A Purpose To All Things

    When Reed went to aircraft mechanic school, it was a Vo-Tech, short for vocational technical. Even at that time I had snobby university professors and fellow students who looked down upon training for an actual career. After graduation they learned that despite spending tens of thousands of dollars on a university education, there was nowhere in the universe willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for their skill set. But that, in itself was an education, especially in the field of economics--they earned a degree in debt.

   However, 40 plus years later, when our son Tracy went to the same aircraft school, it was part of the University of Montana. Apparently U of M decided a percentage of their graduates should be employable. As part of the university system, in addition to their career certifications, students could earn an associates' degree by taking English and math classes. Tracy decided to go for it. It was a stretch, but Tracy traded repair work on fellow student's vehicles for repair on his homework. Tracy found most of the math assignments impractical, but haven't we all? I no longer remember how to convert fractions to decimals and it has had no impact on my life whatsoever. 

   Tracy also complained about his English assignments, but apparently found those a little more interesting. He did not have great composition skills, but he had great ideas for topics. And he had a buddy willing to trade help with technique and format for help with transmissions and fuel flow. At this point you may be wondering if I am ever going to tie my title to my content. The answer is yes, right here. There is a purpose to all things is a message God has whispered into my heart many times both before and after Tracy died. Trace may have thought the purpose of writing those papers was to get his A.A. degree, which he did, posthumously. But one of the purposes was so we could have copies of his wry, witty writing style. His assignment to write requesting funding for a project produced "Hempbestos," combining hemp and asbestos to make fireproof insulation, clothing, lotions, etc. His assigned paper to persuade became, "The Inner Infinite Existence," a combination of a religion as high on the Wacko scale as Scientology, with a scheme to get followers to donate their worldly goods to him before departure to their infinite existence. He got an A on his comparison paper, even though the topic was "The Imposed Mental Stress from Unnecessary Writing Classes." To Tracy those were English assignments, to us these are written reminders of our son and blessings from God.

    Trace also thought having to send a photo with one of his scholarship applications was ridiculous, but because of that requirement, we have one of our favorite pictures of him. There is no room for random in the sovereignty of God. Christians sometimes rush to figure out THE purpose in a tragedy, but that is an assignment too big for our limited lifespans and experience. What we can know is that God can be trusted and there is a purpose to all things.

Stand By Legs

     My title is not stating the obvious, that we stand by using our legs. Although that fits with the kind of public service announcements that are now considered news--Drink water when the weather is hot. Dress warmer when it is cold. Things some of us figured out decades ago without media input. This post is about the strange phenomenon that happens as we age. Today was a long travel day for us, by long I mean over eight hours. When we were young, we frequently made 13 hour trips from Salem, Oregon to Missoula, Montana over a weekend. We did not consider the drives long. Our legs seemed to share that opinion because, when we got out of the car, they knew exactly what to do--stand up, walk. In vehicle terms, our bodies had automatic transmissions, they anticipated what was coming (stand, walk) and shifted gears without any conscious effort on our part. In computer terminology, while we rode in the car for hours, our legs remained in stand by mode. When the car stopped, that jiggled the mouse of our mental computers and our legs booted right up. 

    Gradually, our transmissions shifted. Not into Neutral. Into Park. And morphed into manual. After a much shorter day of travel, when we stopped to get out of the car, our legs did not shift positions automatically, it took some time for the signal from our brain to reach our legs. In computer terms, during the hours on the road, our legs are no longer on stand by, they are completely powered off. In my case, my colon also puts on its parking brake during road trips, but that is a situation I will spare you here. Let's stick with legs that work like sticks. 

    Now when we get out of the car, until our legs reboot, we walk into the gas station, restaurant, or hotel stiff legged, like Frankenstein's grandparents. The older we get, the longer the restart seems to take. No amount of wiggling our legs while we are still in the car will trigger the reboot. I am not, like so many in my culture, anti-aging. Growing older is not only a natural process, it is a blessing from God. But I do miss having legs that stay in stand by mode when I am not using them, and if I wasn't such a sweet old lady, I wouldn't stand for it.

  

    

My Legacy

    As college students, Reed and I took the class English Poetry of the Mid to 19th Centuries. I know that does not sound like Reed. He only signed up  because I did. We were dating back then and he had to at least pretend to be interested in what I was. It did not go well. I struggle with symbolism, but was a savant compared to literal thinker Reed. We neither studied nor interpreted things the same way. Dead poets nearly killed our relationship. But I was reminded of one of the poems we studied as I was trying to find a fitting finish for my soon to be self published (by absolutely no one's popular demand) book, Legacy of the Lamb. Legacy seems to imply something significant or final. I felt like I either needed to end it by writing something profound--or dying. And that is why I thought of Keats.

      Keats wrote a lot of odes, which I found easily forgettable, but the poem I remember started,

 

When I have fears that I may cease to be

   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

blah, blah, blah. 

     I remember thinking Keats was an arrogant jerk, but then I noticed he died at age 26, so apparently that was a legitimate concern. Though I did not die young and have no idea when I will, as Hamlet said, shuffle off this mortal coil, I wondered, if Legacy is to be my last book, what more do I want to say? Between my four published books and this latest, I have compiled almost everything I have written in my lifetime. Has my laptop finished gleaning my teeming brain? What if I write something epic later on and no one finds out about it? 

