Goodbye to a Friend

On Tuesday, I said goodbye to an old friend. Her name was Ferris.

I first saw Ferris at Family Center Farm and Home in Harrisonville. It was eight, maybe nine years ago. She was a closeout model.  It was love at first sight.

Ferris was punctual, reliable, and a workhorse from the start. A powerful, reckoning machine, she patrolled our little slice of Cass County countryside with precision and grace.  Her stately red frame rolled to and fro, back and forth, zigging and zagging across our groaning creation. She would turn on a dime, and could roar at full throttle, shredding through the toughened fescue like a hot knife through butter. At a clip suitable for the Autobahn, she could sculpt and manicure the once clumpy pasture into a golf course fairway.

But Ferris was more than a zero-turn lawnmower. She was often my counselor, my confidante, and a strong tower of refuge during difficult times. She would be a sort of moving and rumbling sanctuary after sending a child to college, or losing a parent, or through random bouts of melancholy. Pushing the wind through my graying hair, she tossed my cares asunder.

But like many treasures, Ferris was best enjoyed in the community of family. If I could pick the perfect day, or maybe a perfect 15 seconds, Ferris would be in the middle of it.  I shape the images in my mind…I grab a Stihl trimmer after lighting my charcoal grill. My boys are each be atop a mower—one sitting atop Ferris—the other on the John Deere Z-Trac. The girls are outside, one maybe playing in a sandbox, the others running through the creek bed or maybe the three of them around the swing set. In both images a black Labrador retriever gives chase. Sandee is waving to me, getting me to stop trimming, and asking me what time the burgers will be ready. The air is bursting with the most powerful scents—maybe the aromas of Heaven: Freshly gut grass, Kingsford smoke, and the wafting blossoms of Spring. Birds are whistling; a bobwhite calling; a killdeer shuffling across the ground….

As that perfect 15 seconds fades to black, I smile. Those days are gone, and this is as it should be. Our time in the country and the work that went with it had to come to an end. It was the most necessary of endings, as our lives and pursuits and capabilities have yielded to and ushered in the next season of our lives—a season back to a suburban lawn in a residential neighborhood.

Ferris is a casualty of these changes. I held on to her as long as I could. She sat in my garage as I waited for Spring to come so I could get the best price for her. But she was spotted by a man who had come to our house to make a repair. He asked about her, and I shot him a price. We negotiated a bit, and then the deed was done.

Tuesday arrived and the Purchaser came to the city with a trailer to take Ferris away. He handed me an envelope of cash. I took it quickly and placed it in my pants pocket. It was if I had just accepted 30 pieces of silver.

I dressed in a way that befit the occasion, digging out my Carhartt coveralls and a camouflage jacket to properly see Ferris off.

The Purchaser drove her up on the trailer. I helped him ratchet the straps around her, and then we both stood there and looked at her.

“It’s hard to believe that Big Block engine is a 35 horse,” he finally remarked.

“I know,” I said, “most of the units that have 61 inch cuts don’t have that much horsepower. “ I thought this to be true but wouldn’t have staked my life on it.

“Well I doubt if my wife will let me on it once she gets ahold of it.” The Purchaser laughed.

“Well I sure hope you all enjoy it as much as we have.”

We moved away from the trailer--he to the cab of his pickup, me toward the house.

Ferris rode off south, back to Cass County, the place of her birth and the place of her rearing. She’ll now call rural Peculiar home.

Farewell my friend.  I hope it's a glorious homecoming.

A Good Walk Indeed

Mark Twain said that golf is a good walk spoiled.  It’s too bad he never got to play the game with his son.

I first took my son Davis to the golf course when he was five. I thought it was about time he learned about a great game and enjoyed some father-son bonding, but there were no sports on television and my wife told me I had to leave the couch and take him somewhere…anywhere.  So we hit the links, and I set out to teach him the finer points of flinging a lob wedge after a shank.

Opportunities to impart wisdom from father to son present themselves sparingly and grudgingly. A father who is alert and astute will recognize these opportunities and seize them. The rarest of fathers will actually get their sons to listen to this wisdom and do so  without the assistance of sugar in any form.

We each brought the tools we needed for a wonderful day of golf. I grabbed my sticks and a handful of “junior” clubs I had fashioned  with a hacksaw. Davis brought a dozen golf balls, Gatorade, and innumerable questions.

As we teed it up on number one, Davis began his inquisition. “Where are all the people daddy?” he asked.

“What people?” I responded, looking around.

 “You know, all the people,” he continued.

“Well, look son, there’s a group over on three and a foursome down on six,” I said.

“No daddy, the people who clap for us. Where are all those people?” 

How could I have forgotten to bring along a gallery?

He decided to play on without a cadre of fans, and proceeded to whiff and scuff his way off the first tee. The next few shots were not pretty, but I don’t always bring my “A game” either. We hit and walked and missed and tripped our way down the fairway, finally holing out on number one, a full 45 minutes after we had started.

As we walked off the first green, Davis resumed his interrogation. “Daddy, did I beat you on that hole—what was your score?” he asked.

“Oh son, don’t worry about my score. Remember, we don’t play against each other, we play against the course,” I said with Solomon-like wisdom.

Surprisingly, Davis didn’t muse too long on my profundity, but instead zig-zagged his way down the next fairway, swiping at hedge apples and chasing squirrels. As dusk settled over our third and final hole, some two-plus hours after we had begun, he paused to watch my bogey putt lip out. 

“Daddy, does the course always win?” he asked.  

Even Mark Twain would have relished that moment.

That's A Wrap

The nature and character of an ending is best framed  by a proper understanding of its beginning. The ending I prepare to experience today is an awkward one, one that struggles to finds its proper context. It had its genesis in my desire to be an involved father, but it evolved to include much more.

