Sands of Time, Jamestown, NC

Today marks the seventy first year I’ve been active on this planet. And I’ve received many best wishes from friends that have crossed paths with me over the years. We all know that we encounter thousands of people during our lifetime, some more often than others. People come into our lives for a lifetime, an instant, an hour, a season or a reason. But of all the billions of people that are available at any one moment, we really interface with just a chosen few. Certainly some have a profound influence on the direction of our life and others are simply fleeting images. But I think they all matter in some way.

We briefly exchange carefully considered words with a nameless and faceless person at the fast food drive through. We donate life giving blood to nameless and faceless people who may actually walk up to us at some point in our spiritual future and personally thank us for selfless giving. There quite possibly have been encounters with spiritual beings that have enabled us to avert tragedy or worse and we may have never known it. We may have entertained strangers and not realized they were very unique beings. I’ve played many hours of sports in my day and knew teammates for a literal season that then faded out of my life forever. I worked with hundreds of people for thirty years and then departed one day, never to see most of them again. And then there’s the close circle of friends and family that I have known most all of my life who have had a profound effect on me.

I frankly never expected to live this long. When I was younger, seventy one years seemed like a very long time. But now it doesn’t seem like it took that long from this perspective. I’ve had a rather adventurous life with more than one close encounter. Not everyone has the benefit of pausing to reflect on a full life that has included innumerable blessings, including even the dark patches along the way. I’ve always believed that mistakes and failures, and even tough times, were never regrettable if you were smart enough to learn and grow from them. They come with the territory. If you’re living without many failures, you probably aren’t stretching the boundaries of the life you’ve been blessed to receive. Of all the zillions of human beings created over the shifting sands of time, your soul was uniquely created for you--and all those journeymen that have passed through the hourglass of time with you in your moment to shine have either influenced your path or been redirected by the language of your life!

TIME WARP

Past and Present Reflections, Emporia, KS

Hugs, Handshakes & Good Conversation

I just returned to the Kansas City area where I lived for thirty years before moving to the Carolinas fifteen years ago. Stepping outside the airport terminal where I may have come and gone about one hundred times initiates the memory recall odyssey. As I sense the wind waving in nearby tree branches, I’m reminded that this land has a haunting familiarity unique to my existence. These same shuttle buses that previously carried me to the satellite parking lot to retrieve my personal car now detour to the new central rental facility. It occupies land that I passed multiple times which contained shimmering prairie grasslands moving in concert with the vast green inland ocean.

After negotiating an upgrade, I exit onto familiar interstate highways for the surreal drive past the somewhat familiar city skyline before I blend into the suburbs we roamed for many years. I traversed these streets when I moved to the area after college graduation and then after marriage, childbirth, three apartments, three houses and two different employers. When I enter some streets their signs and buildings register as known images. And then totally foreign images of intersections, shopping centers and office complexes confuse and obscure my mind’s GPS system recall.

I check into a hotel room instead of driving home. I’ve arrived alone as I did at the outset almost fifty years ago as the circle of life continues its relentless course through time and space. The local news is always a conundrum. Young energetic anchors have morphed into older men and women with graying hair. Fresh faces have been overlaid with carefully sculpted character lines. The voices are familiar but the images; not so much.

As I drive south toward our last home neighborhood, the expected landmarks have been obliterated and completely replaced with expanded round-about intersections surrounded by familiar retail brands that have seemingly sprung up overnight while I apparently lapsed into a deep Rip Van Winkle sleep. Instead of driving home to greet my wife and daughter, I find life has happened. I stop at the Memorial Gardens to pause at my wife’s and my final resting place. The eternal rustle of leaves from the nearby oak tree provides a serene background sound, masking the nearby traffic.

It has become a somber homecoming, but then I join old friends to share a meal, a hug, a handshake and good conversation. Later, I circle back to the airport to pick up my daughter and son-in-law arriving on a flight from Chicago. The next morning we drive together to my hometown birthplace in central Kansas for a family wedding where hugs, handshakes and good conversation over dinner again lightens the load as the circle of life continues to rotate through time. I read wisdom scripture in the old stone Lutheran church where I was confirmed and we gathered with cousins to recite “good news” scripture at Christmas time. We drive to the reception through the once bustling Main Street thriving with family businesses which has now been abandoned as shoppers converge on the ubiquitous Wal-Mart on the edge of town.

