I was unhappy. It’s not a mistake I’d usually make. I’m a stickler for correct grammar and punctuation. Oh, that doesn’t mean I don’t make errors; it simply means they usually have been corrected by the time I deem something fit for public consumption and click the button to post it. After I’ve read it over five or ten times.
But there it was, as clear as you please.
I was reposting an old note I had written a couple of years ago on my social media account. At a time when I was tired, hot, and covered in dust, I had seen the beauty of the sun shining through the trees, making the humid, dusty atmosphere glow with the bright rays of heavenly light.
“As I mowed my neighbors’ yard yesterday, I looked up from the hot and dusty task before me to see this.” Those were the words with which I started my post.
Except there is just one person who lives there. The fact that I placed the apostrophe after the s that made the word neighbor plural meant more than one person was living there. I should have placed the apostrophe between the r and the s to make it a singular possessive word.
You see, my neighbor is a widow—her husband having passed away nearly two years ag. . .
Oh.
When I wrote it, two people were living in the house next door. One of them, my friend Skip, would leave this world for the next a mere two months after it was written.
I did! I did put the apostrophe in the right place!
I feel as if I should be happier. Being right should be more joyful than this.
And yet, I’ve been looking at that apostrophe for the last hour or two. It was in the right place when I wrote the post, but it’s not now.
I’m not sad about how a sentence was written two years ago. I’m sad that all it takes to correct the loss of my friend is to move an apostrophe, the tiniest of punctuation marks, one space over.
One space—his loving wife’s loneliness and loss, shown in that tiny action. All the sadness of his children and old friends summed up in a movement of less than a quarter of an inch.
Perhaps though, my sadness is even more deeply rooted than this one exercise in grammatical nerdiness.
I stood with dear friends in church today and, speaking with them, realized anew that I will not do that with one or both of them many more times in this world. Health fails; the body refuses to continue on in its earthly mission.
Life on this spinning ball of water and rock is precarious. It’s short. And, unpredictable.
Today is a good day to hold close those our Creator has given us. It’s the perfect day to say, “I love you,” to everyone to whom the words apply.
Do (and say) the important things now, while the apostrophes and commas are still holding firm.
Tomorrow, the commas may all turn to periods—the apostrophes may slip over a space. The Author of our story writes and edits as He sees fit.
Of course, if the punctuation holds fast and isn’t moved until years in the future, we’ll simply have made the world a better place to be for all those extra days. And, our longer stories will be more lovely to read because of it.
And that seems to be acceptable. To me, anyway.
I hope you agree. If you don’t, send me a note.
Just try to get the punctuation right, will you?
“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. May the name of the Lord be blessed!”
(Job 1:21, NET)
“As I mowed my neighbors’ yard yesterday, I looked up from the hot and dusty task before me to see this.
Nothing spectacular. Just the sun’s rays shining through the dust that hung in the air. Somehow, life just seems a little sweeter in the light.
The heat seems unbearable. It’s not.
The sadness seems crushing. It’s not.
The dread of what lies ahead seems overwhelming. It’s not.
Our hope never was in the stuff of this world. Time to look higher.
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’” (John 1:5, NIV) (from a Facebook post on July 7, 2022)
On a recent late spring evening, not long enough ago for the memory to have faded, eight friends gathered in a home for dinner. Dinner and dominoes. And laughter. Perhaps, a few tears. It happens.
We’ve known each other for forty years plus a few. There have been tears. Some of them have come from the laughter. Laughter that starts with a giggle—perhaps a shriek—erupting into full-body fits (you know the kind), and eventually calming down into gasps of amusement with eyes being wiped on sleeves and spare napkins.
Of course, many of the tears never started with laughter. We’ve all raised children; heartbreak was inevitable. Parents and siblings have left this life and we’ve comforted and mourned. All of us are carrying heavy loads of one sort or another by now. We usually share the loads with each other, and we pray about them.
And still, we sit and eat, and laugh. And cry.
And sometimes, we play a game of chicken-foot with the dominoes.
On this Monday evening though, it seemed that something was missing. Something more than a game of dominoes was called for. As we played a second (or was it a third?) round, someone suggested we just needed to sing a little.
So, we sang. A little.
Sometime during the hour and a half we sang, in between songs I wondered aloud if we could keep our friends beside us when we sing in that great multitude of saints in Heaven someday. It only seems logical to me. We’ve sung and harmonized together for over forty years here; surely, we’ll be able to hear these lovely voices when we get up there.
Someone suggested that the singing would be so much better there. I didn’t argue, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be all that much better.
We sang praises. We sang scripture songs. We even sang a kid’s song or two.
There weren’t any spare napkins close to the piano, but I saw some eyes wiped on sleeves a time or two. And, when we finally stopped, hoarse and sung-out, there were smiles on every face.
Somehow, while we sang together, the atmosphere was brighter—the air we breathed in just a little sweeter.
And as we said our goodbyes, all agreed that the time of singing was exactly what we needed to lift our spirits and turn our eyes away from our problems.
No. The children and grandchildren trapped in a foreign country at the epicenter of the pandemic hadn’t suddenly been flown out (that miracle would wait a day or two), siblings facing surgery weren’t instantly healed, and a grandchild dealing with the prospect of a lifelong disease hadn’t been given a reprieve while we sang.
And yet, our burdens were distinctly lighter. All of them.
The storm still raged, but there was joy in spite of it. And peace.
I thought about the evening throughout the week. And I struggled to explain it. I couldn’t.
