Sight and Sound
I went out with the rest of my town to the park to watch the Fourth of July fireworks this weekend. I know, no need to tell me. Fourth of July isn’t until next weekend.
That’s just how we do things around here.
We got a preview of the light show many of you won’t get to see for days.
Friday night’s show started a little early because a storm was blowing in. The colorful explosions of black powder and stars competed for splendor with the lightshow God put on. Lightning tore open the curtains more than once on the stage the volunteer firefighters built in the heavenlies.
The beauty of the thing was interrupted now and again by the equilibrium tipping sense that the audio and video tracks were not aligned, not unlike seeing the actor’s mouth move first and words follow later in an old late night rerun.
The light burst open, sprayed out and sometimes nearly faded into the night sky before combustion’s crack pounded across the lake.
The soundtrack lagged lazily behind.
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1 may be the loneliest number, but 7 is the hardest
When I win my Academy Award (which will come as a complete surprise because I have no connection with the motion picture industry), they will not need to start playing the make-her-stop-talking-and-get-her-off-the-stage music to get me to quickly wind up my flowery speech. I’m pretty sure I’ll be standing there behind the podium blank faced muttering something like, “Umm . . . how’d this happen?”
No Academy Award to contend with, thankfully, but Jennifer over at Quail and Manna and More Than Just Adam’s Rib was kind enough this week to send the Kreativ Blogger award my way. That kind of left me standing here behind my own little podium saying, “Umm . . . how’d this happen?”
See, I still get pretty surprised every day when anyone shows up to read. So to have Jennifer take note in the first place (she’s smart, and funny, and insightful and loves Jesus), and then stick my name in the company of two of my favorite bloggers out there (and frankly, among the very best), Getting Down with Jesus and What I Learned Today, well, it kind of just makes my head spin. I’m humbled, and not just a little bewildered.
There are rules to this award, rules I’m having trouble following. First one is easy, though. I linked back to Jennifer. Happy to do that.
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139
It’s Wednesday and it’s late and I wanted to be done with this already. I’m supposed to be writing about the guy who just moved to the top of my list of the biggest boneheads in all of Scripture.
I’ll get to him. But he’s going to have to wait. Seems what he has to say to me isn’t what I need to hear right now.
Instead of Judges 11, where I’m studying, a friend tells me to read Psalm 139. Asks me to look and see what I might find there.
I know 139 like the back of my hand. There’s no better place to go and roll around in the autumn leaf piles of God knowing us inside and outside and upside down.
He’s searched me. He knows me. When I sit, when I rise, when I go out, when I lie down.
He knows my thoughts before I think them, my words before I speak them.
I cannot go far enough to find myself outside of His presence.
I am fearfully, wonderfully made. Knit together by none other than the Most High.
He saw me before I was anything to see. He’s known all my days since before He made me in the place none could know.
Cherish the words as I do, 139 just seems to have about as much meaning for me today as that dolt Jephthah and his wrongheaded victory bargain.
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I’ll Meet You in the Morning
I don’t believe I spent nearly enough time with Ernie. That’s to my loss.
Whenever their battle worn bodies allowed them to come to town for services, she would scoot to the tech booth to give me the one of the best parts of my Sunday morning. Braced with one hand on her walker, she’d stretch the other up to greet me, barely able to reach over the wall surrounding my elevated platform. I’d stand and lean over the short wall of my pen to clasp her hand and absorb the light of the most gorgeous smile on the most tested — and found faithful — woman I know.
She’ll catch you off guard, Marge will. Her petite and sometimes unsteady frame belies the rock she houses within.
But if Marge faithfully started my Sunday mornings, Ernie finished them. Our paths would cross week after week as I’d leave the booth and he’d come to return their hearing devices. Always a handshake, more often a hug and for certain an encouraging word. He’d tell me how they were weathering life’s bumps and bruises, which were plenty, and he’d always draw a smile as he prodded me to keep on with whatever it was I needed to keep on with.
I don’t remember when was the last time I shook Ernie’s hand. The last few months kept him pretty close to hospital and home. But whenever it was, I sure didn’t know at the time that I’d not get another big grin from that old cowboy.
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Intercessory Circus
Now and then in the course of my work day I enlist the aid of an interpreter. I have a caller on the line who is not a native English speaker, and we need the assistance of an intermediary in order to communicate.