As I fly back to the Carolinas, I arrive at the airport where I used to pick up rental cars on business trips. New friends and neighbors now drive me to and from my present home with hugs, handshakes and good conversation. I’m reminded that we may never get completely comfortable with our surroundings on this planet which we call home. This may explain a lingering anxiety that hovers just below the surface of our daily lives. Perhaps we shouldn’t even attempt to strive for it, as these environs are very temporary at best. And our permanent home actually resides on the other side of the thin veil that separates it from whatever reality our senses perceive around us.

I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Holiday Home, Charleston, SC

A friend recently asked if I was comfortable living in “the south” after transferring here fifteen years ago. There is admittedly still a slight bit of tension between the natives and “northerners”. I suppose being from the Heartland of America and a “border state” during the War Between the States over 125 years ago gives me a free pass to walk the line. But quite frankly, I don’t waste much of my precious time on this planet obsessing about a difference of opinion between two factions of long dead folks that were on both sides of the fence. Most all of us have moved on.

But the question did give me pause to think about ever being too comfortable living anywhere. I’ve had the good fortune to travel over much of this expansive country and other parts of the world to know that I don’t really belong anywhere in particular. And I’ve read that perhaps we’re actually wired to understand that this planet and this mortal life is not our primary destiny. Rather, this life and this place are just a temporary environment to grow our spirits that transcend this existence. That nagging anxiety operating in the background has been instilled in us human beings to prompt us to seek out our final destiny while we muddle through the motions of this life. Have you ever noticed that anytime we seek out a comfortable niche in the world, life happens, and we’re jolted out of it before long? You can run from life but you can’t hide and it will seek you out and pull you screaming and kicking from your rabbit hole! Perhaps that’s why so many folks are in a state of constant disillusion because they’ve come to expect that comfort is their destiny rather than the challenges and pain that accompany growth and preparation for our ultimate home.

The Christmas holiday is a special time to seek out a warm and inviting home if you have one to go to. It’s a time of year when it’s good to have friends and family around. It’s a time for fireplaces, candle light, good food, warm wishes and fellowship. It’s a time for remembering Christmas’ past and those loved ones who gather near to us in spirit. It’s a time for celebrating the Christ child who never had a comfortable, permanent home, but prepared one for all of us. Nostalgic holiday music beckons us to come home for Christmas. And if our life circumstances do not allow us to go home for Christmas this year, we can always know that “I’ll be there, if only I stay in His presence”.

INNOCENT INFLUENCE

Two Generations of Blood Donors, Blowing Rock, NC

I recently received an e-mail from an old high school friend who had written about another classmate that had been killed in Vietnam on February 24, 1969. He was manning a 50 caliber machine gun in the back of the lead jeep of a fuel convoy when they took a direct hit from a Viet Cong rocket. That emotional remembrance led to a short exchange of e-mails regarding our fallen friend whose name we both had independently sought out on the black granite wall on the National Mall. In the course of that exchange, my friend mentioned that he had been employed as an engineer after completing a four-year undergraduate program. He was encouraged to enroll in college when I drove by his home one day in 1960 and invited him to accompany me. And he had always been grateful that I did. I really had no idea, but fifty years later, I’m humbled and also grateful to know it now.

Ironically, I was facilitating an adult class this morning at church about the influence of fathers and parents in general. And the discussion moved along to sharing examples and stories about our father’s behavior that we saw as a positive influence on the direction of our own lives. As it turns out, many of these examples did not have to be earth shattering. But they all made permanent marks on young impressionable minds that have lasted a lifetime and have now been passed on to the next generation as well. We can never underestimate how our words, actions and the unspoken language of our lives are silently, innocently influencing those around us. I fully expect someone in heaven to one day tap me on the shoulder and thank me for helping to save their life through the blood donation I made for a complete stranger at the time!

