Holm is Where the Heart Is

 

Isaiah 43:2 - “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.”

In my last Calvary’s Thread post, ‘Adrift’, I wrote about drifting along the current of a river without tiller or oar and speculated that I might be able to lean over and hand paddle my along. Jim McClelland suggested in a comment that by hopping in I could “enjoy the truths of the discoveries along this particular journey.” Part of my reply to Jim was that I am more effective as a swimmer than a drifter, or something along those lines. As effective as I can be while propelling myself along the river of life, I need respite from the currents and chills of the water. I need rest and a place to do it. I believe I found such a place and I know of a handful of others. Holm.

Holm, as Webster describes it, is a small island or inshore island. It’s a British term and those folks seem to have cornered the market for alternate words for an island such as: ait as in ‘a little island’ or eyot a variation on ait. I prefer ‘holm’ to the alternatives, it feels warmer and more inviting to me.

When my sister Denise moved to Merlin, Oregon and shortly thereafter my parents, we took summer trips to visit them nearly every year and with few exceptions, rafted down the Rogue River. For twenty-five years we took these floats using inflatable kayaks, paddle rafts, and drift boats. We encountered small islands, or holms, along the way downstream. They provide sanctuary for birds to nest to be safer for their eggs and young. Canada Geese, Mergansers, Teals, Mallards, and other waterfowl use the island to pull up on and sun to restore body heat and to nest. Songbirds and waders (Green and Great Blue Herons, and various Egrets) wade off the holms to hunt for fish and frogs. The islets are not Edens as there is predation from the sky from eagles and hawks. Otters, playful as they are, eat pretty much what they can catch. Still, there is a measure of sanctuary and peace, the birds can breathe and relax a bit.

Bass Lake, the ancestral home of my mom, has a couple of islands – one toward the upper third of the lake where the Madera County Sheriffs operate from. The other island is down near the dam. Both islands are submerged when the lake is full with the only evidence as either the Sheriff’s tower or the vegetation sticking up above the water. Likewise, both islands are accessible by walking when the lake is at its lowest point. The island near the dam is bisected by a boom, in the old days of true log construction but nowadays made of rubber coated tubes filled with floatation materials. Nearly from the day we could walk we would see how far we could get before falling off the boom and into the lake. It became a rite of passage when we could swim along the boom out to the island or take our inflatable rafts to it. These were our Huck Finn moments.

My dad and I sometimes rowed out and fished around the island. I miss those times of quiet conversation as we tried to lure trout and bass to our hooks. Whenever I see the island, I remember those times and I am warmed by the memories of them. It is a holm to me.

A week ago, as I wrote this, I was at holm with Jim and Shirley McClelland, free of the river’s currents, rapids, and rocks. A place of peace and sanctuary. I feel at home at their place, always. I rode my motorcycle up to see them, hang out with Jim with his various errands, and take in a Giants’ game at Oracle Park. As arduous as my ride up was (I’ll need to write that story for Iron Side Up) I needed a place to catch my breath. The ride provided me space to think and pray about things and then push them away to pay attention to the road. With Jim and Shirley, it is as though no time has passed and we pick up where we left off. I love them for it.

Mike and Van Schermerhorn’s place is another holm, and island of respite. The last time I was with them I had rented a trailer to help Mike move a patio set to a friend of theirs in need. As with Jim, it seemed that no time had passed and we picked up where we last saw each other. Mike and Van bought lunch for me which we had shared with friends of theirs. They needn’t have, the warmth in sharing in their kindness was more than enough payment. I love them for it.

My sisters’ places and kids’ homes are places we stay that offer the same sort of comforts of love, joy, and peace – they are places to rehab my soul. Holms in the river, though with the grandkids the times are more otterlike than completely restful.

My prayer for you, my encouragement to you, is that you find your holms. And those that you already know, pay them a visit and heal a bit from the rush and keep a weather eye out for new holms.

In His grip,

jerry

Biblical river references:

Psalms 46:4 - "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High."

Revelation 22:1-2 - "Then the angel showed the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."

Genisis 2: 20 - “A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches.”

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

Waves of Grief

 

Personal observations on the process and state of grief upon the loss of a parent or spouse, or maybe worse yet, a child:

Grief is like standing on the beach just in the surf-line where most of the waves lap up and tickle our toes and encompass your foot. As the wave recedes we can feel the sand erode from under our feet and sense that if we stood there long enough, the beach would altogether cover us up.