I was a rather unlikely candidate to become a golf coach. My greatest and only qualification was that I simply came out to watch my oldest son play the sport. I came to every tournament, making five or six consecutive decisions that it was more critical to watch him compete that day in golf than it was for me to spend the afternoon attempting to sell commercial real estate.

So it seems that quality, plus a valid driver's license, made me the most likely candidate to take over a fledgling little squad of homeschooled golfers on this newly formed team put together by a football coach at Christ Preparatory Academy. That football coach, Jim Cook, one day at a golf tournament in Horton, Kansas,  told me he had to get back to Kansas City and wondered if I could take all of the boys back home.

That was my audition. The simple act of driving a minivan back from Horton, Kansas and returning four boys to civilization prompted Coach Cook to ask me to take over the team the following year. He explained to me: "I like to start sports programs then hand them off to other people." If he'd been honest, he would have added: "And you're the only person I can find who doesn't appear to have anything else to do."

And so I became the golf coach at Christ Prep, and so began a nine season run that concludes today. It didn't really seem to be a beginning because it didn't really seem like I was a coach. If truth be told, I was better qualified to coach baseball or football. I knew how to teach kids to throw and to catch and kick and punt, but teaching someone the art of swinging a golf club and making square contact with a golf ball and propelling it anywhere in the general vicinity of its intended target seemed more complicated to me than explaining differential equations.  If you had watched me play then (or now--especially now), you would have not wanted to entrust your son or daughter to my care.

But I wanted to be involved in my son's life, and I had steered all of my kids toward golf because I thought it was something we could play together our entire lives. One of golf's greatest characteristics is the multi-generational participation it allows. Coaching my kids' high school team seemed like the best way to get that going. Plus, when you choose a less conventional form of education you are always nagged by a subtle guilt that you have deprived your children of experiences like sports that are available to children in the mainstream. What better way, then, to provide our kids opportunities than to be the architect of them?

So I set out with my paltry golf resume and big plans for my children and their friends and I decided to be the best scheduler of golf tournaments I could be and the best van driver to those golf tournaments that anyone could ever hope for. Along the way, with all those good families and all those good kids, we gradually built a team that was a force to be reckoned with. We won tournaments against much larger schools and placed kids in college programs at virtually every level. This was not something I did, but I believe the Lord blessed the collective efforts of kids and families and Christ Prep as our sponsoring Christian school.

I came slowly to accept the moniker of "Coach." At first seemed fraudulent to me. But I eventually embraced it as a demonstration of respect. Then I saw it for what it really was--a term of endearment.

I could wax on about all of our golf accomplishments over the years and I could tell stories of violations to the game of golf that I witnessed--acts of defilement that would make Old Tom Morris (and maybe Young Tom Morris) roll over in his grave.

But to properly define today's ending, and to look properly backward at its beginning, I look to the lessons that will not be forgotten. Although many called me "Coach" and looked to me for guidance, they taught me more than I taught them. Character came alive in dozens of little decisions that were made when no one was watching. A penalty self-assessed here...an encouraging word to a competitor there. And I was continually treated with grace from my charges. They knew they were not getting Butch Harmon when they signed up for my team, but occasionally they humored me and treated me like I was.

Grace came alive through them and through the game itself. I (and others) have always said that golf is a microcosm of life. Every human emotion can be experienced as one traverses throughout the 18 holes of a golf course. Pinnacles and nadirs are swapped with every swing of the club. It is very much a depiction of the gospel, as law and grace wage war both in our minds and upon the breathtakingly beautiful links themselves.

But as with the gospel, on the golf course grace wins out. Grace always wins out, because we always come back to play again. We come back seeking the perfection that alludes us. But when perfection inevitably does allude us, we run to and cling to the grace that we do not deserve. And it is through this game I've seen most vividly that perfection can only be found in Jesus.

And then there are my children. With my coaching career over, they still remain. It is my heartfelt prayer that in my role as golf coach I didn't do any irreparable damage to them.  I remember a couple of years ago during one particularly stressful time I asked Phoebe: "Would you rather I be your dad, or your golf coach, because I'm not doing a very good job of either right now." As always, she was gracious, as were Davis and Timothy during other times.

My children were the reason I started coaching golf, and they are the reason I'm finishing today. Not all of my children love golf as much as I do, and I've learned that this is not only okay, but it is good. I look forward to developing other passions to share with my children. Passions that spring from them and are not foisted upon them by me. I'm hoping and praying the years ahead will provide margin for this.

Beginnings don't have to be that clear cut. God always know where they are heading. He sees the unseen and is working it out for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes (II Corinthians 4:18; Romans 8:28).

May we seek perfection in golf, and in life, only through Jesus. This is the only Context worth looking for.

Chronos, Kairos, and a Few Less Clocks

With the arrival of Daylight Savings Time (DST) I’ve come to a stunning realization: I don’t own as many clocks as I used to.

In former times, DST created a sort of chaotic urgency on Saturday night where we would lose another hour of our lives bouncing around the house looking for every obscure alarm clock, wall clock, or unused watch in our quest to ensure we were in step with the rest of the world (if not with Arizona and those rogue counties in Indiana).

And even after all this, there would always be a clock or watch that would elude our efforts, inciting a split-second panic--wondering whether or not we were in fact late or early.

And then there were the cars. Always the cars. Detroit (or in some cases Japan) made those car clocks as difficult to change as its differential fluid. A degree in electrical engineering seemed necessary to get the job done, and I always sat wondering how I could forget such a simple task in a mere six months.

But times have changed. This morning I changed my watch and fiddled briefly with the only two clocks I could find—the ones on our oven and microwave.  And then I was done, excluding of course the cars. I will deal with them in due time. They are easier but still present a formidable challenge—one for which I must gear up.

Of course this easier road is mostly credited to the mobile phone. Now we’ve always got one near our side, and when it sleeps its clock usually stands by, quietly awaiting our eventual inquiry. I still wear a watch, but my children rarely do. I probably wouldn’t except I can’t keep track of my mobile phone and I need a heart rate monitor (a  feature of my watch) to remind me that I’m still alive.

