THUMBPRINTS

49er

Spending 7 days exploring Alaska with my two oldest sons was an amazing opportunity.  Especially in light of how rapidly things have changed for my family - in such a short amount of time.  We've gone from 3.5 years of living in the mental & emotional whirlpools that form from waiting, to "we're moving where?!".  So, for us to even accept the idea that a big boat was going to fling us up into a frigid Eden for a week was a bit too random to process. 

The views were other-worldly.  So pure.  It was if the millions of tourists that have plunged into Alaskan waters & stomped through its primeval forests, did so while wearing Zip-lock baggie suits.  Everywhere we went felt virtually untouched,      unexplored.  Apparently, this is owed to its massive size.  Texas is big & rightfully associated with everything large, but it ain't nothin' compared to the magnitude of ole #49.  Literally at every turn we were assaulted with another stupefying vista.  My boys & I are so grateful to have had this rare chance to see it together.  We'll never forget it...

...and yet, sometimes we will. 

How is it that after being immersed in a surrealistic paradise, literally tasting & breathing all that it has to offer, we still let the hot & humid realities of our lives erase those memories?  It really happened - we were there for cryin' out loud!  We saw near perfect natural majesties all around us & ate demi-god-like food for one entire week of our lives, and we still wind up falling into the myopic trap of fear, temptation, and hardship.  Why is that?!!

No matter how far we fling ourselves out from our everyday views, we will never be able to shake off this flesh-suit & find complete freedom through anything this spinning rock has to offer.  Unfortunately, it's in our DNA.  A couple of guys sealed it for the rest of us about 8,000 years ago & we haven't been able to break free from their behavioral pattern ever since.  The only escape that's truly effective & lasting is found in what we haven't seen yet.  It lies beyond the offerings of this rotating mass of dirt.  It's bigger than our sense of "BIG".  Purer than our visions of untouched snow. 

Memories have their place in shaping our lives for the good, but they do end up fading. 

God's goodness is on constant refresh.  His strength is perfect in re-centering my fickle human responses to this highly imperfect world.   I'm so thankful for what lies beyond the majesty of an Alaskan skyline.  That, although mind-blowingly beautiful, the stunning fix of natural wonders have their limits.  My hope lies in a God who has none.

 

Water Water Everywhere...

 
Two helicopters have just flown over my house at an uncharacteristically low altitude.  Not that 2 helicopters flying over my house, in and of itself, is characteristic at all; but it is, however, a reflection of just how bizarre the last couple of days have been around here.  The rain started with all of the normal, classic hype of red-colored bands stretching from LA. to OH. moving at an ever-changing pace, in an unpredictable direction.  Over a dozen reported deaths & hundreds of millions of dollars worth of flood damage later, I'm sitting on my patio, staring out into one of the most beautiful days we've ever had. 

Can''t really put my finger on the pulse of emotions we've experienced as a family during this wave of storms.  I guess as we let life take us a little further down these wet roads it'll start to form more clarity.  After seeing so much devastation from a distance, we're all sort of shell-shocked form having it's reality at our doorstep.  It's one thing to watch a flooded Iowa writhe through the looking glass of CNN & FOX, but quite another to see it through your front windshield.

Bellevue,TN. has always been dubbed "Nashville's Best Kept Secret".  Sheri & I actually built our 1st home
there 15 years ago - beautiful area.  For now, it's beauty will remain hidden beneath an overwhelming span of destruction.  Even the most luxurious of developments, the ones that we somehow always assume to be untouchable, have been submerged.

Gaylord's Opryland Hotel is now empty of occupants and filled with 6 ft. of flood waters.  Surreal.  They don't expect to be back up & running for another 3 - 6 months.  That's a bit financial hit for all of us Nashvillians.

All of this drives home the profound truth of just how fragile this earthly side of things really is.  Leaning on Jesus & everything we can't see within His very present, relevant promises during such a blindsided assault of loss is about as real as it gets.  No matter how deep the rising Harpeth & Cumberland Rivers may get, His protection & care for us goes deeper still...Romans 8:18 (The Message).

February?

Can't believe this day!  Yesterday was the first shocker; but somehow, today surfaced as an improvement. This is a bit of an anomaly to me because, I don't really get how you can improve on perfection...68 degrees, countable clouds, slight breeze & a park crowded with families - sounds more like the Millennium than February.  And yet, snow brings a beauty that our family longs for every year.  I guess the icy grass, gray billowy skies, & sub-human chill factors over-stayed their welcome.  We were so ready for this.  I was beginning to feel as if we'd moved from Franklin to Myopia.  Crazy how prolonged weather conditions can affect the way we see things. 