THE THREE INNINGS OF LIFE

Wrigley Stadium, Chicago IL

I received a call today relating the death of a high school classmate and the cancer diagnosis of another. We only recently celebrated our fiftieth class reunion and this is the year most of us turn the big seven O. I just had an annual checkup and a Cortisone needle in my one original knee yesterday. My doctor has me on a regimen to drive my bad Cholesterol below 100. We had gotten it down to exactly 100 and he was excited to announce that we were making great progress in assuring me a great life. I couldn’t hold back a reply that I’ve already had a great life. So, I left the office and ordered a 5 Guys burger for lunch to celebrate my LDL victory!

While I was thoroughly enjoying my greasy hamburger and fries, I thought once again about the baseball analogy that I came up with when I was actually a pretty young boy. I suppose it was a time of loss of innocence when my grandfather suddenly died of a heart attack right after a wonderful Sunday luncheon with all our family. My father was a Cracker Jack baseball player and had me playing the sport as soon as I could hold a bat. And since that time, I've always characterized the three innings of life from those early years as a little league baseball batter:

The First Inning represents growing up "In the Hole"
and our grandparents are dying.

The Second Inning represents middle age "On Deck"
and our parents are dying.

The Third Inning represents our senior years "At Bat"
and guess who's dying?

Then you get three strikes if you're lucky
and you're out of the game.

Our high school class mates are all "at the plate” now
and some already have more strikes than others.

APPRECIATION

Traveling Away from Home, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC
Living Life, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Traveling home from a career autumn weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains with my daughter and son-in-law, these three, succinct, five word thoughts entered my consciousness:

To appreciate home, leave it.

To appreciate love, lose it.

To appreciate life, live it.

THE FATHER'S DAY GOLF BAG

Golf Bag, Jamestown, NC

I just finished facilitating an adult Sunday class on the many giants that King David faced in his storied life on this Father’s Day, 2011. The first and most illustrative of those giants was in fact the giant Goliath. And this fortuitous encounter began an illustrious life of one of the select chosen men who found favor in God’s heart and ultimately wrote one half of the 150 Psalms that have enriched the lives of countless people over the past two thousand years. Yet as it turns out, one of the greatest giants of David’s long life wasn’t the neighboring Ammonite enemy armies or the challenges of uniting the twelve tribes of Israel. As we learned in the books of Samuel and Kings, David’s extended family of at least six wives, countless concubines and mostly unknown children were his greatest failure. I suspect if you’d ask David why he did all of this his simple answer would be, “Because I can”. His passive parenting and widespread philandering were his ultimate undoing. This was evidenced by his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, indirect murder of her husband and officer of David’s army, the rape of a step-daughter by a step-son, the subsequent revenge murder of the son by another son while David stood by and did nothing for either of his children, and the overthrow of his rule by a son. In the end, David was being cared for by a stranger when he died because he had made strangers of his own family. Fortunately, it’s still not too late for any of us.

When I returned home from church, I opened the Sunday edition of the local newspaper to see a headline by a staff writer that read, “Golf Bag Stands Tall in Dad’s Place”. The Father’s Day article related this man’s memories of his father including “a thing for Vantage smokes and an addiction to golf as strong as if it were Vicodin”. He did go on to say that his father was “the best man I’ve ever known”. His father had passed eleven years ago. When his family was sorting out all of his worldly possessions, the only thing the author kept was his dad’s golf bag. Over the years he challenged himself as to why he kept the bag, given that he didn’t even play the game himself (I couldn't help but wonder if his father had ever taken him to a course. He had begun to think that the bag was becoming his own Wilson from Tom Hank’s movie “Cast Away”. He stated that he still has no idea why he keeps the bag—but for the past decade on Father’s Day, he retreats to the garage and places the bag in the center of the floor. Later that night, he pours a stiff drink, clenches the bag and looks to the stars with his thoughts and believes he’s not alone. Hopefully, he’s not, but I wonder if his father had a chance for a “do over”, he wouldn’t change a few things so that his only memory wouldn’t end up personified by a golf bag.