Now and again a wave comes in as an ankle slapper and we get surprised but not too worried at the sensations. Then an outsider comes and we are standing up to our thighs in the ocean and we feel like we’ll be pulled out to sea. And so we sob quietly but manage to recover on our own though the emptiness leaves us hungering for another day with our loved one.

Then there is the rogue wave. The ones we hear about that come unexpected and wash people out to sea because they weren’t being vigilant while going about their day on the beach or sitting on the jetty letting their minds wonder. The wave takes us out, off the beach and into a surf so roiled as we feel we may drown. We need help, a lifeguard to show up in his rescue dory or maybe in a Baywatch boat. We need them to pull us in and take us to safety.

Let the toe ticklers do their work. Let the ankle slappers have their way. Be wary of the outsiders and stand firm. Let the lifeguards to their job and bring us in when the rogue wave crashes over us and tosses us about. If you don’t see them, call out and someone will come for you.

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Author’s Notes:

During the past six months my family has endured the loss of both my parents, first my dad early in September 2020 and then my mom ten weeks later in November. Neither was the result of covid-19 and the path we followed starting this last July was shocking and unexpected, almost violent. No, certainly violent to our souls.

While traveling the path of grief I have on occasion written a piece about each of my parent and put up various Facebook posts on the sensations of grief and loss. I took the first motorcycle ride with friends since this all began for me and we ended up at Duke’s Malibu for lunch out in their patio dining area. The above piece came to me while enjoying discussions ranging from home sales riding and what the future has in store for us as we learn to contend with the pandemic. We did not speak about my loss and grief but the waves coming up on the rocks below us and the vast Pacific Ocean stretching out in front of us spoke clearly to me.

Putting up the above observations as a Facebook post generated good discussion points and a great deal of sympathetic replies. One such reply came from my friend Lisa Brickner, a practicing psychologist. She suggested that with so many people in isolation and experiencing the ravages of loneliness that I should submit the writing to newspapers, something I’ve never done. Once I put this post up on Calvary’s Thread I will heed the advice of the professional and submit it somehow to our various local papers and perhaps to the Grants Pass Daily Courier where I will shortly be sending the obituary for my parents.

As a Christian, I have the additional benefit of The Great Lifeguard, Jesus Christ, and his followers.

I am no professional, simply a man in grief feeling his way along the surf line.

Drafted. Doggone it!

 

I called to her, as I have been for weeks now. Finally, she turned to me, the smile on her lips giving her careworn face a lift I hadn’t seen since she last talked to her great-grands. She handed me a wallet card she was holding in her hand. Nothing fancy, muted blues and reds printed on a beige card that read in eighteen-point Times New Roman font “Drafted” across the top.

A message followed in twelve-point Freestyle Script, “Your services are required in the Heavenly Host. Please report at once.”

In the lower right corner in the tiniest of prints possible to read was the signature, “Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior”.

As small as it was, the signature brought a burning to my eyes and as simple as the card was, it broke my heart.

How could I beg her to stay when the servant at her core commanded that she obey the God she had served for at least my lifetime? A lifetime of devotion required one last act of service above and beyond her will to stay and love her kids, laugh with her grandchildren, or teach her great-grands. And so she went quietly and finally without the struggle that so defined the final years of her devotion to her husband.

Aside from being my biggest fan and encourager, I remember mom as being a model of devotion – as a mother, a pre-school teacher, youth advisor, Stephen Minister, Elder, Deacon, bonus mom to many, sister to many more… When you were with her she was devoted to being with you and being whatever it was you needed at the time.

I would really like to know what is behind the door and within the misty room she walked into. I want to know what critical service she is being called to, away from me. Selfish, I know. I suspect a portion of her service will be like that of her father before her, looking over my shoulder and from time to time giving me a nudge.

Mom does nudging well. It is because of her that I started this blog, Calvary’s Thread. I had just put up my second post in Iron Side Up, it was about some Christian mussing or comment of some sort while riding my bike. She said, “You should have a blog just for this kind of stuff.” I had to do what she said, she is my mom after all.

I imagine that after she handed over the card to the gatekeeper, she was ushered into a big hall and greeted by the One Who Invited her, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And then there was a reunion – Aunt Jean (Mom’s oldest and closest friend), Carol and the other cohorts who started the Center For Children, my dad, her parents, brothers, and sisters. A bunch from the Heavenly Hall of Fame showed her around, there was singing, worship, incense, and an awesome silence filled with love and warmth.

