Dear Chrissy

Dear Chrissy,

How can the sun be shining? That is what I asked myself this morning as I hiked up the mountain with Todd. It seems to me that the day should have been overcast, drizzling, and dreary, and more befitting of my feelings since getting the news of your going home. Once I got over my indignity at the sun for such an outrage and disgust at the gentle breeze that cleared the way for me to see the ocean, I could see that this was the perfect day for your homecoming. I know that you were greeted by Jesus with, "Welcome home, good and faithful servant. Well done."

I have missed you these past weeks. There will be an empty spot that, thankfully, Jesus will need to fill and most assuredly will. At your darkest hours, you can make me feel blessed and warmly received. I felt like a rock star whenever we saw each other, all because I had the good fortune of spending a little extra time with your kids, which was a huge blessing to me.

Austin and Nicole have been at the center of your world, they were two of your reasons to hold on as long as you could. I don't believe you feared death but instead were possessed by a fierce desire to live, to see your kids well on their way in life, to hold on to Todd for as long as possible, and to be there for your friends while you were about the business of the Kingdom of God. After all, we have only a short time here with our loved ones and an eternity with Jesus. You thirsted for life; indeed, you thirsted for The Life, and I know you found it and shared it unabashedly.

Grief will visit us. It will be sharp and poignant for your family and the closest of your friends. It will come to them in waves. Some waves will lap at their feet and be gentle reminders of all you are to them: your kindness and love and your ability to make them the center of your universe. Some waves will try to overwhelm them, and we'll need to stand with them to ensure they are not swept out to sea. God's grace is sufficient, and He will provide.

I know that for myself, I asked, "Why Christine? Why was there no miracle healing?" Honestly, I've been a bit miffed. Others will feel the same. I went down that deep dark path years ago with a friend when I held on to my anger far too long, so long that it turned to bitterness and that bitterness separated me from my Lord. I caution folks to let the anger go, hold on to the love with their big hearts, and let God be God. We may never know his purpose in our losses. He must be enough for us.

I will continue to be sad for myself, sad for that marvelous core group of friends of yours, and sadder still for Todd, Nicole, and Austin. But I will also spend a lot of time marveling at nature and the lush green pastures and the valleys you now have with their lakes and streams, and I will praise the name of Jesus that I have the good fortune to call you my friend.

In His grip,

Jerry

PS – I have taken the liberty of scanning some of the comments from your friends and family and have listed some that ring particularly true to me here. Some of these are only a piece of what they wrote, some are all. At last count, there were 180 comments on the family post at this writing and these are but a few:

From Phil Van Horn, "Brokenhearted and inspired…all at the same time."

From Alfred Berumen, "I share your grief for someone with such a beautiful soul. Chrissy was always a gem of delight and personality and she had fabulous "Hair Pirate" hair. We all loved her so much. Peace and strength sent to your family."

Sarah Rush: "I'm sending you all my most heartfelt love and will be praying for you. I was heartbroken to hear the news of precious Chrissy's passing last night. I've prayed so fervently for her the last 5 years. I know she's with Jesus, but my heart is so heavy. God bless you dear ones."

Karen Gee McAuley, "We are so blessed to have known and loved her. We will remember her, full of love, light and baked goods to rival a pastry chef, her sense of humor and humanity. God called her home and while we miss her so much, we are grateful that she is finally at peace."

Lisa Li: "What a loss, such a ray of sunshine no matter the clouds. May she fly high as know she would."

Jennifer Horn: "Such an amazing woman filled with so much sparkle…"

Alice Hill: "My heart breaks while her soul finds peace. I know she is in the loving arms of our Lord, with no more pain and no more fear, only love. She will be missed by everyone left behind, because she was truly one of the special ones. Her loving spirit lit up a room as soon as she walked in and I am sure heaven felt that amazing spirit when she arrived."

Sue Volz Peters: "I'm so very sorry to read this news! Chrissy was a bright beacon of light!"

Sharon Marks Boudreaux-Stam: "I'm so sorry for your loss. She was such a beautiful person inside and out."

Michele Hetherington Fernandez: "We love you all so much & our lives have been forever changed from having Christine & your family in them."

Greg Stoney: "I'm so gutted. Such a sweet human taken from us much too early. I feel honored to know her…"

Amanda Minkey Granier: "Gonna miss my sweet friend so much  but so blessed to have had her in my life for so many years. I will cherish our times together, our laughs, our cries, our talks and everything in between."

She was truly one of a kind and touched so many hearts! She loved loved her family and was so proud of all of you!

Terry Kappen: "OMG!!! I am shocked to hear this news! My heart is breaking! I am so sorry Todd, Nichole, and Austin. Chrissy fought the long fight. She trusted God to see her through this for 5 years and never gave up. She now can have the peace she and everyone that loves her have been praying for. She was the kindest, God-fearing person I knew, she had helped me through many of trials in my life."

180 and counting…

Descent of a Comfortable Silence

 

Photo Credit: Jim McClelland

Jim McClelland and I are cruising along Highway 95 in Nevada, after our trip over Interstate 80 out of California, as we work our way to Eagle, Idaho. We are in his new-to-him truck pulling a 24-foot enclosed trailer as he and Shirley begin a new chapter in their lives, not a chapter they would have necessarily written for themselves, at least not with all the plot twists it’s taken to get them this far. 

