October

It seems I’ve skipped most of the month of October. It began with the representatives of Americans who wanted their voices heard about the way the Government is spending the people’s money. Lake of enough votes to actually pass a budget left my wife out of work for the first three weeks of the month.

So as the time flew by, my wife spent a lot of time in a corner of our house dedicated to her only real hobby, art. The passed five or so years she’s been gathering up photos, both old and new, and sorting through them, and preparing to build family scrapbooks. It’s really impossible to say exactly what I really did. I piddled around in the shop, did some things around the house that needed to be done.

One thing that we did, during the “furlough” is to go out for lunch together, at a few favorite places as well as trying out a few new ones. We discovered Mambo Jambo cafe, located near an old favorite lunch place. We ended up at Mambo when we arrived at that old favorite late, and confronted a crowd awaiting seats. It was so worth being late, and giving Mambo a try.

Mambo Jambo is subtitled A Nuevo Latino Seafood Cafe. Entering, we were greeted warmly, and lead to a booth or table, our choice, in one of two dining rooms. We chose a booth. Splitting the cafe provided a more intimate experience. The decor is earthly, using lots of dark wood and black iron. My wife had a margarita, while I choose the Dos X beer on tap. My wife commented that her drink was exceptional, with a generous amount of tequila. We both ordered fish tacos. They were served with several sauces, each a marvel. I had the “signiture” salad, that included strawberries, walnuts, and goat cheese. Delicious. My wife had a Greek salad, and loved the delicate, yet spicy dressing. Not only was the food excellent, but the presentation was striking. Everything from having a carafe of water on the table to the plates and bowls that the food was served on made a delight upon which the eyes feasted.

Presentation. It’s an old concept, really. I first read of it in relation to food in a Chinese cook book. It seems to me, that presentation is as persuasive as fragrance when it comes to the enjoyment that one may take from the simple act of eating a meal.

I am reminded of a verse in my morning reading of Revelation:

Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

Revelation 19:9

And when I think of The Feast, I think of what we call the Last Supper. I think of how Y’shuaJesus presented Himself. He said we should break bread and drink wine and do so in remembrance of Him. The Body and The Blood. A true presentation.

How do I translate this into Christian Living for the Twenty-First Century? Simple! We are more than the money we give to ministries, we are ministers to those with whom we come into contact. We are living Bibles to people we meet each day. We are a meal to tantalize the senses of the unsaved. We are the Body of Messiah.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Early this morning. . .

. . . I some how found myself in a lumber yard standing with my father. Together we looked at the back end of a lowboy trailer much like the one I once used in the military to haul armored vehicles and howitzers. We discussed how to add a piece of wood to protect the back where the tracks of the vehicles had chewed up the wood. We decided upon a piece of hardwood, attached so that it could protect the other wood, take the abuse, and be easily replaced.

Then a fork driver came over to put a load of lumber on the trailer, which morphed into a flatbed. My mother appeared and told the lift driver to put the load toward the back. He questioned her about this decision, and I supported it, pointing out that the weight center of the trailer was different than the physical center.

I recall having some sort of music player, and telling my mother it could store lots of music, even the Welsh music that was now unplayable, as it was vinyl records and we had no record player.

The trailer was nearly loaded now, and my father asked if the strip of wood was ready yet. I started toward a building and looked back to say that I’d be back, I only needed to get a sweatshirt and use the bathroom. I headed toward a large, steel building, not unlike the one in which I worked for many years at Camp Roberts.

As I approached my own bathroom, in my own bedroom, the steel workshop faded away and I awoke.

That’s the second dream in two days in which Camp Roberts appeared. In the other dream, the night before last, I had returned to Camp Roberts, and was once again wearing olive drab, and heading to an old warehouse where the supply office would issue me steel-toed boots.

If I literally returned to Camp Roberts, to the East Garrison where once I spent ten years, that steel building and the other wooden buildings would be long gone. Even as I was leaving that place, before I entered the Forest Service, a new, large maintenance facility had been christened and moving begun.

I remember my fist day in that steel maintenance building, which was fairly new at the time. I met Sargent First Class Edwin Spickert. People were pretty much on first name basis then, and I was introduced as Terry. Ed said, “I knew a Terry once, and you sure don’t look like her!” I became “Robi,” then and there. I stayed Robi until I hung up, or layed out in the trash dump, my uniform with its bittersweet memories.

Ed worked with the designers and engineers planning the new maintenance building many years later. He made Warrant Officer, too, as did several of the other “old timers” at the shop. When I started there there were a handful of “new guys” like me, and a hand full of these older guys who’d been around what seemed like forever. When I left after ten years, most of the old timers were still there, most of those formerly new guys, too. But there had come a hoard of others, as the shop grew and grew, busting out its seams.