Despite my Spanish fluency, I do call for an interpreter when I’m working with a Spanish speaker and a formal statement is required. It protects me from later concerns that I misunderstood or misspoke due to the language and also protects me from being strangled by an English speaking transcriptionist who cannot understand a word of it.
The process goes like this:
I speak to the client in English.
The interpreter interprets what I said into Spanish.
The client responds in Spanish.
The interpreter interprets what he said into English.
Repeat.
Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work. The process can get a little wild, especially when the Spanish speaker also has some level of English proficiency. It got a little crazy that way yesterday.
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Wrestling
These do feel like days for grappling.
For reaching, touching frayed hems. Hands return with threads, but the garment floats free.
I don’t take hold.
How I fight when the Word dances around me. When it taunts, and teases.
It shimmies before me, smirking. My eyes dart, head weaves while I track its frolicking.
My arms flail, and I embrace but air.
I want my hands around it. I want it tight in my fist. Locked down.
And I am learning, reluctantly, that I will not grasp it. I will not hold it.
For if I can contain it, I will smother it. I will press life out of it.
I will form it to me.
Indeed, if I can grasp it, it simply cannot be as great as it is.
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Student Driver
I did something as a parent today that I have never looked forward to having to do.
Not ever.
Not once.
I took my fourteen-year old to the parking lot at my office building, turned off the car, got out and gave him the keys.
As he crawled into the driver’s seat, I got in the passenger side.
I fastened my seatbelt.
And we went for a drive.
We’re both still alive.
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The Making of a Detour
About the only way to know it’s summer in South Dakota this year is the road construction.
Not so long ago on my two-mile commute to work, I noticed signs like this spaced along the roadway.
Detour signs lying horizontally on the grass could only mean one thing.
There would be road work.
Delays. Altered routes. More traffic at my back yard.
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Since We Are Surrounded
Runner after exhausted runner came around the bend under the railroad bridge and pushed up the hill.
Ears stung in the frigid wind, while sweat felt more like ice water splashed on chapped faces.
Yet they forced feet forward, one at a time, hoping the top of the hill would meet them soon.
I watched.
I listened.
And I took notes.
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How the Road to Hell Is Paved
I’m disappointed.
It’s not like I didn’t see it coming.
I’ve read the accounts before. And I peeked ahead more than once this time around to make sure that as as I was piecing this out unexpected events didn’t blindside me.
But the ending ambushed me anyway.
And now I’m disappointed.
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Good Grief! How Many Blogs Does a Person Need?
A few years ago we crammed into tightly packed bleachers at our high school with friends to watch the Junior/Senior Prom grand march. It seemed like a good place for a church youth director to be, cheering on our high school kids who’d cleaned themselves up and put on a pretty good parade of dresses and tuxedos.
As one of the couples promenaded down the aisle, we spied a young lady who was more likely to be seen in sweats on a basketball court than in a formal gown with glamorous hair coiffed a good six inches over her head.
On seeing this, our friend’s young daughter blurted out, “Good grief! How much hair does a person need?”
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Remind Me Again
Crazy week going on.
We’re on night three of four consecutive nights of baseball, which will be followed immediately by three straight days of basketball. Number One son headed off in the middle of it for three days of football camp.
Remind me again why I thought having my kids out of school for the summer was a good thing.
My desk makes me downright claustrophobic as more and more files usurp the open space in bigger and bigger piles.
Remind me again why I thought it was a good idea to take Friday off.
I can’t for the life of me get my head around why, after all he’d seen God do for him and for Israel, Gideon turned out to be such a dork. In one breath he told the people he would not be their ruler — they needed to accept only God’s rule. But then he made like Aaron, collected a bunch of gold and crafted an ephod which became the next best thing in Israel’s little-g god prostitution ring.
Remind me again why I thought I’d be done with Gideon after today.
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The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever
Poor Gideon.
Not only was he a little guy, from a whimpy family of a low end tribe, with a lot of fear and even more doubt, but he’s also subjected daily to my skewed perspective on his escapades as the commander of the Lord’s army.
Read today’s text with me. Tell me what you see:
When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The LORD has given the Midianite camp into your hands.” Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.
“Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the LORD and for Gideon.’ ” (Judges 7:15-18)
There was something about this scene that felt so familiar. It took me a while, but I finally put it together.
Gideon was not preparing his men for battle. He was putting on a Christmas pageant.
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