Eyes On the Destination, Toes In the River

I think that Christians who plan their lives around the next vacation might be missing something. This is doubly so for those whose goal is to make it back to Disney World each year. I had that goal for my own kids, to take them there like my folks had taken me. I am actually kind of glad that never truly worked out, although if I had gone, I might have learned the same lesson in a more expensive way. 

Plotting the next vacation to Disney World, Disneyland or even the regional amusement park like Elitch Gardens in Denver or Cedar Point in Ohio, all those are destinations on Earth.* They're terrestrial, earth-bound and, let's be honest, home. They're inside a park, yes, but they're still subject to the same laws we all experience and the same bad days that seem to plague everyone. You get sick at Disney World, don't you? Not just riding Space Mountain but I mean, I had friends that endured COVID in a Disney Hotel. I want a place I can't get sick at.

You guys know what I'm talking about? It's a truly gated place that doesn't let death in, let alone sickness and chronic disease like ME and MS and MD and CP and CF. Sounds pretty nice, right? Best part of it, my trip and yours have already been paid for. You just have to claim your reservation, like any other trip. The only part is that you can't experience it as you are now. You have to wait until your true self is ready for the trip.

But that's not what fills my tank, not directly. Additionally, you shouldn't feel bad if Disney fills your tank a bit. It's like Christmas and those hygge moments where your heart gets full of happiness. That's okay, but if you find yourself distracted during your stressful moments and you fantasize about those things, it may be a symptom of something deeper. Is there something that you thirst for?

I have been taking small dips in the River of Life lately, and it is magnificent! I can't keep quiet about it. One or two dips a day tops, but it fills my tank. It's effects are real! I don't find myself getting as snippy, or the pressure to judge and cut down others for their driving isn't as strong. I may even stop criticizing altogether if I keep this up. It's a bit of an odd sensation, actually, but one I could get used to!

Where is this river? How can you find it? Well, it's found in the Word, but like all good spots to find, it took a guide to help me get there. I found a way there in this book by the same guy who wrote Wild At Heart, that book for men from 2001. His name is John Eldredge and I have been continually refreshed and impressed by his stuff. Connecting with God for the Bread of Life is something we need daily, like sleep, food, and oxygen. God wrote our need for life directly into our DNA, and yet I still need to train myself to seek it from Him. ☧

* - Before other Trekkies remind me about the one at Lakarian City on Cardassia Prime, I will point out that it was burnt to ashes by the Dominion in their occupation. Besides, any place that would accept Gul Dukat as an honored guest has to be a little rough, and lets be honest, you don't go there for the taspar eggs from the vendors there. 

The Fuel That Drives Me

I have been learning a great deal lately about the fuel for the Road Home.  It's a huge deal! But first let me ask you a question, dear reader. 

When you have encountered a need in your life, say a wound from your spouse or a son or daughter who refuses to listen and you come to the end of your rope, where do you turn? Whose counsel do you automatically seek? Friends? Pastors or church counselors? A professional counselor? A ministry offering help? All of these are good options I've used myself depending on the question and the circumstances. Yet, when we're done, when we have our answer, or our solution to walk out, don't you feel a certain emptiness about your soul? Don't you feel a pulling of the spirit toward those who gave you the help, desiring a further closeness and connection? 

Some people feel that desire for connection and it becomes a snare to them. They act on it and begin to cross lines, wanting to be friends or closer than that with those who professionally offer help but can't afford to connect in a personal way with every person they help. They are not merely unwilling but they are completely unable to affect a friendship with those who need that connection. If they were to try, they would not have any sort of a life, nor would they be able to continue helping others. 

There is a friend with whom we can connect in just such a way. This way, this need is a very human, understandable and intimate need. It cannot be met by any human. So who is left? Why the One Who created the need. We need a relationship with the Trinity, connecting with God the Father, whose omnipotence and omnipresence allows us to tap an inexhaustible supply of love and grace and peace to sustain us when we are lugubrious, overwrought, devoid and bereft of comfort and hope. We connect to that fantastic source through the person of Jesus Christ Whose death reconciled us to Him and Whose resurrection established His ultimate power over death and the grave. We interface with Jesus by the very real and living Holy Spirit, Whose power to connect and guide and direct and support drives all the wonderful things God does within us. The power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to speak to and through us is marvelous and makes my heart laugh and take joy at how He works. 

Is this real? Am I just babbling on about God? Maybe a little, but it is because I've connected with the very living God of the Angel Armies, the all-powerful One. I connect with Him and when I do, I fuel up! I get enough to go forward. But I don't go far without Him. I can't. Not in these times. The world either kills you or it drives you back to connect with God. The truth is, we all need Him, every bleeding day.☧

Getting Out of the Judging Contest

Judging from a limited perspective is something we humans do with alarming regularity. It starts innocently enough. Parents teaching their children to be clean and orderly tell them to not be messy like so-and-so's kids. The children learn comparisons. You don't want to be like him or her. You want to be well thought of. You want your parents' approval. Most of all, you want their love, and so you learn to make those comparisons. And comparisons are so very tricky, because comparisons invite judgment. 

The problem with judgment is that no matter how informed a person may be, their human perspective is limited and therefore incomplete. Uninformed judgment, no matter who it comes from, no matter the intention, will always wound the subject. We know this to be true because we have all experienced it. The casual remark of a friend, the gossip that manages to find its way back, the angry, heated words of a frustrated adversary or, worse, a frustrated lover, all of these words are usually based on a judgment that is inevitably flawed, carving a wound through our soul as if we were jello. 

It's not that the words are untrue. If they were, there would be no power in them. It's that only enough of the facts fit to yield a fun-house mirror of our reality, just enough truth to make us look ridiculously incompetent or fabulously uninformed or classically unhinged. Sometimes, were it someone else, we'd be tempted to laugh or cry or dismiss it out of hand. But it's not. It's us. It's personal. And the distorted illusion trumps reality yet again in the quest for the final verdict.

But it's not final. It's not even real, if reality is something that we can truly perceive in these baggy, lumpy, fleshy suits that we call the human body at large. No, and the judgment is not yet rendered by the Judge that counts. That happens when we "shuffle off this mortal coil." We will all find that we are to be judged in a review of our time here. Hebrews says, "It is appointed for man once to die and then the judgment."

How long this review lasts is not clear nor is it a "The state versus John Doe" kind of trial. There are no motions to vacate or objections or depositions. It is a recounting of your life with the God of the Universe and whatever you thought, did, or said is on display. There is no wounding here and there is no comparison. It just is what it says on the box, a judgment. 