I can live with this vision of her.

jerry

Forever In His Grip

 

Forever in His Grip

He evolved. During a lifetime of being a leader and possessing intelligence, of being athletic and artistic - dad applied those things to a changing landscape of passions throughout his life. Russell Jay White, aka RJ to my mom and friends, aka Russell to his mom, aka Rusty to his aunts and uncles, and Russ to just about everybody else. Dad and Batman to me.

Dad was class president as a senior and while I don’t know his GPA, I know he was among the top of his class. He led. He was in the DeMolay and that required commitment and leadership. Following high school he went into the Navy and while he was never an officer, he was looked up to by his peers and he led them. He went to work at Pacific Bell Telephone and Telegraph and led his way up from an entry level installer position to a be second level manager and his people loved him. He figured things out and designed systems and procedures that improved every team’s performance.

I am not sure what sports dad participated in as a little boy as it seems we never talked about that. As a high school athlete he was an all-league football player, went to the state gymnastics meet in floor exercise, and was an all-state competitor in wrestling. While playing for and being captain of the football team at El Camino College, Paul Hornung pointed to him and, using some profanity, said to keep that guy out of my face. While Hornung didn’t remember it specifically, he smiled at my telling of the story and said that sounded like something he’d have said. While in the Navy, dad boxed and was the ship’s champion. Not a bad accomplishment on an air craft carrier with 1200 men on it. I was a different athlete and once he figured that out he helped me go my way into baseball, basketball, and track.

He and mom got into racquetball in their mid-forties and I rarely beat him. He won a few club tournaments. Then it was golf, something that took he and mom on wonderful journeys and tourneys. I never beat him.

He evolved.

He loved music. He played clarinet in the school band, must have fooled around with the French Horn because we have one in a closet at the big house. He played keyboard, harmonica, and the kazoo. He sang in the choir and had a lovely voice that ranged from basso to baritone. I got none of this from him and only played the drums one year as a sixth-grader. He finished his singing activities by being part of the praise choir at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Grants Pass, Oregon.

He loved building and home projects and creating cool spaces and watched every nail being driven into the house he and mom built in Merlin, Oregon. Later in life he discovered Intarsia, the art of making wood mosaics using the natural colors and grains of various types of wood. He loved making them for family and friends and he told me he thought lovingly about each person as he created the piece. A bit of his soul rests in every piece he made. He had Stacey and Denise and every grandchild pick a piece from the pattern catalogs he had and then he went out to his shop, found the various woods, cut them, sanded them, and pieced them together, sealing in the textures of his love with coats of varnish. He didn’t have me pick mine as he had one he wanted to do for me and it was spot on – the Red-tailed Hawk, my favorite bird. It is one of the most ubiquitous birds and is found in every state of the union but Hawaii. I call it the “Everyman Bird”.

I was relocating mine today so I could put the piece that I brought back from their house as my keepsake and my red-tail now sits where I can see it out of the corner of my eye as I write. While moving it I looked on the back to his inscription, “For ‘Stick’. Together in His grip. Dad 10-24-05”. ‘Stick’ is the nickname he gave me and the one I hold dearest to me of the oh-so-many nicknames I have. I sign off many of my letters and emails ‘In His grip’. It is a phrase I want desperately to always be true.

In His grip,

jerry

Regarding Grief

Grief comes upon us in many guises and we often wonder what it was about the little nuance that caused us to weep with a sadness best left undefined. It can ride in on the wings of a random hummingbird to touch our cheek as a kiss blown from across the room or it might crash over us as a Banzai Pipeline wave, one we’d have much rather ridden the long board on or even watched from afar.

It would be best if we could embrace and accept it as our own but it just isn’t always ours to enwrap. Our empathy for another, one stung by the sharp barbs of loss, locks us into their hearts and we feel as they do but we can only wrap them in our arms and hold tight while they are wracked by nameless pain. It is theirs to claim, they are ours to love through it.

When it is our own though, do we push it away, run from it into some escape hatch, or deny it all together? Make it our own I say, let it rush through us to cleanse and bring new joy at some forgotten memory of our lost one. Hold the best of them to ourselves to inform and shape a future without them at our side. After a while the rivers of feeling will run clean and pure like the rivulet from the base of Bridalveil Fall.