I learned a lot while at Camp Roberts. I worked hard. It wasn’t easy. I made mistakes. When I left, I left. I never went back. At least, not until my dream the other night, and the one early this morning. I made a lot of mistakes while I at Camp Roberts. I’ve made a lot of mistakes everywhere I’ve ever been. Hind sight, it is often pointed out, is 20/20.

Today, opening the online Bible to which I often refer to, I found before me:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

There are a number of people that it would me nice to say something like, “Hey, I really learned a lot from you.” There are a lot of people that I could also say, “Hey, I’m sorry.” I still have nagging regrets of things done and things left undone. I appreciate that regardless of my life, imperfect in my eyes as it is in others’, is seen as perfect in my Savior, Y’shuaJesus. And I am thankful that there is now no condemnation for all of us who are in Messiah Y’shuaJesus. Thank You, Y’shua!

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Retreating

Atlanta Urban landscape (Photo credit: glen edelson)

Last night I went to see my daughter’s basketball team play. I didn’t leave early enough, catching the “rush hour” traffic jam, and arrived at half time, I missed seeing her play; she’d played the first two quarters. The game was 33.5 miles from my home. It took one-and-one-half hours to get there. We left after the game, and were home in three-quarters of an hour. The whole thing reminded me of why I dislike cities.

I live where it was once rural. The city swelled, spilling out over a vast area that takes hours to cross, even when there is little traffic to impede the flow. Each day my wife heads down into that city–into Atlanta–to her office. She leaves early in the morning before the worst of the traffic begins to clog the roads. She tries to return home in a similar manner, avoiding the evening stagnation. Leaving early isn’t always an option. More time than she’d like, than I’d like, some city dweller thinks nothing of scheduling an important meeting for five o’clock. One day the traffic snarled after a traffic accident, and she was nearly two hours getting home. And we are 28 miles from her office, which isn’t even in the Atlanta downtown district.

The thing is, Atlanta, including its surrounding metro area, contains five million people. Not twenty, like New York, not fifteen, like LA. The population of Atlanta city proper is less than a million and the area is fairly large. But during the day, the city swells like a balloon and tries to empty all at once.

Colorado Meadows (Photo credit: QualityFrog)

So today I’m mentally retreating. I’m closing my eyes and remembering Eagle Lake, up in northern California. I stood near the lake one winter night with a lady friend. We were trying to see a comet. We’d driven up to the lake from a small town in which we both lived. There were no lights in the distance. The stars filled the heavens all the way to the horizon. The air. . . clean, crisp, pure. And the quiet. Peaceful.

When I lived in the coastal town of Arcata, some years ago, I walked out of my house, and within a few hundred feet dropped into the very empty low lands that led to the beach a mile of so away. I was a ‘runner’ then, as well as a long-distance bicyclist. On the weekends, if I wanted a hilly run, I’d go the opposite direction from the beach, passing through the heart of the town in only a moment or two–as the saying goes, don’t blink you’ll miss it–and follow trails into the redwood forest. I remember one day just running and running and running, up hill, down hill, nearly lost among the giant trees.

I wonder, on occasions like this, “why did I ever leave?” Perhaps I can only appreciate what was, rather than what is.

I’ve also thought that I’m not really of this modern age. Some years ago I got into studying America’s Fur Trapper Era. I was living in the mountains of Arizona, and I’d read about people going to a rendezvous in Colorado that celebrated in costume and custom the famous trapper-trader get-togethers of the 1820-40s. I built from a kit a muzzle loading rifle, and gathered or made gear that went with it–everything from powder horn to possibles bag. I researched costumes. While I never did go the a rendezvous, that Era some how just felt right for me.

It is wrong to say I was born in the wrong time, for G-d knew me before I was conceived. I just have a hard time living without “elbow room.”

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Legacy

Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun. When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge and skill, then he gives his legacy to one who has not labored with them. This too is vanity and a great evil. For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun? Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity. There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God.

Ecclesiastes 2:20-24

Once upon a time, either on the radio or sitting in a pew, I heard a preacher talk about Solomon and his depression. It seemed to that preacher, that was the only explanation for Solomon to write such things. It seems that many others think this is the case, too. We work hard to build a life for ourselves, to make a difference in the world. We spend our lives to build a legacy. We need others to believe this is the correct approach to life. We need everyone to be on board with this idea to ensure that the economy grows. If too many believe they don’t have to buy materials to better adorn their homes and offices and places of work, the economy won’t grow and we’ll slide into a recession and then a depression. People will be out of work.

If Solomon were around writing his thoughts today, he’d certainly be singled out for psychiatric therapy, a regular dosage of anti-depressant medication, and no doubt someone would convince him to attend some “joy” seminar somewhere. Solomon would be called a “doom-sayer” and labeled a nut. I suppose that most would believer Solomon would be getting rich on spreading his depressive thoughts about the internet.