It also seems that clocks no longer are the components of home décor they once were. We no longer see the need to have a clock associated with an Elvis felt or vinyl. We no longer have to look to the landscape on the north wall to detect the clock that never quite worked correctly anyway (those battery operated units…). These are mostly good things, although I would like to encounter a grandfather clock or two now and then. They seem to be diminishing a bit as well….

I think about time quite a bit. It dogs me. It sometimes haunts me. I’m in a constant battle with it. It seems there is never enough of it and I’m constantly angry at for my inability to subdue it. I am always blaming the lack of it for my many deficiencies.

This morning as I began changing the clocks I started thinking about the Koine Greek language and its two words for time. Koine Greek is the primary language of the New Testament, and while I’m far from a scholar of it, I’ve read some interesting articles and heard some compelling lectures about it over the years. And, I’ve benefitted greatly from my daughter’s and son’s study of it in college.

I think it was a Christian speaker named Gregg Harris who first introduced me to Koine’s two words for time—Chronos (or Khronos) and Kairos. Chronos, as you might expect, means what we generally think of time, primarily that of chronological time. It represents the finite and fixed 24 hours that we have in each day. Chronos time is measurable and quantifiable.

Kairos as I understand it seeks to capture the non-chronological aspect of time. Strong's Greek Concordance defines it as a “fitting season,” “opportunity,” or “occasion.” It seems that in Kairos we shed the constraints and limitations of Chronos and seize the moment, redeeming and maximizing the moments and opportunities before us.

If I am personally locked into the Chronos (and I so often am), I become a slave to it. To live in the Kairos seems to demand that the bonds of Chronos be loosed to discern what is best, what is right, and what is lasting.  More than some sort of weak discussion of quantity time vs. quality time, it seems that living in the Kairos demands we choose the better way. Like Mary and Martha in the New Testament, it seems to be a distinction between busy-ness and devotion, between heat and light.

Perhaps no other passage captures this better than Ephesians 5:15-17 where the Apostle Paul writes: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

While not written in the Koine, an Old Testament passages come to mind as well. Moses, in Psalm 90:2 writes: So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. It seems that this process of “numbering our days” places the eternal always before us.

And is it not in the eternal in which God dwells? The Apostle Peter  tells us: But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (I Peter 3:8)

May we live each day thinking “Kairos,” where the eternal subdues and renders impotent the stress and urgency of Chronos. May we ponder how our own routine might be challenged like Esther’s of the Old Testament. Could we be placed right here, right now “for a time such as this?”

Happy DST Day! Now out to that car.

A Forgotten Prayer

This past Thursday we left our third child at college. This is an activity in which we have become quite proficient over the past five years.

It usually goes something like this: We arise early on a Thursday morning, load up at least two vehicles, and caravan south to Bolivar, Missouri.  When we arrive in Bolivar,  we find a dorm room and make several trips up flights of stairs while carrying food and other college necessities. We meet a Residence Assistant, then hook up a television set or maybe a refrigerator.  And, there is always a bookcase to assemble.  Always a bookcase….

Inevitably there will be at least one trip—maybe two or more—to Wal-Mart.  After the Wal-Mart run(s), we return to campus to listen to a well thought out presentation from the University Administration.  They always tell us that our children, and we, will be okay.

After the presentation we meet back up with our child. We’re given about an hour to take pictures and to say goodbye. It’s an hour that at the same time we wish would never end and would have ended long ago.

As the hour concludes we form a circle, pray, and say goodbye. The kids all go to their assigned groups while all of the parents and siblings and other friends and relatives flank a large sidewalk which leads to an auditorium.  At the appointed time, a bagpipe-serenaded procession begins and we wave to all of the freshman as they walk away to the rest of their lives.

Each time we’ve done this, after our freshman has disappeared into the auditorium, we sort of awkwardly walk back to our car and carry our remaining family north on Missouri Route 13. We typically grab some sort of supper, occupy ourselves with small-talk, and drive on—mostly in silence.

Although there are many similarities, each return trip is a bit different, as there is always one less child coming back with us.  With the last two trips I’ve realized that it is not a new wound that has been opened, but an old wound that has reappeared like some dormant virus. With each successive trip we return home and set about redefining ourselves in a new and different and ever evolving context.

My post-trip routine back home always begins with me climbing atop a mower.  I’ve learned it is atop this perch that any effective grieving or pondering or reflecting is best accomplished. Last Thursday was no different.  I jumped up on the John Deere Z-Track and throttled up to mow the ditch along our road. This activity was not only necessary as a catharsis, but it was also a pragmatic action because except for me, all remaining members of my three man mowing crew now reside in Bolivar, Missouri.  And Labor Day weekend is a long way off.

Alone with a thousand different thoughts and regrets, I blankly stared ahead as the Briggs and Stratton hummed behind me. Instead of seeing the ditch and the grass and the beauty of the day, my mind flashed image after image of ball games and fishing rods and American Girl dolls and BB guns and supper tables interwoven among five vaporous childhoods.

I was eventually brought back to a time when the children were younger and I had told them of my desire for them to love each other and that they always be best friends. I had told them, Lord willing, they would be so long after their mother and I were gone.

I had said this sort of thing maybe 2-3 times during moments I’d fancied as flashes of parental brilliance. It’s not that I didn’t own these thoughts, but I probably had thought such talk sounded more profound than anything. Or I may have even been saying it to manipulate good behavior or simply trying to acquire some peace in the house so I could watch a ball game.

But as I threw up dust and grass from the ditch along Route T, I realized that my forgotten parental wish had indeed come true. Scattered among the business and sadness of the day Thursday were countless demonstrations of sibling bonds that had emerged not because of me, but more likely in spite of me.