Writer’s note: the Ahwahneechee Native Peoples called the fall Pohono which means “Spirit of the Puffing Wind”. I ran across this today while looking into the fall and after I’d already used the simile, ‘as a kiss blown from across the room’. The Ahwahneechee called the falls Pohono because the fall is often blown sideways and during a lite flow of the creek may not reach the ground directly below the origins of the fall.

I note it because I think grief can often be like this - blown here and there by winds of time and emotion only to find rest in places we can’t predict.

Peace friends.

Early Morning Foray Into the Sanctuary

I went into the Sanctuary this morning, the first time I’ve been on the church campus in a couple of weeks or so, a notable rarity for me. Such is the advantage of being a key-holder, though in days long gone by we kept a key on the ledge over the door to the Fish Bowl as the room was known. Well okay, it was a bread-knife and the doors were not the higher quality of security doors we have in place today.

The pre-dawn sky back-lit the stained-glass windows, at least the ones still in place during our refurbishing process. (give people!) Being in the place alone and in the dark is one of my favorite times there and only in part because the darkness masks the scars technology is leaving on the walls but more so because I feel God's presence. The hush was reverent as I eased my way along the empty pews, so unlike the hush that’s come over the streets and malls and parks and our beaches during our time of social distancing and hunkering down at home.

It’s easy to pray here along but difficult to focus on the greatest area of need for prayer. I’ve been wondering what the story arc is for covid-19, how its epilogue will read. I decided to ask Jesus whose likeness looked down from the round window above our altar. Alas, no answer was forthcoming. However, I’ve decided to ask it of Him each time my random reminder to pray goes off. I am surely not the answer and I’ve no brain power to bring to bear on the problem. Who is? Who will rise up and bring the answer and allow us to return to a more level and even new normal? I suspect that the answer will only come when God’s people humble ourselves in pray and heat up our passion for His Kingdom. 

Surely the answer is not to return too soon to how things were and simply power through the crisis as though the loss of even one extra person is worth the ‘boost’ to the economy so the rich can maintain robust portfolios and tout how the middle class is so better off because of it. You know the rich, those folks with concierge healthcare that can buy a covid-19 test at the drop of a hat when the folks on the front lines can’t find one to save a life? This is a folly preferred by the ignorant and greedy.

Who will rise up and provide the definition of a new normal and give guidance on how we should live and thrive? I’ll ask, and ask again and sometime someone will come forward…

Come quickly Lord.

In His grip, jerry

I Don't Understand

I Don’t Understand

I don’t understand Lord. How could this happen? We prayed and kept praying. Knocked and continued to knock. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to figure it out and can only hug my friend in her loss. Even then, how will this help us know why?

I think at times like this, when we lose someone dear to our hearts, especially our own children, that we lack the capacity to ken the reason for their passing. You could explain it in our own language, plain English for me, or any number of languages throughout the globe. I doubt I could even understand where it to come from the mouths of angels via the gift of tongues. It hurts and I doubt. This vexes me, a purported man of faith, to have no answer.

It is one thing to lose someone after a long and full life, say a parent who has aged and deteriorated, or even a spouse who has done the same. The emptiness and loss are real for this but we understand that we age and have a finite time on earth to live. We can grow to accept the loss though never really come to love the emptiness. But to lose someone in the fullness of their life struck down by random rebellious cells in their own body, someone who can bring so much to so many and ease their pains, how do we live with that?

As you now Lord, I lost a friend to a random and senseless accident well before he even touched on the potential of his life. I still don’t understand that one. You know I became bitter over it and the whole thing drove a wedge between you and me. It was only a miracle at the hands of a bunch of junior high kids praying over me that I was cured of the bitterness. I still have the question but have accepted it as the way things are.

But, from where will the miracle come for my friend? How will she understand, accept, and move along? The family needs peace, Kristy’s struggle has worn them out. A mother and father grieve. A husband and little boy are deeply saddened. Friends hang their heads and weep. Clients, people who’ve felt healing and wellness at her touch, have an empty spot in their hearts. Our community has a hole where once a bright and warm light emanated and provided comfort.

I don’t understand it and can’t give them the explanation they feel they need to come to grips with the deep longing for a better outcome of the struggle. I can only pray and hope for a miracle to find them, envelope them, and give them a purpose for continuing down the trail of life without her.