During our 12-hour trek through the high desert, there is plenty of windshield time with snowcapped mounts surrounding us. While we have plenty of talking to do to catch up on our lives as we trundle along, we allow ourselves some periods of silence, a silence as rich in solitude as two people can have sitting next to each other.

There is comfort in the occasional silence that suffuses the cab of Jim’s truck that only comes in our being the best of friends. I am assured of Jim’s acceptance, I don’t need to fill the time with talk just to delight him, make him like me more, or prompt him to make a statement of undying devotion to our friendship. It is there, not taken for granted, but present in the silence, even as I type the draft for this post.

I want this sort of comfortable silence with Jesus Christ, my Lord. Many people talk about Jesus being their friend or ‘being a friend of Jesus’. I admit to having a problem with that terminology for myself. I am too busy working on having Him be my Lord and my King to seek friendship. It’s all semantics, I know, but semantics are important to me. I would like to sit with Jesus in a comfortable silence even as He is my Lord and assured of His acceptance with no need for me to say things to him to delight Him, make Him love me more, or to elicit a statement from Him so that I know He cares for me. A silence where I don’t ask of Him anything; no pleas for forgiveness (as much as I continue to need it), no appeals on behalf of friends or family (as much as they need it), and no adoring words of praise from me (as much as He deserves them all the time).

There is a hierarchy of assurance, a depth to certitude from thinking, to feeling, to believing, and finally to knowing.

To sit with Jesus in a comfortable silence is to be known by Him and to know Him. I would love to have that day descend on me. I dare say, if it happened, I would not likely recognize myself the next time I looked in the mirror.

In His grip and as always, on the Potter’s Wheel,

jerry

Photo credit: Jim McClelland

 

An Idaho writer's nook courtesy of Grandma Virgie, Jim's grandmother

Adrift

 

Living waters have a current, an ebb and flow to them, sometimes unseen, as from a hidden wellspring, a source beyond the ken of human senses. Living waters are not distilled nor sterile. The currents bringing them to the ponds and headwaters contain nutrients, the outgoing currents take the waste of the living organisms downstream to be consumed by still other creatures or cast of in the effervescence of the streams.

The waters I seem to be on are not some stagnant pond, putrid with waste and polluted by mankind. And so, adrift as I am, I have at least this one thing left, that my oft used sign off, ‘in His grip’, is still true and that whatever landfall my drift takes me, I will have my feet on firm soil.

Adrift appears an apt turn for this stage of life I find myself. Meriam (we are on a first name basis now) talks about adrift as being without motive power and having no anchor or mooring, ties, guidance or security. I am uneasy with these things. I’m an old man, for God’s sake! Shouldn’t I have the power to direct my life, activities, and interests?

By what mechanism have I become adrift, without sail and subject to every current and vagrant wind? By my own devices? Have others cast me into this drift? Let me be honest with myself – I have no one to blame but myself. I pushed off into the stream without proper provisions.

I shouldn’t be rudderless, without oars or a motor these days. I’m a Christian. But I am in the water’s power and subject the vagaries of the stream with its rocky outcroppings, rapids, and glassy stretches. I am consumed with sadness, not as acute as Jesus’ sadness in the garden of Gethsemane, but at times it feels akin to that.

I have a distinct memory from my childhood when my mom and a friend of hers took my sisters, the friend’s son, Dennis Broberg, and me up to Switzer’s Creek in the Angeles National Forest. Dennis and I took our army men and equipment. You know, like those great characters from the Toy Story movies? We set up roads and fortifications. We collected twigs and fashioned rafts for water-born assaults. The prone machine gunners were particularly good for the rafts. We set them adrift in the creek in the hopes they could get behind enemy lines. Adrift and without rudders, they invariably ran afoul of some driftwood collected between the rocks. My own drift sometimes feels like the ill-fated infantryman’s.

Still, I am in His grip and when it comes to it and I am caught by the eddies that thwart my progress, I can risk it and reach over the side and hand-paddle my way out. Firmer ground awaits and who knows what stranded wayfarer I might bring into my raft and take to safety along the way.

To borrow a phrase from Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, “I hope”.

In His grip,

Jerry White

It is a Pilgrimage

 

Photos courtesy of my Storyblocks subscription

I have been consulting with my friend Webster about the word ‘journey’. The word is all around us these days and I’ve thought about it quite a bit but recently two young friends lost their mother and referred to their experience with her failing health into home-hospice care to its conclusion as a journey.

Now, Noah and the Merriam brothers have given me some formal meaning to journey. As a noun, three descriptions: 1 – Something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another, 2 – an act or instance of traveling from one place to another (trip), and 3 – in a chiefly dialectal sense, a day’s travel. As a verb, intransitive and transitive respectively – to go on a journey or to travel over or through. They go on to give me all sorts of great information about the word but that’s not my point and I don’t want to derail my thoughts.

Journey is an apt and excellent word to use when describing path taken with a loved one from hale and hearty through illnesses and their treatments to hospice and working hard to graciously escort the loved one to end of their time on earth.