This third child—Timothy—first received a Facebook message Thursday from his oldest sister Olivia. Olivia was in Florida and unable to see Timothy traverse the same landscape which she had first conquered five years earlier. She offered her dismay that a little cooing baby could turn into a bellowing giant—her giant—in such a short period of time.  It made me think back to the almost nightly knock Timothy would deliver at Olivia’s bedroom door, followed by, in a little boy’s voice: “Goodnight Olivia, I love you.”

Timothy’s younger sisters—Phoebe and Annika—joined in later via Instagram. They each enumerated the many things they  would miss about him. Phoebe talked about the high school sporting events, the late night talks about books or television shows, and the many runs for fast food—Taco Bell mostly, but Arby’s if Phoebe was lucky….  Her Instagram pierced my heart—a collage of three pictures of the two of them hugging. Two from when they were very little, the other from real time—right before we left campus.

Annika share similar stories about her older brother. He had taken her often to Chipotle rather than his favorite—Taco Bell. Six years her senior, Timothy had truly become Annika’s big brother, not just a brother who was older, over the past few months.

Despite the sweetness from his sisters, perhaps the ultimate in sibling love was demonstrated by Timothy’s older brother Davis, who has already tapped him to play for his SBU intramural football team. Davis, as a senior and the one who knows everyone at SBU, Thursday was busily introducing Timothy to anyone he knew that had not yet met him. These boys will have an entire year together on campus. Now as men, I know it will be more special than any year they shared together in our home as boys.

So God comforted me atop that Z-Track Thursday.  He gave me this glimpse of His grace through my children’s love for each other. He blessed me with the fulfillment and realization of a forgotten desire. A desire expressed, perhaps even half-heartedly, during the doldrums of child rearing.  A hope expressed during a time when we often wondered if anything we did or said would ever matter.

Grace is like that. It appears and emerges and arrives when we least expect it.  In God’s storehouses it lays waiting, emerging in His perfect timing.

It rained down on me last Thursday, atop a green zero turn lawnmower, at the precise moment in time that I needed it most.

Father's Day

It is sometimes difficult to know how to approach Father’s Day.  Do I approach it from the perspective of a father, or do I approach it from the perspective of a son?

From the time we are old enough to know what’s going on, we most certainly approach Mother’s Day and Father’s Day from the perspective of a child. After all, we’re not yet parents, and our entire being revolves around our relationships with our parents.

This changes once we have children of our own. Then we become the focus of the day, so much so that our parents are the ones giving us the gifts. No child can really give a gift on those first few Father’s Days, unless you count soiled diapers and regurgitated baby formula. But that’s okay. Even these gifts are much appreciated and go with the wonderful new territory of parenthood.

As our parents age it seems we once again think of ourselves a little less as parents and come back to the role of the child. At least I realized this week that this seems to be true for me.

This realization came when I brought my dad down to my house Friday afternoon so that he could watch me plant a “garden.” I use the term garden loosely.  I had randomly during 2-3 shopping trips picked up a couple of tomato plants and several pepper plants. These had been sitting around in their pots and needed to be planted lest they die. As bad as this practice has been, I hadn’t even made it this far during the last eight or nine years.  So I asked my dad if he wanted to come down and help me plant my tomatoes and peppers, to which he semi-enthusiastically replied “yes.” And so my garden was born. 

My father recently gave up his apartment at the Foxwood Springs retirement center and for now, is residing in the skilled nursing center in the same complex.  This was a difficult step for a man who had been a very independent and healthy individual for most of his almost 95 years.

For as long as I can remember, until this year, my father had planted some sort of a garden. During my youth his plantings were sometimes monumental agricultural efforts, especially given the suburban context in which we lived. He would plant tomatoes (state fair quality), peppers, onions, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, and even strawberries. Some years he’d plant okra.   I never really understood why.

If I pause for a while, I can still see him out with his hoe weeding his garden. He would come home from work, and change into some bright red shorts while leaving on his undershirt (now we’d call it a “wifebeater”). He’d slip on a sort of hybrid loafer/tennis shoes which were always accented by his trademark knee-high dress stockings. He only had one style of socks—both equally placed into service for gardening or as his Sunday best. I never understood why he wouldn’t wear white, knee-high tube socks. My kids shake their heads at me today for what I’m sure are much more grievous fashion faux pas.

Few things characterized my father  as did his garden. It was one of the few constants in his life, and even as his living conditions became less independent he still managed to set out at least a pair of tomato plants each year. So it was sad for me to see him without a garden this year, and I invited him down so that we could both give each other a bit of a gift.

I checked him out of Foxwood Springs and we traveled the thirty or so minutes to my house. The trip had its challenges, but I eventually managed to situate him in his wheelchair near where he had recommended I plant the garden. His desired location was not necessarily mine, but on this day, this was his property to do with whatever he wished.

He talked to me about the necessity of pairing the plants of cross-pollination purposes. He discussed with me the proper separation between the tomatoes and peppers.  He kept telling me to  plant a pepper in a particular corner of the plot. I really did not want to plant one there, but I finally relented, reminding myself that this was his day and that he was blessing me by allowing me to sit as his feet.

I was struck by the reality of how sometimes a father’s instructions are met with, at best, indifference, and at worst, disgust. I thought about how many times I had been uninterested in the things that he was interested in, and regretted that I did not take more time to learn from him while I was young.

The shocking realization for me Friday is that not only did I not bristle at my father’s subtle and sweet  commands to “do this,” or “don’t do that,” I actually craved them. It seems as the time draws near where he will no longer be able to offer advice or instruction, I long for the thousand opportunities, squandered so many years ago, to learn from him.

After our afternoon of gardening I drove my father back to Foxwood Springs where he wheeled himself into the dining room for supper. I bid him farewell, and I drove back home to clean up the mess I had made that afternoon as he looked on.

It was disjointed afternoon in many ways, and one that produced a good bit of regret. But it was also a blessing, a realization that it was not too late to learn from my father.