And so I do pray and hope and look for peace. Bring it Lord, quick and sure, bring peace to our hearts.

In Your grip Lord,

jerry

And then I saw…

Photo credit to Cynthia on our New Orleans trip

Our Wednesday morning men’s group meeting started out as per usual until my imagination took an active role while we read God’s Word, worshiped, and prayed.

I saw myself as though I was releasing doves into the air except they were men, men that I know or have known over my lifetime. I was lifting them up to God as I listened to His word being read, as we sang songs of praise, and as we prayed over a wide range of people and events. Some came to me as names and others as faces drifting from my uplifted hands. They continued to emanate from me coming from my heart to my hands and into the sky to be blessing even when it was my turn to read and as I sang songs.

My imagination, for I’ll stop short of calling it a vision, operated nearly of its own accord. I say nearly because the men came to me and were lifted up in concert to what we were doing. They did not intrude but enhance. I think an excellent wine aptly paired with the food does that to a meal, enhance it without intruding on the dining experience.

My best of friends were there for healing and a touch of peace. Men in my family from generations past, present, and just now blooming. I think of four-generation photos with my grandfather, father, and son and now 4-gen shots with my dad, son, and grandsons and they were all a part of my offerings. Men who’ve left their mark on me, Spiritual Fathers, grandfathers, uncles, teachers, both living and having passed on, were a part of the stand that spread out in front of me. Even men whose marks left behind were meant for harm. There were missionaries and adversaries, bikers and ballplayers, churchmen, and a few kite fliers…some I scarcely know and must have been included simply because they need a blessing. In-laws of every ilk; brothers, fathers, and sons…it has been quite a kaleidoscope.

Toward the end of our time together we read John 1 and what I saw then were thousands of men in a field like a wide-ranging wisp of snipe and then again as they waded in the shallows like a vast mustering of storks. They fed, preened, and generally got along with life.

Upon reflection of this phenomenon I wonder if I experienced just a taste of the flow of Living Water Jesus talked about in John 7:38. Regardless, it is my wish, my prayer that this will be the case for each man who has come to mind and lain upon my heart today.

The experience continued as I wrote these notes in my little notebook and typed up this post. I’d like to continue here for a while.

In His grip,

jerry

Any Questions?

Every once in a while I wonder what questions I would ask Jesus when I find myself in His presence, as if I would have the capacity. I rather imagine that I’ll be prostrated at His feet curious as to why I’m there and to what purpose I’d been called – is this my final call and what list of charges will I be hearing at my sentencing? You know, hearing all those things I’d done that I can’t imagine Christ forgiving me for?

Still, I think about what I would ask Jesus given the chance to speak in His presence. Years ago I lost one of my best of friends to some drunk driver. The circumstances of his death baffled me. He was the only passenger of five in his car that died and the only one in it not to have a broken bone in his body. I told myself that the first thing I would ask God is why Doug had to die so young and so needlessly. Doug is the first person I led to Christ and it just didn’t seem right for him to be gone so soon after. I held on to that question in anger and anguish so tightly that it became a bitterness that divided me from my Savior. It took the prayers and laying on of hands of a bunch of junior high kids and their adult leaders to heal me of that bitterness more than 20 years after Doug was killed.

What questions do you have? I imagine they are similar to my old question – Why was this or that person taken from me? – Why was I mistreated at the hands of someone I loved and trusted? – Why do good people suffer at the hands of the evil? – Why did my friend lose all hope? - Why was my prayer unanswered and that person not healed? – and so on. I’ve had the question I talked about, all these, and more. I’m not sure I’m strong enough or wise enough to hear the answers.

Questions of faith and doctrine might rest on our hearts but I think those will fade at the sight of His glory and their importance to us vanish.

I believe it is okay to harbor questions for Jesus. Just don’t do it in anger, anger begets bitterness, bitterness separation. (The same can be said of anger toward people) Our separation from God is the very reason Jesus went to the cross and suffered on our behalf. His suffering closes the gap we’ve built, His resurrection is power enough to make mute all of the questions. Don’t hold on to your anger at unanswered questions so tightly you can’t grip the Lord’s hand when it is offered. Even when you do hold too tight, some friend, an acquaintance, a random stranger, or a group of wacky teenagers will come along and do you a kindness that loosens your grip on bitterness and allows you to breathe again. I pray that it to be so for you.