I don't have my eschatology in final form, nor do I pretend to know what God thinks or what He plans for the end of the age. I do know that this is not the "Valley of decision" judgment where he separates the sheep from the goats of the world--and trust me, you do not want to be reckoned the goat at this award ceremony! Instead, I believe that the end of everyone's life is a natural conclusion for any human and a way for God to personally address all the "what abouts" and "whys" of our lives. I know I will have more than a few whys piled up to review with Him, things that likely are not possible to reckon until the end, when we can see, as Paul writes, "clearly, face to face"

Until then, I have to resist==constantly resist--the temptation to judge others. Because the judgment of others is not something I desire or need. Instead, I need God's help and guidance every day, hour, minute and second. And most of all, I need the grace afforded to me by Jesus and his death on the Cross. The same grace is available to you. You only need lift a finger to take it.☧

Crossing A Finish Line

My baby just turned 21. That's a finish line for me. But it's not the finish line.

You don't ever stop being a dad, even after you die. You become a father at one point and that doesn't stop. You continue in the relationship, showing how to grow old and be who God created you to be and engaging God in a living, loving relationship that we are called to by Jesus. 

It's all about Him, anyway, and His kingdom is made of the same loving relationships that only He can make perfect. As we get older, we don't have to fix our kids. They don't have to fix us. We let the Master we both know work on us. Even if they run away from Him, all we need to do is be loving and let them ask us for what they need, not shoving what we think they need on them. 

Pray for them. Let God go after them. If you want to go all the way, pray God goes after you! ☧

Why Have You Abandoned Me?

It is not widely known, even among Christians, that when Jesus was hanging from the rough, splintered cross, dangling between the heavens and the earth, between God and humanity, bleeding and struggling for air, his anguished cry, "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" was not just an anxious plea of separation, but a way of quoting the entirety of the psalm begun by these same words. What began with profound loss that no one but Jesus himself can truly and fully know ends ...like this:

Psalm 22 NIV‬‬

[24] For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

[25] From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.

[26] The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise him— may your hearts live forever! [27] All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, [28] for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. [29] All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive. [30] Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. [31] They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

https://psalm.bible/psalm-22

From the world's most tortured pulpit, an abused, mangled, scourged lump of flesh wheezes out praise for the I AM. Every bone in his body is intact only so that every nerve can fire messages of utter pain and alarm to his brain. Joint after joint dislocated, heart striving to keep each cell with enough oxygen so that the agony and misery can continue, not able to stop its mad pace even as it too struggles, the body of Jesus must continue until it is utterly spent to the last moment, and in the middle of these moments, he praises God.

No one but Jesus could do that. Utterly worthy is the Lamb who was slain and yet lives forever more!

None of us are unacquainted with pain. We know it, some of us more intimately than others. Physical and emotional pains put tears in our eyes, tears God has promised to wipe from our eyes. This wouldn't be possible without the reckoning Jesus established there outside Jerusalem on Skull Hill. 

He lives now, today. Not even death can keep Jesus down. It helps to remember this on days when I can't get up. All of us live with a disability. Even this psalm points it out to us: "...those who cannot keep themselves alive..." Or as Morrison said, "No one gets out alive." Only Jesus lives. He is still physically alive. No kidding! If it weren't true, why would the psalm point out the difference? Jesus can and does. He laid down his life willingly and then took it back up again. The picture God gives us of baptism, and of Israel passing through the Red Sea. When you pass through the waters (of death), I will be with you, He promises. Only He will never abandon you.

Growing By Layers and Sounds

Something I'm realizing the more I get older is that seldom is anything what it seems on the surface. Things have layers to them that veil differences both stark and subtle. 

Artichokes in Layers

A favorite of mine in late spring is the artichoke harvest! In the days of 365 a year produce, we've forgotten the seasons force scarcity on humanity. Grandparents would recall to me how special oranges at Christmas were. But artichokes remain scarce all year except for late spring. May and June, I love the smell of artichokes boiling, the salt and butter melting together, and the irony that we're actually eating a thistle! Maybe it's the Scottish ancestry in me. 

The artichoke flower has many layers to it. Boiled fresh artichoke is at least a 20-minute appetizer! you start on the outside and the very smallest leaves are also the toughest and most difficult to eat by peeling off, dipping in butter, and then scraping the very tips of the petal for the meat with your teeth. As you work your way in, you find that you can't just go straight towards the center. The petals are broad and interlocked so that finding a free petal is constantly away from where you peeled the last petal. You work your way in, and dozens of petals in, you realize that they are much more tender and have more meat available. 

Eventually, you arrive at the center, where the petals are purple tipped and more akin to translucent film than actual petals. You can easily pull these off. The center contains the seeds, something that the person teaching me how to eat this delicacy called the "choke" in artichoke. 

I asked her what she meant and she said, "well if you get one of these in the back of your throat, you won't enjoy it."   

I deemed it good advice and scraped them out gently with a wonderfully handy tool called a spoon. What remained was the cup or bed that nourished the seeds. The heart is made entirely of the meat you've been nibbling at for nearly half an hour! A quick quartering with a knife or fork yields four bite sized morsels that after a quick dip in butter yield an experience not unlike rapture for me. It is the culmination of the entire affair that from store to stomach takes at least 100 minutes! Like fondue and other shared culinary experiences, it can't be rushed and must be enjoyed. 

Mixing Sound 

As I grew up, I loved listening to music. A friend introduced me to Broadway musicals and thereafter I discovered Chariots of Fire and the beauty of movie soundtracks. I guess that's a good reason why music is usually an emotional experience for me. Born in the early 70s, I was just in time for the fabulous 80s! I won't bore anyone here by telling them how or why those years were so good (mostly) for music, but when I compare it to today's music, I realize how right Jesus' parable is when it says:

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”

- Luke 5:37-39 NIV

The old is better, and it was only natural that I wanted to learn how it was made. That was the reason I took advantage of my church's need for sound technicians and I got trained in live mixing performances. I learned gradually that there's much more to sound mixing than making sure the microphones are on and keeping feedback from happening! It took time, but God gifted me to mix well enough to go on the road.

You learn that a sound tech is often the least appreciated member of the performance. You've done your job well if no one notices your work. When a sound tech gets noticed, it's never good. What are some complaints I remember?

• "I can't hear the words!"
• "The guitars are too loud!" (oh, guitars! The bane of church sound techs!)
• "There's a dead spot in the corner. I can't hear anything."
• "It's so loud! Can you turn it up/down?"

You're responsible for shaping the work of 3 to 20 or more people into something tens to hundreds or thousands of people hear. No one person can take responsibility for everything, but a sound tech carries a larger burden than most anyone in the group. The only exceptions would be the vocal lead and the drummer. No sound tech can overcome a bad vocal lead or drummer. 

In a nutshell, a performance sound technician takes every voice, every instrument and using electricity, shapes, mixes, and amplifies it at the correct levels so that the audience hears a harmonious and comprehensible performance. The good ones are never noticed. The great ones make the group seem like more than it is. One of the best "compliments" I ever received as a sound tech--and believe me, we remember them!--was when I was accused of using a tape deck to augment the performance with other instruments they heard! Despite what I told them, they refused to believe the tape deck was just for the multimedia presentation (a la Larry the Cucumber's Song of the Cebu), a trio of slide projectors and a professional voiceover track. I loved it because I really knew what he was talking about, but didn't dare claim it was just good mixing and some talented musicians.