I’ve played golf all of my adult life—generally once a week during the season with no serious regularity. And I’ve found the game to be a great stress reliever when I at least play respectably for a week-ender. However, I’ve known fellow players who have found the addiction implied in the news article which had to keep the man removed from his family for a significant amount of time. I occasionally played with a single digit handicapper that didn’t only have time for a family; he was frank about not having time for even a spouse. I remember my Vice President of Operations telling me that if any of his employees ever attained a single digit handicap, he would fire them because he knew how much dedication and time that would take them. If they had that much time to dedicate to golf, they weren’t focused enough on their job or family. Ultimately, life is about balance—professional, spiritual, and family. I’ve observed that when these get out of balance, so does your life.

NOT JUST ONE TRIUMPH CEREMONY

Mates Out to Lunch, Jamestown, NC
Loner, Jamestown, NC

I was running a few errands this Saturday morning and just happened to end up close to a favorite Mexican restaurant around lunch time, so I pulled into their parking lot and walked in to be greeted by the young hostess. “Just one?” she mindlessly queried and then led me to the last booth in the back of the dining area. “Got anything father back?” I asked. She didn’t get it and there was no point in explaining it. It has been almost three years since my wife of forty years succumbed to breast cancer. We almost always ate together, with the exceptions of lunch during work days and eating alone during travel times. I quickly calculated that we must have shared at least 30,000 meals together during our married life. Breaking bread together is one of the most common and effective human activities that facilitates bonding and relationships. And I understand that one of us must leave first and the other will eventually follow, but be left to respond to the ubiquitous question, “Just one”? Of course, there’s solace in knowing that we’re never “just one”, as our creator has promised that He is with us always. Perhaps the next time I’m eating out I’ll respond by saying “No, God is with me, so I guess that makes two—but we’ll need ‘just one’ menu please”.

Ironically, as I drove away from the restaurant, I passed a flock of resident Canadian geese that were also out to lunch in the common grounds between an apartment complex and the street. Remembering my youthful days in central Kansas hunting these giants of migratory waterfowl, I pulled into the complex and retrieved my handy digital camera from the glove box. Shooting a Canada was the ultimate prize back in those days. Now I could simply drive up to them and shoot at will with my camera, creating little or no interruption for the geese. I remembered one hunt years ago when we got lucky enough to crawl upon a flock of Canada’s feeding on fresh young shoots of winter wheat. We were close enough to drop one of the small flock after the sentry goose gave a quick head toss to reveal his conspicuous white chin band. It wasn’t until much later in life that I understood the meaning of the lone Canada that circled our little hunting band with our prize long after the other geese had departed the scene.

Canada geese are monogamous creations that mate and stay together all of their lives. If one is killed, the other may or may not find a new mate. They maintain tight family units and celebrate their social commitments to one another through a display of waving necks and loud honking called a triumph ceremony. This behavior is displayed after a victorious confrontation with other geese. Canada’s without triumph partners exhibit tell-tale movements. They can be seen swimming or walking with their necks angled forward as if looking for a lost mate or calling plaintively in flight. Biologists have observed triumph ceremonies when family members fly in to rejoin a feeding flock after being separated by space or time.

Fortunately for Canada geese and all of God’s other creatures, they go through each waking day without the slightest inkling or understanding of the inevitability and finality of death. Fortunately for us human beings, we understand, especially at this Easter season, that life doesn’t end with death. Our savior died for us and conquered death. There is no need for mates or reproduction in the spiritual realm--and there will be more than "just one" grand buffet with all of those soul mates that reunite in our triumph ceremony!

PATCHES FROM THE PAST

Patches & Friend, Emporia, KS

Was it just a very bizarre coincidence or a message from the past? I had just written and distributed a blog posting about a boyhood treasure box containing saved relics from my childhood in the 40’s and 50’s. One of those priceless treasures belonged to our childhood family dog that we had named Patches, due to the “Little Rascals” patches of color randomly positioned over his face and body. Patches’ bloodline read like a Heinz 57 Variety ingredients label which qualified him as the ultimate childhood companion. My older sister and I were town raised, compared to our farm bred parents. So, we immediately had a slightly differing view of animals. Patches' only purpose in life was to run with us whenever the mood struck and take long naps in the warm sunshine while we were attending school. And then there were all the smells around the old neighborhood that had to be investigated and reported to the authorities by way of the local canine network of barking code talkers.