Then today, on Sunday afternoon, the Lovely Lady and I made our way to the band room at the local middle school for a rehearsal. It was the first rehearsal I had been a part of since the start of the Covid pandemic, nearly a year and a half ago.
The entire group would practice six or seven songs. We (the Lovely Lady and I) had one to play for. The music parts called for a horn and a flute on one song. Only one. I wasn’t sure it would be worth going for.
We went anyway.
We sat, listening to the saxes, trombones, and trumpets as they worked out their parts. I can’t speak for the Lovely Lady, but for me, it was delightful. Yes, there were wrong notes. Perhaps, there might have been some intonation problems. It didn’t matter.
It was wonderful.
And, when it came time for us to play our song, we became part of that community of music makers. We contributed to the wrong notes, at least I did. I may have made an entrance on the wrong beat, or even in the wrong measure. It didn’t matter.
Together, we made music.
There is joy in shared music, a satisfaction beyond the act of combining tonal qualities and counting beats. The process of creating harmonies and countermelodies out of the silence moves well past what the scientific method can explain.
As the music ended and the Lovely Lady and I made our exit, my mind drifted back to that evening of music making with our old friends, wanting to make comparisons. But somehow, the comparisons seemed to fail.
I want to say that the experience with our friends was a high and holy moment.
And it was.
Praises offered to God in a time of storm are repaid with the certain knowledge, the reassurance, of His loving arms holding us tightly through the raging waters. A faith offering, if you will, affirming that our God is faithful.
Paul and Silas knew it as they lay imprisoned in the jail in Philippi. At midnight, they sang hymns. Locked behind bars, with their feet in shackles, they sang and prayed loudly. Knowing it was likely to earn them extra stripes on their backs, they still praised the One they trusted with their lives. (Acts 16:16-40)
We are encouraged, as followers of God, to let His songs fill our hearts and the air around us. Throughout life, whatever our circumstances, we sing, bearing witness to His faithfulness.
And what of the other experience, playing with the folks in the band room? If the singing was high and holy, how do I describe that?
Odd. I think it, too, is high and holy, albeit from a little more earthy starting point. We are God’s creation, designed by Him to live in community. Music is a gift from Him, as is all art, meant to raise our sights from the sweat and pain of everyday existence.
Mere survival was never his plan for humanity. We were designed to thrive and, moreover, to thrive with joy. From Jubal in the early pages of Genesis until modern-day prodigies, music has been a constant in history, a vehicle for faith, for history (storytelling), for entertainment.
As with all of God’s good gifts, many have used it for base, profane ends. And still, music and art have the ability to raise our spirits, to lift our hearts from the burdens of pain and lost love, to bring to mind things higher than our ofttimes drab and difficult circumstances.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights… (James 1:17 ~ NKJV)
Bill Gaither wrote the words I sang years ago in a men’s quartet. More than once, I’ve wondered if it was proper to add the part about making music with friends. I’m coming to believe it’s completely appropriate.
“Loving God, loving each other, Making music with my friends.”
As often as not these days, the music I make with others of kindred spirits could best be described as joyful noise. Contrary to our human comparisons and judgmental spirits, God doesn’t ask us to offer Him perfection.
Rather, He asks us to come to Him with open hearts and hands, giving our sincere offerings freely. Joyful noise is a sweet offering to His ears.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the lands! (Psalm 100:1)
High. And holy.
Making music with my friends.
It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men.
(C.S. Lewis)
My heart, O God, is steadfast,
my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and make music.
(Psalm 57:7 ~ NIV)
It’s time to tear down walls instead of building more.
I never knew him.
The same could be said of many whose voices have fallen on my ears — whose hands I have shaken — whose eyes I’ve looked into.
Him, I never spoke with — never laid eyes on.
The young African-American man was moved by an article I wrote and was kind enough to send a note telling me so.
We were connected only by the information superhighway, a mode of transport that never brought us closer than a note here, a click of the “like” button there.
Friends, they call it.
As if applying the label could tie the knots to bind individuals together. As if we could struggle past our differences in locale and in community.
He was a student of the martial arts; I a student of classical music. He was city through and through; I lock the doors to my car on the outskirts of any urban center, unlocking them only if there is no other choice or when I have passed the city limits sign on the other side.
And yet, it seemed there was something there — a connection of sorts.
Tears filled my eyes on the day he wrote the words: He’s gone. Sitting right across the table from me, and he dropped dead.
His best friend had died of a massive heart attack as they sat eating and joking. He never got over it.
I wrote a note, which he acknowledged. We exchanged other notes, but they were vague and disconnected. Something had changed.
A few months later, I was shocked to read the words from a relative in a message to the young man’s online friends.
Tonight, he decided there was nothing left worth living for. I’m sorry to have to tell you this way. Thanks for being his friends.
I know. I cry too easily. This was different.
A friend died, his life ended before he was a quarter of a century old.
I never knew him.
Still, he was my friend, my brother. The tears flowed.
They fill my eyes even now.
Can I tell you something? Even if I had never exchanged a word with him, we would have been connected. Even if his name had never been in the listing of friends I had made in my social network, it would be true.
If I haven’t made it clear enough before in my writing, let me say it again here:
We are all connected. All.
There was one Man who insisted on it. At the crossroads of history, He stood and said:
If I do this — if I allow myself to be the sacrifice — it will be for every human whose heart beats within his breast. I will draw all men to myself. (John 12:32 ~ my paraphrase)
I am not a universalist. Many who are drawn will not come. I know that.
