Time Piece [100wordwednesday]

Clocks construe time. Metered arms intersect numbers. Who knew 60 this and 60 that by strange alchemy can become one of something else? This layering is a process with obscure nomenclature I'm sure. Name or no, it gives order to time. Who said each turn of earth equals 24 of something, each of the somethings is equal to 60 of something else, and so on? The school men could tell me. But there is still why, or to what effect. Could we be better if our being were not so defined, atomized, truncated by turning hands, pretending to be life?

The Axe at the Root of the Tree of False Pursuit

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in a man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.

"God alone is man's true good.”

Pascal puts the axe at the root. Fell, great Woodsman!

Happy Birthday to my brother Ron

Somewhere along the way I learned life gifts are lavish. The small farm, a creek winding near my boyhood home, raking leaves for a neighbor, coming home to Mom, loving my big, strong Dad. One could write for days of remembering and reveling, the silent joyful sighs constant in the heart. Comes to mind the basketball games too late, supper in haste before homework, passing beloved siblings on basement stairs, mowing the yard and washing the car on otherwise lazy Saturdays. There is no end to the lavish, and it includes an unfinished treehouse in the old Cottonwood, helping Dad paint the barn, hunting quail and rabbits and squirrels, visiting Grandma in Manhattan.

In the midst of this endless list are my brothers, a tome of their own overwhelmed with love and gladness. And today I remember one of the three who has a birthday. Not just any birthday, mind you, but one that comes on the 40th April after that happy day in Kansas. I was 18 and away in Florida for another lavish gift, Bible College. And Dad called -- or Mom, I don't recall -- with the news our baby brother was here. They came to visit that May and what joy it was, a life memory and treasure.

I'll not go long, or at least don't mean to. I wrote another time of this one-of-three brother, all of whom are life-gifts to me. But on Ron's birthday, this special one, I want to say how very much I have loved him across the years, and more now in the great grace of life God gives. I am often overwhelmed at the goodness we can know in family love, and Ron has been that for all of us.

I will remember a bit, briefly. There was the walk/run 5K last year in Fairbanks, the road trip to Valdez and the unplanned hike on same trip; the countless discussions of great variety; KU graduation and tech questions answered without effort; exquisite humor shared without words; coffee and projects and talking and games. Most of all, perhaps, the simple joy of being-with, when it can be.

The gift of together is lavish, and when we have it we know. "We pick up where we left off" except there's no picking up -- we just talk again, and feel the pain of distance eclipsed by the joy of together. And if this seems "too much" it is because I can't say it well enough. There really is a joy beyond knowing in brotherly love, and I know nothing else but to give God thanks for it. Only he could make possible something so good.

So I finish by saying again how much I love my brother, Ron; how glad I am our folks were gifted with him and in turn gifted the rest of us. I could brag on him for awhile, for there is plenty of 'material' there! But I will just say again how much I love him and miss him and look forward to being together once again when life allows.

Jamey Gremillion, Departed Friend

I stand among God's choicest people,
a man who as a child was with great men
who were becoming what they were.
The great I Am within brings forth.

Jamey was one, a man among men,

and known by all as such.

He has left us, needing not to think of 
work undone or loves unloved, 
yet dreaming of the more he longed
to do, to give, to love.

We'll not continue in his way, 

for none of us feel that we can, not being him.

But we will remember and love and give and be,

hoping to be as good.

My friend, Jamey Gremillion, passed away
Feb. 28, leaving wife Cara, four children and a daughter-in-law.
Deeply loved, deeply missed.

$.019 on the Kavanaugh Hearings and Dr. Blasey Ford

Christine Blasey Ford recently published a memoir. You may remember she is the one who testified in the Kavanaugh hearings, saying the nominated justice had assaulted her when they were both teenagers. At the time I mused on it for my own thinking, and reconsidered it a bit for today.

The prevailing rule in too many Supreme Court nominations certainly applies here:

There is nothing really right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.
Political power is everything.
If you interfere with my political power, you are bad, really bad.
There is no way out of this mess.

I wondered if the age-old rule, love god and neighbor, could get any air-time.

Love God – You better have something/someone larger than you that holds you to final account.

Love your neighbor, especially when they suffer.
If Dr. Ford is truthful, her pain is great.
If Kavanaugh is guilty, his pain is great.
If Dr. Ford is lying, her pain is great.
If Kavanaugh is innocent, his pain is great.