I knew intuitively that harmonies between instruments can actually multiply so that the music becomes larger. It feels thicker, more substantial and it can flow together so well you'd think it's magic. Truly, it's an art and a science. There's mathematics and theories and stuff I can't easily explain, but with a good mix, you can actually combine three instruments in a way so that they sound like five or seven. It's something I can do only with practice, and even the best need some time to put it together in a performance. Like chefs, teachers, and doctors, there are the good, the bad, and the truly great. 

Around the time I came back from that road tour, I had a very unique experience that shaped my life in ways I'm still discovering. I know not everyone believes in the gifts of the Spirit or that they can be correctly applied in and to the church, but I do. I went with my folks to hear a preacher who was known informally to function in giving prophetic words. In short, that man called me out of the crowd, without any prompting from me or anyone, and told me among other things that I was to get my heart out of secular work long term, short term is ok, but that God had plans for me long term. Part of that would be to keep pressing into God. Immediately, God gave me a visual of what that looked like.

Have you ever studied the temple of Israel? What I remember of my education in a Christian school tells me all of the following. The first and second temples both had a Holy Place that only the priests could enter. There were special, sacred items in that room. But the far end of that room was partitioned off with a curtain. Behind the curtain was the Holy of Holies that one priest could enter on a single day of the year to perform special rites. In that room, at least initially, was the Ark of the Covenant, the very place where God rested on Earth. The Ark was protected by the power of God and non-Levites who mishandled it were killed by this power. The curtain that partitioned the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was more than your mom's curtain set. Some scholars believed (I was told) the curtain was several feet thick, composed of curtain upon curtain upon curtain to prevent anyone from seeing into or mistakenly entering the Holy of Holies. It was considered all one curtain, however it was structured. It was to save lives from being blotted out because they were not protected by the blood of the sacrificial lamb.*

I am often awed when I consider what it says in the Gospels, that the moment Jesus Christ died on the cross on the hill of death overlooking the main road into Jerusalem, the curtain in the Holy of Holies was ripped in two. Can you imagine what the sound of several feet of fabric being ripped by the power of God actually sounds like? Consider too, what it means: the ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God blots out the sin in us and allows us to enter God's presence with His holiness and not ours.

The picture of pressing into God was of me in a mirror-like representation not unlike an 80s video like A-ha's Take On Me or Howard Jones' You Know I Love You (Don't You?). I was pushing into a liquid and yet solid curtain of God that was a powered and resistive experience. Like I could press in a millimeter at a time as much as I could possibly stand and yet pressing further took every fiber of my being. It was as if I was a priest pressing through the curtain with that sacrifice to do what God wanted and what I needed! 

Since that day, I've been working, intently, to press into Him. I still feel the power and the resistance both working in my life. I couldn't back out if I tried! It's also been like an artichoke. The first layers were tough and I didn't like it much. Yet I kept going. Today it's delicious and tender, flavorful and memorable! And yet, I can't take a shortcut to the center! I am working my way around, taking in the circumference of what God reveals to me of Him. 

Hearing God, Ezekiel compared the sound to the voice of many waters, or a waterfall, or floodwaters, depending on the version you check. Most languages are ill-equipped to make the comparison to what is practically indescribable. Like multiplying instruments and vocals in mixing performances, it gets layered and nuanced and suddenly you're hearing so much more!☧

* - I hope my parents got what they paid for at that school, because it sure wasn't a bargain in terms of the social experience. Some cursory research has borne out at least some of what I knew.

Bono, U2 On Jimmy Kimmel Live

On May 23rd, 2017, U2 were in LA after their concert at the Rose Bowl promoting their 30th Anniversary Joshua Tree Tour on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I missed it, but my DVR did not, thank God. Otherwise, I would have missed this very helpful and fruitful exchange below. I've actually gone to the trouble of transcribing it myself.

Kimmel: Bono, I've heard your story of how you travel around the country, and you spoke to many senators, many conservatives, many Republicans, in your fight against AIDS, to help you. You worked with not only President Clinton, but really with President Bush, very closely. Is President Trump someone you would like to meet with and work with?

Bono: Yeah, the ONE campaign, we work with everybody and [it] works, and on our board we've got conservatives and liberals. Our thinking is that you just need one thing to agree with somebody on, to start a conversation. And the fight against extreme poverty we thought was worth a conversation with anybody. However... [brief pause] [audience laughter] ...Everything's different now. It really is. [The] game has changed. And I have so much respect for a lot of the people who voted President Trump into office. I really understand. I understand that anger. I have some of that anger myself, coming from where we came from. I understand people being disillusioned with the political process and they think the body politic is sick and whatever. But I don't think President is--if you'll allow me to say this--I don't think he's the cure for this problem, and I think he might even make it worse. And I don't think there's any evidence in his life that he has the people who are hardest hit in mind, and that really saddens me. Because, I know he likes to see their faces in the crowd, but I don't think he wants to know who they are when they go home. And that saddens me. Again, it's with great respect for Republicans that I know and love and their party I admire. It's just [that] this is a different thing.

K: I get the sense that you guys love America more than 99 percent of the Americans that I know. [audience laughter and applause]

I don't doubt it. I love her too, enough to be distraught (at times) over her future. The most important thing for me to remember is that God has not brought her, or us, this far just to drop us now. Regardless of your politics, pray for America, please.

You could do worse than to... Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. -- Micah 6:8

I did bold for emphasis, but only to reflect their emphasis in speech.

Senses On Overload, Mister Spock

ME/CFS is neurological. It's not just all in my head, but that's where it starts. To witness, it causes serious sensitivity to all my senses. When I am in a flare, it causes my eyes to be sensitive to light to the point where any bright light produces a hangover-like ache that can trigger pain to refer down my neck and shoulders. On bad days, tinnitus symptoms go from normal to bad and make my ears very sensitive. Because I live with a small child or two at times, this makes any screams or even loud crying very painful.

But it's not just eyes and ears. My sense of smell can be very strong. If something is cooking, I will often be the one to tell anyone when they have less than a minute to save their meal from burning. That's handy, but it often isn't handy or helpful when someone doesn't listen and the house is filled with aromatic cremains of "botched meal." Smells I didn't grow up with, like cauliflower or beans being softened up in a crock pot, are extremely uncomfortable and can leave me queasy. I've had entire meals ruined by a single burnt side dish when my nose gets in the way.

Feelings Stronger

Perhaps the strongest sense I feel so very strongly isn't sight, hearing, or even smell-taste, it's touch. When I'm sensitive, little irritations like clothing that's too tight or rough, or skin that's too dry or too wet or sweaty, or even just a casual, accidental brush of someone walking by. I've had people brush by and it feels like they took all the nerves in my foot and sent every sensation in every neuron's memory all at once up my leg into into my head. WOW!

