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February 10, 2016August 28, 2017

Train

Warm the bench.

The high, red-brick gymnasium overshadowed our school’s single-story classrooms.

Parked on the cold bench with fellow player-wannabees, my gaze dropped to the tennis-shoed polio foot at the end of my left leg.

My rear end’s the best thing this bench ever saw come its way. I’ll keep this wood plank warm all season.

I looked up to the scrimmage happening on court. My melancholy eased. Look at those Petit brothers. Perspiration glistened on their lithe ebony forms. Wow, amazing their fitness. . . and their moves. Effortless.

So it seemed.

* * * * * * * *

A common link binds me presently to four athletes.

Colton, the youngest and his sister, Tara (high school junior) practice lobbing free throws. Every day. They scramble after rebounds for their teams. Moments later their coach barks, Work it inside, move the ball inside!

After practice the siblings breeze along four miles of dirt road to their Oklahoma farm home – to chores, and homework. To laughs with family at the wood-burning stove.

The third athlete in the quartet – Luke, the ninth-grader – schools in Kenya. Luke keeps fit for what’s up next. . . Rugby, volleyball? Calls made in the game of rugby land strangely on American ears. . . scrum awarded – collapsing ruck. . . Given the sport’s intensity, ‘Rugby-moms’ are known to gasp at certain calls – bleeding wound. . .

Grace rounds out athlete number four. On the Congo playing field rigorous training tunes her ears to soccer calls. Corner kick – yellow card. On it goes.

I thrill taking in games, studying pics of these my grand-athletes. Some nearby, some far.

My mind revisits the Petit brothers of Preston High. And the term so readily voiced before. Effortless.

No. The thing that is going on out there – over the squeaking shoes – the pivots, the fakes, the twirling leaps. Nothing accidental’s going on out there. Not a thing.

My thoughts shift to another dimension. To life. All of life.

Whatever goes on with a person that actually counts. Language acquisition, architecture, athletics – or that makes for exceptional living – those actions demand something. On-purpose, precise, repetitive action. While dreaming, hoping.

My fabulous four athlete-grandkids practice. They’re keeping fit. They train..

I’ll never suit up for the NBA. Or charge down a soccer field defying blockers and goalies. I won’t (God forbid) kick shins – or have shins kicked – in a rugby scrum.

Every athlete has an aim.

In the contest of life every follower of Jesus has an aim. Really, an aim beyond the highest aspirations of any physical athlete. The aim is dual in nature, fashioned amazingly God himself.

Being transformed by renewing the mind, the way we think.

Let Christ be formed in you – our becoming like him. In word and action.

Great, we say. So. How’s this done? How?

Good news it is possible. He will help us.

To train, to practice, to be made fit. Till new ways become, not ill-fitting, but natural. Something we call – as Jesus did – the light burden – the easy yoke.

I lean down. Cold bench, warm bench. . . no matter. Lacing my shoes I cock my ear to the coach’s call,

Time to train.

March 1, 2016August 28, 2017

Nearness

Really honey, no pain meds? First Aid didn’t send you home with some?

Well, I winced, it didn’t hurt that much after they worked on me so I told them I wouldn’t need any pills. That the anesthetic might wear off hadn’t occurred to me.

Pain – like life – isn’t meant to be handled alone. Just Ann’s presence that night eased the hurt of my traumatized finger. A pain-consoler may not dwell under the same roof. Nearness comes often through a hand-held device in easy reach – the call or text summoning a friends voice – and the pain is hushed. Even when these are not available, we remember the ONE. Jesus – our “present help in trouble” – gets pain. With such friends, the injury’s cause – self-inflicted or other – doesn’t matter. Mercy makes room. Comfort shows up. I was quite the doofus earlier that day.

Bounding over hardware, Francis reached me in two strides. Seizing my wrist, he squeezed evenly. The blood flow, shooting spurts of red a moment earlier, eased.

Here Jerry, do this. I’ll shut the machine down.

I took over my co-worker’s self-assigned medic role, clasping my right wrist. My work-partner, Francis, returned in seconds. Now, we want to get you to First Aid.

***

Reproductions department had moved me to their shop in the massive aeronautics plant. The square, open room, seasoned with inky aromas, pulsed with print-machine rhythms. I had come to draw odd comfort from the omnipresent, clickity-clack movements of the press room.

I had wrapped up the final job order on my multilith press for the day, clearing away some stragglers of unspent paper. Standing before the unit, I dialed down the ink roller speed, then took up a rust-red work cloth and cleaning solution bottle.

Safety measures can’t be over-stressed, we’d been told. Always look out for things that might catch on moving parts, a supervisor had once warned. Like clothing. One machine choked a fellow when ink rollers swallowed his neck tie all the way up. Nasty.

This day clothing didn’t play a role. Still, carelessness did.

I’ll just wrap the rag around this forefinger, spray some solution, slide the cloth slowly – forward and backward along the roller, clearing the ink. . . I hadn’t factored the exposed gear rotating steadily near the ink rollers. Its teeth seized my cleaning rag. My finger-tip followed – yanked into the gear and bringing the cog to a halt. Less than a minute later Francis was hustling me down to First Aid.