One of the greatest gifts from our Heavenly Father is that of our earthly fathers. He gives a picture, although veiled, dim, and incomplete, of Himself. He shows us a shadow of His incomprehensible love and grace through giving us our earthly fathers.

And, perhaps best of all, He promises that what earthly fathers and sons could not do perfectly, He does perfectly as He redeems us and refines us, putting to death every regret, every wasted moment, and every squandered opportunity here on earth.

May the regret and waste and squander of this life dim as we behold Him face-to-face.

Three Men and Their Shared Stories

Melvin Finley Pacific Theater WWII

The three men convene each day at the skilled nursing dining room at Foxwood Springs Care Center. Each arrives at their table with varying degrees of assistance. Chester plods along with the aid of a walker. He is the most “ambulatory,” as they say. Roy slowly wheels himself down from his room at the end of the hall. He takes baby steps as he inches the wheels forward with his hands. Melvin, my father, usually waits to travel with assistance from one of the aids if my brother or I am not there. It appears he could manage the same sort of effort as Roy, if only he realized it.

The three men arrive at each meal like clockwork. Sometimes a fourth—Bob—joins them. Their routines may vary depending on the schedule from the therapy department at Foxwood Springs. Sometimes one will inexplicably not show—usually because they are a beneficiary of a trip to the independent living dining room to eat with a friend as they did when their health was better.

The table-side conversation is almost exclusively about food.  “What are they having tonight?” “Something called sir-fry.” “I don’t like fish.” “NO Shrimp!” “I only like beef.” “That needs some salt.” “What is b-i-s-q-u-e?” “I can too have that! No one’s said anything to me about my blood sugar!” “I don't know--they say it’s something called a water chestnut.”

Sometimes if I’m visiting my father at mealtime, I pull up a chair and join these gentlemen as they dine. I am never disappointed.

These men share more than meals together. They converge each day as joint heirs of sorts. Their stories, while unique and different in many, even most ways, share chapters and seasons that are rarely experienced by others of their gender.

Because the faculties of each man are diminished at least modestly, they fail to notice or adequately appreciate their shared stories. Or, possibly, their shared stories are too painful to dwell upon.

Each of the three men served our Country in World War II. Roy and my father both served in the Pacific. From what I can piece together, it appears they may have been in close proximity geographically during some of the fiercest battles in that Theatre. When I asked Chester where he was during the War, he thought for a while then exhaled “Germany.”

Each of these men obviously survived the War and returned home safely. Each raised families—Chester had four children; Roy and my father two. Each apparently lived enjoyable lives in post-War America.

That these men would share the story of war is not unique, not for a male born between 1915-25 in the United States. It is not even unique that they would live to come home. Although our casualties were significant, they did not outstrip the numbers of our survivors.

The uniqueness of their stories begins just ten or so years ago when their paths converged.  One-by-one their lives were brought back together inside an area of Foxwood Springs known simply as the Atrium. The Atrium is Foxwood Spring’s “memory care” unit.  It’s where patients reside that have Alzheimer’s disease or are experiencing other forms of dementia. It’s not, upon first entry, a pretty place. It can actually be quite a scary one, where the faculties and filters of the patients fade into oblivion and where they have been rendered a shell of their former selves.

But the Atrium, for all its frightfulness, is also a place where memories come back alive. It’s a place, as memories vanish, from last to first, that many are found changing their baby’s diapers or issuing orders to a battalion of soldiers. It’s in the Atrium that we rediscover the beauties long since dormant in the people  that Tom Brokaw dubbed “The Greatest Generation.”

And it was in the Atrium that these three men were brought together, not as patients, but as bright, sharp men in their late eighties and early nineties caring for the loves of their lives. Each of these men was forced, undoubtedly after much anguish and futile attempts at being sole caregivers, to entrust their brides to the care of Foxwood Springs and the Atrium staff.

This is an unusual story for a man, let alone for three men to share. Most men do not outlive their wives. Nursing homes possess a female-to-male ratio of up to 8:1. The men of our story here are conspicuous because they are male and they were/are still alive. Unfortunately each man buried his wife after they died at Foxwood Springs. After doing so they pressed on alone.

I don’t yet know Chester’s entire story. I assume it is similar to Roy’s and Dad’s. After their wives died they enjoyed some years of independent and vibrant living before experiencing their own declining health. Each now themselves have to be cared for in one way or another at Foxwood.

On Memorial Day we honor our dead and we honor our veterans. Today I’d like to honor these veterans while they’re still living. They’ve seen a lot. They’ve endured a lot. They did some things that most men don’t have to do. They've done other things that most men would be unequipped to do.

Please remember that within Foxwood Springs or any other senior care center or nursing home in the country, there resides not just aging bodies and minds, but stories. Therein reside our stories. Stories that help us to understand from where we come, and stories that in many ways solidify the hope in where we are going.

In the halls and beds of these places, look past the decay to the dignity of life. Honor the life well lived. Praise the perseverance. Treasure the moments that remain.

Whisper to them the simple words, “well done.”

Paradox, Romans 8, and Horseradish Slaw

Today was one of my best days, after a week that may have been one of the worst. There were many highlights. The morning started with a good cup of coffee. At lunch I enjoyed some of the best barbeque in Western Missouri. It was accented by a cup of savory horseradish slaw.  A little later I got to ride on a mower for a while, taking in some  belated scents of Spring. The day ended with a bit of a walk and a bit of a jog while my daughter rode along side me on her bike. It was epic stuff.

As the day draws to a close, the word that sticks with me though is paradox. We're all a bit paradoxical. I perhaps more than most. I love the State of Missouri and consider myself a Missourian through-and-through. But I went to graduate school at Kansas, taught there for a while, and somehow raised a bunch of rabid Jayhawk basketball fans. The two make odd cultural bedfellows, but somehow that combination has worked, although I would hardly say it defines me.