My problem with the use of journey is not in their usage but in the banal use of the word for everything from a person’s rise to stardom from the ashes of poverty (not a bad place for the word) down to their ‘journey’ to the pet store for cat litter. Since when did the commonplace act of getting into the car, driving to the pet store, waving their Apple Pay at the device, and coming home with cat litter become a journey? Unless the person got in a wreck, was arrested for dangerous driving or maybe got into a road rage incident, and barely made it home alive and just in time for the cat, it was not a journey. And even then, there are more apt and exciting language to use for those types of things. We have cheapened the word ‘journey’ with overuse and stale thinking.

My trek for a descriptive word for what we go through as my young friends have done took me from Webster and friends to Roget and on through basic internet searches. I won’t overload you all with the many alternatives I have come across, that is for your own excursion. I’ll get right to the word that struck paydirt for me – pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage, defined by Merriam-Webster as a noun is: 1 – a journey of a pilgrim, especially one to a shrine or a sacred place, or 2 – the course of life on earth. It works as a verb as in, go on a pilgrimage. For the Christian, or any religious order believing in an afterlife or next-life, pilgrimage works wonderfully. For the atheist, not so much – there is only life, then death and whatever good the body is put to afterwards. Alas, no sacred place for them so not too much of a pilgrimage.

When we accompany someone along the inexorable path of life that leads from living to the doorstep of the next life, whether if be as a family member, a friend, or as a nurse or volunteer at a center to people previously unknown to them, we have been given one of the deepest of privileges. It is an honor to serve as a guide, a companion, or even as a crutch to a person on their last leg of the pilgrimage of life. It is crushing to hold their hand as they breath their last and hear someone say, ‘she’s gone’. Crushing until we can sit back and understand the courtesy we’ve been afforded by being present when our companion is in ultimate rest after so much pain. Better to have held their hand than to have had them taken from our presence only to pass away a short time later.

If we are tasked with walking side by side with someone in the final stages of their pilgrimage, we need resources to draw from – other friends, family members, and a higher power – in my case and in the case of the two young friends I wrote of at the beginning of my post, Jesus Christ whom we know greets our loved ones and welcomes them home.

While considering these things, I have come to a better understanding of what I went through with my mom and dad a few short years ago. I see it now in a more favorable light as though a photographer of great artistic talent captured the true nature of their subject. It’s easier on the eyes and warmer in the heart to believe their pilgrimage was successful. I am more thankful now for the courtesy afforded to me by my Lord to have been alongside my folks to see them home.

I hope and pray that this helps my friends find a greater measure of peace when they read this as I hope it does other readers. May God grant that this reaches the mark.

With peace in my heart and I in His grip,

jerry

Laura's Challenge

 

On Sunday May 5, 2024, Rev. Dr. Laura Harbert delivered a sermon from her heart titled “We Become What We Behold!” I have found that when I write from the heart, that is when I am at my best and I appreciate when others do the same. Laura brought God’s word to us through her cornerstone verse:

2 Corinthians 3: 17-18 – “¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (NIV)

We are being transformed from what are into something we are not now. This is always the case throughout life and the transformative power comes from that which we behold, what we consume, what we take into ourselves. If we consume hate and falsehood, we become the purveyors of hatred, loathing, and lies. If we come to the Lord’s Table with repentance in our hearts and consume the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5: 22) – then this is what we will become.

To achieve this, to become more like Christ, I need to humbly and in repentance, keep myself on the Potter’s Wheel so that he can continue to transform this lump of clay more clearly into his image.

Reverend Laura’s challenge to me is to make a list of where I behold God’s Glory and to reflect on those things. Okay, she didn’t phrase it as a challenge but instead said, “This would be one homework assignment I would love to give each one of you. Make a list of where you behold God’s Glory. Who are the people who show you God’s Glory? What are the places that stir up God’s Glory? What are the things, where do you behold God’s Glory?” Me, being a recovering jock, have taken this as a challenge and my reply follows this link to her sermon if you would like to be touched and transformed:

Sermon 5–5-2024 “We Become What We Behold!” by Rev. Laura Harbert (youtube.com)

These are some of the places, things, and people that allow me to behold God’s Glory:

V I see Jesus in the smile of my children and their children and in the trust in their eyes. That is the spiritual fruit of love.

V I see God’s hand in a failed project that touches someone’s heart despite my failure. This is God’s grace and the spiritual fruit of faithfulness.
V My Lord speaks to me when a young teen, covered in dust, concrete, paint, and sweat smiles and can’t wait to do it again. This is faithfulness and joy in His goodness.
V He whispers to me when I hear the symphony played by nature’s orchestra – the rustling of leaves, gurgling of the brook, calling birds, and solitude. This fruit of the spirit is peace.

V I sense his presence while being part of a well ridden series of ess-turns by a group of expert riders. That is the spiritual fruit of joy.
V I feel God near me when I see the bonds of an old grudge against man or God broken. This is the faithfulness of the Great Healer.
V Seeing someone deep into solitude touches my heart with Jesus’ kindness.
V I hear God’s voice in Cindy’s laughter as it drifts into the office or upstairs while she’s on the phone or with friends or family. This one thing is the fruit of joy, love, and goodness.
V My kids in love show me God’s love for us all, for God is love.
V Cynene. She is all the fruits of the Spirit…
V I am transformed by the flight of a red-tailed hawk, my every-man bird, and hearing its call of joy and exhilaration. When I look at the intarsia hawk my dad me and read his inscription, “Together in His grip”, I am reminded of God’s goodness and mercy.
V I see God presence in Jim’s laughter, Michael’s wit, and Doug’s indominable loyalty – the love of friends of the past, present, and future are all the fruits of the spirit.
V Any chance encounter with one of God’s creatures speaks of himself.

