Have you seen rolling hills where green grass and all manner of flowers grow? Have you stood in awe before a gate, waiting to walk a narrow path bordered by trees with leaves of blue, purple, red, green, and gold? They are as willows, oaks, birches and more; but autumn is not the reason for the colorful if not unusual display of leaves…(read complete article)

The house in Howlett Hill still exists; albeit with considerable remodeling and many more neighboring structures than when this writer resided there as a child.  The two-story house in Warners, built in the 1870’s, has since been torn down to accommodate the widening of County Route 173 and the reconstruction of the Canton Street bridge over the CSX railroad tracks.   Now you know the locations, but all in all, geography is not what is important to this story…(read complete article)

You knew the road was icy and overall driving conditions were rapidly deteriorating.  Still, you had to get behind the wheel as you would every day, but perhaps a more thorough job of brushing the snow and scraping the ice from your windshield may have afforded better enough visibility to avoid this terrible crash?  Maybe if you had taken the prescribed path as opposed to driving the less-traveled more risky road, this accident may not have happened?  You could contemplate and cogitate on the what-ifs until you’d be blue in the face, but the bottom line is that the mishap took place and it totaled your vehicle.  Still, you were able by the grace of God to crawl out and start walking!

You’re bleeding and staggering, but as you breathe deeply your wits are being gathered and your legs are becoming less wobbly.  Medical help would benefit you in this injured state, but being that you are indeed able to walk you believe there is nothing that an Emergency Department physician could do for you.  You merely need to walk away from the wreckage.

That car represented a life, but that particular life has ended.  Through the small section of windshield that was clear, you saw the demon standing in the middle of the road with a smirk on his face; a face with features being equal parts Homo-sapien and Aves.  You swerved to avoid the black and scaly thing, but to no avail.  It was a slow crash – perhaps years in the making – and as you struggled to steer out of the skid you had the hope that you’d keep the car on the road, but it wouldn’t have mattered.   Yes, you were headed for a crash and there was little you could have done to prevent it.

Walking is freedom and even in your confused and painful state you know this freedom.  You are being led and likewise being driven; even while not being in the proper shape to drive!  Vehicles pass by, being operated by friends who yell through open windows “we’re praying for you, bro!”  These people try to help, but they have no idea, as by the same grace of God that kept you from being killed they have never had a wreck like yours.  As you walk, you realize that it’s a blessing that they’ve have never suffered your malady, as they would not have survived it.

There is a basement bunker to hide in, and that is to where you are walking, in the hopes that a short time there will allow you to heal.  There are a handful of others that love you and they will care for you there, and you love them reciprocally and will do your best to care for them as well.  It is an unlikely ad hoc family, but in times like these they are as real and true as family can be.  There is a beloved one who is conspicuously absent, but soon that person will be with you as well – but you can’t lose hope in the meantime!  No matter what you do, please don’t lose hope!

You’ve crashed and it should have been fatal, but God kept you alive!  Now, you must walk, despite the pain.  And when your legs become too tender, you know that He will carry you…

Walk away from the wreckage until you reach the bunker.  Keep on the down-low until the warm springtime sun permeates your soul in its Holy Spirit-driven warmth and splendor.  Then, you will again walk the path that you love and it will lead you home.

You’ve had a terrible crash my friend, but you’ve survived.  You were saved for a time and a purpose for which the pain of your wounds will prepare you.  You will walk to freedom everlasting, but please my friend, don’t lose hope!  Hope is what will heal and sustain you the rest of the way home.

Love never fails

Love can die when the mortal carrier of that love becomes spiritually or emotionally traumatized.  Some never overcome a colossal heartbreak or an enormous breach of trust.  The serpent may twist and slither into the heart and devour with the insatiable and seemingly mindless appetite of the chewing, consuming locust.  A beloved friend who deceives or a spouse that cheats can kill the victim’s ability to love for the remaining years of his or her life.   Trust and love; oh, how the two are inexorably intertwined.

The afflictions of bitterness, despair, distrust, and heartbreak can be as terminal as spiritual and emotional cancer.  These are diseases with no medical remedy – and the symptoms of each will be revealed as a mis-diagnosed ache on the inside that chews through to the outside and is manifested through an angry, sullen countenance and cold, cruel behavior.  This is the animated fatality that indicates that one could be dead inside.

No judge will slam his gavel and hand down this death sentence and no physician can treat this condition for it is a condition of the spiritual heart – the heart that beats eternally.  Only Jesus can raise us from the dead and likewise breath life into our zombie-like existences.  But Jesus will use His sheep and the sheep must be up to the task!