And yet, what if all that is standing between one who is drawn and the Man-God I claim to follow is me?
Or what if — on the flip side of the coin — what if I’m the one who will help that one who is drawn to make up his or her mind?
If I say I love God, but do not love my brother, I am a liar. The truth is not to be found in me. (1 John 4:20~ my paraphrase)
I watch with horror as the barriers are being erected. High and strong, the walls are being fortified.
Brothers dwell within every fortification, but few will venture out from behind their safety. Few can abandon their petty claims — to hold out a hand in friendship, to embrace family.
Family.
We argue about words and slogans, while people die. We insist on our version of truth, while souls hang in the balance.
I’m convinced we will meet again one day, where no barrier stands
Together, beyond that dividing line between this earthly existence and eternity in Heaven, we’ll stand and will weep as we realize the powerful truth of His words.
All men. Black, white, brown — called out of every nation, every tribe.
Drawn to Him — away from the worship of false gods, from following false prophets, from teaching false doctrines.
We’ll weep until He wipes away the tears from our eyes Himself. (Revelation 21:4)
I said earlier that I cry too easily. I wonder.
Perhaps we need to cry more while we’re here, not less.
My young friend who abandoned hope sat and listened to music right before he took his last breath. Missing his friend who had died before his eyes, he thought he heard in the words of the song an invitation to join him.
Sadly, it seemed easier than walking a difficult, lonely road without him.
Another young friend, who also has known the horrible pain and emptiness of losing someone he loves, wrote recently of his struggle to comprehend a God who allows such things.
He has reached the conclusion — not lightly nor easily — that likely, it’s our understanding of God that is flawed and not the other way around.
We build a box and stuff God in it, much as we do with people.
Neither will stay in the boxes we have built.
God is too big.
People are too stubborn.
And yet, out in the open seems dangerous, doesn’t it? Too exposed, too brightly lit, too vulnerable.
But we’ve tried hiding. It achieves nothing lasting, leaving only suspicion and hatred.
Perhaps, it’s time to try openness.
There’s more room for hugging and handshakes out here.
There will even be some tears.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
So let the light guide your way, yeah Hold every memory as you go And every road you take, will always lead you home, home
It’s been a long day without you, my friend And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again We’ve come a long way from where we began Oh, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again When I see you again. (from See You Again~ Franks, Puth, Thomaz ~ 2014)
How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting. (Psalm 133 ~ NLT)
It’s possible I may have forgotten a detail or two. It was, after all, forty years ago the young man told me the tale. You’ll forgive me if I embellish the spots that have grown fuzzy, won’t you? I know the young man will.
The two men, college boys—both of them, needed a change of pace. Classes had grown tedious, the assignments overwhelming, and they just weren’t feeling it. One of them—which, it doesn’t matter—suggested a hunting trip into the Ozark National Forest, just ten miles away.
Neither of the young men was an outdoorsman. The one who told me the story had shot a twenty-two caliber rifle at camp. I remember the time he shot the maintenance man at the local nursing home in the foot with a BB gun, but I think that was the extent of his hunting experience.
I never really knew the other fellow, beyond a nodding acquaintance, so let’s just assume his capabilities were about the same as the first one.
Having borrowed a couple of rifles, the two tenderfoots headed into the forest one early-winter afternoon with the intent of bringing home a big buck. The white-tail deer are plentiful around these parts, so it didn’t seem too far-fetched an idea. That was before.
Before they lost the trail. Before it got dark.
Before it got cold.
They wandered this way and that. Kicking through brambles, up and down the rock-littered hillside the fellows plodded. They backtracked and then circled around again. Finally, after yelling awhile, they gave up and decided that, rather than risk becoming even more lost, they would have to spend the night in the woods on the side of the hill. It was dark, you know.
But, it was cold, too. They sat shivering and then, a germ of an idea hit one of them. There were fallen leaves from the maples and oaks all around. Couldn’t they heap them up and crawl under them to keep warm?
I did say it was just a germ of an idea, didn’t I?
It didn’t help much, but at least the wind wasn’t as bitter under the leaves. They settled down to await daylight, ten hours away. Not half an hour passed and they heard a sound. Startling, it was, all the way out here along the trail.
A car horn! Right next to where they lay. Twenty feet—not much more.
They were only twenty feet from the road! Twenty feet!
Hopelessly lost. When they could almost have reached out and touched the gravel road.
They got in the warm car their concerned friend was driving and, relieved and not a little embarrassed, rode back to their college dorm. Can you imagine the feeling—the joy?
Found!
What a wonderful word. Found.
A lifetime of blessing, tied up in one word, one syllable.
I sat with my love one night recently and watched—again—a movie we had seen several years ago. August Rush. It’s a retelling of the old Dickens classic, Oliver Twist, but with music. Guitar music. Violin music. Ethereal music drifting in the ether.
Unrealistic and unbelievable. Tears flowed all the way through. I mean, they did from at least one set of eyes.
The movie’s villain, a character you almost want to love, takes kids off the streets of the big city and makes them work for him. In return, they receive protection, food, and a bed.
He asks the movie’s protagonist, a musical prodigy who doesn’t know who or where his parents are, the question that has stuck in my mind since I first viewed the movie.
“What do you want to be in the world? I mean the whole world. What do you want to be? Close your eyes and think about that.”
There is no hesitation, no fumbling for a description of fantastic scenarios, no mention of fame, or wealth. One word. One syllable.
“Found.”
Found.
How sweet the sound.