So after my morning cup of Joe, I loaded up my family--at least those still at home--and headed south to Osceola, Mo. We traveled much of the same route that William Lane's Jayhawkers traveled some 150 years ago when the sacked the rebel stronghold of Osceola. That September, 1861 evening of plunder and destruction and execution still rubs raw on some folks in these parts. It's strange to have roots in both places.

But our travels today were much nobler and less political. We visited the First Baptist Church of Osceola where our son Davis had been asked to preach as part of a preaching symposium sponsored by his church--Freshwater--in Bolivar, Mo.

It was a proud day for Sandee and me, and in the midst of Davis's outstanding sermon I was struck with another paradox of sorts. The son that I had taught was now teaching me. It was a powerful realization, that God had worked with what we had done, or more accurately worked in spite of it, and had grown Davis up into a man that could, and would, rightly divide the Word of Truth. Sandee and I had taught him to read, to tie his shoes, to ride a bike, to swing a golf club, and even some things of God, but here he was giving us new insight into the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans. It was a day that parents can only dream of when they're changing diapers and cleaning highchairs and administering timeouts or groundings and all the other things that in their midst seem like they will never matter.

But in a day of paradoxes, Davis confronted us with the ultimate paradox. He showed us anew that for us to be exalted, Another had to be humbled. He showed us that the road to Glory is paved with suffering. He showed us that perfect justice has its companion in grace. And he showed us that in breaking the chains of the law, Christ set us free to the law of the Spirit of life.

Paradox, Romans 8, and horseradish slaw. It was a great day. Perhaps the best.

Aunt Fredia

The Finley Children, Circa 1948.
L-R Melvin, Leta (Buck),
Fredia (Buck) & Gerald

She was a product of the Greatest Generation. And she was one of my final links to a world where things simply seemed to make more sense. Her lineage boasted Londoners and Kentuckians, both of whom eventually migrated to the lush, rolling terrain of the Osage River Valley in Western Missouri. She was my father's younger sister, and together they, with another older brother and another even younger sister, trickled into the world as Finleys during a nine year span that bridged World War I to the Roaring Twenties.

She and her three siblings came of age during the Great Depression, where the devastating economic consequences were real and realized, and not buoyed by artificial credit or fiat currency. Her father made a living in any way that would allow him to put food on the table. He sold bulk oils for Standard, started a trucking company, and owned a filling station--fixing flat tires that were casualties of the graveled Jefferson Highway. Later, when the Jefferson Highway was paved and became U.S. 71, her father let her sister and her roller skate out on the fresh hard-surfaced pavement, the only such surface to be found in the entire community.

Her father was a hard worker and a bit of an entrepreneur, but more than anything he just persevered. He and his family not only weathered the Great Depression from without, but also foes like tuberculosis from within. He and his resolute wife produced a powerful progeny, full of diligence, industry, loyalty, and grace.

My aunts, my uncle, and my father could barely find a place to hang their high school diplomas before being thrust into the vortex of the global strife brought on by World War II. Dad was shipped overseas-to Okinawa, to Leyte, to the Philippines. My uncle to San Diego, to protect us stateside.

By the start of the War both my aunts had married. The Finley sisters would marry a couple of brothers by the name of Buck. Thereafter, both would enjoy a sister-in-law who was also a sister. While the Finley and Buck men were placed in harm's way, the women stayed behind to engage in perhaps the tougher battle: to wait. To hold down the fort. To plant victory gardens or work in aircraft plants. To put their lives on hold while the world was on hold, and all-the-while wondering whether the loves of their lives would ever return.

God saw fit to bring the men back home, and they, like millions like them, all fairly promptly got to the business of baby booming. They basked in the new found hope and certainty that had alluded them in their youth.

By the time I came along, some 15 or so years later, they had established their lives and were enjoying a modest yet abundantly joyful Americana. My uncle by then had moved to California, but both my aunts had settled with the Buck men less than ten miles from our home. If I roll a highlight reel of childhood memories, my aunts a uncles are found throughout. Homemade ice cream...trout fishing trips...playing Pit by a campfire...blueberry pancakes...potato salad...fireworks extravaganzas...Nebraska-Oklahoma Thanksgiving Day football...popcorn balls...Easter Egg hunts...a hot cup of coffee from a styrofoam cup.

But as I grew older they grew old. My father's brother died in 1990. Uncle Lloyd Buck died in 1992; Uncle Willard Buck just 15 months later. But then there was a long period, maybe 15 years, where they--my father and my mother and my two aunts--grew even older together.

But in this fallen world death cannot be held long at bay. Aunt Leta, my father's youngest sister, died in late 2007. My mother followed her some eight months later.

Before my mother died she left us a little bit at a time as Alzheimer's disease compromised her faculties. She lived four years while dying a little bit each day. The long goodbye as some call it.

The effects of my mother's illness on my father were tremendous. But God had put someone on the earth with him some 85 years previous that He knew would help him when he faced one of his darkest times. That same little sister that he had maybe walked to first grade or looked after at the school dance would now look after him a bit.

My aunt Fredia took note that my father probably wasn't eating as well as he had been used to. She also noticed that there might have been a wrinkle or two in his clothes. So, she started making little Parkay cups of chili for placement in my father's deep freeze. She started taking in his shirts for ironing. And she would make the best lemon meringue pies known to man along with other baked goods to indulge my father's sweet tooth.

To Aunt Fredia I'm sure this was no big deal. And maybe any of us would've done that. But I don't think so. The love she had for my father and the bond they shared was forged in the unsettling times of the Great Depression and of the Great War. They had experienced a great deal together, and they would see each other through to the end.

My cousins buried my Aunt Fredia today. At 92 years her body finally succumbed to complications from a stroke suffered six weeks ago. A day or two after Aunt Fredia had been taken to the hospital, I stopped by my dad's apartment to check on him. I peeked in his refrigerator and saw two lemon meringue pies. I asked him where he had gotten those to which he replied, "Fredia stopped by the other day and dropped them off for me." It was undoubtedly one of the final acts of kindness and care she was able to perform.