Do you know how to grade the pain or gauge the brokenness or know the truth? I don't. Lord, have mercy. How many broken people have you known who learn to masquerade, to cover, to cope? As many as have ever lived. Privilege and power on all scales mask the human reality of the soul and heart. This is true no less of Kavanaugh or Dr. Ford.

All should grieve for Dr. Ford if she were abused. All should be free to wonder about such things, because there is reason to do so.

All should grieve for the presumed innocence of the man in the chair. What culture is strong enough to guarantee "innocent until proven guilty?" It is a precious inheritance and we abandon it to our peril. One should also allow he may be guilty, and let due process run its course.

The prophet said: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.”

Justly: Burn the guy. He is a lecherous offender. Or, try calmly to determine truth.

Mercy: Accept all statements at face value (except that is lunacy.) Better: be compassionate of the accuser. The alleged act may be true and have grave effects. And be compassionate of the man in the chair. He may be innocent of a grave charge, or there may be mitigating factors.

Humbly: Speak with certainty to correct injustice. Perhaps, but first pray to live quietly in this world, and weep for those who must judge such things. Look in the mirror and remember who does not.

I don't know anything else. 

Lord, have mercy.

Yearning for the Real

Thinking long and hard has mixed reviews. At least there’s no utopia in the offing. Maybe this failure suggests utopia is not possible, or our notion of utopia is faulty. I’m in the latter camp, except I don’t believe in utopia, but rather in a new heaven and earth as the biblical corpus puts it.

It likely exceeds our conceptions. Paul the Apostle was no mean intellect. Historian Tom Holland says his writings were “depth charges” throughout the entire Greco/Roman world. And Paul said the afterlife will be good beyond our imagination.

I believe in the afterlife because I am a Christian. It is clearly taught in the Scripture, and Jesus Himself assured his followers: “I go to prepare a place for you.” But there’s enough ambiguity to let us know a lot with low resolution – and very little with high.

I am taken, though, with this idea of a “new heaven and new earth.” It makes sense when we remember Creation is good. Yet we all know in our bones it isn’t all it ought to be now. We creatures seem to make sure of that every day.

Something’s just plain wrong with the notion that we who compulsively create hell in families, communities, and nations will, from that same human milieu create a heaven on earth. Yes, there are Churchills and Britains to beat back Hitler and Nazi Germany, but if WWII Germany was close to hell, Britain, for all its goodness, did not become heaven.

Perhaps no one would imagine we will create heaven, except John Lennon’s anthem by that title, which gave hopefuls everywhere a faux heavenly vision. The scandalous unreality of that same anthem is that it scrapes the broken chalkboard within every home and heart.

Try as we might, thinking will not solve our problems. As Pascal put it, “Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.”

So where does that leave us? In part with the fixed things that transcend reason. Mother, father, child; earth, wind, fire; starry sky of bewildering wonder, pain of sudden death and continual suffering, ecstatic pleasures that bewilder with delight.

One might say my Christian dogma informs all for me, and one would be right, though working it out fully is beyond all of us. But if there are no fixed things to which all can attest, meaning and mind are done. The fixed things give us a place to begin, to believe, to hope . . .

To Trust.

In the new heaven and new earth fixed things will remain – will indeed be real in all their true realness. We are told there will be no tears, which surely means no sorrow. But hardship, challenge, growth, striving, working, enjoying – I’m inclined to think all of that and more will be there, along with pleasure. Theologians can correct me if they wish – I’m just wondering.

All creation groans, Paul says, to bring all things into newness. I don’t want to die anytime soon but I know I will someday. I too groan for that newness, for the realness of which my life is a hint and shadow. On that great day the groaning will give way to knowing and loving and cheering.

Indeed, we will know and be known in ways that reason has no clue.

I can’t wait, but I will.

Soul Salve [100wordwednesday]

Dot Lake lives on the Alaskan Highway, a village here before the road. The cemetery shows this was home for generations. Thus so in countless towns, countless people, for millenia. An old home beckons us. We come, and stay, and we know why. We have been here before. We linger, and feel something right, unadulterated, clean. We come encumbered and leave whole. The spirit of a place gives soul to buildings and geography. Dot Lake renews, for reasons. Reasons the heart knows, and holds close: a secret ruined if told. In silence it heals, and we are thankful.