Settle This Like Men

With all of the back and forth and purchased airtime for propaganda, I think we have lost sight of what is truly important in this election. What are the values of the American people? What do we spend our time on, give our attentions to, and where do we spend our money? We don't care about social issues, human rights, or constitutional integrity, no, we care about rhythm! Ella was right, vote for Mr. Rhythm. So, I am proposing the election be settled in a new way, the change we really need. We should just have a Great American Dance Off For The Presidency! Where the feet do the talking and hips don't lie. Yes ladies and gentlemen, each candidate will have 90 seconds to perform an interpretive dance to the soundtrack of their choosing. It should be a narrative of the state they see the nation in today. There will be a follow up round comprised of a two minute contemporary piece from each candidate that is to be the proposed changes they feel would correct our troubled world. To spice things up, the running mate for each candidate will provide the soundtrack for this round. All forms of musical instrumentation are acceptable and encouraged. There will be extra points if they can tastefully incorporate a didgeridoo. This will show adequate foreign policy experience and tactfullnes. After both candidates have completed, the phone lines will be opened for two hours and you can vote as many times as you'd like for the one you want to keep in the running. The votes will tabulated by an outsourced company in Bombay. The following week, we will tune in to see who is the next President. The losing candidate will say goodbye with a reprise of his first piece. No voter registration worries here! And best of all, no Ryan Seacrest. The world is looking to be a better place already!

What Is The Deal With Fire?

You have to read the title like Jerry Seinfeld would say it.  I was watching the news and because the Phillies won the World Series they were showing live coverage of Broad Street.  There were a bunch of fires burning in the street.  If I didn't know that it was a celebration, I would have thought it was a riot for some political protest.  I myself am going to a bon fire on Saturday night and cannot wait, but I'm not going to be getting up on hay bales and shouting crazy yays.  It makes me think how funny it is that we celebrate with fire and protest with fire.  Why fire? Now, I am not a macro-evolutionist by any stretch of the God designed imagination.  But if we are so evolved as a human species, why do we revert to such "primitive" displays of expression? 

Pyromaniacs Unite!

Missing The Point

A few weeks ago I was in small group and we were studying the feeding of the five-thousand.  We watch it first on a video series where they re enact the gospel of John.  It is really very good.  It is just good to confront how real these stories truly are.  They really happened.  So we watch the passage we are talking about and as they pass out the bread and fish, I am distracted by the presence of baskets.  I keep seeing baskets come out of nowhere.  I understand this is a representation and that it was a miracle and by definition you cannot explain a miracle, but I got so hung up on the baskets.  I kept thinking, at least there was fish and bread to start with.  Did someone have a basket there in the wilderness? Where did he get baskets? During the course of the evening and with our discussion I confessed my lack of basket faith.  It sounded so stupid as I spoke the words.  I believed that the fish and bread were multiplied, but wanted to know where the baskets came from.  Why do I do that? Why do I see God work miracles and then ask how? Or worse doubt that He will do it again.  I am reminded of a class at Messiah in which the professor told me the story of creation in Genesis could not be true.  His reason? Plants were created before the sun and plants cannot survive without light.  Nevermind the fact that God said he created light and darkness the first day.  If he said He did it, He did it.  The most striking thing to me was that this professor said he was a Christian.  Does anything about the work of the cross make sense? Does it make sense that the creator of the world would redeem a wretched creation that turned their backs on Him? I found myself on the same side as that professor now, trying with my feeble fallen mind to explain the mysteries of Heaven.  What arrogance.  If I could, I should have washed my mind out with soap.  So I am reminded that though miracles are unexplainable, if I'm trusting God for salvation, I have to trust that everything He says is true.  Everything, otherwise, how could I trust Him to be honest when it comes to salvation.  So, while I don't know how he made baskets from nothing, He did.  And while I don't know how He could speak words and matter appear, I know it did.  And for the life of me, I will never know why or how He could love me enough to die for me, but I know He did.  

Memories Are Made of This

The memory walk was a success. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, but still pleasant. We got there registered, got some t-shirts, and then took our team picture. We decided to do the long loop so that we would not get bored going around the track 12 times. So, we all started at the ceremonial ribbon cutting and followed the mass of slow moving people. The first lap took a long time. But once we completed the first lap most of the people stopped. Either they were not familiar with how long a 5k was or just didn't care. Regardless, we were able to step it up and complete the walk. The only thing was we were not certain if it was two or three times around. Even after asking some of the even staff we didn't know. So, we all decided to go three times. It seemed most logical. The third time around we didn't exactly end where we started. I have this thing about not really finishing, it kind of nudges at me until I do. Even when I'm alone at the track, I have to end where I started. It is probably some OCD thing, but it's me. I was talking with everyone and it got to the point where I couldn't stand it, I said, I'll be right back. I walked by the table, got a banana and a water and proceeded to finish line. By this time everyone had ended and they were drawing the raffle prizes. I continued around the last part of the loop and as I neared the table with the DJ and prize callers, Dean Martin began to serenade me. Memories are made of this. Now, I've told you before I love music that is not of my time. This is from the 50's I believe, but it would be a song that my Pop-Pop knew. I couldn't help but smile and think how wonderful it was for God to allow that song to be played at the very moment I finished the walk. Who needs an ipod when you have the Lord choosing the soundtrack to your life? I love things like that. It is like getting a love note from heaven. So all of it was some really good times. I look forward to next year!