   I picked Legacy for the title assuming it would be my final book, but mostly because it started with an L, so it would match the others. The only ideas I have for a remaining title are "Leftovers of the Lamb", but that might get confused with a cookbook. And "Leavings of the Lamb" sounds like something that has to be scooped off the grass. Having flooded Amazon with so many books in so short a time, I have wondered if the Lord is hinting that my meter is about to expire. But mostly I am just happy to have my random writings organized and uploaded to a site that won't die when my computer does. And now I have official looking books to force on my children whether they want them or not. A practice I call drive by booking. 

    My written legacy may not be as useful as the collection of Cool Whip bowls my grandparents left, but they don't take up as much space. And at least my final words do not sound as arrogant as Keats,

 

—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

               

 

                         

It Doesn't Take a Prophet

     I am definitely not a prophet, but I have been saying for some time now that the anti-Trumpers have tried everything short of assassination to keep him off the ballot. Yesterday there was an attempt on his life, a near miss. I'm sure the rumors are flying fast, furious, and false among conspiracy theorists on both sides, but only God's sovereignty could turn a spontaneous turn of the head into a lifesaving intervention. I believe God spared Donald Trump's life. And I hope the nearness of death awakens his soul to the fragility of life and his need for Christ. Only the humble choose Christ because only the humble know they need Him. Of the many words that describe Trump, even from his most ardent supporters, humble is unlikely to appear.

    Cable news will be analyzing the shooter's life under an electron microscope for months, but they will not find the answer to why he did it. It is the same reason ordinarily law abiding people will fight for the right to kill unborn babies in the womb. The same reason our nation celebrates one particular sin with Pride month. The same reason so many young people today cannot tell if they are a boy, a girl, or a furry. The reason people of all times, ages, and nations of the world excuse their own sin. "There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Ps. 36:1, Rom. 3:18) 

   Fear of God is the thing that keeps us from abusing and assassinating each other and those who are attempting to systematically stomp every aspect of God from our society should not be surprised when it spawns people who cannot tell right from wrong. It doesn't take a prophet to see that coming.

   

The Rest

     I have learned not to get too concerned about going weeks without writing. Just as the tide flows out and in, my words inevitably return to beach themselves in my brain. Still, this last dry spell had me a little worried. I was not worried about disappointing my six followers by not writing, if they read my blog regularly, they are already used to disappointment. This lag was more worrisome because I have been running at a sleep and energy deficit since Tracy died and our last getaway to recharge physically, mentally, emotionally was two years ago. I was more depleted than a Tesla in Two Dot, MT.

   There is scriptural support for the importance of rest both in the Old and New Testaments. God thought it was important enough to make number four in His Top Ten Commandment countdown. And Jesus, who had an incredibly crowded to do list, also made room for rest in His ministry itinerary. A believer might think spending so much time with Jesus, witnessing miracles, even performing some themselves, would have been enough excitement to keep his disciples energized, but it was not. Jesus recognized times when both He and they needed to get away to rest. I have known for a couple months that my body's low fuel light had gone from an occasional flicker to an omnipresent flare. My inability to write was just one manifestation of it. The problem was convincing Reed that he needed rest too. He did not figure that out until we got here and he finally had time to notice. Perhaps that is the reason God's sovereign schedule did not include a trip to Gig Harbor for us this year. Though I would have had time to rest, Reed would not.

    And sure as the tide, by our second day here, my words wallowed out of their stagnant swamp of half formed ideas. I could think again. I could write. Which is good because there were things I needed to process in writing. Our friend Jeff May dying last week. Trump almost dying yesterday. The rest of the weary world runs on without my writing, but my world of words withers without The Rest.

Jeff and Troy

    Troy and I became friends at what is now Corban College in Salem, Oregon. A handful of us girls transferred in as sophomores and began hanging out together. My main qualification for a friend, (although with my personality I can't be too picky) is that they be able to endure, if not enjoy, my sense of humor. Troy happened to share it. Maybe it is because our birthdays are only one day apart--one day and a couple of years. I might, for a price, be willing to reveal which of us is oldest. My birthday is October 1st, Troy's is October 2nd. Her explanation is that our parents did not go out for New Year's Eve that year. I have long since lost touch with the other gals in our foursome, but all these years later, Troy and I can still pick up where we left off. We don't call each other often, partly because the calls tend to last longer than a 10K marathon.

    I also met Jeff at college in Salem. He was an older/wordly guy by Bible college standards, having already served in the Navy. I had some reservations about Jeff while he and Troy were dating. I wanted to be sure he was good enough for my best friend. Troy was maid of honor at my wedding, which I suppose was not a huge honor because she was my only bridesmaid. I guess that made her more like maid of honorable mention. After I married and moved back to Montana, Troy told me she and Jeff were engaged. In that ancient era, calling out of town meant long distance charges and we were poor. And while present day slackers can pretend to be working by hiding behind the computer on their desks, that was much harder to do with the yellow, legal pads on our desks. All we could do was pretend we were doing work related writing. I had an extremely boring job, so I wrote excessive, probably boring, letters. In my congratulations on your engagement letter to Troy, I remember telling her that she was supposed to wait for the handsome prince, not marry the dragon. 

   But the dragon turned out to be a prince after all, and it was a pleasure to see the way their humor, minds and even sentences meshed together when they interacted. So much so that I cannot even now, knowing he is in heaven, imagine hearing Troy's voice without hearing Jeff's in the background. Just as I, after two years gone, still listen for Tracy's voice on the other end of the phone when Reed gets a call, I will listen for Jeff when I talk to Troy. My mind no longer thinks of one without the other. When God glues a couple together, nothing but death can part them, and even that, not for long.