Roadside 

So we were headed south on Hwy 17 somewhere between Balmorhea and Ft Davis when Kier gets this overwhelming urge to stop. For a rock. On the side of the road. My girl loves her rocks. And I’ve always rolled with her instincts concerning such matters. So there we were—her on the hunt for the perfect geological specimen and me hanging by the side of the car being supportive. When over the hill comes a state trooper. Now I don’t know if we are even supposed to be stopped on the side of the road much less cherry-picking cobblestones from nature’s quarry here along the highway. I’m a good thirty yards from Kier and I can’t summon a good clear whistle with my dry lips to alert her that she’s about to get busted. The trooper passes. As I suspected, he does a U-turn, throws on his lights and pulls up behind us. We immediately go to his drivers window and start up a conversation about what we’re doing on the side of the road. He simply wanted to know if we were OK. And that there was nothing wrong. Kier said, “Well, I was going to pick up some rocks would that be OK?” He shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t care. We decided to get a selfie against the backdrop of the beautiful mountain. As we were lining up the shot and begin to take the first series of selfie’s, Officer Terry Lummus came over his intercom and asked, “Would you like me to take a picture for you? “

That is when this photo was taken. It captures that very moment. He then got out of his patrol car and did just that. We ended up having a conversation about 10 minutes. He told me where he patrolled. I told him where I carried mail. It was something memorable for Kier and me on our first leg of last week’s trip. And really an amazing experience with one of our fine Texas state troopers that tirelessly patrol the highways of this state and do such a fantastic job. Thank you sir.

Forward!

Life is more than things.  Life is more than people. Sure, those bring meaning to life, but life would exist without them.  Technically.  It wouldn’t be a very colorful and meaningful life. But it would go on.  So, my real point is that life’s meaning and beginning starts elsewhere.  Inside.  The assessment of who you are and what you are doing here.  How do you identify yourself and put this meaning in your life?  It starts with purpose.  It is carried in purpose.  It is evaluated in purpose.  Beginning.  Middle.  End.  Just like a good book.  That’s the nature of everything, really.  Though catastrophic things happen in life that make us think we are nearing the end---hardships, trials, loss of relationships, etc.---we are the ones who decide if it is just the middle and that our best days are not behind us.  That is the dread that I, for one, deal with.  And I’m sure it does others just like me.  So, what do we do?  We drive forward, doing what we do, caring like we care, and loving like we always loved.  And realize that the dream still hanging around haunting us, may not be the past taunting us but a viable future calling us forward.

To Believe Or Not

Do you hope for the new year, or do you believe?

What is the difference? Well, in our current vernacular it seems to be vague.  The two words are often used interchangeably.   However, by definition, HOPE means to wish for something you think has a real possibility of happening.  To BELIEVE is to accept something as true or real.  

People that are of broken means or heart sometimes think that life happens to them.   People that are of wealthy means or heart believe their future is determined by their own creative powers.  The former possess a victim mentality.  To be sure, the later does not dismiss reality when it happens right in front of them, but keeps on believing  their dream is true and real despite any number of obstacles.  That's the difference.  

When the shadows of our past and the fear of our future keeps us from believing in the here and now, we are short circuited and we reach this place of static unbelief.  Because we know what God promises but cannot seem to mix it with faith----even the smallest amount---we become powerless to the demons that circle to devour us.  We try to remain positive though, if only in word, and we cling to our faith with a statement like, "I hope I get this job," or "I sure hope things work out."

But there is one thing you must know in these places.  Faith is not a matter of material revelation, or what happens to you.  It is a matter of immaterial confirmation, or what you believe WILL happen.  If you were created in the image of God and He is the Author of Creation, it is not unreasonable to believe that you are also an agent of His continued creativity.  Knowing that, you will then determine your actions accordingly.   

Your faith---the sustaining kind---will never be stirred to action because of something that is already materialized.  That is not faith at all.  That is why the distance between belief and unbelief seem such a broad jump.  To believe for a miracle in human terms seems like a journey of a thousand miles.  But faith can leap that distance in an instant for someone who chooses to grasp hold of it---however small it may be.  Visualizing dreams in detailed manner allows us focus in the present and use our time wisely until such future dreams invade reality.  Seeing the end from the beginning is a small seed of faith right now that jump starts our actions into creating that future. 

So let me ask again, do you HOPE for the new year, or do you BELIEVE?

BACK THEN

Somewhere in an old box in my study I found a photo of me when I was eighteen. It was taken during 5th period band on a practice field. I had a drum major whistle around my neck and I was playing the trumpet. When I think of all the decisions I've made since then, I can't help but chuckle as I wonder, on any given day, what were the biggest decisions I had to make back then. 

Items not on the list were things like: money for the mortgage, food on the table and insurance for the car. Mom and Dad decided things like that so I could be a kid.  And being a kid was fun. But there came a time later, and it was more a gradual process than an overnight bombshell, when adult decisions started to be made such as choice of career, who I married, where I lived. It wasn't long until children of my own became beneficiaries of my decisions. Mortgages, schedules and budgets were now part of everyday life. 

