Geography and Photography

Let me try to explain to you where I am five days a week. Ready? Okay, play along with me. Hold out your right hand like you did in elementary school when you were supposed to trace it with your pencil to make a turkey at Thanksgiving time. Now fold all your four fingers in half and pretend like your thumb is twice as thick as it is. Got it? Your hand now looks like the state of Washington. No really, it does! See that space between your thumb and your index finger? That body of water is called Puget (pronounced pew-jet) Sound. The island I have the privilege to deliver to in my little brown truck is located right there in that sound. If your hand were actually land, the island is attached (with a bridge) about half way up your bent index finger. It has some amazing scenery. Here's just a sample...isn't springtime great??

Let Go

Today was my little girl's birthday, but the thing is, she's not a little girl anymore. It's official. At least according to the the law. Today she became an adult. It's a weird feeling for me. I mean, I'M not even an adult yet, what is she doing becoming one??

I know that my children are really not mine, they're gifts from God, given to me for a time. Great gifts they are too, but it's that time thing that gets me. Every moment of your life as a parent, whether you know it or not, you're growing closer to your children. After all, love will do that to you. You give it away, you give it away, and you give it away some more. All the while those little gifts we call children are taking it in, taking it in, taking it in and learning how to give it back simply by your example. That's the way love is; it's a simultaneous giving and taking that causes you to grow closer to each other. There's no way around it. It's the way God designed it. That's what makes me wonder about people who say they know God and yet they don't love Him. Makes me wonder if they know him at all. But that's a tangent for another day. While growing closer to my daughter was the most desired as well as a most fulfilling thing for me and her, somewhere in the midst of that God wanted me to be learning how to let go.

I started learning how when she was 11 years old. That night in the summer when I crawled up on her bed at night like I always did. It was bed time. It was story time. It was kiss me goodnight time. Only on this night it was 'your mom and I are getting a divorce' time. Suddenly I had knowingly caused deep hurt in my little girl's heart. I didn't want to let go, but in that moment everything that was normal wasn't normal anymore. After I spoke that sentence and the sobbing began I knew her dreams had been shattered as much, if not more than mine had. It was the first step of letting go.

When she backed out the driveway on her 16th birthday with her two little brothers in the car and those three little hands waved goodbye, I knew that I'd be seeing precious little of that little precious girl in the days past that one. They lived eight miles away at the time, and had no other reason to come this way, but to 'visit' me. Her life was busy. She has always been an industrious student; always a straight 'A' girl and that takes time. Time and discipline. She also has always been a girl with a big circle of friends because she's a always been a good friend. More time taken. She is athletic and modestly so. While it was never her greatest passion, she would never scrimp on the training, which takes? You guessed it...time. As her dad I would never want her not to have any of these pursuits as they are all excellent and are worthy of her character, but it would mean that she would be a busy girl...with a car. Step two of letting go.

So tonight, I must surmise, is step three. Tonight she is a legal adult and harsh as it may sound, I will hold my tongue and give advice only when it is asked for. I will interject when I am asked and I will treat her as my adult daughter--with values and opinions different than my own. I am no less in love with this girl that has become a woman than I have ever, ever been. She will however, never cease to be my little girl.

Of that one thing I will never let go.

A couple of things...

First of all, look at this photo closely (click on it to enlarge). On the right hand side, about halfway up, you will see that I am sometimes a very lucky photo taker...

...it's a hawk that must have suddenly noticed me (or my big brown truck) and it hit it's brakes midflight, midair. Cool huh??

Last, and very certainly not least. When I wake up in the morning I will be the proud dad of a 21-year-old daughter. WHOA!! to the Nth degree!!!!!

I find it amazing how many amazing things there are. For example this little bird. Not so much the bird, but it's choice of a perch. Notice that the other stems of grass are pretty much straight up and down and yet the one it is resting on (and swaying, I might add) is bent at a somewhat parallel angle to the ground. Now, at first glance, and maybe even at second, it would seem like an insignificant detail, but I stopped and took this picture and as soon as I did the bird flew away and the blade of grass sprung up tall and straight as if nothing had ever happened. How does a bird flying along at a fairly healthy clip, in full grip of the wind, maneuver itself to a landing on an upward stalk of green grass? How does it know it's a strong and trustable piece of grass on not a limp, dying one? Or why not simply land on the ground? Do you suppose even the birds of the air have an inherent faith that they are being watched over?