On a recent Sunday, I found myself sitting in the Emergency Room of a hospital in a nearby town with a friend. The call had come just as I arrived at the church and it was only natural that I would give our dear friend a ride for the treatment she needed. It’s what we do for our friends. All she had to do was ask.
She apologized for putting me out. She wasn’t. Putting me out at all, I mean. It was my pleasure to help.
You have friends like that, don’t you? A phone call—a message—the beckoning of a single finger, and they are moving mountains to help. I know several, and love them all. With them, I always belong. Always.
But, what if? What if you knew no one who would help? What if choices you had made, paths you had taken, had left you alone?
Lost.
I left the hospital a few hours later after my friend had been admitted. Someone else had come to sit with her for a while, so I was headed home for Sunday dinner with my family.
Meatloaf. Butternut squash. Apple crisp.
The small lady carrying a big bag caught me in the parking lot, just as I stepped up onto the running board of my pickup truck.
“Please, sir. Can you help me? The people who were supposed to pick me up from the Emergency Room left me here, stranded. Can you give me a ride home?”
It was several miles away. Through traffic. The opposite direction from where I needed to go. My family was waiting. My dinner was getting cold.
I gave her a ride. Climbing in, she thanked me and gave her pronouncement on the human race, based on her missing ride.
“People are always unreliable.”
She fell asleep before she could tell me where she was going. I woke her up and got a general direction before she nodded off again. At first, I was afraid she was fainting and suggested taking her back to the hospital, which she vociferously rejected. As I drove on, it became apparent the problem was drugs. Whether they came from the Doctor at the emergency room (as she claimed) or not, I don’t know.
Annie Mae got home on Sunday. After a few tries, we found the destination. It was actually a convenience store in her neighborhood, but it was where she wanted out. She had a few dollars in her hand to buy a sandwich or, more likely, beef jerky—since that was what she said she wanted.
She had a couple of other things, too.
She had the name of Jesus in her ears. I’m not an evangelist. I didn’t explain the Four Spiritual Laws to her. I’ve tried that with folks who were impaired before. It’s not appropriate in those moments. But, she’ll remember that Jesus loves her.
And somehow, I think she knows that, for just a few moments on Sunday afternoon, she was found.
Understand. This isn’t about me. Not at all about me. I fit right in with Annie Mae’s description of humanity in general.
I am unreliable. I am.
But if we, who have been shown immeasurable kindness, will not show small kindnesses to our neighbors, be they close friends or be they street people, can we truly claim to be followers of Christ?
We, once hopelessly lost, but now found—is it not an obligation that we help those who have strayed from the way (or perhaps never been on it) to realize that being found is as simple as asking?
I wonder. Are we the unreliable ones?
Is it time for us to ride down a country road or two and honk the horn to let people know just how close they are to being found?
The Teacher, in one of His parables, reminded His followers that they should search the main roads and the alleys, too, giving them every reason to come and sit at the table. (Luke 14:23)
I’m ready to drive around for a while. But, do you suppose I could finish my meatloaf first?
After that, who wants shotgun?
Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found; Twas blind, but now I see. (from Amazing Grace ~ John Newton ~ 1725-1807)
It’s one of the reasons I can’t always listen to music while I write. You’d think I would have to have music. It soothes the savage breast, they say. It washes away the layers of dust from the day’s travels.
It does those things. It does. But, it also shanghais the words on the page, rearranging them and forming ideas I never intended to lay out in cohesive concepts. Before I know it, I’ve ended up in a completely different locale than where I was headed when I began the journey.
I sat in front of a screen recently, clicking the keys as fast as my fumbling fingers would allow, and listened to a CD from one of my favorite singers. The CD has a handwritten title, scribbled right on the disc with a Sharpie, reminiscent of what we once did with what we called mix tapes.
Only, it wasn’t. Not anything like what we used to make.
The voice coming from the little computer speakers was a familiar one, that of a friend. She knows how to write a song. And, how to sing one.
Friends. Recently, my mind has been wandering more and more to the people in my life. It does that, you know.
My mind, I mean. Wandering.
I’ve written before of the great gift we’ve been given in those we can call by the name friend. I don’t repent the words.
On the night I’m thinking about, my mind was on other things, but the song she sang hijacked my train of thought. Held it at gunpoint, forcing a new direction.
I, like most men, have a one-track mind (one that can only focus on one thing at a time), so hijack is the right word to use here. And, as the train gathered momentum down the new track, the clacking keys of my keyboard fell silent.
One line. As I write, it’s all I remember from the song. It’s enough.
“You will not pass lightly through my years.”
I can’t write the words without feeling the presence of many people. The memories come non-stop. Some, I don’t want to consider beyond the first glimmer of recognition. Others, I hold tight and savor, reliving cherished moments again and again, like a CD on repeat.
Our lives, from earliest interactions, have been shaped by the people in them. Family, teachers, friends, bullies, attackers, employers, pastors, neighbors—people who have walked through our journey—and left footprints there.
Some have stayed and walked beside us for miles and miles. Others have only appeared and then disappeared, leaving barely a trace in our lives at all.
A few merely stay long enough to inflict intense pain—pain which will last for as long as we are on the journey.
And others, even fewer in number, stay to help ease the pain which has been left behind. These, we turn to over and over.
Gifts they are, from a loving Father above.
All of them. Gifts.
Wait. All of them?
Are the ones who inflict pain gifts, as well as the ones who ease it?
This is getting a little uncomfortable, isn’t it?