V The unsolicited ‘good morning’ from a fellow walker, hitherto unknown to each other, reminds me of Jesus oneness. Perhaps the response to the smile and look of wonder on my own face as I think on this list is what inspired them to offer up the ‘good morning’.
V The turn of a good phrase like, “Fear not, for I am with you” (Isaiah 41:10) excites me to write. That is faithfulness.
V Seeing a scraped knee tended to by a parent, sibling, teacher, or even a stranger screams of Jesus’ gentleness and kindness.

For as long as I live, I won’t be able to list them all and, as you can see by my collage, there is room for more and blanks have been left in anticipation.

Make your own list, create your own collage, and dwell on those things where you behold His Glory.

In His grip,

jerry

Répondez s'il vous plaît - RSVP

 

The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6-7 - “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In the preamble to Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard J. Foster gives us a glimpse into the heart of God, “He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him… He longs for our presence.” I am often too absorbed with busyness, accomplishing the next thing, doing something – anything – and then rewarding myself with some downtime, you know, like watching TV or burying my face in my phone. Too busy to spend time in his presence, talking to him, loving him.

Foster goes on to tell us, “And he is inviting you – and me – to come home, to come home to where we belong. To come home to that for which we were created. His arms are stretched out wide to receive us. His heart is enlarged to take us in.”

We receive invitations all the time for birthdays, weddings, baby and wedding showers, poker games. There is generally an RSVP request with contact information toward the bottom of the invitation. RSVP are the initials for the French phase, ‘Répondez s'il vous plaît’, basically meaning to please respond. The literal translation is ‘Respond, if it pleases you.’

Sometimes I get the sense that the host is begging me, “Please tell me you are coming.” “Please, please contact me at 555-555-5555 or by email at lovemybaby@rsvp.com or using the self-addressed stamped envelope.” They seem desperate for my attendance and are anxious to know if I am coming so they can prepare the house for me, have my favorite drink ready, and to make sure that I am comfortable and relaxed. I believe God wants our RSVP for all those things. Though it is more a longing than a begging.

How should I respond to God’s invitation? What is his chosen method for the RSVP? I need to respond with an open heart to Jesus Christ, his chosen contact and use the Holy Spirit to transmit my acceptance to join him. God’s invitation is not a ‘Regrets Only’ RSVP. If he doesn’t hear from me, he assumes I will not be joining him. If he hears from Me, I’ve already accepted his invitation.

It is important to allow time in a corporate worship service for each person to connect with God in prayer, to touch the hem of his garment in a way that allows power to go from Jesus to the believer. I believe this should be early in the service so that corporate worship and singing flows from a place of personal contact. We need the opportunity to RSVP before we jump into the party, otherwise we are just a part of the din trying to harmonize.

I listen for the invitation from time to time. Most often it is during walks, hikes, bicycle pedals, motorcycle rides, or floats when I have some solitude and I’m away from the requirements of social interaction. There is a meditation technique where I envision myself walking along until I find what I'm looking for. I have two such walks that are effective for me in my prayer/mediation life, such as it is. In one, I picture myself hiking in the Sierras, most times I am wending my way through the forest until I find myself hiking along a rushing stream tumbling down the hillside to spread itself through a meadow and into an alpine lake. At some point, I see myself walking with Jesus, talking as to a friend.

There are times that my meditation takes me up a set of switchbacks to a mountain pass where I hope to find the stream leading from the snowpack to the lake on the other side of the pass. When I find myself on this trail, I often come across a rockslide blocking the trail and I need to clear the rocks, some being large boulders. It is hard work to clear the path and I often fail at it. When this happens, my hope is that my work to clear the path has been an effective RSVP and that he will meet me in my labors.

Jesus himself, being fully God and fully human, shows us the need for prayer to connect to God and he practices the art to show us the way. Luke 6:12 tells us “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.” This is how Jesus prepared himself to deliver the Sermon on the Mount and gave us the beatitudes. Should we do any different to prepare us for our day?

Don’t forget to RSVP.

In His grip,

Jerry

Author’s note: After writing my first draft for this post, I went on a bicycle ride. I found it nearly impossible to hear the invitation or to make any meaningful connection. Even riding around the Rose Bowl and Brookside Golf courses where it is a relatively safe place to ride, there are too many things to think about – other cyclists, joggers in the roadway rather than in the pedestrian lane, cars, or golfers crossing the road between holes that feel no need to stop and look. Maybe I’ll get to the point where the pedaling is second nature and hearing and responding to the invitation is first nature…

Build It...

 

MAZ 2015 - Building a Vatu at Stotonic

Preface: Pastor Mouris is leading a community Bible study at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church on Tuesdays from 11 to Noon and is taking us through the book of Nehemiah. I’ve just finished the first paragraph of this post and now have no idea where it will take me. I thought it was to be about the difference between a ‘joiner’ and a ‘builder’. God is great.