These are the questions of the little boy left in me.

His eye is on the sparrow and I know He's watching me.

Hard Questions

I'd like to make a sheep out of oak......wooden ewe?

I'd like to make an alphabet out of birch.....wooden 'u'?

I'd like to know what happens when you fall into a bin of toothpicks....wood in you?

I'd like to know where you can study forestry in college.....wooden U?

I'd like to know what would happen if you replaced smokeless tobacco with bark....wooden chew?

I'd like to make a pair of slippers out of alder....wooden shoe?

I'd like to know how I got to be this way....wouldn't you?

Ned The Threedle

There once was a boy named Ned. Ned lived in a place called Toodle. In Toodle everyone owned a poodle. One day Ned's poodle died so he moved to Threed. When you live in Threed you're called a Threedle. Since Ned was a Threedle Ned learned how to thread a needle. Now Ned the Threedle could thread the needle like no other Threedle could. Oh sure, other Threedles were good at threading needles but none as good as Ned. No needle ever threaded was threaded better than a needle that Ned had threaded. No no no. Ned the Threedle could thread a needle like no other Threedle needle threader. So if you're ever in Threed and you need a Threedle to thread your needle call Ned the Threedle cuz no one ever threaded a better needle than Ned did.

So what does this have to do with ANYthing? Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Sometimes I just get bored and make up lame stuff. This is exhibit 'A'.

So tell me...

...why aren't you telling me what you think? I know...yes, I KNOW that there are a select few (very few) of you who read this here little thing called a blog and don't comment--it's called lurking, people. If you did this in public you'd be called 'rude', but this is cyberspace and evidently every thing is permitted. However, tonight I am calling you to task. I want to know why you're so quiet. Now, don't get me wrong, I like quiet and all, but you should not simply lurk forever, one might question your upbringing.

Here's the assignment: in one sentence or more tell me what prevents you from putting that little floating thought that you're thinking into writing here. Simple huh?

I'm waiting...

(those of you that normally comment are free to chime in and make your astute observations as normal, of course!)

Snippets of a day in the life

Today it snowed and it rained and the sun shone bright. I took my coat off, put it back on, took it back off, put it back on...Froze, sweated, shivered, felt nice. It was the last day of March but it felt like a day that belonged in January.

I saw a coyote, a bald eagle or three, too many deer to count, countless horses and cows, chickens, swans, ducks, geese and a wolf.

I delivered signs and clothing and paper and office supplies and tractor parts and pet food and trees and titles and documents and guns and carseats and books and cd's and whatsits and thingamabobs to one hundred and twelve different addresses over the course of a hundred and fifty three miles in the span of nine point three hours.

I laughed, I talked, I thought, I sang, I prayed, I whistled, I texted, I called, I ate, I drove, I ran, I jumped, I had fun!

My greatest observation of the day (although I've had it before) was this: There is one sure fire way to a woman's heart. Jump out of your truck smiling and hand her a box with these two words on the side....NORDSTROM SHOES. Don't ask me why, but it works every time!

Sometimes it's just cold.

I had worked hard all day to get to his game, as I like to watch him play. Actually, I like to watch what he does when he sits on the bench, too; the way he engages people, his mannerisms, his smile. But, I digress.

The old wooden stadium was built for a football crowd, long before soccer became a high school sport. The grandstands run east to west and, luckily on this day the wind was out of the south so if you sat high enough the wind might miss you. The game time temperature must have been close to 40 degrees. At least that's what it read on the bank's sign just outside the campus. But with the wind's assistance it felt like a lot colder.

I sat (and sometimes stood) alone way high in the bleachers. I'm sure some thought it to be strange. There were thirty, maybe forty people in attendance, most of them parents or grandparents of the players, I'm sure. There was a small group of maybe eight or so students that must have had a friend on the team, or maybe they needed an excuse not to go home. Either way, it was nice to see.