As it turns out, my sister Carolyn had found a colorful desert sunset post card from California that she had mailed to Mr. Patches Davis while we were vacationing. It seems that Patches was recovering from a broken rear leg that he had sustained from a passing car shortly before we left. So he was convalescing at our grandparent’s house next door while we traveled that spring. Carolyn had inserted a note to “save the card for us” as we didn’t have a color camera at the time and it was a beautiful scene which most assuredly must have brightened Patches day when he received it back in Kansas.

About the exact same time Carolyn had found the saved California post card, I had rediscovered my small cigar treasure box at the back of a closet. At the very bottom of the box, I had found a long forgotten dog tax tag that my father had handed to me with Patches’ collar the afternoon he had succumbed to another more fatal automobile accident. We all ran free in those idyllic days, but it would appear that our trust worthy and unconditionally loving family dog wasn’t quite as observant as we were--at least most of the time. I remember dashing after one of my buddies between two parked cars one summer day and being frozen in time as an automobile came to a screeching stop just a foot or two from me. That was the first of many such life threatening events since then that have validated my belief in guardian angels. Mine have worked overtime. Patches was never so lucky and he got only one more chance to pay attention the next time, which didn’t happen.

Carolyn’s post card had a one cent George Washington stamp affixed to it and close inspection revealed a date stamp of APR 6, 1951. Patches’ dog tag I had found was dated 1951. Both were sixty years old, both had survived numerous moves and life events, both were possibly recovered at the exact same time, and both were linked to our treasured childhood companion and friend. And now we have the benefit of sixty years to reflect on the meaning of this. Perhaps the message on this Valentine’s Day in the year 2011 is that not even the passage of sixty years, or four hundred and twenty dog years, can erase the precious memory of any living being in this life that has deeply touched our hearts or minimize their eternal influence which has been indelibly inscribed on our ever developing character and soul.

THE TOY STORY CIGAR BOX

Toy Story Cigar Box, circa 1952, Emporia, KS
Patches' Dog Tag, circa 1951, Emporia, KS

The children’s classic, The Littlest Angel, was written by Charles Tazewell when I was four years old in 1946. That coincidently was about the age Michael departed this world and entered heaven where he was perpetually in trouble and unhappy. His happiness is restored after he is allowed to retrieve a special box left under his bed at home. The box contained wonderful artifacts from earth--a butterfly with golden wings, a sky blue egg, two white stones and a leather collar that had belonged to his dog that had lived in absolute love and infinite devotion.

On the eve of the birth of God’s son, the angels laid elaborate gifts at God’s throne for the one to be named Jesus. Michael gave the only thing he possessed that he cherished more than anything. The hand of God paused over the priceless box as it pleased Him the most, since its contents were of earth and men and His son was born to be king of both. The story is a wonderful lesson of grace, the true spirit of giving, and understanding the difference between things of this world that have monetary value and those that are priceless.

I was recently sorting accumulated possessions on a cold winter’s day and happened upon an old El Roi-Tan cigar box. I recognized the box as one from which my grandfather retrieved many unforgettable cigars he smoked most of the time I knew him. To this very day, whenever the scent of cigar smoke wafts into my presence it reminds me of him. Upon opening the box, I was greeted by a small but priceless representation of my boyhood. Unlike the young man’s toys in Toy Story 3, these childhood artifacts had survived the past sixty years in my grandfather’s cigar box. When I left for college, my mother not only cleared out what would now almost literally be a valuable baseball card collection, but as in Toy Story 3, all the remainder of my childhood. But somehow, this priceless cigar box survived the carnage.