Nehemiah was a builder. That much is well documented in the Old Testament book written by him. The book answers the 5 W’s and one H questions. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? The ‘who’ is Nehemiah and a remnant of the exiles of Israel out of Persia. The ‘what’ is that the wall of Jerusalem is rebuilt. The ‘when’ was around 445BC, a little more than 100 years after the first wave of Israelites had returned to Jerusalem with permission from King Cyrus. The ‘where’ is the Kingdom of Judah’s capital, Jerusalem. I’ll address the ‘why’ below. The ‘how’ might be better covered in a post all its own but, for the purpose of this post let’s say by prayer, commitment to a vision, and by grace.

The question as to why is taking me places I hadn’t thought to go. Like my questions to my parents, my children of me, and now even my grandchildren, ‘why’ can be asked until we drill down to the depths of motivation. I could offer the simple answer, “because God told him to”, and to the question, “Why did God tell him to?” I would have to say, “God only knows”. I feel like that would be cheating so I’ll drill down a little bit.

There was no earthly reason for Nehemiah to uproot himself from Persia and go to a city in ruins to build a wall that the residents and previously freed exiles did not want. He was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes and had the complete trust of the king who would eat or drink anything handed to him by Nehemiah. Nehemiah lived in the palace, had everything he could want – food and shelter fit for a king. Why then, did he go?

Nehemiah was a godly man, given to prayer and fasting, and obedient to God’s Will. He heard a report from his brother Hanani upon Hanani’s return from Jerusalem and the province. The people who had returned there from exile ‘are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.” (Neh. 1:3) Nehemiah sat down and wept. He couldn’t stand the thought of God’s people being in trouble or in disgrace and he went into a time of mourning, fasting, and prayer. (Neh. 1:4)

His prayers were full and complete. Nehemiah went to God with supplication for his people and confession of his and their sins. He reminded God of His Word while interceding for the people of Israel. His period of mourning carried over to his job, which was to hand the King the cup, untainted with poison. The king asked Nehemiah why his face looked so sad even though he was not ill. Nehemiah tells us that he was very much afraid but told the king he was sad because he could not be happy knowing his ancestral city was in ruins and the gates burned. (Neh. 2:2-3)

I love this part and want this in my life – when the king asked he what he wanted Nehemiah tells us that, “Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, ‘If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried sot that I can rebuild it.” (Neh. 2:5) That is Nehemiah’s secret. He is such a prayerful soul that he can pray and offer a response to the king in the same breath. I want that.

I’ll recap what I believe is the answer to why Nehemiah went to rebuild the wall. He was a godly man. He prayed often and deeply. He fasted and as part of his spiritual discipline and waited on God and listened for replies. He was obedient. Obedient to the point of giving up the prime position on the king’s staff. In this case, the ‘how’ was intertwined with the ‘why’. Because of these things, Nehemiah had taken on aspects of God, namely God the Creator. Nehemiah had it in him to create, to build. And that’s what he did.

I’ve been asking myself while writing this, ‘Why am I writing it? What does it have to do with my life? How will it affect me or rather, how will I use this to affect change?’ There is something in me that is broken down and in disgrace, something missing that needs to be rebuilt, a wall broken down and letting things best locked out in, or a gate is broken that won’t allow people in that need to be there. I pray that I am being obedient to His voice in this – I have missed doing mission work and service with young people and in response we have restarted Mission Arizona. There is something more, something deeper than this, I know. I also know that it will come to me as I pursue obedience, just as Jesus has done for me or to me, year over year.

I encourage you to pray and seek God to find the wall that is broken in you, the gate you need working to let Him in.

I am in His grip, always.

Jerry

Gun Lap

 

In track and field, a bell-lap is the last lap of a race during which a bell is rung to signify the start of the final lap. Bell-laps are typically used on longer races on oval tracks, 1500 meters or 1 mile and longer. Gun-lap is another term and method and is defined by my friend Webster as, “the final lap of a race in track signaled by the firing of a gun as the leader begins the lap.” In auto racing, a white flag is waved at each racer as they cross the start/finish line for their final lap. At Golden Gate Porsche Club driver education weekends, the track Starter (or the preferred King God Flag Guy) points at each driver with the index finger and then down to the track as they enter the last lap of their run.

Using some crude math and a 1-Mile race in my analogy, I am in the Gun Lap. My parents passed away just shy of 90-years old, I’m just shy of 70 which is .77777 percent of their ages which puts me in lap four of a four-lap race. The gun has sounded, the bell has wrung, and the King God Flag Guy has pointed to me and the track letting me know I need to finish strong. The whisperings of the Holy Spirit confirm it.

If life is a marathon, and mine has been anything but a sprint, I have either come through the wall or am about to. ‘The Wall’ in long distance running is a point where the body’s glycogen stores have been depleted and the body no longer has the fuel to continue running. One source puts the wall at about 18.64 miles and another simply says, ‘around the 20-mile mark’. Using my .77777 percent figure, I would be at 20.3574 miles in my marathon. There are days I slog through and others are over before I’ve done a lick. I need to find an alternative fuel source if I want to finish my marathon well.

Hebrews 12: 1-2a: ¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ^2aLet us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (an alternative fuel source if ever there was one).