If you need to hold on to a question do so in anguish. Jesus understands anguish better and more thoroughly than anyone can imagine. It was He who said on the cross, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” Even though Christ knew the answer He asked it in His darkest hour. In the Lord’s deep understanding of your anguish you will be comforted.

What questions do you have for God? Ponder them for a bit, let the ones go that are too troublesome to your walk with Him, and hold lightly those you have in anguish. Peace.

In His grip,

jerry

Alee

Lauren and me as bowgirl and bowman, on the windward
side and loving every minute of it. Proof that it's okay to
to be on the weather side of things now and then.

“Helms alee”, shouted Skip Barber. All I knew then was to duck because we were changing tack and the mainsail would be swinging to the other side of the boat. If I didn’t duck I’d be boom-swept into the sea and left behind. Skip was helmsman or skipper, appropriately enough, as we raced the Caboter during his club racing series. I thought of myself as the gorilla turning cranks as directed and getting to the rail where my weight and eyes were best used. Turns out I was something of a hybrid of actual nautical terms; trimmer, bowman, and pitman. Some things you learn looking in the rearview mirror.

My understanding of lee, leeward, alee, and such nautical terms deepened during sailing trips with Byron and Shirley Trist on their Jubalee! and Jubalee!!. I was content as a bowman or pitman with my skipper shouting orders at me to be heard above the wind. I’m more at ease navigating a river in a raft or kayak.

Let’s consider the terms these friends introduced me to and did so in more ways than out on the water. ‘Alee’ is defined as on or toward the lee which is defined as the side of something that is sheltered from the wind. Aweather, yet another nautical term from days of yore, is the antithesis of alee. If you are ‘aweather’, you are facing the wind and the oncoming storm. One of my most cherished moments of being alee was during one of our church hikes in the High Sierras. We’d set up our camp for the night with tube tents and had gathered the wood we needed for our fire when a storm rolled in complete with lightening and hail while thunder rolled through the mountains. I stowed my gear in the tube tent and hunkered down against the trunk of a huge Ponderosa Pine with my legs stretched out in front of me. I was alee and only the gentle drops of rain that had worked their way through the tree’s canopy reached me. At rest and in the lee after a long day on the trail with the stormy spectacle all around was a complete feeling for me.

Weather we’ve been racing on the waves, barefoot sailing on the Caribbean, or hiking mountain trails, once we find ourselves alee, the calmness of the moment washes over us and soothes our soul like an aloe balm on sunburned skin.

When we are alee, peace is pervading and spreads through every part of us and exists in our hearts. If you let it. The key to finding rest is allowing ourselves to be in the lee of whatever storm is raging around us. Jesus Christ invites us into His rest, a Sabbath Rest, where we are refreshed from our struggles and the toils of our day-to-day lives.

Hebrews 4: 9 & 10: “⁹There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; ¹⁰for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his."

It is no coincidence that the first thing I sat down to write after completing the memorial booklet for my cousin is Alee. Lee was a man who could provide shelter from the storm and take a person through the wind and rain of the day to the calmer side of things. I’ve a simple mind and making the connection between my cousin Lee and the concept of alee was easy. Our family recently concluded a weekend at Bass Lake to pass through the winds and waves of grief and loss to celebrate his life. It’s fresh on my mind and I’m thankful to the family for providing shelter during the weekend; it was seen in the hugs, the laughter, and the tears of both joy and grief. My kids, grandkids, and Cindy were particularly effective in this for me. Walks along the lake and up the mountain with Demaris provided periods of quiet recuperation as well. I found shelter in all their laughter and the family’s willingness to be vulnerable and in the moment.

Another person who comes to mind while thinking over this concept of being in the lee couldn’t be more further from the physical description of my cousin, he being 6’8” and she pushing just past the 5-foot mark. She’ll likely be a little embarrassed by me calling her out like this but that is one of the hazards of befriending Jer-bear, as she likes to call me. Again, her name is closely related to the term but Allie herself embodies the concept. She is soothing and brings peace into the struggles of the day. Her abilities to provide a calm place have been most in evidence to me during our trips to Mission Arizona. She is an oasis. Thanks Allie.

The point of this is to encourage us to find a sheltered cove, a big old tree, or a person and get relief from the storm that can be our lives. Take the protection offered, find the peace there, and know that Christ is waiting to sooth our hearts with his love.

Friends, enter the Sabbath rest and find peace today.