A Flash of Life with the Roar of Death

Tonight we decided to go out to dinner. It's been a long time since we have done that as a family. We went to a small tavern in West Seneca that we'd never been to before. It was very expensive and the food was mediocre but it seems like we were encouraging to the waitress, and everyone had a fine time. 

The menu was very light and the food took forever because the restraint had a gas leak on Monday and it's still not fixed, so they are down to a bare bones kitchen. Then, partway home I stopped to get some gas. I asked the lady in the 7-11 "Can I get gas on number 10?" And she said, "Yes, you can do that here." It was funny. The gas took probably 5 minutes. 

A few minutes down the road from the gas station, I saw a flash streak across the road and then I saw some shrapnel and a wheel bouncing toward my van. In pulled over quickly and my wife told me to call the police. We had just watched, in a flash of brilliant life, a horrific accident that had happened right next to us. A pickup truck driving about 120 mph had slammed into a power pole, then ricocheted off a tree, and rolled through someone's front yard and stopped. I tried to dial 911 and gave the phone to my wife, then I ran over to the smoking truck across the street. I was the first one on the scene. I looked all around and found the driver, laying on his back mostly outside the truck with his foot caught in between the seat and the dash. He had some streaks of blood in his face and arms and he was not moving. The truck looked like it had been hit by a wrecking ball. I leaned down to check his pulse and felt nothing. His chest was not moving. There was an alarm going off on his watch that sounded like an blood sugar / insulin alert. 

My whole family watched the accident happen. It happened 50' from us. My kids had front row seats. And we prayed. We all prayed. The police arrived and started doing CPR immediately, then the fire trucks, then the paramedics. They broke his foot to get him out of the truck and kept up with the CPR for a long time. They had a CPR machine, they had a defibrillator, and they went to town on this guy. There was no one else in the truck. My kids saw the whole thing. After a while we were able to leave, barely avoiding a downed power line and about 2 dozen emergency vehicles. 

All the questions. All the feelings. Sadness, grief, hope. I got a nudge from the Spirit to pray for him, that he would come back, that that was God's plan. So I did. And my daughter also said she felt that he would make it and God would heal him. All my kids were in the van, praying and processing, while I was at the scene trying to be of help (and also praying and processing). 

God had us go to that particular restaurant on this particular night for a purpose. He ordained it so that ths restraint would take forever with their food, and then we would need gas on the way home and have to stop for a few minutes. He ordained that we should be right in that place right at that time. And I felt for a dead man's pulse, and there wasn't any, and I prayed for him to come back to life. I am looking forward to talking to the police when they call for a statement so I can ask them if he made it. They are still working on him when we left. 

The man was flying through the intersection at about 120 mph. He barely missed another vehicle and then slammed into a power pole and a tree, going straight through the intersection. The alarm on his watch that was going off when I found him makes me think that he had passed out behind the wheel and was having a medical emergency. But that medical emergency and him being passed out saved our lives. My wife pointed out that if he had been coherent and had course corrected before or after hitting the power pole, he would have slammed straight into our van and probably killed our whole family. 

I don't know why God ordained all of this to happen tonight, but I do know that He is good, and that we may have just been there to pray and to cover that man and his family and those EMT's. I don't doubt that this will be a core memory for all of my children that they will hold on to for the rest of their lives. And He will use it to bring Him glory. 

Life is short. The end comes fast. Don't waste the time you're hear. When something happens around you, don't pass by on the other side of the road. Dive right in, depending on the love and power of God to give you whatever you need to face whatever you'll face. 

And pray with me for that man, for his family, and for my kids - that they will see the power and purpose of God in this, one day. He is good. He works all things together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). It's a war out here. You can stick your head in the sand or you can run into the battle. With Jesus, we have nothing to fear and glory for God to gain. 

Driving Through Fields At Night

The gunshots were loud and many. Bop. Bop bop bop bop....bop. They resounded through the dark night in the small farming town like a revolution was just getting underway. The phone rang. It was the man with the gun, the man who lived next door. "We were attacked by coyotes," he said. "They got almost all of my chickens, and my dog is missing. Can you please look for my dog?" And then the line went dead.

I slowly put on my shoes and walked outside into the still night air. The gunshots had stopped. It was quiet. The cicadas were clicking at a low steady hum, but they could be much louder. The coyotes could be anywhere. And it sounded like a large pack. I listened to the dark night. I heard very little. I did not hear the yelping or howling I would expect. I grew up around coyotes and have heard them. The ones that live around here are eerily quiet. And they kill chickens right in your backyard. While you are at home. They are bold. 

I looked into the darkness toward the creek and saw some orange glowing eyes looking back at me. They were much higher than a coyote's would have been. Probably raccoons in a tree. I got in my Jeep quickly and closed and locked the door. Then I turned on the headlamps. Then I turned on the brights. I searched the woods by the creek and saw nothing. I slowly drove the Jeep around by the barn where we kept our chickens. I saw nothing. I stopped with my headlights aimed down a long run of trees that used to be a road from the house to a pond where a kid drowned 50 years ago. Nothing was moving.