Sometimes, when I find old photos like this, I feel like that was a different life and I am a different person. Back then it was. I was. I can escape and reminisce and remember how fortunate I was back then to have been afforded the beauty of a carefree childhood. But to the man who is given much, much is also required. I am not unaware of the immense blessings of my life--my faith, my family, my relationships, my home.  Each of these have required a pretty serious commitment. 

Some people may have wished to go back to a simpler time in their life for one reason or another. Not me. Most of what I have in my life now has been decided on since that carefree afternoon in the picture. The happiness and fulfillment I have in my life now could scarce be understood by that blond-hair-blowing-tennis-shoe-wearing-trumpet-playing teenager back then.  

HARVEST

I passed a wheat field on the way home from work today.  Around this time of year the golden hues emerge, spelling the imminence of harvest.  I stopped and took this picture out of my car window as the warm summer breeze created a wave across the field.  Later,  I began to think about the vast number of wheat stalks in this field---not to mention the kernels. The number was staggering and not unlike the grains of sand at the beach.

Why is this talk of wheat such a big deal?  I drive by these fields everyday. Why devote a blog entry to such a mundane, everyday part of life?  The secret of the seed is the essence of life.  Learn the lessons contained there and the meaning of your own life is not far away.

The crown jewel of any plant is the bud, the flower or the fruit.  Within each of these is the seed which contain the DNA of many successive generations.  The code for whether a plant becomes a flowering bush or an apple tree is held securely in the seed. Only when that seed falls to the ground and is broken apart or crushed can a new generation emerge.

People as a rule do not like change.  But change is a season that is natural as any summer harvest.  There is a planting, a ripening, and a harvest.  And when the time comes for the threshing---the separating of the grain from the chaff---there is a brokenness and pain and a certain degree of vulnerability.  The kernel is being exposed for the first time to outside elements.

In human terms and events, the process is painful and unpleasant perhaps because we take it personal instead of taking it with the understanding presented here in the lesson of the wheat.  We misunderstand the ripeness of the harvest---saying that we are not ready or that it is not time.  We misunderstand the chaff or the ones we are separated from during the harvest and replanting.  It is not that those people were not right for the previous season, they are just not right for the current one.  People move in and out of our lives with the ebb and flow of the yearly summer harvest.  Offense, which is decided upon by you and me, will keep us from being fruitful in the new harvest.  Pliable, vulnerable, usable, plant-able---the "right now' conditions of a future harvest.

INSIDE

The weatherman called for a 90% chance of rain all day. For added misery, the temperature was supposed to drop to the low 40's by days end. Did I mention that I am a mailman? I was relieved that today was my day off. I stopped writing and recording in the study just a few moments ago to come make myself some lunch. The rain is still coming down.

My nature has always been the outdoorsy type. And when it's sunny outside, I want to be outside. But a day like today is better suited for something indoors. So I've been in my study all morning tooling around with some tunes that I've written. One song in particular I am working on now trying to find that right feel, that right rhythm, that right something to let this song stand on its own. Sometimes this process is more work than at others. If you want songs to all sound the same, then you can skip this process entirely. But something as simple as nuance, lyric choice, chord pattern, or melody can make or break a song.

While the sun is not shining, I will take this chance and use this opportunity to write, to make music, and compose. Who knows when I'll get this"indoor" day again?

EMPTYNESS-T

I can't tell you how many times I've sat here looking out my front window.  Thinking.  This is where my laptop stays---for the most part.  Since I rarely take it with me anywhere, it sits in my study and, by such placement, offers me a vantage point to the street outside. 

It's a great view, but nothing ever happens on this cul-de-sac.  The only cars coming down the street are the neighbors or the odd delivery vehicle.  Just to my east is a guy who works from home so the FedEx van visits there quite often.  There is an older couple that lives up the hill on the end.  Next to them is a retired single man with his dog who faithfully accompanies him on long daily walks.  I see them sometimes half-way to town.  He has a lot of time on his hands and the dog seems to love it.  To my left is a couple, kind of like us, with one child grown and out of the house and one still in school.  The single lady who moved in across the street has a twelve-year-old son who plays the saxophone and rides his motorcycle all around their adjoining pond, woods and two acre lot.  I seem to know my neighbors well enough, but like I said before, nothing ever happens on this cul-de-sac.  Not anymore.

Perhaps the gloom creeps in mostly when I think about the hot bed of activity our house was when the girls were still at home.  There was always band, choir, softball, soccer, church and school projects to keep us hopping.  I say "us" because parents play a strong role in all of these if you haven't heard.  We've lived so vicariously through our kids that by the time they are out on their own, we don't know how to live our own lives once again.  Things slow way down and the house seems very empty. 

Maybe that's it.  That's the culprit that won't come out of hiding and be identified.  Empty nest is a condition that deceptively hangs around longer than you first thought.  One, maybe two years and I'll have this thing licked, you say.  Then suddenly, out of nowhere, you hear laughter from a neighbor kid down the block and this happy sound echoes more vacantly than it should.  That is when you know for the hundredth time that your tiny window has passed.  That is when fears of irrelevance steal in.

It takes courage and strong will to let go of such thoughts and shape instead a future built on reality and hope.  The time is now and what is past is confidently sealed up in the trust that you raised them right and now they are soaring on into adulthood.  If you are a parent and not quite here yet, make the most of what is in front of you now.  If you are a parent and nodding your head with everything I have said---strong will and courage to us all.