The game was fairly uneventful--unless you were watching every little thing your son was doing. Many times I felt like cheering when my boy broke free from a defender at breakneck speed--only to have the ball go the other way--and cheering wouldn't have been appropriate. Many times I felt my heart swell with pride and I heard myself say "way to go" or "atta boy". It was at those particular moments I would look down and see my former wife and her husband all decked out in hoodies and wrapped in a warm blanket, seemingly oblivious to the game being played. It was in those moments I felt the most alone. Suddenly, the bleachers couldn't block out the cold.

Sometimes the hardest thing about this whole single parent thing is NOT being able to share what you feel as a parent with the only other person who might understand what it is that you feel.

Do you ever wonder what those two days were like? Those two days Jesus spent in hell for things he didn't do? Not only did he die a horrendous death for being perfect, but then he had to bring those sins to hell and defeat Satan and his legion of demons as proof that he was indeed The Christ. There were no Pharisees or high priests or even true disciples there to witness it. It wasn't something done so as to be recorded for posterity. But it needed to be done. Death had to be defeated in order for us to live. Jesus wasn't quietly laying behind a stone trying to figure out how to escape his burial cloths, he was fighting for the future of eternity. He was fighting to ensure that everything he ever said and did up to that point was true and He did it for you and for me. He fought death and won! It seems like our Christianized version of the event is sanitized to the point of making it into a glorified fairy tale. I know that Jesus languished in hell for me, because of me, so that he could spend eternity with me. It is the only identity I will ever need.

Happy Easter.

The Quiet Chapter

I have myriad of things to write about and still tonight I am still. It seems I have found a quiet chapter inside that needs my listening. I don't know how and I surely don't know why, but contentment has found me and, for tonight, I will share it with you in silence.

The post in which I use way too many parentheses (which, if you look at it long enough will look misspelled)

Today I was breathing (of course, I was breathing) when suddenly something foreign (no, not Canadian, that would be sick) was absorbed into my innards. As we speak (which, by the way, if you're speaking while reading this, is a little weird in and of itself) I am getting dizzy and starting to get the chills (how does one start to get the chills?) so I can only surmise that I am getting sick (No! not Canadian). Don't you hate it when people (you know who you are) say, "Yeah, that stuff's goin' around", as if stuff hasn't always been goin' around? (Except that day back in '32) So I am going to have some tea (shut up!) with honey and lemon in it. The thing is, when I went to the cupboard to get the honey (you know, the kind that comes in a little bear-shaped bottle) it was completely crystallized (no, not the bottle, the honey) to the point where there was no liquidity at all (poor little bear was all stopped up) so I put him (although it could be a her...hard to tell at this stage of honey bottle bear maturity) in the microwave for about thirty seconds. I'll have you know that twenty seconds would have been plenty (did you know that really, really hot honey runs like water?). I now have a steaming, hot cup of tea (shut up...again) with really runny honey in it (and I have one bear with really runny honey in it).

The End (parenthetically speaking, of course!)

Imagine if you will...

...imagine if you can.

You open your eyes and you're standing in line at the very last audition to the very last "American Idol". Ever. You are ushered into the stadium where there are hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people when suddenly there is an eerie silence. Helicopters appear over the edges of the stadium walls and they are headed your way. The stadium lights go black. Not a sound is heard. You look up in the sky and suddenly you and only you are standing in the center of what seems like a million candle spotlight emanating from each helicopter and a voice deep and still announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, the auditions are now closed. The person you see standing here in the light is our winner!" You expect to hear thunderous booing and hissing, but instead the throng goes absolutely crazy with the loudest cheers you've ever heard. A microphone is lowered out of who knows where to dangle in front of you. You step up and say, "I don't know that to say. I don't understand. I didn't DO anything. You must be mistaken because I...I...I don't deserve..." And then you blink.