Almost A Year, And A Lifetime Of Memories

Tomorrow I will be participating in my very first Memory walk for the Alzheimer's Association.  I say my first because I have a feeling I will continue to do this for many years.  My grandfather had Alzheimer's and passed away last November.  It was a very difficult time.  You may be wondering why, as if I didn't know what Alzheimer's would do.  No, I knew, you just can never fully prepare yourself for saying the "final" goodbye.  He was such a fighter too.  He would have a set back and then come back stronger than ever.  I thought he would do that for many more years, so even though he was sick and by the end of his life also had bone cancer, you just keep hoping, keep praying that he would "get better".  And better meant, back to what he was at last count, not even like the Pop-Pop I knew for so many years.  

Pop-Pop loved music.  He would always have it playing when you dropped in to see them.  Not just for Christmas and special occasions, always, always.  He just loved it.  I made a CD for his and my Nana's 60th wedding anniversary with two songs on it, "Too Young" and "Grow Old With Me".  He loved it and I thought he was just being nice.  No, he would ask me every once in a while to sing it, but I always felt dumb just breaking into my rendition and singing to him.  So, he would start, I would sing a few notes, and then he would go on.  He had a very nice voice too, so it was nice to hear just him.  I remember when he began to no longer like music.  Not that he didn't like it at all, but it began to annoy him at times.  One time when we visited him in the Alzheimer unit after an episode we took him into a music room.  We started to play a classical record.  He said to turn off the racket or garbage, some term that made us know it was not enjoyable.  It hurt to know that the disease was taking parts of him away.  Some time later when he was well enough to be in a wheelchair and out of his room, I went to visit him.  It was a rare time that I was the only one there with him.  My Nana is the unsung hero in all of this, I will have to write more on her later because volumes could be written on her faithfulness to her husband.  I was sitting with him and conversation was not the easiest.  He had protective mittens on his hands.  He was a fiddler.  He was a machinist by trade and that desire to work with his hands, fiddle something until it was fixed never left him.  So, for his protection with IVs and all, he had mittens.  One of the hardest things I've ever done was sit next to my Pop-Pop and answer his plea to "Take these things off" with "I wish I could, but I can't."  He was a very people wise man even in his disease and he said "Yes you can!"  I didn't know what to do, so I started to hum, more for my sanity than his.  He got quiet and said, "Hey, bring some of that over here."  I said, "What?"  "Whatever it is that you are doing", was his reply.  He had a funny way of speaking that just made me laugh.  I was grateful for the snippets of my grandfather that I was able to see every now and then.  During his illness and when we knew the end was near and hospice was helping him be as comfortable as possible I kept hearing the song "Be Unto Your Name".  The words just hit me so hard each time.  

We are a moment, you are forever.  Lord of the ages, God before time.  We are a vapor, you are eternal, Love everlasting, reigning on high.  Holy Holy Lord God almighty, worthy is the 

Lamb who was slain, Highest Praises Honor and Glory be unto Your Name.  We are the broken, You are the Healer.  Jesus Redeemer, Mighty to save.  You are the love song we'll sing forever, bowing before You, blessing Your name.  Holy Holy Lord God almighty, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, Highest Praises Honor and Glory Be unto Your name.  

When I think about being in Heaven and singing praise to the Lord, I cannot help but be aware of the limits of my language to describe such a wonderful and truly beautiful thing.  And this is just imagining it.  I would here this song and think, only a little longer until Pop-Pop will be there and sing this for his King.  It was not easy to sing that song in church, even in the car.  I wanted him to go Home and yet, I wanted him here.  Each time we left him, we didn't know if it would be the last.    

I am so glad that the last thing I said to him was "I'm glad you will get to meet Jesus soon."  Though I was sad he had passed away, I knew he was Home.  He is now complete and fully well.  My sister Michelle and I sang "Be Unto Your Name" at the funeral.  It was one of the most surreal experiences.  I kept thinking about Pop-Pop singing along with us.  How he was able to sing, just any song, but praises to the King and without end.  That song is still difficult to hear.  It was played in church not too long after the funeral, and again at my cousin Jason's commissioning service.  I couldn't sing the whole thing.  That is okay, I will someday.  I thought of that song last night.  I thought of how I don't listen to it much anymore and what shame it is .  Then I really felt selfish, really selfish because I still find myself wanting him back here.  And not just him, my Nana and Pop-Pop Musselman too.  They died when I was so young and I've often felt like I didn't get enough time with them.  But then I thought, they are singing praises too.  They are Home.  Why would I want them for one second to be back here.  What is so great about here that could ever in a million years compare to where they are?  And so I am trying no longer to think that I'm missing out on them.  Or that they are missing out on things here.  And is in normal to wish that they could all know my nieces and nephews and me as an adult.  But I'll see them again.  I'll be with them at the wedding of the church to The Lamb.  And so tomorrow as I walk, I will be thinking of my Pop-Pop.  And also of my other grandparents.  But, I think it will be more of fondness, not sadness.  I want to walk thinking of them being happy.  My family will be with me too and that will make it nice to have young children as a distraction from melancholy thoughts.  I don't know why Alzheimer's has to be something in this life.  It truly is a terrible thing.  So is stroke, heart disease, cancer, and any myriad of other calamities and ailments that strike these things we call bodies.  I'm just glad to know that is only for a moment.  Only for a time.  And though we always want healing of the physical body.  The ultimate is the healing of the spirit.  I'm so thankful for the Christian heritage I have.  For being told about the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross and trusting Him for my own salvation.  So while it is easy to ask "Why me" when something terrible happens.  It is humbling to think that in spite of me, He has given me the gift of eternal life.