Our Lord desires that none of us should be as the walking dead while we are wayfarers on this increasingly narrow path…

This world is a painful place and the stinging thorns that scratch our flesh will keep us awake at night in agitated discomfort.  When the morning comes, the lack  of rest can make us as walking dead as we carry backpacks filled with emotional, mental, and financial stones.  Please don’t take your pain out on anyone; especially that person who has nothing to do with the pain.  Please don’t subject the innocent to crimes of the heart; as they are the most damaging and devastating crimes of all.  Please…do not take your pain out on your children as they are the most innocent of all.

Yes, one day we will be free but in the interim we must comfort one another…

Erie Canal Towpath, headed home

This year of 2011 is young but as time flies it is seemingly aging prematurely.  The year 2011 was not born as a child but instead as an ill-mannered adult stricken with an infant’s colic.  The cries of this adult trapped in a baby’s body are heard by the world, but instead of an inspection to see what is wrong there is instead a lashing out in anger at the colicky predicament; and the lashing out seems to be taking place everywhere.

The adult trapped in a baby’s body is afraid.  The adult trapped in the body of a babe is tired of trying to climb with under-developed legs up the mountains of expectation.  There is a fear factor that is not being reckoned with and it is the factor of mortality.  The adult hears a knocking at the door, but the baby’s weak legs only allow for a crawling to the opening and not a sprint.

The world is in an uproar because the adults have chosen to exercise their free will – this free will being the second greatest gift that God has given us.  But, those who follow God’s word knew it would come to this.  We should not be surprised by what we see in the snow, the ice, the cyclones, and the flames; but it still serves to make us colicky.  As we are adults trapped in infant’s bodies we see the need to answer the knock at the door.  As we cry our hidden grown-up tears we blame each other for those tears and lash out.  Hmm…it’s never our own fault is it as we exercise free will?

Time is flying and the fear factor is manifesting itself in a more prominent way.  This world will see an increasing number of hot-spots but that is no excuse to behave like a looter.  Now is the time to drop the adult arrogance, impetuousness, vengeance, back-stabbing, judgement, greed, gossiping, and hate – and that includes some who sit in the pews.   It may or may not be today, but Christ is coming soon.

Certainly, as adults we may behave like colicky babies in these unnerving days but:

“Assuredly, I [Jesus] say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 18:3

Is this a paradox?  No, not at all!

As of this day, there is revolution boiling in Egypt as a people desires to be freed of the bondage that ties it to president Hosni Mubarak. In the most turbulent area of this fallen world, Mubarak has been an ally of these United States, which makes the prospect of his being overthrown a potentially nightmarish quandary for U.S. leadership.

Syria – no friend of America – is set to control Lebanon by proxy through the “election” of Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who is a member of terrorist group Hezbollah and therefore an enemy of Israel. In essence, this action puts Iran on the border of Israel as Syria and Hezbollah are sycophants of the nation that has designs of wiping the apple of God’s eye off of the map.

This turbulence will raise the price of crude oil which will negatively impact the already moth-ridden American pocket book. Likewise, Israel is being surrounded and cornered by her enemies while simultaneously Egypt falls into chaos; and who knows what the result of that chaos will be?

Meanwhile back in the states, so many Americans are residing in the America Box – not aware or patently disinterested in what is taking place in the Middle East. “Ah, it won’t affect us too much” they say. “Sure, things are tough but we’ll get out of it because we always do.”

America’s Christians need to pay attention. This writer knows fellow followers of the Lord that have no idea what is taking place in the Middle East nor do they care. They too believe that it won’t affect them. “That’s way over there and we’re way over here and God won’t let anything happen to us” they appear to believe; albeit errantly.

Safely locked in the America Box, so many go about their lives in deliberate ignorance and how I wish that I could do the same. My fellow followers of Christ, who are all good church-goin’ folk, would be well-advised to watch the Middle East, especially Israel and Lebanon. Their jobs and their families will be impacted as the box’s lid is being ripped open and unwanted and unpleasant things will be allowed to creep in. On the kitchen stove away from the box stored in the mud room, a stew pot has been simmering slowly but it is now beginning to boil. In the coming days and weeks, what takes place in the Middle East and most importantly with Israel has and will have a profound impact on the fragile contents of the America Box. You cannot live in denial as it will effect you directly and significantly.

The box is being shaken and much of its contents will be broken. Keep an eye on the east, but brethren, the most important thing you can do is look up.

I’m not a very smart fellow, and years of mistakes and bad decisions are the metaphoric rap sheet that will illustrate that less than stellar record.  But, I am observant and sensitive to my surroundings, and one could say that I am blessed with keen insight into the obvious.

There is a shaking and a breaking taking place out there, and as I write this I’m sensitive to the fact that you are hip to the aforementioned Shake and Break.  As this writer’s worldly disintegration began – modestly at first – in 2007, I have also witnessed it taking place in various degrees with many others; even when their countenance may not reveal the fissures created by the tremors.