Years ago, maybe a lifetime gone by, my dad gave me a copy of the book, Finishing Well by Bob Buford. The men’s group Dad met with in Grants Pass, Oregon was going through the book and he wanted me to keep pace with them. If I was there on a Thursday during a visit, I would go with him. Good men all around the table. I’ve regretted not keeping pace and engaging with him through this study and have begun reading it on my own to get myself back in the race.

What do I mean when I say, “finish well”? Ken Blanchard, Coauthor of The Servant Leader and The One Minute Manager, wrote the forward to Buford’s book. In his forward, he talks about asking people, “Would you like the world to be a better place for your having been here?” “What’s your plan?” Goodness yes. As a Christian, oh God yes but what does this mean? I imagine that a large portion of finishing well is finding and doing the Will of the Father. On September 6, 2022, I published a post entitled Off the Bench. That was the start of me finding my answer to what finishing well means.

1/4 Mile Track Layout

There is a problem with all my math and analogies – I don’t know and can’t know where I am is this last lap. Look at the diagram above. Have I just entered the Clubhouse Turn? Am I coming out at the ¾ Pole? Am I cruising the backstretch, diving into the Far Turn, or making my last sprint down the Homestretch? How do I know if I have even one stride left?

James 4: 13-15: ¹³Now Listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵Intead, you ought to say, “if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

My first step in finishing well is to determine to do so. This is followed closely by figuring out what it will look like for me. Have I hit the wall? If so, I must find the supernatural source of energy to replace everything I’ve exhausted. I must fix my eyes on Jesus who is not only the author and perfector of my faith but is the tape at the finish line. To finish well I need to exhaust everything that is me, there is no need for it once the finish line is crossed.

One of the greatest depictions of finishing well is a scene from Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddell, played by Ian Charleson, is running “to the Glory of God” and has trained for the 100-meter sprint but must withdraw because of the race is being held on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. He was given a spot in the 400-meter race, a much longer race by far and demands pacing. In the Clubhouse Turn he is knocked to the ground but gets up to finish and win the race. Upon hitting the tape, he collapses and eventually must be carried off the field by friends. This is finishing well. If you’ve a mind to, catch the YouTube clip from the link below.

Get up and finish the race from Chariots of Fire: Get up and finish the race 

Can I get up when knocked down and how then can I truly finish well? By doing my very best to make every stride glorify God, take every breath in the knowledge that Jesus has authored the finish.

Go now, train for your race, practice finishing well each day.

In His grip,

jerry

My Heart Held Hostage

 

My Heart Held Hostage

I am rarely without my friend Webster except for those rare occasions when I am off the grid or phoneless, like when I take a shower. Webster doesn’t go there with me. He and I were discussing something that has been on my heart now for weeks and he says this regarding the word ‘Hostage’:

1a - person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement. 1b – a person taken by force to secure the taker’s demands. (Merriam-Webster smartphone ap)

I must confess. The reason ‘hostage’ has been on my heart is because I am holding my heart hostage, as I frequently do. It looks sort of like this: ‘If the Dodgers win, I’ll do this; if they lose, I get to do that.’, ‘If they call, I’ll do this for them.’, ‘If that guy signals to get into my lane, I’ll let him in with a smile; if they don’t signal, to darn bad for them!’, ‘If this happens, then I’ll serve God today.’ – and so on.

When I am in that mode of operation, even if the outcome is what I want, I won’t really get all the benefits that I could have. In fact, my heart will be marred and not truly free. Just like hostages in a bank takeover need therapy for PTSD when they are released, so will my heart therapy. It is a no-win situation. The minute I chain up my heart, I’ve lost.

Rather than go to God and put demands on him for the Dodgers to win for him to get what he wants from me, I need to enjoy the game for what it is and give in to the Lord and be his servant. Except for maybe today when they lose 0-13, there is no joy in a game like that, so I should just turn it off and write something that might touch someone and meet them where they need to be met or when on the road I need to be gracious and not be surly and even if they don’t call, I need to be there for them.

It gets more serious when my heart is held hostage over my walk of faith. If I hold back because our worship isn’t the way I like it or even go so far as to think I’ll change churches if it’s not my favorite way and at the time I want it to be, then I have lost and however I worship will not be all that pleasing to the Lord. I cannot say to myself that I will reject my church if the church does not take a particular stand, then I have lost and even the service I do give the church will gain me little and my effectiveness will be limited.

It is not until I raise my hands in surrender that raising my hands in worship hits the mark.

1 Corinthians 12: 17b – “But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.”

I confess that over the years, and there have been many for me, I have on occasion been flummoxed enough to pray about moving on. Thankfully, that verse in 1 Corinthians is etched on my heart and I’ve sought the Lord rather than let my emotions get the best of me and ride out of town. I’m too simple a person to understand the whole purpose of God for me, I must listen.

It is not until I take a knee and swear fealty to God that my heart will be unchained.

The writer in me thinks of it like this – when I go through life writing my story and working to fit God into it, the plot ultimately falls apart and the story makes no sense. What I need to do is figure out how to chronical God’s story and my place it. Then the plot works itself out and makes sense.

As I am encouraging myself to unchain my heart from being a hostage against my own desires, I encourage you to do so as well.