The words hit way too close to home for me, as well. Perhaps, I shouldn’t camp out on this for very long. I’ll just say this and move on:
God uses whatever tools He chooses to make us into the mature followers He needs.
Perhaps the words of Joseph, speaking to his murderous, jealous brothers, say it best: You meant to harm me beyond belief. God always intended that great good would come of it. (Genesis 50:20)
And Jesus laid out the expectation clearly: Love the haters. Bless them when they curse you. Pray for the hurtful. Give to the thief who steals from you. God did it. Follow His lead. (Luke 6:27-36)
Well. That standard’s not too high, is it?
Here’s the thing. I really want someone to say the words about me someday.
You did not pass lightly through my years.
I don’t want to be the fellow who made a cameo appearance, never making a difference to the scene whatsoever.
Friends make a difference. They make a lasting impression. A good one.
What we call the Golden Rule didn’t come from some do-gooder making up slogans. It came from the One who, walking through the lives of humanity, has left a clearer footprint than anyone else ever could.
Don’t treat people the way they deserve; treat them the way you’d like to be treated. (Matthew 7:12)
I don’t know about you, but my standard for how I think I should be treated is fairly high.
No. Higher than that.
Really. Higher.
So, my standard for how I treat my fellow travelers—every one of them—must be just as high. And still higher.
And someday, if the words do fall from someone else’s lips about me, those words about not passing lightly, I hope they know the reason.
It’s not because of the way I want to be treated. That’s not the why of our treatment of others, only the how.
The why is that we love, simply because He loved us. (1 John 4:19)
When we travel through the lives of others, passing (lightly or otherwise) with love, we leave behind the sweet aroma of the One we follow. (2 Corinthians 2:14b)
It’s better than the stench I know I’ve left more often than I care to discuss here. A lot better.
On we walk. Friends helping friends on the way home.
Really.
Home.
Leaving footprints that point the way to a Savior.
Not lightly.
We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, on whatever we touch.
(Lewis Thomas ~ American physician/scientist/writer ~ 1913-1993)
I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
(Thomas A Edison ~ American inventor ~ 1847-1931)
Click below to listen to the song I mentioned in the article:
It was, I want to believe, a profound moment of joy in the season of the same.
I want to believe that. But, I’m the guy who looks on events and thinks he sees the truth when what’s really happening in the secret places is entirely the opposite. I look at the image in the mirror and see a mature sixty-something man who is comfortable in his skin, but all it takes is two seconds of looking into the depths of my heart and the nerdy, twitchy fifteen-year-old is staring at me again through the wild eyes of terror.
Still, it must have been a profound moment. It must have been.
We’ll see. Others will judge.
Sunday morning. This confident, mature man had played the instrumental prelude with the Lovely Lady and then taken his place on the stage to sing with the worship team. It was the second run-through, having already gone through it all in the early service that morning. There was no need to stay in the sanctuary for a sermon he’d already listened to, so out into the foyer he went after the last song of the set.
Oh, yes! I had really enjoyed the group who sang during the offertory during the first service, so I headed back in for another quick listen. Standing at the back entrance, as the ushers quietly made their way through the crowd, I was not disappointed the second time, either.
The modern setting of Longfellow’s I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day was very well done. The singers and instrumentalists were practiced and competent. Very nice.
There was a movement to my left and in front of me a few rows. I glanced over, watching the young man rise to his feet. Surrounded by folks sitting comfortably, he stood up straight and, moved by the music and the text, raised his hands and his face to the ceiling and he worshipped.
As the folks on stage sang of peace on earth, the teen-aged boy stood in the crowd all alone. As the rest of the people present sat watching and listening, he participated.
What a brave young man. I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t agree. He was oblivious of the people around him; he wasn’t standing for them. Still, I never would have had the courage. For all of my inability to fit in in other ways as a teenager, I never had what it took to stand up while they sat down. I was the nerdy, twitchy fifteen-year-old staring at you through the wild eyes of terror, remember?
I always just melted into the crowd. Always.
Perhaps, I’m making more of the event than I should. And yet, I know I was moved. Tears filled my eyes as the young man worshipped the Prince of Peace.
Peace on Earth.
Oh. I forgot to include one detail. It seems important to me, too.
I watched the boy standing alone, arms spread wide and wiped the tears. Then, I noticed one more person in the crowd, a couple of rows behind the boy. He is a friend of mine, the father of children of his own. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but I may have seen his son tugging at his shirt tail in embarrassment as he too stood to his feet.
He didn’t raise his arms, nor did he look to the ceiling. He just stood respectfully. That was all.
Then, when the song was over, the two fellows simply sat down.
I haven’t asked my friend why he stood. I may not ask him. It’s probably none of my business. But then, that never stopped me before.
Sometimes, we stand simply to let someone know they’re not alone. And, when one has had the courage to stand out, it’s no small thing to know someone has your back.
After all, Moses had Aaron. Aaron even helped Moses hold his tired arms up on one occasion when time needed to stand still.
Elijah had Elisha to carry his coat. David had Jonathan to plead with Saul for him. Paul had Silas to sing with him in jail.
I think I could carry the harmony—if I could get up the courage to go to jail with someone.
In my mind’s eye, I see those two fellows standing in church the other morning and a thought comes to me: It is a profound act of worship to support those who stand by themselves in faithfulness.
Paul, the apostle formerly known as Saul, said it this way: Love others—genuinely love them. Take delight in honoring each other. (Romans 12:10)
Sometimes, it’s important to be the one who stands with the guy who stands out in a crowd.