They say that when both your parents finally pass away you are orphaned. I haven't asked my father about this, but I wonder if that feeling is experienced more acutely once your last sibling dies. Whether that's true or not for him, he is now the final link to an era that begin almost a century ago. He must finish his journey somewhat alone, with us, who know or understand little from whence he came.

I would be committing a great crime here to suggest, as I did in my second sentence, that things no longer make sense in this world but they did in 1920. In reality, the made little sense then either. Things might have been simpler but order and equilibrium and "sense" cannot be found in this earthly realm during any era.

Sense is not made from a baby boom, or from an Interstate system, or from an economic recovery, or even from crushing an evil empire. Sense is made only in eternity, before the Savior's face, where He makes all things new.

I take great comfort knowing my Aunt Fredia, tonight, is experiencing true Sense, for the first time, face-to-face.

Redemption Draws Nigh

The Christmas Story, as the fulfillment of thousands of year's of prophecy, is of course centrally about Jesus. Indeed, all of Scripture points to God's redemptive plan of salvation through the shed blood of his Son.

During this time of year we talk of Jesus's birth and of all the cast of characters that surround this momentous event. The Scriptures tell us much about Mary and the Shepherds and the Magi and the Heavenly Host and we even feel we know the innkeeper and the animals in the stable.

As a father I'm drawn to the man Joseph, Jesus's earthly father. We're not told a whole lot about Joseph. We know from Matthew Chapter 1 that he was "a just man" and that he dutifully listens to the angel's instructions not to put Mary away but to instead continue on to take her as his wife. In Matthew 2 we see he leads his family well from Bethlehem to Egypt and then finally to the region of Galilee as God protects Jesus from King Herod and lays the groundwork for his earthly ministry.

We can only speculate how Joseph felt about being Jesus's earthly father. Raising Jesus well, despite his possession of deity, must have been both an overwhelming responsibility and tremendous privilege.

The Christian artist Todd Agnew wrote and performs a song called "This is All I Have to Give." It's a song that explores what Joseph might have been thinking and feeling as he raised the God-Man Jesus. It contemplates Joseph's earthly stewardship of the humanity of the Messiah. Although not Inspired, it is a great song that captures the heart of a father. My favorite line: What can I offer you, my son, when you're the living breathing proof, of everything I hoped could possibly be true? 

If you are a father, or just know a father, I think you'll enjoy this song. I hope you especially enjoy how it seeks to point you to the Son. Finally, here's hoping that in Jesus Christ you find the manifestation of everything you thought could possibly be true.

Merry Christmas!

Follow this link to hear Todd Angew's "This is All I Have to Give" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12PnyIr1aYM

Happy Birthday Granny!

Dear Granny,
This morning at 1:00 a.m. I had very little to say about your birthday. Fatigue had set in and it seemed sufficient and appropriate to simply echo what Sandee had written. That was a mistake. You deserve better. A birthday wish that has grown into its own blog post. So here we go....

Happy 70th Birthday to my dear mother-in-law. It seems like just a short time ago that I darkened the door of the Hill household on Sycamore Ave. in High Grove Estates. Even though you sort of knew me, I was instantly welcomed by you and you loved me simply because your daughter had loved me first. This is a trait that you have passed on to her and one by which your grandchildren have been richly blessed.

You have been my biggest fan and, at times, my harshest critic (A River Runs Through It comes to mind:)). Through it all you have desired to see God conform me to the image of His Son.While we'll agree that He has had His work cut out for Him in this regard, you never doubted that I was not beyond the reach of His grace.

I have treasured our early morning cups of coffee as we discussed weighty theological matters and things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. I think we even managed to discuss golf and football during some of those mornings. These have been precious times. Undoubtedly we have both grown during these mornings, even though they were enjoyed in the midst of the slumber and sloth of the sleeping bodies that surrounded us.

You have never treated me as anything less than your own son, and have never made the distinction that so often marks the "in-law." As my own mother's faculties gradually left her, you were there to stand in the gap. You loved my parents as you loved your own, and treasured the special relationship you had with them. For that I will ever be grateful.

I know today is bittersweet. God has graced you with 70 years on this earth. Many of these years have been difficult, casualties of God's refining fire. The road that led you to Him was not without its pain. And the pain did not subside but perhaps was experienced more acutely after He brought you to Himself.

Today marks not only the anniversary of your birth but of another anniversary of sorts--a partial one marking Rusty's death. I'm guessing the pain after these nine months has only scarcely subsided, and in many ways is more raw as shock continues to give way to reality. In its aftermath you have had to endure other losses and even persecution from unlikely and unexpected places.

But today besides observing the conflicting anniversaries of Rusty's death and your 70 years, God gives us another reason to stop, relect and celebrate. Only God would have known 9 months ago that this day would also be Easter-Resurrection Sunday. How gracious of Him, that in the bittersweet day that is a combination of gratitude and sorrow and grace and grief and confusion that He brings your gaze back to His son. He brings you back to a place that you never left, but one that at times has perhaps has been difficult to flee to. A place that you knew was true  but one that felt dangerous to cling to.

I pray today and in the days ahead you can cling to the all-sufficiency of Jesus. What a testimony to other believers and an enduring legacy to your grandchildren that you can speak and live and glory in the Cross of Christ in the midst of your darkest times. He indeed makes all things new and is with us despite these momentary afflictions that will dim under the brightness of His eternal glory.

I still believe you will outlive me. My recent experience in the heart cath lab did nothing to shake this belief:)! 

But in the meantime, I look forward to as many years as God sees fit to bless us with. I will look to you as an example of how to look to Jesus in one's darkest hours. And I trust he will keep us both close by His side until we see Him face-to-face.