In His grip,

jj white

Gear Up!

 

All-The-Gear-All-The-Time

Judging by the title of this post one might think I have put it up on the wrong blog and that it belongs on Iron Side Up rather than here at Calvary’s Thread. While I have posted about gear in my biker/travel blog, I have this post in its correct space.

As a motorcyclist, I subscribe to ATGATT – All-The-Gear-All-The-Time. For the bridge from biker reference to my Christian faith I refer to Ephesians 6:10-18:

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

My church, La Crescenta Presbyterian Church, adopted the following as part of our mission statement:

“We are a community of imperfect people, united by God’s Spirit, discovering new life in Christ. Our mission is to love God with all our heart, love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and grow as disciples of Jesus, as we make new disciples.”

There is an idiom that comes to mind, “Be careful what you wish for.”

One of my favorite westerns is “Tombstone” staring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. In a pivotal scene, Marshall Earp is standing over Ike Clanton with a double-barreled shotgun as he says, “All right, Clanton…you called down the thunder, well now you’ve got it!”

We have put up our mission statement on our website for billions of people with internet access to see and read. We have called down the thunder and we had best gear up.

I am a part of the Pastor Nominating Committee now searching for a new pastor for our church. Almost without exception of the dozens of pastors we have interviewed, they have pointed to our mission statement as something that attracts them to us. There is more to the mission statement than I quoted here but this is the piece they point out and tell us that this is what the church, any church, should be all about.

Invariably, the pastor God has called to us and for whom we search for will be passionate about growing disciples who will make new disciples and they will “call down the thunder” for us to rise to the challenge. Speaking for myself, I had better gear up and put aside any qualms I have about sharing my faith or teaching others and helping them grow in Christ. I cannot go out and buy this armor at my local Christian Book Store – it is ‘the full armor of God’. It’s His, and by grace, He offers it to me.

A pastor so ardent for the Gospel, for the deepening of discipleship in their church, and for making disciples in a broken world will want a community of faith which knows this requires a total commitment on a 24X7 basis; nothing half-hearted, half-lived, or half-baked. And because ‘we are a community of imperfect people’ we will need the great blessing of His Grace ‘in good measure, pressed down and overflowing’ (Luke 6:38, KJV).

Be alert and gear up people!

In His grip and in His armor,

jerry

 Note: On March 25, 2020 I posted on Iron Side Up “ATGATT”. Just so y’all know.

Build Your Trellis

 

jj's trellis

Peter Scazzero from his book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS) while writing about a ‘Rule of Life’: “Please don’t be intimidated by the word rule. The word comes from the Greek for ‘trellis.’ A trellis is tool that enables a grapevine to get off the ground and grow upward, becoming more fruitful and productive.”

Under the direction of our interim Pastor Mike Harbert, La Crescenta Presbyterian Church trekked through EHS where we learned that a Rule of Life acts as a trellis helping us to be more intentional and live in Christ and to be more fruitful. Our trellis is a structure that takes into consideration our unique set of gifts and spiritual practices and helps us to focus on God in all we do.

There were eight sessions where we first met as a large group divided into table groups for shared prayer, periods of silence, viewing video materials, and continuing through work sessions. Upon completion of the series many table groups opted to continue for two or three weeks for a deeper look into the material. Our table opted to delve into creating our own ‘Rule of Life’ by sharing our experiences and plans for our own Rule.

Craig, a co-leader of our table-group of six men, brought a package of materials he’d gleaned from his personal study and research on the topic, one for each of us. Between what Craig brought us and the information from EHS we had and have plenty of tools and materials to construct and maintain our own trellis.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a visual person relying on circuit diagrams, stick maps of microwave systems, sketches of basketball plays, timelines, and stuff like that. For my work to build a trellis I went to PowerPoint, thus the diagram shown above. Over the last few years I’ve grown into a person who has increasingly relied on writing to grapple with subjects and my thoughts about them, thus this post.

If you look at my sketch you might notice there are stakes and cross members that are blank. Mine is a work in progress and likely will be for the foreseeable future. I’ve set my stakes in the soil where the seeds of my grapevine will be planted, or roses, if you prefer. I’ve enriched the soil with a phrase I cling to, “His grace is enough because His sacrifice is complete.” Without grace I have no hope in having a healthy vine or a sound trellis. I am using the stakes to show the various Spiritual Disciplines upon which I will hang my cross members and I have noted in blue the activities I hope to engage in under those disciplines. The cross members I am putting up are the more detailed activities I plan to pursue and that incorporate the basic elements of a Rule.

Build a trellis for yourself.

As noted above, my trellis is a work in progress. I will add stakes and cross members as needed and may, at times, remove some as the focus of my life changes through the seasons. I will be tending my trellis and the vines that grow on it. I’ll need to shore up the connections between the stakes and cross members and make sure my stakes are well grounded and not coming loose. I will aerate the soil, add nutrients, and weed out the harmful plants that crop up so that the vines produce their best fruits and blooms. Ongoing maintenance of the trellis and its dependent vines is critical for my effectiveness and the peace of knowing I make a difference.