There's no question in my mind, body & soul, just how drastic of a difference God's Word makes during this kind of scenario.  If left to my own limited, circumstantial view, I'd be lost in some dank, psychotic hole right now; and, I'm no different than the rest of us under-the-weather-dwellers.  God knows this.  He was well aware of how each one of our temporal brains would respond to prolonged sunless stage sets when He drew up our blue prints.  He knew I wouldn't be as hardy & enduring as a citizen of Barrow, Alaska.  The sun shining on my face right now mirrors what I've found each moment I've taken the time to reach out from myself, out from my dark hole, to crack open the pages of His great escape.

Still

Whenever days sort of ooze by, I can always count on a character lesson looming eminent.  How can I be so sure? Well, just as the natural elements around us can't defy the principle that says: For every action, there is an opposite & equal reaction; the spirit realm at least mirrors this.  After all, it was, more than likely, the spirit realm from which this law originated.  If only I could see the crazy amounts of stirring, warring, and never-ending activity that somehow increases all around me whenever I enter a period of waiting. Though I'm still, just beneath what lies between what is real and what is seen, is a blinding wall of provision that doesn't cease.  To know this...to really, really know this, is to truly trust The One setting it all into motion. When my natural eyes detect a lull, there is always an even greater, opposite reaction awaiting the eyes of my spirit.  

The challenge is always one of enduring the stillness.  I get antsy.  My doer quivers & tries to break the quiet; because, somehow, noise remains a comfort to my "here-n-now".  I'm driven to move at the speed of nervously doing something in order to break the silence barrier.  In my flesh, I feel like a slug.  Like I'm losing some unknown ground.  And yet, my spirit is contradicting everything I inherently think is responsible, by gently tapping on my heart, reassuring me that I'm in the right place.   

Where else can I clearly hear the voice of God but in the quiet?  In what other state can his hand thoroughly rewire me but in the stillness?  It's in the waiting that defines me.  The wait itself is His gift of grace.  If you're like me - discovering the gift of inactivity closing doors all around you - take comfort. Focusing on His stillness always precludes the unequal & greater reaction of His provision.  Only then will we be able to see the one door that He's enabling us to run through.

Chique Fil A

Within the microscopic niche of "exclusive" fast-food fashion, Chick Fil A has joined the ranks of the likes of Krispy Kreme, with the promise of grand opening freebies.  This pic was taken with my phone yesterday, which is why the unfortunate lo-rez quality keeps you from seeing the detail/magnitude of the crazed overnight gathering.  It was like a surreal refugee camp, comprised of prize-winning hopefuls.  Kooky...in the most random sense of the word.  Bordering on disturbing & eerie, really.

Apparently, they have set in place some sort of a raffle, with the prize being an entire year's worth of free food.  To legally participate in the drawing, every entry must stay on the grounds over night.  I'm not really sure how the instant KOA thing plays into their marketing campaign.  Maybe their trying to tap into the even smaller niche of camping food.  Hmmm...

As I drove by it alI, I guess what snapped my head around so drastically were the similarities between that image & the barrage of images I've seen for the past week from Haitian rescue operations.  Well, that is sans the building & telephone pole still standing.  Not that I should draw some huge world view conclusion from such a very wrong comparison, but it was interesting how my mind jumped through all sorts of theological hoops.  My wife & I have been trying to stay on top of current relief efforts concerning the earthquake victims; and for the past 8 days hundreds of images have been burned into our day-to-day consciousness.  Along with our church (Journey Church) & Conduit Mission we've trying to do what we can.  So, one look across the street & it's obvious how opulently blessed we really are.  Perspective is everything.

4HIM GOES ALASKAN

SO...If you've wanted to witness that all too rare sighting - an actual 4HIM concert - then just click on the banner & you're on your way to an anything but normal way to see it!!!!  This is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime excursion for all of us!  I'm bringin' my whole fam - yes, even the 1 year old (Ryken).  If you've never had the chance to visit Alaska, this is definitely the way to take it all in.  You'll never forget this sort of experience.  Hope to see you there!

Last Hoorah

It's our final 24 hrs. on the coastal side of things, and we've decided to start clickin'em off with a beach front view.  A farewell "wave", so to speak.