I Love You Granny! Happy Birthday!

A Stewardship of Grief

,

This Christmas I sit in a family room that I’ve sat in countless times over a ten year period. It’s a spacious room that is flavored by the American South, football, and the nine grandchildren with which my mother- and father-in-law have been blessed. I’ve watched several  lifetime’s worth of football in this room, slept in recliners here, played games here, changed diapers here, and opened presents here. I’ve laughed here and I’ve cried here.  And I’ve laughed until I’ve cried here.

This Christmas there is a void in this room. Absent is my brother-in-law, Rusty, who left us abruptly early one morning last July. He is conspicuous here by his absence.

It was in this room that I saw him last. This past May we shared the better part of 24 hours here.  We were sitting near each other when he rose, announced he was leaving, hugged us, and quickly disappeared out the door--bound for Panama City Beach. I never saw him again.

Now as I sit here I see remnants of Rusty all around me. When I arrived this past Thursday, I was greeted by a nearly life-sized cardboard cutout of him, holding a football, wearing a little kid’s Chiefs football helmet, and striking a shirtless Heisman Trophy pose.  Although I laughed when I saw it, a big part of me wanted to tackle it to the ground--the reasons for which I cannot fully articulate.  

Rusty’s presence envelopes this room.  Above a sofa is the Peyton Manning autographed jersey Rusty gave my mother-in-law Toni on Christmas Day four years ago.  Even though he wasn’t necessarily a fan of Peyton or of Tiger Woods, he would honor his mother by indulging her with memorials to these athletes, simply because she loved them.

There are other photos here of Rusty. There are three that share a common frame which are of him caddying for my son Davis in the Missouri Junior Amateur Golf Championships. That was a special time, and it gave us Rusty at his best.

Beyond these photos are more memories. Just two years ago, we laughed when I told him this room was the “Island of Misfit Dogs” because of all of Toni’s dogs that we always worked around during Christmas. We enjoyed teasing Toni about her dogs. 

There are countless other memories—from in this room, or the property in general, and even from another  house in the same town that my in-laws called home. There were times  fishing for largemouth in the lake, shooting my son Timothy’s new .22 rifle, playing touch football, shooting hoops, and the time Rusty dressed up as Santa Claus, fooling me maybe but not our daughter Olivia.

Being back in this room has made Rusty’s death more real. For several months and for a variety of painful reasons, I’ve had to think of Rusty in terms of an “Estate” or a “decedent” or according to some other sterile terms that have been forced upon us.

So in a way grief is rekindled here, or maybe allowed to set in for real at last. It’s a boil that wants to be lanced, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Grief has to be experienced in its own time for each individual and it seems rarely will leave us in one fell swoop. Instead, it leaves us like air through a small pin-hole in a balloon. And at that, it doesn’t leave us steadily or in equal increments. Sometimes we take great pains to suppress it. Other times we may give it permission to do its work. I realize that it will never be gone completely or for good.

I’ve been thinking about writing this essay or blog post or whatever you want to call it for a couple of days now. But when I thought about it I would find it too personal or too painful or I would be concerned how painful it might be to others. I started it then walked away from it at least a couple of times.  After all, Christmas should be a happy time, why taint it for others?

What’s prompted me to actually finish, however, is the Christian concept of being a steward of one’s grief.  The idea of being a steward is to watch over or protect or keep undefiled something that belongs to another. It took me some time to fully grasp that my children were a stewardship of mine. They are God’s, and it’s my job to watch over them, to protect them, teach them, until they are in a sense “given back” to God (not that they were ever out of his sight).

So to look at grief as a stewardship, I must acknowledge that it has been given to me in some sense. This is hard. We want to think of grief as something random, as something that has just been dropped in our laps, or as something we’ve just ended up with, not something that may have been delivered  by a benevolent God.

I believe to  properly steward  my own grief I must accurately give you an account for the hope that is in me (I Peter 3:15). To do so, however, is painful. It requires an honest look at the object(s) of my affections and the object of my faith and how these often take my focus away from where they should be.

But graciously, the painful look at where I’ve fallen short takes me by grace back to where the focus must be redirected.  Such an assessment causes me to cling to that which is unseen. It helps me to recognize that what is seen is transient—a vapor—but what is unseen is eternal (II Corinthians 4:18).

This weekend I realized how much I miss my brother-in-law and how I’d really like to understand and explain his life and death. But I don’t believe, this side of eternity, that I’ll be able to do that. And if I’m honest with myself, I know that doing so is not of lasting significance. Even less significant is the management of my own personal sorrow. What is paramount is extoling the virtues of the One true Creator and Redeemer.

As I said previously, I thought writing about this might not be appropriate for Christmas. But what I’ve realized is this is the absolute best time to write about it.  In I Timothy 1:15 the Apostle Paul says: “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

So Jesus, from birth, was on a mission. The story of Christmas cannot be separated from the story of Easter. Because of the curse of all men through Adam, sin entered the world and sin led to death (Romans 5:12). But Jesus Christ came, as a baby, then lived the life that we could not live and died the death that we should have died. This is the gospel, and it is my only hope to make sense out of anything. It is the only way I can steward my grief.

The gospel is not simply a crutch or spin, but is the message that undergirds everything. And, as author Jerry Bridges once said it is the only essential message in all of history. I believe this message, although sometimes difficult, is the answer to Rusty’s life and death, and to my life and death as well. Christ Jesus came to redeem a fallen and broken world.

The Christian artist Michael Card wrote a song about his grandfather called For F.F.B. Michael’s grandfather was a country preacher and died while Michael was quite young, perhaps even before he was born.  In the song For F.F.B., he concludes with a recording from one of his grandfather’s sermons. The recording is weak and scratchy but its message summarizes all that I’m trying to say here:

"I have no hope, except that I believe that Christ died for my sins, according to Scriptures. I expect to swing out into eternity…on that."