Therefore I [the LORD] will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

Isaiah 13:13

Y’shuaJesus spoke about seeking the Kingdom of G-d. He didn’t say we were to try and build that kingdom here on Earth. That’s the Lord’s work; that isn’t ours. So what is our legacy to be, then?

This morning returning from dropping my son at school, Watching You by Rodney Atkins played on the radio. It’s about a boy who is watching his father, who wants to be like his father IN EVERY WAY. The boy says a naughty word, and his father asks where he learned that word. The boys says he’s been watching. In another verse the boy is praying to our Heavenly Father as though he were a friend. The father asks where the boy learned to pray that way. The boy replies, “I’ve been watching you.”

It’s not the riches we have to leave as an inheritance, not the great buildings we’ve built to house ourselves and our families, not the products we create or repair or construct for others, but the character we allow the Lord to create in us and pass on to others that is our legacy. Our character is built through our relationship with Y’shuaJesus. We forsake the earthly kingdom, seek the Heavenly Kingdom. We allow G-d to be the center of our lives, creating in us, as the psalmist wrote, “a clean heart.”

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

More Thoughts on “Image”

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. . .

Romans 8:29 & 30

Let me ask again: Am I like the wizard of Oz that stands behind a curtain, with a projector displaying a powerful entity upon the wall, as if that were him? Is the person that I am within, the person I display to the world? If I project a righteous image, is that truly who I am within? Mark reports Y’shuaJesus commenting on things that come from within us.

And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Mark 7:18-23

There is the rub, then. It is not “IF” we have within us something that when it comes out defiles our image, our identity. We have seeds of corruption sown within our hearts. If we are to be fully honest, fully real people, from time to time we are going to show some of those defiling qualities. We can only and always, until we meet the Lord in the air, be mere sinners saved by the grace of a loving Heavenly Father through His Son, our Messiah, Y’shuaJesus.

In our desire to be authentic, we must still struggle with not acting upon inner, defiling, thoughts. We walk the edge of a razor, dance upon the edge of a cliff. We must at all cost persevere to be conformed into the image of Messiah. It is a process. Our salvation is immediately bestowed upon us at the time of our coming to accept Y’shuaJesus as Messiah, as Lord of our lives. And from this point forward we are being conformed into the Lord’s image—the image for which we were intended.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Image, Identity, and Legacy

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth
after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the
earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God
created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:24-28

Image. I can’t articulate, at the moment, what it means when G-d says we are created in His Image. I’m sure that at some point in my life I’ve heard some sermon or other on the topic. I know that if I read the commentary at the bottom of the page in one of my study Bibles, I’ll be told what that author thinks, and often there will be other opinions given, too. But today, for the moment anyway, I’m vague on previous teachings, and I’m not willing to check the commentaries. Until the word “image” popped out at me, I wasn’t thinking about it at all.

Identity. I began this morning with several thoughts bouncing around in my head. One was identity. I’d previously noted the following in a journal: “Identity => given, associated with a name [someone from a place] often used or [someone’s son or daughter] also used. Identity had not been something we’d look for, we just were. . . we didn’t need to ‘find ourselves.’ Identity & soul are linked, too, to place. . . a place and a place in the world. Belonging.”

Drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen this morning, with my Bible before me, I scanned through the index just to see if the word “identity” came up. As expected, it didn’t, but “image” did. This seemed to tie together another event that is on my mind. Recently, the executive officer for an international ministry that supports persecuted Christians, in which I participate, died. The events are not clear, yet, but he left a note at the ministry saying he faced investigation for a serious crime. Furthermore, he wrote that he was suicidal and depressed at the thought of the way the accusations would affect his wife and children. It matters not if the allegations against this man are true or false, that he is dead, possibly taking his own life, then he appears guilty. All that remains now of this man is the image of a man’s corruption, and way it tarnishes G-d’s image.

The thing is, we are all capable of committing the most heinous crimes, most unforgivable acts. It isn’t why did this happen, but why doesn’t it happen more often? It isn’t “How could he?” but “Why have I been spared such horror?” When bad things happen to good people, we ought to wonder why it hasn’t happened to us instead. We are all fallen with Adam. Yes, through the grace of Messiah Y’shuaJesus, we are forgiven, redeemed during the final judgement when wicked are separated from the Lord’s True-born believers.

Legacy. Always a close companion to various thoughts that bounce around my head is what will I really leave behind. If I project a particular image, it is based upon the identity I’ve developed as I’ve grown up. Does that image match my true identity? Or am I projecting something that isn’t truly me? Am I like the wizard of Oz that stands behind a curtain, with a projector displaying a powerful entity upon the wall, as if that were him? I am created in the image of G-d. Do I display that image? Is that truly my identity in this world? If so, my legacy will be intact, I’ll leave behind whatever the Holy Spirit does through me.

More later! Lord Bless, Keep, Shine upon y’all this day and every day. May the mercy of the Lord operate abundantly in our lives.