Sitting out here never gets old. Wind, shimmering blue, Starbucks...pretty much paradise for a prisoner of thought like me.  How can even the least sentimental among us not be affected by what I'm staring out into right now?  I can get my head around the concept of becoming jaded to the music industry, but turning a calloused eye toward all of this baffles me.  It could have something to do with immensity.

The vastness of what we're dealing with here, as opposed to the finite fence line of the known music industry, is much greater than anything we could possibly get our limited heads around.   In short -- what truly moves me, are those things which are much bigger than me.

Unearthed

By stepping down from her targeted perch, Sarah Palin has done more in baring the leftists' teeth than most other high profile conservatives could've accomplished in a lifetime.  It's as if she simply stood up, shook herself, and scrubbed off the bull's eye.  This move proved to be a real groove-buster for those who've secretly tried to keep her in their line of fire.  They've made it very easy for the rest of us to be onto their agenda by how rapidly their bogus, inane air-fillers began spewing through their fang-lined gums.  To accuse Palin of anything right now is like Ali accusing Frazier of throwing punches.  Amazing what time unearths...and it's still ticking. 

Flick Night

We watched The International last night.  Great flick.  It was basically an elaborate attempt at painting the impenetrable vastness of corporate corruption.  I get it.   

It revealed how sometimes the successes we achieve can grow into ogres that end up living beyond any moral compass whatsoever.  They insulate us, desensitize us, & feed that part of our flesh that craves for a penthouse built above the law.  One in which the view is always looking down upon the rest of the little people.

Even in my small slice of community there exists unforeseen swaths of allowances that are repeatedly being made for arbitrary groups of friends & relatives that are just down right shocking.  This is where actions go deeper than the mere skin of prejudice, and it all starts with subtleties.  Little words & preferences that have daggers hidden behind them.  What begins with "oh, that's just her way", or "I wouldn't read anything into what he said", or "they just weren't thinkin'", ends up being a preamble to a much longer rap sheet -- the little warts on the hide of a monster.

If these feet in the door are given their room to be nourished and grow, they soon become numb to their own devices, and embody the ethical structure that's not much different than the ficticious corporate bank we observed last night.  We all carry within us the same innate hunger to control whatever threatens our own insecurities. 

The scenario we witnessed last night wrapped up with the never ending cycle of sin.  Injustice still prevailed.  The bank continued to flourish, despite the debris-trail of bodies it had left in it's wake.  A very accurate portrail of this world's horizontal view of survival.  But as for my family & I, we will continue to aspire to a higher, vertical view; one in which we are new creations, where these aspects of the world are passed away and everything is brand new.  

Lore

Time tends to exaggerate reality. The longer a memory sits & marinates, the longer the tale grows. 

The first time I went back to my home town after years of separation, everything seemed so much smaller than I'd remembered.  The lake that went on forever had somehow adopted a new boundary.  The houses on Lake Shore Drive that used to intimidate the snot out of me had shrunk down into what seemed little more than middle-class homes.  Even the Civic Center looked like an average-sized venue.  It was as if I'd returned from the Land Of The Giants.  It was all sort of dizzying. 

And yet, what I just described, is exactly how legends are created.  The character traits in people from the pages of history books end up looming much larger than the pages of reality.  There tends to be a disconnect between them and us; and, for the sake of having heroes, we force relevance out of the picture.  We'd rather believe in a fictitious version of their life's account if it gives us an added hope to cling to -- no matter how false that sense of security may be.  In so doing, we've immortalized these figures into an almost demi-god level of status.

As a Christian, the dangers of buying into this tendency is in that disconnect I mentioned.  We start assuming that the disciples & the apostles of the New Testament were given some exclusive gift of "sainthood" that enabled them to live out their struggles from an otherwise, unattainable level of divinity.  I believe in having heroes to model our lives from; but, when the relevance is lost, it's almost as if we start exercising our spiritual walk from the foundation of denial instead of the rock of reality that Jesus so longed to build beneath us.  These guys were just like us.  The very reason their lives were included within the canon was for the sake of relevance.  The ferocity of their struggles was just as impossible as ours.  Their flesh was just as thin & weak as ours.  They were us.

What we are to read, internalize, and walk away with is how they overcame.  Not what level of sainthood they attained.  Their accounts are there for us all to unearth that enemy-clouded hope of actually winning this thing.