It's one thing to be dealing with the flu-like malaise and crushing nerve pain and brain fog, but to suddenly have the rush of a thousand different live-wire sensations running up your body to your brain, it's a bit like smashing your finger. Suddenly, the fatigue, the pain, and the fog don't matter a bit. The brain overload of someone merely brushing my foot pad with their leg as they walk by has me grasping my thigh and verbalizing--loudly--electrical shock and sensory overload. They didn't do anything, which sometimes is the worst part of ME/CFS.

Not Just A Sensitive Type

I don't just mean having sensitive nerves. I have had sensitive nerves ever since I was born. I had the genetic test recently to prove it, actually. I feel pain more intensely than most people. I have "Spidey-Sense" ability to tell when the oven is on from anywhere in the house not by smell but by feel. I can usually tell when a stove burner is on even when I'm in the next room. Why? Because I was burned often enough of as a kid. Burns are insanely painful, and they teach your neurons to remember what heat is. They're sensitive, but it's not the same as the ME/CFS sensitivity. I also have had tinnitus, which is why I became a sound tech. I needed some way to keep the music at church within my pain tolerances. Until I was in my late 20s, I didn't realize other people don't hurt when certain audio frequencies were hit. I figured everyone heard and felt what I heard and felt. "When did you realize...?" is a game I sometimes still play.

For this reason, I have what I'd like to call buffers. Just like you'd put foam in a pillow to fluff it up or put blinds down to block most of the sun when you're driving into the sunset or sunrise, I have buffers that take the edge off. Sometimes, I run out of them and I miss them. But here's a short list of

My ME/CFS Sensitivity Survival Gear

This is the stuff I use to put a buffer between me and a world of hurt when my nerves just can't cope.

Foam Earplugs

They're just dime store variety ear plugs but sometimes they are more valuable than gold! They are used in dozens of industries and hundreds of employers buy them by the box of 500. Strangely, what non-users don't always realize: earplugs do not usually make you deaf to all sound. They're meant to filter out a lot of it and let you hear the meaningful parts like when someone's shouting at you to get out of the way before you get squashed. Unless you're jamming two or three of the things in at once, you can usually hear people talking with normal voices for the most part.

But the high end of the sound, the treble that your parents HiFi had, the sound that the tweeters were there for and the stuff that sends most tinnitus sufferers through the roof? That's filtered. As well as some of the low range, bass, the thwup-wubba-wah-thwup-bup-owww sound that goes through walls every time the kid with the sub-woofers drives by, that's filtered to not hit your ears as much. And if you're not using them when your ears are nuts, you need to.

Earbuds

It's one thing to not hear what can drive you nuts. It's another thing entirely to need to not be where you are. How do you discretely escape while your friend is driving you to an appointment?  Having a pair of earbud style headphones are like having earplugs with the ability to cover up whatever is grating on your nerves. They're not just handy. They can be life savers, especially when you're travelling. 

Until God gives me something to match my eyelids for my ears, a pair of earbuds is perhaps the best way to disengage the world, with one exception and that's ...

Over The Ear Headphones

Ok, I can hear it now. "Steve, come on! You've already got earplugs and earbuds. Why do you need over the ear headphones?" Trust me. There are benefits and tradeoffs to each, and OEH fit a real niche.

Plugs are low tech, depend on nothing but your ability to roll them between your fingers. They don't get twisted up or wrapped around your neck if you fall asleep with them in. They function no matter what. Buds travel well, provide an aural sensation that you can focus on or simply use to cover up the worst of the noise. OEH don't travel so well, despite what that kid with the "Beats by Dre" headphones at the airport might have you believe. When you are in your "coccoon" at home, they work to isolate like no other, especially if you purchase a reliable "active noise cancelation" tech built in. It cushions all the painful noise you can't take in. Plus, they physically cover your ears in a way the other two just can't.

Add to this the fact that some have microphones and most have a volume control that is independent of the device it's connected to means you can soften things out without having to tweak every device you plug into. It's convenient. 

In the next post about Sense and Sensitivity, I'll cover the other senses and what else I use to set things right, or at least cope with symptoms until they improve.

This post is dedicated to my firstborn, Skye. Happy 20th baby! So much has gone right since I saw you arrive! I am the proudest papa on the planet!

Worry Will Not Bring Life To You, But Something Else Will

Worry is nothing but a missed opportunity to pray to the God Who obsesses about you more than you do. Prayer is meant to be a dialog with the Holy Spirit Who lives inside you. Communal prayer is not just a way to bear one another's burdens fulfilling the law of Christ, and love, but it is the only way to reliably bring the living Christ into your presence. In this way, we return to the Garden, the foretaste of eternity, and we advance what John the Baptist called the kingdom of Heaven.

Politics, Shakespeare, Decency, and Legacy

I don't usually do politics on my blog because I don't want to sacrifice the eternal for the temporary. That said, there are times when we must speak to the issues facing us. Now is one of those times.

This may not count for a whole lot, but I can certainly say that I will not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 or any other year. She has character flaws that make her the Lady MacBeth of America. On the other hand, I can also safely say that I will not be voting for Donald Trump in 2016 or any other year. He has no decency. I will not "vote with my middle finger" because, very simply, a decision made out of anger is always regrettable and usually without a fair appraisal of what one gets in the trade.

Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

My dream candidate is Dr. Ben Carson, who, if the Republicans had the wisdom in 2008, would likely be ending his second term as President instead of Obama. In that year, the Republicans, Lincoln's party, would have reaffirmed their precious legacy by nominating the first black candidate for a major party. Now, if the Republicans choose Carson, they will just look like they're late to the party.

Carson reflects a lot of what I believe and he has the wisdom that few politicians have. He's not shrewd or manipulative, and he is a patriot. He's not as green as I would prefer, but he is still a breath of fresh air that we all could use. Short of running for office myself, which I've contemplated as all patriots should, Carson is the closest match.

I want Carson. I hope for Carson. I pray for Carson. Whether that's what God wants, I have yet to see.

New Direction Contemplation: To Boldly Go...

I am thinking about a  new series for my blog, writing my own thoughts on Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) , going episode by episode and finding out what I can and writing what I remember, think and feel about it. While I grew up with Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS)--with the Balok puppet scaring my 4 year old mind and scarring my psyche for years, TNG was the Trek I came of age with.

It's going to be unique if I go forward with it. I mean, I am about as mellow as I've ever been in my life but I still feel passionately about things. Fewer things, but things that are at the core of me. For example, I am very strongly pro-life and I don't think that's ever going to change. I'm also very passionate about my faith, now more than ever. God is everything to me. I cannot be me without my love for Jesus the Messiah. Likewise, I'm a husband and a father and I can't be who I am without my desire to secure the future for my children. My life has been changed by all these things, my heart and my perception of everything is shaped by these life experiences, and strangely it has also been influenced by Star Trek, a show I simply followed for entertainment, a respite from the world.