And sometimes, it’s just as important to be the one who sits with the guy who’s sitting down when the rest of the crowd is standing.
That is so because we are called to stand with others who aren’t all that faithful, too. We’re even called to walk on the road with those who take advantage of us and mistreat us, as well. (Matthew 5:38-48)
Enemies, we call them. He called them, simply, neighbors. We will stand, and sit, and walk with them if we are to follow Him at all.
The One we call Prince of Peace was accused of being a friend of sinners. He was both.
Peace on earth comes when we love others enough to stand up with them. Or sit down with them.
And the bells are ringing.
Peace on Earth.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! (from Christmas Bells ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~ American Poet ~ 1807-1882)
The man said, “I’m planning to go…if the weather looks like it will be okay.”
I have proof he said it.
I would have just gone on Wednesday. I should have just gone on Wednesday.
Instead, I put on my gear, my gloves, my helmet, my shoes—yes, even my lycra shorts—and went to the old Post Office to await the start of the group bike ride.
The weather didn’t look like it would be okay. If Christopher Robin had been there with an umbrella saying, “Tut. Tut. It looks like rain,” I would have believed him. It did look like rain.
We rode anyway. Five miles we rode north, thinking we’d skirt the precipitation, which looked to be heading south. It didn’t work.
We rode in the rain. A total of thirty miles. Eight of us rode. Side by side. Stretched out in a line. Scattered a quarter of a mile apart. We rode in the rain.
I had a reason for being there. I don’t know about the rest of the idiots.
My friend—the one who sent that text—is going halfway around the world for a year. He’s leaving next week. I wanted to have a last ride with him.
So, we rode. In the rain. For a reason.
Do you ever wonder why? Why am I doing this now? Here? In this dismal circumstance? Is it worth it?
I wondered. I did.
As I struggled to see through the moisture-laden lenses of my glasses, each one covered with a hundred little kaleidoscopes of water beads, I counted the cost.
When the water splattering up from the tires of the seven other cyclists in the group drenched my socks and soaked my cleated leather and cloth shoes, I considered the foundational reason for my current circumstances.
And then, as I rode close behind the cyclist ahead of me, my front tire just inches away from his rear one, attempting that all-important labor-saving maneuver—drafting—I got a faceful of dirty water. The rooster-tail of moisture splattering up from that tire hit me full in the face, turning the kaleidoscopes on my glasses into chocolate mud I could barely see through.
Still, as I backed off from the airborne cataract, my straining eyes peered at the back of the fellow whose bicycle was the source of the annoyance. I could read—just barely—the words printed on his cycling jersey:
If it’s not fun, why do it?
I couldn’t help it. The laugh just came out; from somewhere down near my belly, it erupted.
Why, indeed?
But now, a few days on, and a shower or two having helped to rid all the wrinkles in this old body of the residual mud, I’m not laughing.
I don’t know about anyone else, but somehow this road I started down under blue skies and with gentle breezes has turned downright uncomfortable. The gear I pulled on before the ride began protects me not at all from the elements—neither the driving rain nor the blazing hot midday sun.
Somewhere along the way, the gentle rolling slopes bordered by pleasant meadows became a mountain climb with sheer dropoffs on either side.
I’m not having fun anymore.
Maybe it’s time to turn back.
But, something tells me it was never about fun.
Somehow, I get the feeling it was never about comfort.
And the Teacher told His followers that they would have trouble along the way. Understanding their concern at that prospect, He went on to remind them that He had been all along the way and they needn’t befearful since He had finished the entire course. Not only finished it but had been victorious. (John 16:23)
There are things in this world worth suffering through.
Friends (and people in general) are worth getting wet for. Telling the truth is worth being laughed at for. Being generous to a neighbor is worth doing without ourselves.
Standing firm in the storm, when that’s all we can do, is worth the toil and danger.
We’ll finish the ride up ahead. In front of us. Through the rain and grime. And the heat and sweat. And the climbing and weariness.
Ahead.
As we approached the end of our ride the other day, my friend who is headed overseas rode beside me into town. At a corner not far from his home I made a left turn. He went straight. Several blocks on, me having made a right turn and he having made a left turn, we met up again.
Strange, how that happens.
He’ll leave next week for the other side of the world and I’ll stay here. Both of us, still on the journey.
The same journey.
Headed for the same goal. It’s where he always says he wants to end up when we start out on a bike ride.
Home.
You could ride with us, too, you know. Side by side. Or in single file, drafting. Except when it rains.
Headed home.
Soon.
It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed. (Herodotus ~ Greek historian ~ 5th century BC)
I’m not sure how to say this. Some of you will be mad. Or at least disappointed in me.
Well? I know you will.
You’ve read the poems since you were young; you sang the songs. You even watched Mary Poppins hold one on her finger as she sang A Spoonful of Sugar.
You love them. I know you do.
Well, it can’t be helped. I’m going to have to tell you.
I don’t really like robins.
I’ve tried. Really, I have.
The thing is, there’s nothing special about them. Oh sure, they have that orangey-red chest. They even give a little hope in the late winter that spring will soon be here. But, other than that, what’s so extraordinary about the storied birds?
What’s that? You think they’re the early bird that gets the worm? They’re always pictured as that. But, that’s strike one against them, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t do early mornings. I just don’t.
But, on the off chance that I am awakened at four or four-thirty some morning, you can be sure one will be chirping outside my window to beat the band. Try going back to sleep with that racket outside.