You open your eyes and you're somewhere completely different than you were just a second ago. And someone is holding your hand? Wait, he's not holding your hand, he's shaking it. Your eyes look down at your hand and trace the hand that is shaking yours back up to a bespectacled little man. It's Bill Gates! In your other hand is one of those gigantic checks that you get when you win some sort of prize. You lean over to read it at it says 'Pay to the order of...and there, right there in that all important line is YOUR name! And the amount? Fifty billion dollars. Fifty. Billion. With a 'B'!! In all the excitement you barely even noticed that Mr. Gates was going on and on about how he 'had never met a more deserving person' and, evidently he was talking about YOU! You shake your head as if to say, 'you must have the wrong person'. You try to explain that you probably weren't supposed to be there, since just two seconds ago you won the American Idol award, but your words are dwarfed by applause as everyone looks at you and cheers as mountains of confetti fall from the sky. So much confetti that it makes a New York ticker tape parade look like a pullstring party popper. The cameras flash endlessly...And then you blink.

You open your eyes and you're standing on the steps of what appears to be a castle of some sort. When you look closer you realize it IS a castle. And not just a Disneyland castle, but an actual authentic castle! You are surrounded by a cast of extremely royal looking people. You surmise that this must be a coronation of sorts. In an instant there are servants surrounding you with what looks like a gown of significant worth. And a crown. You find yourself a bit dazed as they seem to be draping the gown on YOU. And the crown too! The trumpets blare and a decree is read..."It is hereby declared that (fill in your name) has come to claim the throne that was long ago created here in the castle of the land that bears his name." You say, "There must be a mistake, I'm not that old and this country is named after me?" The throng of people, in unison replies, "We have been waiting for you since long before your birth." The voices sound like what you've always imagined an angelic choir would sound. It is grand! It is majestic! It is about YOU! And then you blink.

You open your eyes and you realize that you have experienced in mere human terms what the first three blinks of heaven must be like.

You deserve none of it. You did nothing for it. You were chosen because YOU are YOU!!!!

A Post About A Post

Even an ordinary thing can become something beautiful. For instance, this fence post. At first glance it was just another in a long line of posts. Upon closer inspection, however, it is clearly different. When lined up properly, it's flaw--the hole in it--allows you to see something you simply can't see through the others. Thank God for the hole He's creating in you because, given the right perspective and the right moment, someone's going to see something beautiful beyond the hole.

p.s. It also never hurts to have a bright, shining light overhead either :)

When silence
comes a' calling
from someone
who once cared

Her silence
is appalling
your heart
for once dared

When silence
it is falling
it's something
best unshared

When silence
comes a' calling
pretend like
you're not there

Dancing in the reign

In my teenage years I began to really love music, so of course I listened to AM radio a lot while driving around in my 1970 Duster. I liked all of the usual stuff any teenager in the mid-seventies liked: The Eagles, Boston, Kansas, Firefall, Loggins and Messina, Steve Miller Band, etc. and if I liked a band a whole, whole lot I would splurge and go buy the 8-track so I could listen whenever I wanted to. I also liked Christian music at the time. (Once again, I know...weird. But hey! Does that surprise anyone?) However, most Christian music was slow and schmaltzy to me until I heard Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill. I loved both of them! One of my favorite 8-tracks was called "In Another Land" by Larry Norman. Well, Larry Norman died this weekend and I heard about it this morning on the station I listen to. My very favorite song on the album was the title track. I know it backwards and forwards and upside down. I sang it all day today. Here it is: (by heart)

A thief fell out of heaven
Two loaded dice
But the Lamb rolled a seven
Back to Paradise
The bread was finally leavened
So I had a slice
As the sun began to rain

Water fell from fountains
And then turned to wine
Rocks fell from the mountains
In a chorus line
He came in tails and top hat
And He looked so fine
As the Son began to reign

A fox snuck in to steal away the grapes
But the man who ran the vineyard shut the gate
So he could not escape

And now we'll live forever
In another land
Everything is changing
Like it first was planned
Did you get your invitation
To come play in the band
And let the Son begin to reign



Larry Norman is now in another land dancing in the reign.

The Simple Things

I have come to find the beauty in simple things. Yesterday as my brother and I were out taking pictures on a very springlike day I took this picture...