I say strangely because Star Trek as a whole until 1991 was created by a humanistic atheist, Gene Roddenberry. He wrote TOS as "Wagon Train to the stars," a western where a ship replaced the wagons and planets replaced the arid western scenery. He wanted to articulate a future where humanity had survived and not wiped itself out with nuclear wars. Yet, with TNG, Roddenberry was convinced it would be his magnum opus, and he wanted to push it further to the ultimate direction, where humanity was no longer the 3 year-old child fighting over toys and chits. He wanted to paint his version of humanity having arrived at it's humanistic ideal, a utopian dream, nothing else and nothing less. Humans were still flawed, but the flaws were not born of selfish need and petty desires.

Why is that a problem for me? Well, as a parent, I know that there is something within every child that comes forward with needs and wants that will not be ignored. Needs, like food, warmth, attention, and dry diapers, and wants like toys, snacks, and activities that entertain, will drive that child to verbalize, point, crawl, grasp, but also drive them to scream, shove, and take without regard to others. We may teach them how to work with those desires and to keep their actions civil and kind, but that takes time and each child has their own response to the education, which is borne out over the course of that person's lifetime. The best turn out to be "good people." The worst are usually sitting in a prison for years or decades by the time they're done. My faith tells me that sin has corrupted mankind and the world around him. No one ever has ever perfectly adapted to those needs and lived a life free of defects. No one, that is, except Jesus Christ, Whose divinity and humanity were fully real, but completely under His control. The rest of us, we fall short, and that's the best definition of sin.

Gene wants us to, via the suspension of disbelief that is given to a show or theater production, accept that the childish needs that drive us all our lives, the ones that made Gene himself act so "worldly" as to have a 15 year affair with a mistress even while he had children with his second wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. He was a man deeply flawed in some ways but in others knowing the truth of his own standards, grappling with his sins, and refusing to believe that his hunger for Eden was a lie. His caricature of God, never reflected better than when he wrote the character of Q in the pilot of TNG, was exactly what an atheist believes God to be, unsympathetic judge and petty rogue with nothing more than a chip on his shoulder to prove mankind is a "savage child race."

I find myself at once rooting for Roddenberry's vision and at the same time sadly SMH at the things he got fabulously wrong. Writers, which were used like tissues and toilet paper in the first two years of TNG, were constantly at odds with the idea that people in the 24th century didn't have the conflicts that they do today. If people didn't have conflicts over money, sex, and power, that eliminates nearly all the dramatic fodder for the writers contemporary with TNG. For someone who had enough drama in my life at the time, the ideas of Trek and TNG in particular sounded appealing. It was a way to see life as it could be if people merely lived up to the ideals they aspired to. For someone who didn't get "people" in general, it was really the ideal escape when all the other shows out there were just more of the same old stuff.

TNG was the final articulation of Roddenberry, a man who is on his own pedestal, having been granted his own sainthood in the minds of so many fans out there. The Great Bird of the Galaxy, as Gene had accepted the nickname, came home to roost. Was he going to lay an egg? What would emerge out of TNG? Like every birth and every creative process, the beginnings were awkward, messy and troubling at times, especially the first two seasons, but Trekkies kept the series alive long enough for the show to find its feet. It's survival gave us something unique and its legacy is one that kept the Trek franchise surviving into the 21st century and perhaps beyond. It's for that reason alone I should consider writing about it.

Also, a wise writer recently told me that before 40, a writer should write for others and that after 40, they should only write for themselves. While I have my doubts about that specific an age bracket, I do know that I need to articulate some of my world, because more and more of it is being swallowed up by the new one that I don't quite recognize. So we'll see how far I get. I hope to make a serious go of it. Who knows how far I can get?

Thankful For a Dad Whose Love Broke Through Barriers

Oklahoma City 1939 was as segregated as it could be
as this Russell Lee photograph clearly illustrates

Sometimes racism is blatant, like the "separate but equal" facilities in the south that were carved out like a cancer in the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s. But it was a quiet separate-but-equal in Colorado, the kind you didn't see in signs, but it was there, nonetheless. I was just as shocked as anyone was when I found out that my own father was not a part of perpetuating it, but ending it.

The 1960s in Colorado was very different from how you and I now experience it. Leaded gas flowed through carburetors into low octane engines, filling the air with a fine brown exhaust that hung about a simple interstate system. This system, when it at last intersected northwest of the city, it was so convoluted and kinked with curves, one traffic reporter called it a mousetrap, probably because there was no way you were getting out of there with all your whiskers intact!

If you wanted to call someone, much like everywhere else in the country, you had to figure out if they'd be home. In the summer, this was a real bother because the only place that actually had air conditioning was a movie theater or maybe the stores on 16th Street downtown. Even brand new Westland Mall at Colfax and Pierce in Lakewood had open breezeways instead of an actual enclosed commons like Colorado Mills. So to cool off, you might have gone to a pool, or a movie, but staying cooped up in a house some warm summer evening wasn't much fun. But if you were lucky, and they were unlucky, you could call them.

But don't stay on too long. They might need to take another call for someone else living at the same address. What's worse, the other caller might get frustrated from re-dialing their rotary phone so many times and constantly getting what was called a "busy signal." Or worse, you could be interrupting their favorite TV show re-run which they'd missed the first time because they didn't have a DVR. They didn't have VCRs back in the 60's either. And most stations still broadcast in black and white anyway. And with 2 to 5 channels to pick from locally, you were pretty much stuck with whatever the local stations could arrange. There were no long-distance cable networks. Forget video games. Forget chat. If you wanted to communicate with your friends out-of-state, It was stamped and hand delivered mail, or you could call them. It would cost up to $3 a minute and if you called and got a busy signal, you had to wait for them to finish and then try again!

If you likewise wanted to get an appointment, you had to call the doctor or the dentist and if they were busy, well just too bad. You'd have to call back in a few minutes. No redial either. Some folks actually got jobs by how fast they could dial a phone using a rotary dial, or how fast they could write shorthand (an early, handwritten form of txtspk bt w/o teh phone or typos. And typos, oh, cardinal sins, those typos! Not everyone typed. In fact, they had what were called "typing pools" where your secretary's shorthand would get translated to actual e-n-g-l-i-s-h by mostly women who did nothing but type and file all day. And if they had over the number of allowable misteaks mistakes, usually 2, they would hve have to start over. Not 2 mistakes per word, not per line, but per page! White out was still a decade away, so it was essential to get a perfect typist or appear like you couldn't afford good employees.

Speaking of white out. That happened in the mornings. Oh, no one told you about that? Well, if you were white, you would go out in the morning to the store, the tailor or dry cleaners, or if you had a checkup at the dentist, you would go and see him in the morning. Then, after 1 or 2 p.m., that's when the other folks, the blacks or mexicans, would have their turn. It could be a real problem if your dentist had some garlic-loaded 3 cheese lasagna for lunch or worse, knocked back a few martinis with his sandwich at the men's club. He might not be as attentive as he would have been in the morning when he was sober.

If you did want a morning appointment for one reason or another and your race stood in the way, you had to find a dentist or doctor who didn't know you and you had to sound "white" over the phone when making your appointment. Otherwise, the receptionist might steer you to an afternoon slot. And then, if you showed up, they might make you wait outside the office or more likely, flatly refuse you your appointment and give you a nasty time for "wasting" theirs by trying to cheat the system.