And, that’s another thing! They don’t even really have a song. Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Plus, it gets worse when humans are around. They fuss and raise a ruckus, claiming territory they don’t really even want, simply to ensure quiet for their nest.
Give me the cardinals any day. What a beautiful and varied song they have! Their nests are in bushes and thickets no human would want to approach anyway, so they never fuss—at me, at least.
Then there are the wrens—or the finches—or even the white-throated sparrow that sings in the top of the sweet gum tree.
But those robins—they’re everywhere. Bob, bob, bobbin’ across the lawn, scratching for the worms, early or late. Trying to build nests where they absolutely cannot fit—under my eave, for instance. And, then after the wind blows the grass and paper away for the tenth time, they try again—in exactly the same spot.
There’s no love lost on my part for the fabled worm-catchers.
Well. That’s not completely true. Not anymore.
Our neighbor let a pair of the silly things build a nest near the top of the post on her front porch. I looked at the structure and told her it wouldn’t last through the first storm. Frank Lloyd Wright, they’re not.
I was wrong. Several storms later, the nest is still there. The female laid her eggs—four of them if Wikipedia is to be believed. She sat on her eggs. She hatched her little ones.
I would stop over to talk with my neighbor, being careful not to startle the fussy mama. No loud noises; no quick movements.
Shhhhh.
I would have told you I still didn’t care for robins. An event the other day put the lie to that belief.
My desk looks out a window toward the neighbor’s porch, so I have watched the comings and goings on that nest for several weeks. The other morning, my attention was on my computer screen when a strange movement caught my eye.
The mother robin was flying rapidly away from the nest, but there was still a bird standing over the nest. A big bird.
A hawk had discovered the babies! Without thinking, I shouted loudly and jumped up, racing out the door behind me to stop the mayhem on the porch. Evidently, the predator heard either my shout or the door and was already winging away from the nest with something—we can guess what—in his beak.
Oh well. It was just baby robins. Who cares?
Well, besides the obvious One who cares about every one of them that falls to the ground. (Matthew 10:29)
This old man cared, evidently. I sat back down at my desk, watching the frantic mother robin flying to the nest, sticking her head down inside, and then winging to the redbud tree nearby, before repeating the pattern over and over, and the tears came.
I don’t even like robins. But, I cried. Over baby robins.
I’ve thought a lot about that over the last couple of days, attempting to square the dichotomy.
I think I’m beginning to understand it a little better. I even have a word to explain how this happened.
Engagement.
Engagement involves investment. In this case, simply an investment of attention. Which led to a personal stake in the wellbeing of the little birds and the happiness of their parents.
Engagement costs.
I stood in a friend’s hallway the other day after I had helped him with a household problem, and he told me how sorry he had been about my friend I lost a few weeks ago.
He must have been a really close friend. Had you known him a long time?
It would be simpler to explain if it had been a long time. When a longtime friend passes, you expect to be emotionally devastated. Grief like that doesn’t come with short-term, social media friendships.
Or, does it?
Four months. It seems a lifetime ago, but it was only four or five months ago that another friend, a poet in New Zealand, suggested to Jeff and to me that we needed to know each other.
He was also a writer, much better at it than I, but we both treasured what words can accomplish when arranged carefully, lovingly, and set in place with a bit of grace.
I never got to meet Jeff in the flesh, but I knew him. He knew me. Out of the grace we both have known in our lives, a bond of love grew.
Now, he’s gone and there’s a hole in my world.
Engagement costs.
Oh, but it pays, too.
It is oh-so-easy for us to get caught up in the grief of loss, the feeling that the world will never again be right, and believe that disengagement is a better way to live life.
Many do. Many I know refuse to be hurt. The only way to keep from being hurt is to refuse to engage—to flee from love.
In such a vacuum, life is empty. When there is never any pain, there can never be any joy.
I said my friend and I knew what words are capable of when used in the right way. Many others know it, too.
Our words, written (and said) at the right time, and offered from loving hearts, provoke.
That’s right. They provoke. They incite. They motivate. They move.
It’s why I write. When I am tempted to disengage—to lessen the pain and the frustration—I remember the words written to the Hebrews in the New Testament, reminding them to keep spending their lives with others, because in engagement we may provoke to love. In engagement, we provoke each other to good works.
There are no age-related waivers given, no limited-education exceptions written. And sometimes, our companions along the way are like those robins. Annoying. Loud and repetitive. Not nearly as intelligent as we are. Stubborn.
Engage anyway.
Provoke anyway.
Revel in the result. Sadness, mixed with joy. Love, combined with goodness.
But, I didn’t finish the story about the robin, did I?
My sorrow has turned to joy again, as I have observed, out my office window, the robins feeding their two surviving chicks the last couple of days. I assumed all was lost, but it was a lie. Even as I write this, the male is on the ground outside with food in his mouth and the babies have their necks stretched out, yellow beaks agape, waiting to be fed.
All is not so dark as it seems.
It rarely is.
For the darkness shall turn to dawning And the dawning to noonday bright. And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, The kingdom of love and light. (from We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations ~ H. Ernest Nichol)
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:24-25 ~ KJV)
“Just head down there. The vegetable trees are all over that way.”
The Lovely Lady and I were on a mission to find a sapling or two to plant in the yard today, so we stopped by the local garden center. We thought we might find a couple of shade trees, but we especially wanted an apple tree to replace the ancient one which is not going to last much longer.
We weren’t really expecting to buy a vegetable tree.
Wandering through the sales area, we had passed a young lady sitting at a desk in the corner, but we knew the saplings were out back, so we continued outside.