Are you worried about tomorrow?  Do worries about rendering unto Caesar what is his shake you awake in the wee hours of the morning and torment you as though there is a demon in your room?  There may well indeed be a demon in your room who is only too pleased to be able to remind you of and magnify your difficulties so they can deny you the sleep that your body and mind need to function properly.  Yes, when we are tired, all of our cares seem to weigh significantly more heavy in our backpacks.

I have watched those who are struggling bear down under an increasing burden as their backpacks grow heavier.  I have also born witness to the growing ranks of the struggling over the last three years.   As these wayfarers journey through their lives, their worries about tomorrow become a burdensome brick; but that does not need to be.

Christmas time is here again.  For many, it is a celebration of pagan-esque acquisition of coveted stuff and diamonds that mean true love.  But, for many others, there is nothing material to celebrate and no rendering unto Caesar.  Perhaps for you there is a point somewhere in the middle of these two extremes?

The Shake and Break has come to many and the government is not the bricklayer to repair it.  This is a time for friend to help friend and family to help family.

I’m not here to preach but instead to attempt to exhort.  I can’t offer you food or money but encouragement instead.  I can love you like a brother and a friend; even if we’ve never shaken hands.  I don’t want you to be in pain but if you are you need to feel it and then share it …not inflict it.

Friends, I was tormented during the night due to a variety of issues; but yes, they will pass.  But, what also woke me up was the need to encourage you some way – any way that I could.

Please…don’t lose hope.  I have seen great hopelessness in 2010 and I can say that your hope can be restored – no matter how difficult your circumstances are at this precise moment.  Your hope is not in this world or of this world, so please…stop looking for it in the things of this world!

We’re celebrating the birth of a baby who was God incarnate.  We can love the colors and the lights of this season because they are a foretaste of home, but – please don’t hang your hopes on that Christmas bonus or what box is under the tree, because the thrill will be for but a moment in time…

Please…don’t lose hope despite the pain.  I’m hurting too so I can relate, but I have to remind you not to lose hope because it is alive.

Yes, the hope is alive in your children because we must be like them in order to see its glory.  It is alive in Christmas songs like Silent Night and Still, Still, Still.  It is alive on the face of that one person who smiles at you when you pass in the Wal-Mart.  It is alive in that friend who hugs you in sincere embrace…

It is the hope that is in fact the diamond that means true love.  It is the one, true, hope — and it is He, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Here’s wishing you a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

Pain – we all feel it and yes, it is true, that we have to feel our own pain…

The key to getting through the pain is to share with someone close to you – but don’t, whatever you do, inflict your pain upon them.  Chances are, they have an ache somewhere in their body, mind, or soul – and what they would like from you is love and encouragement and not additional pain.  You share your pain with them, and they share theirs with you.  It’s a sharing of pain and not a meting out of it.

Yes, we need to feel our own pain and in that we can’t designate another to receive his or her fair share in an effort to exact vengeance.  Others will hurt us with words, deeds, and sometimes through abusive physical contact.  But again, share your pain, don’t hurt someone else in an errant attempt to lessen its severity.

For many, this is a traumatic time as we close out the year 2010.  It has been a bad year for many and yeah, the Pain Train has run them down and knocked their lives off track.  More than any time in this writer’s memory, people are struggling to meet the expectations of the Christmas season; thereby fully losing grasp of what the season is about.  Retail store managers are breathing down the backs of clerks and cashiers to sell more service plans, sign up more rewards card holders, and get more credit applications – because it means your job!  Upper-level managers are breathing down the backs of store managers to push those staffers to get more, more, more – at a time when so many of the customers can afford less, less, less.

The proverbial whip is being cracked on the backs of those on the ground and it brings pain…

If your pain is physical, may the hands of the Lord touch you and bring comfort.  If your pain is a cry that resonates and reverberates from the cavern of an empty soul, let the Lord fill it for you and quiet that mournful sound.

But remember, you’ve first got to feel your own pain – don’t make someone else feel it for you because they have a large enough portion of their own.  Love can be the salve for so much of today’s pain.  Yes, Paul demonstrated how well he learned from Jesus the master, when he wrote to the church at Corinth: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith, hope, and love enable us to feel our own pain and be healed of that pain.  So many are in pain today and are not dealing with it but are instead numbing it with the things of this world.  But the gold of this world is only tin after all.  The thrones of this world are truly only toilet seats.

You can’t run from the breaking or the pain.  It is going to get you – but God is love and He will take away the pain if you allow Him to.  Feel your own pain and then give it to God — and through the faith, hope, and love in and of His son the Christ you will be healed in ways unimaginable.