I was a child born during WWII just ahead of the baby boomers, although I married a boomer that I met at college after abandoning all things of a child. So, part of the menagerie includes one lone surviving WWII soldier and one lone Indian. Both of them were undoubtedly the sole survivors of many intense battles between the G.I. Joe allies and the Nazis and the Roy Roger cowboys and the Apache Indian wars. Their contemporaries were quite probably blown out of the sandbox battle grounds with strategically placed Black Cat fireworks and incoming BB’s. The gallant Crusaders seemed to have fared the best, but possibly only because they arrived late in my boyhood and were spared the intense and frequent action. The authentic German belt buckle and hand tooled leather cigarette box were brought home from the great war by my uncle and were prized war relics. I was after all, a child of the war. My uncles were heroes and one never returned.

The two cat’s eye marbles are all that is left of a humongous bag that was acquired by laser shots into a ring of neighbor kids’ marbles that were knocked outside the ring. And in those days, the skate key wrench was standard issue for all the neighborhood kids. The lone yellowed die most assuredly belonged to a children’s board game that was simply worn out from excessive play time. We didn’t have much television to watch back then. The Pee Wee water gun is stamped with “USA” which portends the offshore toy production that was just beginning to arrive on our shores. The small alligator clips were used to start my model airplane, a victim of one too many crash landings. The “I LIKE IKE” political buttons must have preceded this Kansas war hero’s presidential election in 1953. The small bird arrowhead was picked up in a Kansas field on my father’s childhood farm. I’m sure that the prescription box containing a sand dollar and sea shells were prized by a Kansas boy who had not yet experienced the distant oceans and assumed how precious and scarce they must be in this world. The “Happy Birthday” card with the smiling puppy was signed “Mom and Grandpa”—more priceless than the rookie autograph I got in later life from Tiger Woods.

And finally, lying unobtrusively at the bottom of the box was a worn 1951 dog tax tag that had belonged to my first true friend, Patches. We named the new puppy Patches because of the black spots over his short white hair. He and I sort of grew up together in those early days of blissful childhood. He had followed me and the Sunday entourage of cousins to a nearby lake and I hadn’t even noticed that he didn’t follow me home, as he usually had his own agenda at the lake. Later, my dad went out looking for Patches and found him dying in a street gutter, the victim of a passing automobile. He died later that afternoon wrapped in a warm blanket in the basement. My dad took me down to see him one last time and I kept his collar with the dog tag. It was my first encounter with death and losing a loved one in my life
--and the beginning of lost innocence.

The second I opened my grandfather’s discarded cigar box, I somehow thought of the littlest angel’s earthly box and the Toy Story 3 movie I had recently watched. My box actually contains some toys of war along with more sentimental childhood memories. But I think my box would still be a good example of every earth boy’s toy story and a gift fit for a king who would rule them.

THE PRODIGAL PRINCESS

The Princess in Her Bed Chamber, Jamestown, NC
Princess, Jamestown, NC

Seeing Princess in her bed chamber, one would immediately sense that she is most assuredly living the good life. And you would be right. But she hasn’t always lived the life of royalty provided by my back yard neighbors. She’d been spotted on a number of occasions in a parking lot living in the urban wilderness and struggling to survive on her own. She was apparently living a feral existence in the company of the cast from the musical Cats. After many attempts to gain her confidence, she was finally coaxed off the streets and welcomed into a warm and loving home. By this time, however, she had learned one of the basic tenants of the streets to not trust anyone.

Princess disappeared after a violent storm this past spring. After a few days it seemed that she had relapsed back to a life on the streets away from human contact. And just when all hope seemed to fade, she simply returned with her tail between her legs through a garage door that had been cracked open for her. So, in honor of her return and in the spirit of the return of the prodigal son, the neighbors gathered to celebrate the prodigal cat’s return. Just as the accepting father ordered a fattened calf to be brought for the feast, we celebrated with libation and hors d'oeuvres. Prodigal cat toys were brought in the spirit of the forgiving father who had the staff bring him the best robe and sandals and put a ring on the prodigal's finger. The prodigal’s return provided a reason to celebrate one of life’s little victories.