I drove around the side of the barn and into the hayfields. I ran my headlights across the half mile long treeline on the edge of the field, half expecting to see a pack of coyotes surrounding the body of my neighbor's dog. Thankfully I saw nothing. The feeling in the fields was eerie. It was a dark, dark night. There was no moon. My kids have seen things out here before. Things that they couldn't explain. Things that were not coyotes. I drove around the outside of the hazelnut grove and looked into the woods and the marsh down the hill, as far as I could see in the low light. I was glad I did not get stuck in the hazels

I followed the same path back to the house through the ankle high hay that I had taken out. It was a winding path. I saw nothing and I was glad that I saw nothing. I went back in the house and locked the doors. Later I learned that my neighbor had found his dog about a quarter mile down the street in the opposite direction from our house, limping. He also found the body of a coyote that he had killed when shooting. They are bad this year. And they are quiet. 

The lonely tracks (a place description)

Blackness scours the sky with lashes of silver sun streaks. The hills rise, a dark pallid green in the failing light, bumbling like drunks into the jagged rocky slopes of Mt. Reneir. The tracks lie heavily -- steel and cedar, an endless line of dead immigrants and convicts -- in rutted channels dug out of the hillside. They wind around some smaller peaks and disappear near the muted purple remains of the euthanized day. The treeline at the edge of the rocky cliffs is patterned with old-growth firs and younger quaking asps, at once dying and begetting, generations of sentinels casting shadows over a hushed domain.

No idea what happens there - seems like a pretty nice place though.

Tonight, tonight

We'll crucify the insincere tonight. How about that?

What's really going on?

There's a broken window in our dining room that I broke when trying to get it open one evening about nine months ago. I haven't fixed it yet. It's covered with a piece of cardboard and sealed with blue painter's tape. We recently quelched an insane black fly problem in the kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom, mostly due to the fact that I bought screening materials but have not screened the windows yet. I have gained 50 pounds in the last year, which I attribute to stress and lack of time - 'school takes all my time' (which is B.S.). I keep telling myself that I will be graduating in just a couple of months and then I'll get back in shape. Some resolution. The truth is I can't wake up in the mornings and am often a few minutes late to work.

I have not done any kind of daily devotional Bible reading in months. My eczema has been pretty bad this summer. Sometimes I wonder if I should correlate the two.

Today a big rig dumped an entire truck load of wet asphalt across three lanes of the only freeway that will get me home. I moved about four miles in two hours.

But on one very awesome note, my wife and kids have found a way to get along together. They discovered Montessori homeschooling, and everyone is benefiting greatly from it. Amazingly (although I'm at work while this goes on), I am benefiting the most. The kids are happier and a little better behaved. This has dropped a great weight from my shoulders where I had always blamed myself for their constant misbehavior.

We've been getting in Bible time with the kiddos most nights, and every night when I put them to bed I read them six or seven chapters of the Bible while they calm down and try to go to sleep. In the last few weeks we have read Job, Mark, Deuteronomy and tonight we read half of Romans. Even if this is way beyond them now, I hope the questions and comments will start flooding out of them soon. I plan to keep this up. It's probably the only good thing I have ever done for them.

I told my kids tonight that I am so sick of hearing them complain when I put them in their beds. After I put out all the fires, they actually knocked out with little hullabaloo. I hope you're sick of me doing the same thing. From now on, the complaints department is closed.

I've had enough of myself too. If you see me complain again, remind me to give myself a spanking.

Tonight, tonight.

What things are you sick of yourself for? Lay them at the cross. Jesus died for those things too.

You reap what you sow

I'm a good driver. A great driver even. According to the DMV and my insurance company, I'm an ACE. I haven't gotten a ticket in 8 years or had an accident in 6.

And then...

I got pulled over twice this morning. Within 3 hours of each other. The first one gave me a speeding ticket. I was doing 78 in a 55 (but he only wrote me for 70). The second one let me go. I actually wasn't doing anything wrong the second time.

I started looking at my arms. Has living in the desert darkened my skin? Does my car match a stolen vehicle? Why did I get pegged this morning? And then it hit me. It hit me with vigor and clarity.

Amos. I listened to Amos yesterday while driving to work. He's a minor prophet but a major hitter. He accuses the nation Israel of all of their heinous sins before God, and worst of all, accuses them of being unrepentant. He tells them that because of their sins, "prepare to meet your God". He gives them consequences. He explains God's justice system a little more clearly.