It was like that in the 40s and 50s. It was like that in a lot of cities in the 60s, including Denver. But it wasn't like that at my father's new practice. Fresh out of dental school, my dad still remembered the kind and loving care he'd received from his grandparents' hired maid, an elderly black woman. She had taught him to feed himself as a child. His experiences reinforced the idea that racism, in any form, is not acceptable. He became one of the first dentists in Denver who had an integrated waiting room. If you needed an appointment, whatever time was convenient to you and the dentist or hygenist was when you were seen. Isn't that so much simpler? But if a person were a bigot, well, they probably didn't choose to hang out too long in the waiting room with someone who didn't have the same shade of melanin. That was too bad for them, because my dad, up to retirement, was the best dentist in all of Colorado. I might be a little biassed on that, but trust was absolute and his grandkids will all remember seeing their grandpa for dental work.

In every aspect, my dad is also someone whose compassion and love was very moving. As a medically-trained individual, he did not hesitate to jump into the action if someone was in distress. Whether that was on some roadside when he rolled up on an accident somewhere, or if it was someone needing help with a fractured tooth. This meant loss for him and his family when he would treat anyone regardless of their ability to pay. From someone who collapsed while swimming to crawling inside a car wreck to assist a mother who lay dying after fleeing with her children from her abusive husband, watching my father's heart leap in has led me more than once into my own harrowing experiences of love hurdling barriers to help a friend, a stranger, a lost soul, or a victim. I have carried this love onward as a living testament of a father whose impulse of love would propel him to action no matter the consequences to his heart. He is the bravest man I've ever known.

One of the best examples of this was a photograph that made the Denver papers in the same days of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., showing my dad, at work as a dentist, showing two young boys how to brush their teeth using an adult-sized pair of chompers. It was my dad, being the man I've grown up loving and proud to be his son.

View image | gettyimages.com

Exploring With the Colorado Pass Book

The Colorado Pass Book: A Guide to Colorado's Backroad Mountain Passes by Don Koch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whether you're a native who grew up traveling the back roads of Colorado or a new tenderfoot looking to better acquaint yourself with your new home state, the Colorado Pass Book is an excellent all-in-one book for exploring, jeeping, and camping in the Centennial State! You don't need anything more than a stocked and well cared-for passenger car for some of the roads, and each of the routes are scenic trips in their own right.

I have had this book in two different editions and the most recent is best for the updated information as well as for the more compact travel size. Both editions are stuffed jammed tight with notes by me and my father, having driven each road in the book! Koch's estimates of the difficulty and equipment requirements for each route are spot on accurate. If there is one thing I could change about the book, it's that Koch seems to tone down his reviews and restrain his writing to understate certain aspects, and we have highlighted and underlined cautionary statements, because his warnings should be heeded at all costs!

Any guide book should be complimented by another and, while there isn't a direct road-for-road comparison that I know of, the best I've seen is Guide to Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails in its various editions by Charles A. Wells. Both of these books are worth their weight in gold, especially if one takes into account the cost savings of car repairs!


View all my reviews

Marble Pavers -- Nosce Te Ipsum

It's a secret as old as the curse. "Know thyself." Meaning, if you don't know your self, your heart, including your thoughts, your desires, what you want, and what you need, measuring out each to know how deep each one goes, you will fall by not knowing how the balance of all these burdens can sway you toward a particular pitfall.

I've struggled with a different balance, that of knowing my heart. I would rather live life than spend all of it ruminating and navel gazing. Religion can feed this by emphasizing one's actions over the grace God has for us. Given the impact of my disability and how it leaves me a lot of time for thinking and non-action, you'd think I'd spend most of my time knowing myself. I am surprised how little time I actually do spend in introspection. What is worse? On one hand, I could spend all my time critiquing my own actions or inaction, curled up like a pill bug or armadillo. On the other, I could spend it running and chasing from spot to spot, not knowing why I did anything I did and leaving a trail of destruction as my legacy. Neither is worthwhile, so the task is choosing the optimum, with the emphasis on following God's guidance both in general life and personal choice.

Knowing one's needs and wants could have helped Adam. He knew he loved Eve. He would go through anything to keep her. And yet, her desire to be more than what she was, and his inaction in the time of her temptation, led him to destruction and heartache. Had he known that he could have stopped Eve from listening to the serpent, and that he didn't need to join Eve in her sin, he might have ...well, it never came to that, did it? He didn't know his own heart. He chose to join her because he felt that he needed her more than anything else. He didn't know his heart and that it would betray him.

And women wonder why we don't listen to them more often! I'm only joking, because those that know me know that I depend on the women of my family for their trusted guidance. In Eve's case, it's not one of a woman wickedly leading man to his doom. It's that men learn that their own hearts can often take what the woman says to him and cause him to make choices that are against his general welfare. Men mistrust their own emotions because they lost the big game on a decision they didn't want to make. What Adam didn't see, what men don't see, is that God is there to make the way for him. No matter what happens, if a man turns to God in repentance, the future is always better than what man could have made it by himself. And if a woman points him to God, Eve's mistake is redeemed.

For the first time in a while, I've looked deeply into my heart. I see how the disability has poisoned some of my heart's deep loves. I love being outdoors and yet I live with the poison of not being outside because I can't stand the traffic we live with in our back yard. Frankly, my body feels assaulted by the vibrations of the traffic moving along at 40-50 MPH inches from my back yard. I used to wonder why I didn't see more people in the backyards that lined our cities streets. Once, I thought I would gladly take the evils of traffic if it meant I could have a yard of my own. No longer. And yet, that's not really why I don't want to go outside. It's because I want to keep going.

I don't want to stop at my fence. I want to keep going until I find a place I can rest my soul as much as I rest my body. And yet, I know that such a place is far enough away and not presently open financially and possibly physically to me going.

I want to go to a place where the things Karen has to do are not required. Where she can rest with me and we can talk and enjoy each other, working together. I want my kids to be able to go and do the things they want to do with each other and on their own. I want my son to discover his heart and follow it so that God can show him even better things than I have. I want my daughters to find their hopes and loves available to them at any point so that they can pursue and embrace them. It's not a fantasy. It's a real place.

I used to think this was a place on Earth. It's not. It's in heaven, and I want to see each of them there eventually. God has promised me this, so it's only a matter of time and waiting. Until that happens, I will wait here, marooned in the now and not-yet. knowing my heart and what I hope for will not be too far off and that prayer, faith, hope and love will carry us as a family toward that destination, the Home I have down the Road.

Welcome to New Readers!

Hey there! I just opened up the Road Home to it's inaugural group of new readers. If you can see this, you're in a group of trusted readers that I've welcomed to "test drive" my formerly invisible personal blog. I've done this to help me figure out how to best interact with my readers and what I can do and can't do.

Can you help me out? Leave comments on whatever you read, if only to tell me you like it or don't like it. That way I'll know what initially attracted you and if you tell me why you didn't like it, I'll know what doesn't work for you and potentially how to improve the message, it's delivery, or whatever else.