...I'm think I'm going to call it "Insulator" (by Barb Dwire)

The wire reminds me of my humor...rusty and twisted :)

Wind...

Have you ever stopped to notice the sound of wind through a tree? I did just that today...I know, sometimes I'm just weird that way, along with many other ways, but I digress. What is wind? It is air that is moving, but where is it going? Where did it come from and what did it replace? Who tells it to move? Does it have ears to hear? Why doesn't it make a sound when it stops?

Isn't it funny that we can no more explain wind than God and yet we rarely give it a second thought? Air is the one thing we know of that most closely resembles God in it's qualities--it's invisible, it's everywhere, it moves, it's powerful, it sustains us--and yet we believe in it with every fiber of our being because some smart guy says he proved it? Yet we can't believe in God because smart guys don't get it??

Tomorrow, when you feel the wind in your hair and it makes you feel something new--say 'hello' to God and thank Him for brushing up so close to you.

Three Little Hands

I'm not sure how it happened or what triggered it, but as I was on my drive to my route today an old, painful memory hit me square between the eyes. I guess I was wondering how it is that I have made it this far; how it is that I was able to carry on.

Most of the memories surrounding the last days of my marriage are a blur if anything at all. Most, that is, except those two or three minutes that it took for the U-Haul to disappear from sight as it drove away. I was standing alone in the driveway of the house we called home for the past 7 years--where I would 'live' alone for the next 2 weeks--and out of the passenger window all I could see were those three little hands frantically waving goodbye. It was then that I knew my life would never be the same. It was then that I knew a whole new pain. I don't know if there's a way to describe that kind of pain. My heart was so heavy I could scarcely move a muscle, but I knew I had to wave to let them know I loved them.

In an effort to live fully from my heart, sometimes I have to open a door that I painted shut. You have just been given a brief peek behind one such door.

Lately I've been thinking about lovely. Yes, lovely. Why is the word so seldom used these days and what does it really mean?

I think it is used so seldom these days because our society is enamored with the exterior and being lovely has very little, if anything to do with the exterior. It is an interior quality born of the heart. It has more to do with the glint in your eye than the color of it. More to do with intent of your heart than the careful calculations of your words. More to do with the way you carry yourself than the way you look. More about the maturing of your soul than the aging of your skin.

My mom turned 82 on Thursday and yet I think she's becoming more lovely with each passing day. Her face is wrinkled and her hair has just started turning gray. Her pace is slowed and her accent thickens almost daily, but nonetheless she has become a very lovely woman. She easily could have chosen otherwise.

When she was 13 years old she moved out of her parents' home to go to work as a maid. "That's just how it was in those days", is how she puts it. She was the youngest of 6 children and never had much in the way of material things. Life was hard in the Netherlands in the 30's and 40's so every healthy person worked to help feed the family. My mom never knew any different. To this day she doesn't think of that time in her life as a hardship, but as a blessing.

In 1951 she and my dad married. Shortly thereafter, they--along with my dad's parents, his 5 siblings and spouses (with the exception of his youngest sister, who was single)--moved to 'the promised land' of America. Think about that for a minute...she left her own family behind to start a new life in a new country with a new husband. Together they had a total of 12 American dollars to start their life here. My oldest brother was born in 1952 and by the time he was 3 years old he had 3 sisters and a brother! You read that right. My mom had a 3 year old, a 2 year old, a 1 year old, and then? Twins! The fact that her hair is just now turning gray is a matter of amazement to me. And she wasn't done yet. By the time my oldest brother was 7 there were 7 of us!

Remember now, this was before the days of disposable diapers and formula and battery operated child swings. As you can imagine, my dad had to burn the candle at both ends to finance the endless sucking noise known as 'children eating'. My mom orchestrated the chaos at home alone for the most part. I have no idea how. That was just the formative years. Can you imagine this?...When I turned 13 she suddenly had 6 teenagers under her roof? Can you say, 'insanity'? And once again, my mom would say, "I didn't know any different" with the most genuinely understated smile you will ever see.

Tomorrow my brothers and sisters and assorted other family members will gather together to pay tribute to my mom. A woman who in my eyes has become the definition of...Lovely!