After that was over I was like, "that was heavy". Then I turned on the radio to a Christian Talk station I listen to every so often to hear pastor Lance Sparks quoting James and Paul and others in the New Testament about how sin leads to death and all sin carries consequences, whether or not it is repented of and forgiven by God. Examples? They abound. You rob a grocery store: you go to jail. You curse at your spouse in anger: your kids hear it, and then they turn out just like you. You shirk your homework: you don't pass. You don't spend quality time with your family: they flounder and sink, and you live unfulfilled. Whether or not these crimes are forgiven, the consequences remain the same. The Bible says it very clearly: You reap what you sow.

I have been unintentional lately about many things. I have rarely read my Bible (I'm just too busy...), have not spent much quality time with my family, have used homework as an excuse to get out of doing things and then hardly ever actually do my homework in those times, I have been hit or miss with praying for my family and my neighbors each day, let Bible time with the kids fall off the cliff, etc. And now, emergency after emergency at home. A miscarriage. Bleeding and disobedient children. A frustrated and drowning wife. Clogged sinks. Extended family problems. Hospital bills. Bank overdrafts. And now, traffic tickets, traffic school, the stress of being pulled over twice in three hours.

After I said "thank you" to the gentleman who had handed me a citation and shook his hand, I thanked God for the reminder. There are consequences to my actions. This was a very minor one. I needed a slap on the wrist. I deserve a hell of a lot more than that. Thank you Lord for your mercy and for always seeing me through, even when I am keeping you at arm's length you find a way to tap my shoulder and bring me back.

What kinds of things remind you that God is in control and doesn't let you get away with things?

Dusty Acres

The tundra desert

Wild and damned

Dusty acres of promising hurt

A cemetery peace

That kills the unfortified pride of convenience

The hills, near and noble,

Show none of the telltale signs of life -

The green pines polyestered by controlled burns -

Only the detritus of ground squirrels and jacks

And, sometimes, their gutted remains

Tumbleweeds and stark black ravens

Coyotes and saguaros

The twisted Joshua tree

With its rough hewn trunk of thorny sinews

Gnarled boughs like bearded necks and prickly death heads above

Flies and ants and yucca moths

And dozens of miles of flat arid sand

Old dead tires surround the fence posts in piles

And the wood cross stands where something

God knows what

Is buried

But the people are the kind who would tell you

If they knew

Life springs forth from the homestead

Working people, tired people

And children who know nothing of work

To pitch iron shoes at galvanized posts

To run dogs in endless circles

To mine the sand for common antiquities

Treasures of buried rubbish from long ago

To criticize God’s paintbrush

The separation of colors, the orange, red, vermillion

A tapestry of sunset on a one hundred mile afternoon

To live the solitary promise that deadness brings

The two smoking barrels of urbanity

And suburbanity

Have discharged those misshapen

And grizzly-haired, those of redder hue

Sojourners and naturalists

Hippies and nudists

Drunkards and libertarians

Those filled with wanderlust and a desire to live

Within their means

To this northern barren

This land of freedom

The rivers run north here

Not south

Resurrection in the vastness of the sky

And green grass grows up amidst the golden foxtails

The dusty roads lead farther into renaissance

Than most will dare to go

These days

As I sit here and wrestle with all of the things going through my head right now (housework, homework, kids, family Bible time, bills I'm not sure how we're going to pay, background investigation, work, housewarming party tomorrow) I realize that my trash can is starting to overflow. Crumpled up papers, shrink wrap and plastic ties, and a lot of fast food detritus. Stress makes you eat crappy. Period. The more you have to do, or the more you think you have to do, the less time you spend actually doing the things you have to do, and the more time you spend  thinking about all the things you have to do. See how that works?

I have no system. No plan. No calendar for how all this goes together. No routine. I have individual plans for different things. Little routines for work, for bills, etc. I have no overarching organizational theme in my life that holds it all together. Nothing telling me that I can do multiple things in one day, and this is how. I get to work and wonder: what is the most important thing I can do right now? Supply requests? Order? Cycle count? Deliveries? Cleaning for God's sake? (No, definitely not cleaning.) If I don't come up with an answer fast enough, I end up doing homework, or checking my email. Not to say that I shirk my work. I don't. I get it done, and I get it done fast. But my default is indecision, and indecision leads to wasted time. So today I am deciding to decide. What things are important to me? What things are more important than others? Write them down in a list, in order of importance, and then live my life in that order.

Just like in the movie Mission of the Shark (the one about the men of the USS Indianapolis who were in the water for five days before they were rescued after their ship was sunk, if you haven't seen it), the men are too spread out in the water right now. They need to be closer together. There needs to be some ORDER here. Because what happens when men are too spread out? They get eaten by sharks. And that's a fact. I've seen it. And there are all kinds of sharks out there. Loan sharks, creditors, divorce lawyers, bankruptcy lawyers, IRS auditors, etc. Too many to count. Some are great whites and some are sand tigers, but they all have bloody teeth. Today order will be brought in this court. Justice will be done. And my old ways will probably be casualties of war. Oh well. At least they'll die quickly, and won't get eaten by sharks.