The salesman met us on the sidewalk. All of three or four years old, he carried a thin metal rod about three feet long in his right hand which he swung this way and that as he talked.
“How can I help you?”
The Lovely Lady and I looked at each other, smiling, and then turning back his way, she told him we wanted to look at an apple tree. His response about the location of the vegetable trees made our day.
We headed in the general direction he had pointed with the rod. He followed closely, talking the whole time. We didn’t quite understand all he said, but we knew we’d find trees up that way.
“Well, like I said, this is where all the vegetable trees are. You folks look all you want. Bring anything you pick out back inside.”
He started away but abruptly turned back.
“Oh, here.” The boy handed me the dandelion stalk he had just pulled. “It’s a flower. If you blow on it, the white stuff goes all over the place. I guess some people call it a weed, really.”
He turned again to leave as a man walked up, wondering aloud if we needed help. Smiling broadly, I told the boy’s dad we had already been helped and wanted to wander around the vegetable trees for awhile and look around. Dad grimaced at the phrase and then grinned, taking us to the trees we needed to look at.
What a delightful experience!
What an extraordinary young man!
Okay. He needs to work on the details a little bit. But, he understood we needed help. He looked around and didn’t see anyone except himself to do the job. So, he did the job.
It was almost as if he understood what the letter-writing Apostle had said a couple thousand years ago: Don’t only do things for yourselves, but help others, as well. (Philippians 2:4)
In my mind, I hear the voice of God asking a barefooted Moses, “What’s that you’re holding in your hand, son?” (Exodus 4:2)
The boy showed us the way with the equipment he had been given.
If only we could all do as well.
If only.
There’s not time to be certain we know all the right answers. We never will.
Earlier today, I heard the muttering of the thunder up in the clouds. Fifteen miles away, my brother (with whom I was texting) heard it and wondered if the rain was really on its way.
It was, but only a little. A nice Spring shower to wash off the daffodils and redbuds. Just a lick and a promise, as the red-headed lady who raised me would describe it.
The muttering is back. Ten hours have passed and, again, the thunder is threatening.
The promise is that the storm will break soon. For all the delay and lack of delivery up ’til now, the promise will be kept tonight. I’m sure of it.
Mr. Adams—that wise Englishman who wrote about the rabbits in Watership Down—suggests that folks who claim to love cold weather actually love feeling proof against it; they love that they have outsmarted winter. The reader may agree or disagree, but I believe it to be true about more than just the cold of winter.
We love listening to the breaking storm from the safety of our four walls, with a good roof overhead to keep the deluge from affecting us personally and intimately.
We love walking in the rain because the umbrella is spread above to keep us from the discomfort of its all-encompassing soaking. Or, if we happen to run uncovered, carefree and dripping for a time, we love the thought that at the end of our gambol, we will find a warm shower to wash off the residue of the event and, wrapping ourselves in a clean, fluffy towel or robe, will relax in the luxury of warmth and comfort inside our four walls with a watertight roof.
But, what if the walls we’ve constructed so carefully, and the shelter we’ve thrown up simply aren’t enough to keep the storm from breaking on our heads anymore?
The noise of the rain which has arrived outside my window reminds me that the thunder’s earlier muttering was no empty threat. I believe this is what the folks in my home state would call a Texas frog-strangler, the downpour is so heavy.
Sooner or later, the rumblings lead to a torrent.
They always do. Sooner or later.
Mostly, sooner.
Somehow, someone is going to get wet. Soaked through.
Do you suppose the followers of Jesus didn’t get wet? In the storm that overtook their boat and threatened to sink it, do you think they stayed dry? (Mark 4:37)
When Peter walked across the waves—even before he took his eyes off the Teacher—do you think he wasn’t drenched clear through? (Matthew 14:29-30)
Can’t you just see it? Impetuous Peter, anxious to show the Master (and his peers) he was up to the challenge, jumps out of the boat to meet Him in the waves.
Walking on the water! On. The. Water.
What a moment of triumph! But, only a moment.
The waves slapped at his ankles, then at his knees. Before he knew it, one soaked him from head to toe. This wasn’t anything like he had imagined. Robe hanging down, hair streaming into his face, water in his eyes, his nose, his mouth, it was horrendous!
Where was the protection he expected from the waves? Why was his Rabbi—his Teacher—allowing this misery?
Soaked, disappointed, and distressed beyond belief, he begins to worry about the next wave. And the next. We know the rest of the story.
Life is like that, isn’t it? We have expectations—plans. Then the walk turns out to be so much harder than we envisioned it at the beginning.
Our faith wanes. If God wanted us to get out of that boat, why didn’t He clean up the pathway to get to Him? Why would He let us be miserable when we’re doing what we’re supposed to do?
Sometimes, in the storms of life, it’s hard to see the pathway with the rain streaming down our faces. And sometimes, it’s not only the rain that’s streaming down our faces.
I sat in a restaurant with dear friends earlier this evening, minding my own business, and the storm broke. Old hurts, not with them but with others I love, came pouring to the surface.
I had heard the rumbling for a while before this. The downpour was sure to come sooner or later, so I have huddled under whatever shelter I could raise to keep from getting wet.
But, part of the walk is sharing it with companions. Our life of serving Him is not a mission for a hero, but a pilgrimage for a band of fellow travelers.
Sometimes, the Man-Who-Walks-On-Water says everybody in the boat gets wet.
I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And, I feel soaked to the skin.
(Leonard Cohen ~ American singer/songwriter ~ 1934-2016)