The blog itself will remain restricted access for now. Eventually, this will be public, but I plan to go in and remove any personal feedback you might leave. If you'd like to keep it confidential, please send it to me in confidence.

Watch For Falling Rocks

Duck!

I saw a fireball once.

In 1992, I was at my home in Wheat Ridge, Colorado when I looked out the front windows toward the northwest around sunset in the evening. Almost immediately, I saw a streak of fire hurtling down so fast there was no time to react. It was much faster than anything I had ever seen before. It was the speed of a shooting star, which I've seen often enough, but much longer. It looked like it was between me and the mountains and that it could just as easily have hit the earth as burned up.

In a few seconds I realized that what I had seen was a meteor. The fireball's trail dissipated very quickly, so that when I went outside, I couldn't see any discernible trail. I almost wondered if I actually had imagined it. Yet, a day or so later, I saw reports in the local news that other people had seen it in the skies over Boulder, the same location I had seen it. Sadly, the only visual record is locked in my memory.

Yet, it's not without impact on me and surely on others who have such memories. Not unlike a satellite or meteor dropping through the sky, scientists and warriors have designed MIRVs, nuclear warheads, to drop through the sky and, instead of winking out of existence like my meteor, exploding over it's target with the estimated force of thousands to millions of tons of explosives. Seeing something akin to my fireball may be the last thing someone would see before witnessing the end of their own life and that of thousands or millions of others. It is a horrifying thought for any human being, one that this child of the cold war who had studied the logistics and effects of a nuclear war has thought about time and again. The abject horror of the thought does not grow easier with time, either.

Such destruction would not have to be caused by man, however. Victims of the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor blast and witnesses of the 1908 Tunguska blast know that such power does not solely rest with human beings. The blast of a rock, or in a worst case scenario, metal asteroid slamming first into the atmosphere and then into the crust of the earth is likely to have caused planet-wide destruction on more than one occasion, something humans cannot claim, yet, and hopefully never will.

Apocalypse Pow

Seen on Facebook

If you believe the Bible  as I do, a meteor or comet apocalypse is not only likely to happen at some point in humanity's future, it's actually prophesied. Right smack in the middle of Revelation, John the Beloved's prophetic letter to seven churches and the last book in the Bible, John writes of angels blowing trumpets, releasing events on an unbelieving generation of humans to call them to repentance and relationship with God. The third of seven trumpet blasts releases a celestial event.

Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch. It fell on one-third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star was Bitterness [in Greek, literally "wormwood."] It made one-third of the water bitter, and many people died from drinking the bitter water. Rev 8:10-11 NLT

It's a roughly 1,920 year-old book, and a lot of the imagery can be taken symbolically, as Matthew Henry's Commentary does, or at least in the spirit that a person from our time might use to describe the events and technology of people from the year 3814 AD. And yet, meteors are still referred to as falling stars. Meteors or comets weren't unknown to stargazers of John's time. Yet anyone of his time would be puzzled to see the effects of radiological contamination. John does us a bit of a favor by not speculating on what he saw, and instead simply stating what he saw in his vision and leaving it at that.

Assuming John was being literal at this point, what could the source be? A failed nuclear-powered satellite? Radioactive cesium? Nuclear fallout? There are many possibilities, and not all of them fall under radiological causes. Nonetheless, radiation would be a prime suspect for wormwood's bitterness. And a third of the earth's freshwater going undrinkable would cause massive casualties in any generation, but especially from here on as the world's freshwater sources are largely already claimed for use.

Incidentally, chapter 8 is a pretty rough chapter for the people of earth. A firestorm of hail and fire mixed with blood, (possibly nuclear war), sets a third of the earth's trees on fire and destroys the green grass. That doesn't just mean no more lawn mowing or golf games. Grass is what much of the earth's livestock live on. That food chain would likely begin to fail. Further complicating that is the fourth trumpet that reduces all light reaching the earth by a third. That is Sagan's nuclear winter, folks, and food production would grind to a halt in less than a year. Considering how we eat fresh food much more than stored or canned food, this does not bode well for survivors of wormwood and the other events.

If you'd like to know more, let me know personally. I'd be glad to give you my take, but really, God will do the speaking Himself when the time comes. I hope that I and those I love are not there to witness the results. Regardless, if we are, I know that through the pain, we will push through as long as we can to give those who need God's love and grace all that we can. That's what His kids do.

Falling Like Lightning

Instead of an apocalypse, my memory of the fireball actually brings something else entirely to my mind. Preserved through 2 millenia are these words, "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning!" It was Jesus' exclamation in response to His disciples as they told about their experiences once they had returned from their mission to go and tell people the news about God's kingdom. Jesus was telling them of the impact their mission had in the spiritual realm.

Just as that meteor streaked across the northwestern sky and caught all sorts of bystanders' attention that day over 20 years ago, so too can the disciples of God's kingdom have the impact today of dethroning the prince of the power of the air by speaking and acting in line with in Holy Spirit.

Just Fair Justice in Fairness

What's the difference between "Fair" and "Just?" Fairness not as in beauty, "Who's the fairest of them all?" Fairness as in equitable. Justice not as in the judge, but what he is trusted by the people to make day after day.

Fairness implies that it must be agreeable to the judgment of all involved. Justice seems to appeal to an objective judgment by a higher authority. "Justice was done," is a phrase usually given by those who comment on a justice system rendering it's judgment to the guilty party as an agreeable conclusion, usually meaning that there's consensus of fairness. Oi vey.

Fair can be used in a court setting. "He must be given a fair trial." But a fair trial doesn't seem to include the tried in terms of his opinion of it, does it? It seems to imply a fair chance to plead his case for innocence of the crime at hand. Yet justice only enters the courtroom when the jury renders it's verdict, and even then it's not guaranteed.

So fair depends on everyone with a stake in the matter. Just only depends on one judgment, none but God Himself, ultimately.

"Life isn't fair." We all learn that one early enough. The world won't care if how things shake out doesn't meet with your approval. If it did, no one would be happy for long. Life is not just, either. If it was, millions of people killed by a dictator would want their lives back. So what point is there to this?

Simply: Working for justice is noble. Working for fairness is for lawyers. One is worth your time, the other thinks their time is worth your money. Working for justice is attainable sometimes. Working for fairness will never be attainable everytime simply because no one is ever truly satisfied.

Take Me Home

I've been reminded so often lately of my ultimate destination. Home, as in the title of this, my personal blog, is what folks know as heaven. It comes up when I look at Facebook a lot. I see my friends and how they cope with their losses, a child here, a mother or grandmother there. It never seems to go away. It's a just a breath away in my mind. Ironically, for everyone, it is just a breath or two away. There are no guarantees that your next breath won't be your last. Instead of a sense of dread or fear, I now find myself filled with a sense of hope. Isn't that a weird turn? Instead of writing about the Road, I'm writing about Home. And yet, that's the aim of my journey. It's what keeps me motivated.