It has taken the passage of time and many strokes from caring human hands to unlearn the harsh lessons of the streets. But it would seem that those difficult days of living on the edge of existence are slowly being cast into the recesses of corrupted memory files. Princess now delights in chasing the elusive red laser beam. She has begun the slow process of living up to her new namesake and the ultimate creature of God that her staff could see in her before it was revealed. She has now morphed into a lovable creature worthy of being christened a princess, and it shows in her Bette Davis Cleopatra eyes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eja-popojUo

"But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this cat of yours was dead and is alive again; she was lost and is found."
--Luke 15:32 (very loose translation)

CHRISTMAS EVE 2010

Christmas Sunset, Jamestown, NC

It occurred to me as I attended the Christmas Eve service of my sixty eighth year that it’s possible that I have seldom if ever missed participating in this service in all those years. I have always been in the presence of family on that evening. Your circle of family can be defined as your immediate blood relatives. It can be expanded to include close friends, but I think we generally consider family to include those closest to us who share a bond and have been permitted access to our defense shields. It also occurred to me that the family I attended the service with on this year of the twilight of my life was neither the family I was with during my childhood nor the family I was with in my early adulthood. My earliest remembrance is the Christmas Eve services where all of us children memorized a verse from Luke’s Christmas story from the second chapter of his book. Siblings and cousins participated and proud parents watched anxiously in the pews. Once we all joined in singing Silent Night, the early evening service was over and we would be given a brown paper sack with shelled nuts, apples and oranges to take home as a Christmas gift. We would hurry home and then and only then would we be permitted to unwrap the few Christmas presents bearing our name under the small evergreen tree. I don’t ever remember the air outside being anything but fresh and cool and invigorating once I emerged from the service. Yes, that relates to the time of year, but it also relates to the exhilarating story of Jesus’ birth and the spirit angels’ good tidings of the arrival of a savior for all the world. Mary alone initially understood that the child she would deliver would soon deliver her.

I’ve attended Christmas Eve services in various churches over the years and it never occurred to me not to attend them. There’s a special mystical meaning to Christmas Eve that commemorates an ordinary birth of an extraordinary being. Yes, we celebrate the appearance of God taking human form over two thousand years ago. And He then developed into a man of thirty years before He spent the next three years teaching all of us how to live and see the very nature of God. There are those today who say they would believe if God revealed himself to them personally. He did that in human form and still men who chose not to willingly cross the bridge of faith to a new birth did not see Him, even then. Actually, He still reveals himself in many ways every day—in the petals of a flowering bloom, in the spectacular light of a sunrise and in the first cry of a newborn. This birth involved no ordinary man. This was both a human being and a spiritual being in one form. This was a unique being that lived a perfect life on earth until he died in our place. Why did he wait until that particular time to appear to us? He could have arrived much earlier in human history. And He could have waited even longer—perhaps until this generation. But in His infinite wisdom He chose that time and place and we celebrate that time even today. Many powerful men did not acknowledge Him as anything beyond a troubling revolutionary during His lifetime, but fortunately a chosen few did understand. All but one died a horrendous martyr’s death to validate the truth they had experienced. And because of their verbal and written testimony, I have been celebrating His arrival for all of my sixty eight years to acknowledge that the God of all creation finally did come among us. He revealed Himself to us so that we could order our lives to have the assurance of a better life as a human being and an eternal life as a spiritual being in the constant presence of our creator. I believe He created us to be intelligent and independent enough to generally survive with our wits on a daily basis, but to understand that we are vulnerable enough to require the encouragement of others and the strength and guidance of a loving eternal Father now and forevermore. We were created as a family of man and simply told to love God and one another.

THE WARMTH OF GIVING

Pure White Love, Jamestown, NC

This image was captured as I drove home past a neighborhood lake after ringing a Salvation Army bell outside a local shopping center in the snow. The fantasy snow scene added to the holiday mood and warmth of the car heater. But the highlight of the afternoon was watching young children placing donations in the bright red bucket as proud parents stood aside. These youngsters were beginning to understand the priceless gift of warmth that only comes with giving to those in need. I even suspect that some of those children will be the recipients of those donations this very Christmas. But that is the true power of giving, when the gift is returned tenfold.

HAVING FUN

Carolyn's Kahola Waffle

"A PURITAN IS A PERSON WHO IS HAUNTED BY THE FEAR
THAT SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IS HAVING FUN".
--H.L.MENCKEN