My Birthday Wish

A truly valuable portion of our congregation’s liturgy (if I may modernize said term) is the request for each participant to share their birthday wish at the commencement of each month. A noble experiment: What do you want from God this year?
What do we want? Healing, or shoes? Reconnection with a loved one, or a new job? The answers vary by the person, the year, the life circumstances... the trivial, the eternal and everything in between. Upon sharing our desire, we gather and pray for the birthday-folks, and seek God’s blessings for the big and small alike.

35th birthday, 2011: My wish: for me to experience enduring grace, to let go of my guilt, regardless.

I seek this, ask it, and need the faith, courage and presence of mind to receive this gift from God. Theologically, this grace, freedom, resurrection, and redemption has already taken place. The stumbling block is me, my mind, my lack of acceptance. I understand that; but I want/need more help – I need the breakthrough of understanding, receiving the tangible reality of grace.

My Mentor

After an unreasonable battle with an unreasonable illness, my mentor left this earth a few days past. His mind was willing, body weak. Distinctly successful in the world's eyes, his influence spread throughout our town, this state, and in various corners of the world. 

We each have a number of qualities, talents and strengths afforded us, which with a certain combination of work ethic and favor propel us forward. His was a special mixture, and I am grateful for his influence on me. I do believe he was my favorite leader, one of the very few my independent self purposefully sought to emulate. While I have not worked directly with him for five years, I continue to hear his voice in my mind as I approach my professional life, just as I hear my high school coach push me each time I go for a run. "Work smart not hard", he would say, which of course meant "Work smart, and hard". We aspire to the character and actions of Jesus; but it is helpful to have folks on the ground we can look up to as well.

Faith is tangible here; it was for him, his family in mourning, and for me; he was humble in the midst of life's success, inviting God's activity in his life; this helped prepare him for life's inevitable end. I trust that he has been healed in the presence of God.

I attempt to balance my appreciation and honor of him with the God who molded him, taught, shaped and inspired him. It is appropriate to admire the creation as well as the Creator.

We lost a good man

Johnny Gaskins passed away 3 days ago, the first person in my daily life to have died (all before have been on my life’s periphery).

He was suffering, and is no more. Brenda and the family were suffering, tired; and while they are in a period of distinct mourning, they may soon find God’s peace and rest.

Johnny loved God. I believe God loves him, and has brought about his eternal healing. We mourn the loss of a truly great man whom we loved and admired. We rejoice in his personal deliverance.

I’ve had very few people I have allowed to mentor me. I am so fortunate and grateful of my time with Johnny. I am a better man for his presence in my life, as a man, a believer in Jesus, and engineer, and a business leader.

Guilty until proven Innocent

I sat next to a very nice and distinctly talkative lady on the flight down here. She was fulfilling her daily verbiage quota, and I was doing my best to be a gentleman. A Belizian expat returning home to visit family, she knew everyone in this small country, and dropped names and titles beyond my memory capacity.
"If you ever need anything, have any problems getting something done, you just give me a call and I will call my (insert name) , who is (insert title), and we'll get it cleared up." Then she gave me her card, which I directly put in my pocket.
I am now returning home; as I pack I find the card, a very dangerous card, which yields a corona of guilt around all who carry it, regardless of their intent. Scripture teaches that what comes out of a person determines their guilt, not what they carry with them. I do believe this card is an implied exception: "Julia Torres, Divorce Specialist"

Choosing between having a potential helper in our work here and having my wife find the card, I do what we learned in basic training: tore it into little pieces and sent it to separate trash bins in the four corners of the airport.

When I was a kid... (part 1)

When I was a kid, "Jinx" meant something. You might be chatting with a group of friends, and two of you innocently slip the same word out. There's a pause, pregnant, broken by panicked "JINX!". Crap! Both yelled out at the same moment; time for plan 'B': "one-two-three-four-fi-si-sevn-eigh-ni-ten, JINX!" Got 'em.
Or you might be on the prowl, listening to your rambling friend with one ear while patiently anticipating his every word, until at just the right moment you double him up, followed immediately by "JINX!". The slower responder man'd up, and stayed silent until their name was spoken aloud, and the sacred spell was broken.

This is lost on my youngest two. Jinx has devolved into a community activity, announced to one another, where we repeat "Jinx" over and over while giggling and not succumbing to its inherent powers. Once it is revealed that "Jinx" has no control over the mutual participants, we start calling out "Peanuts", hoping that word conjures some additional humor.

When I was a kid...