I am the oldest member of our table-group and feeling an increasing urgency to finish well the race in front of me -> to have a trellis full of grapes or lovely blooms of roses. As happens in vineyards, we are not always the people who reap the fruits, press the grapes into juice, or age the wine. We are not the only ones who walk among the trellises and enjoy the roses and still others might pick them to display and share. I am content with that.

This urgency of mine to finish well, assuming I can follow through (this is where grace is required for me), is the impetus to build and maintain a trellis, my Rule of Life, and to tend the vines growing on them.

Mind and maintain your trellis.

I believe we all have a Rule of Life, intentional and well-built or not. If not, then it is likely a heap of stakes and cross members with vines choked out with weeds and laying in rot on the ground.

Therefore, I urge you to take stock, build a trellis, plant some vines, and mind the whole thing. I believe you will be healthier and happier for it.

In His grip,

jerry

Author’s Note: Trellises (or might that be trellisi?) come in various shapes and sizes. The photo below is of Ashley’s Trellis, my daughter. She recently completed it and I have every hope of seeing it festooned with sweet peas, some I believe that are descendants from sweet peas at Bass Lake that my Grandma Matt kept. Her trellis is well designed and built with a vision for beauty and bounty and is a reflection of her own Rule of Life. I love it.

Ashley's Trellis

O’er the Bridge – Round the Bend

 

Up the Gabrielino Trail from Gould Mesa...

Whatever our journey; a Walk with God, our life, or a simple hike in the woods we come to points of choice – go over the bridge or not, go around the next bend or not.

This is the unknown. We can plan to the nth degree and still we do not absolutely know what we will find on the other side of the bridge or around the bend, or even on the bridge. We make our choice to move on or not and then go with a mix of faith and trepidation. On a hike we may have walked dozens of times and there we give little thought to the unknown beyond the possibility to meeting someone else on the trail or maybe a view of wildlife. With life, walking with God or not, there may be degrees of knowing the outcome of our choice but always laced with the possibility of surprise.

Crossing bridges is an adventure, rounding curves exploration. As the Station Fire raged on in the back country of the Angeles National Forest late in 2009 I was AT&T’s Radio Planner and Coordinator for California and Nevada (I had no counterparts in other regions). I was tasked with inspecting our microwave stations back in the forest. Okay, I was feeling particularly invulnerable after having been allowed back to our home to find it standing after I was certain to find a pile of burnt rubble and smoldering debris and I volunteered to go up into the mountains to find out how our sites fared. Actually, I didn’t volunteer, I just did it.

I rounded many bends that day and most of the bridges I crossed had been deemed safe by structural engineers. Most but not all. I was able to visit all our sites with the exception of Camp 16 whose access road was still closed due to ongoing investigations into the loss of two firefighters, our team visit to that site is story all to itself, and a sobering one at that.

During my expedition, if a long one-day trek can be called an expedition, I found surprises around several bends; three or four bears scrounging around an abandoned fire base station for food, the Sherriff’s helicopter and its crew at Mt. Disappointment, and then Camp Colby across a bridge that hadn’t yet been inspected.

Camp Colby, now known as Colby Ranch, is a location equipped with a meeting/mess hall, residential and visitor cabins, and other out buildings that all provide the infrastructure for organizations to come for educational, religious, and business retreats. The camp is connected to the communications network via one of the microwave radios I had responsibility for. I expected the camp to have been burnt to the ground, what I found was a miracle brought to us by the Grace of God and fire fighters determination beyond reason to save the camp.

I found people here, stranded and isolated. Their one vehicle was out doing errands and hadn’t been allowed back in. When I showed up it seemed I was some sort of conquering hero. This camp is nestled in the crook of three hillsides and is a wooded vale with one access road o’er a bridge to the Angeles Forest Highway. The folks there told me of the flurry of firefighting activity that had saved their little vale and this is where the heroics took place.

They had plenty of food but no communications and their loved ones had no way of knowing their condition. The radio site here was in perfect condition lacking only the power to operate it. The feed stations along the backbone of the system were in similar condition, some with singed antennas and buildings but all operational. I was able to radio out to our operations people and by the end of the day they had generators in place and the Camp Colby telephones on line.

I was informed later that the bridge I had so blithely crossed had supporting members seared and still smoldering. Our operations trucks arrived with an inspector to allow access after I had left to complete my inspections. I had unconsciously made a choice to the cross the bridge – what if I hadn’t? How long before the camp attendants’ loved ones knew they were safe? Fool that I was, I was operating under some sort of faith and shield.

It seems to me to be the ‘or not’ part of our decisions is where the risk really is. We risk not seeing the miracle, meeting the person that needs us to alter their path of destruction – we risk not seeing the waterfall round the bend or the great vista through the notch in the mountains only accessed by going over bridges, crossing streams, rounding bends, and scrambling over rocks. When I risk the ‘not’, it tends to leave an emptiness where the adventure not taken would have filled a gap.

Then there is the option of turning around and going back. The thing about this option is that we still need to cross the bridge and go back around the bends that got us there in the first place. Who knows what happened to the bridge in the meantime, or what creatures have come along behind us round the bend?

...and back down the trail.

Life is an adventure, walk its path with a greater degree of faith with open eyes for the surprise, the opportunity to achieve something great or to simply gaze over the vista, a vista otherwise known as the rest of our lives.

Always remain in His grip.

jerry