I've been a subtle fan of Phil Collins since his creative cover of "Love Don't Come Easy." Yet the chorus of another song "Take Me Home" keeps knocking around in my head and heart. His video is creative and the song enjoyable.



I long to see Home. I've had experiences in my life that have fully convinced me that my spirit is real. It is something I can't measure or touch, but I can tell you that, while my body is mine, it is not all of me. It is not Steve Walden in his entirety. I know that if I died right here, right now, that it would be amazing and real in a sense that few earthly sensations are. I wouldn't be able to describe how lifting off the ground and looking around would be so exhilarating and freeing, but I would relish it.

So often, we look at life as a brief 70-90 year stint on this planet. We don't know what life is! I cannot prove to you that life is a mirror in which we only glimpse briefly for a few moments in our many years what truly life can be, but I can tell you that there is One Who can, and His Word leaves little doubt. In his writing about the rapture, Paul says "in the blink of an eye" that we who live until Jesus comes will be changed and caught up in the air with Him. It won't be a painful ordeal. If we die, we may feel pain through our bodies, but the moment it stops feeling, that's the end of the pain. We go from that instant to being with the Lord. What's to fear?

I guess living with pain for years has changed my perspective quite a bit. If I do go home without much advance notice, I want folks to know that I have total peace about it. I ache over those who are left behind, but there's one certain way to see me again. And if you take advantage of that offer, I promise I will not throw in a fish emblem for your car. I will, however, give you a big hug when I see you next time.

Starship Crossing

I am a trekkie.

I freely and openly admit that here and now. As with all serious affectations, it started with a family member. In this case, I blame my brother, Mark, who is the other bookend for my family and 12 years older. I still look up to him in a way I suspect all little brothers naturally do. For Mark, I suspect this makes him feel slightly uncomfortable. Like me, he can be painfully conscious of his failings and I think having a brother as a yap dog and worshipper. Still, I've lived in awe of his abilities and talents. His gift of a working Space Shuttle was perhaps the greatest and most timely gifts I've ever gotten. Okay, okay, it was a model, but with the exception skipping the SRB sep, it performed exactly like the real thing.

Mark planted the seeds of Star Trek. Since I've known him, Mark has had the ability to recite word-for-word any of the original series (TOS) episodes, though he has long since stopped performing on cue. When I was 5 years old, we went to Disneyland and oddly we went back to the motel room for a nap in the afternoon. Mark found a station playing an episode and laying there, he would say the lines verbatim before th actors would. I found it mesmerizing and strangely comforting. If Mark knew what happened in the episode, then everything should turn out well by the end of the show. A redshirt may die, but Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, Uhura, Spock and the rest would make it through okay. To this day, Star Trek is a touchstone for me to think about him.

Growing up, I would watch the episodes in syndication every time I was allowed to stay up as late as KWGN, our local independent station in Denver would show the reruns nightly, usually 9 or 10 p.m. or later. For many years, they'd run a 10/11 double-header, one with TOS and one TNG. Eventually that became TNG and DS9 and by then my inner Trekkie had asserted itself, at least at home.

I liked Spock and the way he would get into it with Bones. I wanted to be Jim Kirk and be able to save the day with my courage and daring. I was utterly deflated when I discovered that they were no longer making the series and that the actors had aged quite a bit since it ended. Around the time that Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan came out, I was horrified to hear  that Kirk (William Shatner) had gone bald, and that even worse, he was too vain to appear without a wig. For me, it was inconsistent with the character of Kirk and I found it to hard to like either Kirk or Shatner until I learned to separate the two. Somehow, I still find Kirk tainted by Shatner's vanity. Even though I make the separation of actor and character, some part of me must not be able to fully understand the difference.

My autistic tendencies might be at work in that, and probably run rampant throughout my Trekkie life. I too know nearly every line of nearly every episode of The Next Generation after watching episodes I had taped until 2001, when I found my library had the boxed DVD sets. They had seven DVDs for seven seasons. I would have only a week to watch those seven DVDs, an entire season of TNG. To Karen's dismay, I would attempt and usually succeed in doing so.

Karen does not share my enthusiasm for Star Trek or Sci-fi in general, and I have needed to temper my enthusiasm as a result. She's different from me. Sometimes I find that we are polar opposites in preference or opinion and Trek is something she doesn't get. I used to let it bother me until I discovered that my unhappiness actually was making her upset with herself. Our love naturally manifests itself in the desire to please each other, and when the other is discontent, it causes me or her deep distress. When I found out, I naturally released her and purposefully resolved never to put her in that distress again. It hurt her, and it could have alienated me, so to speak, from her. My kids find it a little more relatable but they don't have more than a few episodes memorized [Melodramatic chuckle, sotto voce] ...yet.

A Post With Waterproof Paint

Life sure has changed in a few years, culminating at 40, I expect. Until a year ago, I was a cat person. This in the face of a cat allergy that once produced mild respiratory distress and swelled both eyes shut. We even went so far as to get manx kittens from a couple of breeders a few years back in order to allow me to still enjoy them. Manx lack an enzyme in their saliva that tends to produce the dander that provokes the allergy symptoms. Manx are incredibly aloof, which is not the case with the Burmese chocolate brown, yellow eyed females my mother has loved since before I was born. It is this "love me when I want to be loved otherwise you don't exist" aloofness that has forced a change.

Now, I'm a dogger. I have changed sides in the cats vs. dogs debate. And, I'm starting to wonder if one is enough. Ace, my year old loyal to a fault Labrador, is incredibly social. If he were any more social, I would fear for his safety. If you are accepted by us as a friend, you are part of his pack and therefore subject to extensive welcoming by him. This does include the customary sniffing in areas that, for the life of me, I'll never appreciate why, are exactly the height of a Labrador's head. So part of me still does appreciate aloofness at times.

He's not "intact," as breeders say, although for all his beauty, you would want to clone him. Actually, it is his sweetness and loyalty that you wish you could bottle, not just his looks. He likes to chase our two Manx whose aloofness seems to be crumbling one claw at a time to his impetuous persistence. He will not kill them, I don't think. He's never once shown anger to them. He's always wagged his tale on approach.

Manx cats don't speak Dog, I don't think, anyway. They haven't let on. On the other hand, I think they've regretted trying to teach him Cat. They've repeatedly said, "Stay back!" and now Ace tries saying it back by swiping his paw at them, presuming, I think that "Stay back!" means "I love you." Half the words in Dog mean some variant of "I love you." The other words are "Out. Out now. Out, please! and Do you want me to eat that for you?"

So, Ace needs a friend, if only to spare my aging Manx's nerves. We're praying about it, because at this point, a paid brother, half-brother or cousin would not be in the cards. It would also increase our dog food consumption and waste removal, things we struggle with like all dog owners. Still, I figure that the more dogs I have, the warmer this house will be. Or maybe is it the more broken-in and loved on the furniture is. Regardless, one lesson we've learned is that dogs will teach you to keep your treasures in heaven. It's the only place they can't reach your stuff.