I lay face up on a black vinyl table. Someone positioned a right-angle extension to support my arm. My finger end was a grated mess. Head turned its direction, I caught an ink-scent off my work-shirt. The image of a nurse clicking a needle’s syringe caught my attention. I clenched my teeth. The four injections into my finger drew pain I’ve seldom known. Sweat-beads sprung to my face in the cool room.

This is to deaden the pain while treating your finger, a voice consoled.

Really?

The night at our apartment went by slowly. With some whimpering. But tolerable.

Ann was near.

March 18, 2016August 28, 2017

Pecan

How do you say it again, Jerry? This word?

I understood the reason prompting it but fielding such a question on my home town’s Main Street felt strange.

With a smile their way I began.

We spell it P-E-C-A-N. Pronouncing it once, then a second time, I continued. Notice the two syllables. We stress the last one – in this part of the country, anyway. Now, I coaxed them, your turn; let’s hear you say it.

In his Asian accent, one of these our new friends, offered up his version, Pih-Kahn.

Great!, I praised him. Spoken like a true Sooner!

A true what?

***

Our group of twenty – a mix of Tulsa area volunteers and university students from abroad – lined the sidewalk to sample the largest desert-serving they may ever see. Our campus ministry group had planned the June outing. To introduce our bright, young visitors – most engineering students – to a piece of North American culture. And a piece of pie thrown in.

Xiao’s spoon entered the Styrofoam dish for her second bite, Mm, this is a very new flavor to me!

As we meandered the town square, taking in music, seeing parents laugh as children ran squealing to an amusement-park ride, my thoughts wandered to an acreage north of town. A memory there.

***

Boys, there’s a way to earn yourselves a little spending money. Pretty easy. We turned to our father’s voice. The idea he offered was straight-forward and – like our dad himself – sensible. Tim’s dark eyebrows lifted, signaling his eagerness to give it a try. As little brother, I was fully in.

Next afternoon we visited a pecan-merchant at the west end of town – Dunhams – our half-filled burlap bag in tow.

Bring your gunny sack over this way, boys. The man moved to a set of scales. Let’s see now, he pondered, weighing our mini-crop. Taking up a pencil he calculated, At twenty-eight cents a pound. . .

Rewarded for our labors, our spirits buoyed, we all but strutted from the store. Pedaling the bicycle home with me balanced on the handle bar, my brother spoke and I could hear the smile in his voice behind me. Some of mother’s pecan pie is out on the table. A glass of milk will go good with it, huh. My mouth moistened.

I was still smiling when the student’s voice returned me to Okmulgee’s Pecan Festival.

Jerry, do we visit inside the old building now – where you said there is more about culture?

Sure. First, let’s take a look at the marker over here.

One of the newer-arrived students still navigating American English, studied the plaque. Her words came with some effort, but deliberate, distinct. Mm, I think I can pronounce, ‘Creek. Nation. Council. House.’ I nodded and she went on, Now, how do you say this word, M-u-s-c-o- – One of our volunteers came to her aid.

Directing our special guests to the city’s venerable landmark, I mused.

By bedtime tonight they’ll have plenty to write home about.

March 22, 2016August 28, 2017

Evidence of a Resurrected Carpenter

There in the Africa savannah where flat-topped acacia trees dot the landscape, a young cattle-tender was seized by thieving attackers. He tried to seek refuge among his father’s herd, the bounty his assailants were after. The horrifying moments raced like short distance sprinters toward the finish tape until the boy was seized and beaten to death by these neighboring tribal warriors.

When I learned the news, words like heartless and senseless sprang to my young missionary mind.

In the thinking of the tribesmen who had slain the boy merely for his father’s cows, there was nothing senseless about their deed. For generations nomadic lore had dictated that all cattle were created by God as a gift for their people. Any and all means to retrieve what was rightfully ours was deemed justifiable. The retrieving of cattle was in fact, to them, a kind of duty.

Pastor Nathan was alerted of his young brother’s death by the high-pitched wailing of nearby village women. Afterwards, through the grapevine medium common to rural Africa, word of the tragedy made its’ way to our mission station some miles away.

I mounted my orange and aging Suzuki dirt-bike. With fidgety forefinger and thumb I ran my helmet strap through the cinch ring and secured it beneath my chin. Pastor Nathan needed a friend nearby – even a relatively new friend whose culture and land were much different from his own. I hoped to somehow be such a friend.

Aware of an involuntary tensing of my eyebrows, I tried to push back my growing sense of lack. Comforting loved ones who’ve experience the quiet and expected death of, say, an aged family member can be daunting enough. But this defied classification.

What will I say an hour from now once my piki-piki is brought to a dusty halt and I enter the humble, thatch-roofed hut? How do I myself digest such troubling news. How do I frame words to comfort a grieving young pastor whose brother just lost his life in this brutal way?

Bwana Ah-see fee-weh. Nathan, only barely my junior, offered a warm smile – greeting me with the Swahili words, “the Lord be praised”. Though the most common of greetings among believers, the words seemed unusual (maybe less than fitting?). We were near a tree at the elevated ridge of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley. The Lord be praised?

Nathan was a modest and gentle spiritual shepherd, entrusted with the care of a small Christian community. He had labored as pastor just under two years – this with little formal Bible training. But Nathan’s heart was rooted in Christ’s love and in his clear calling to serve.

We sipped hot chai and spoke in a softer, more subdued manner than usual. Finally I rallied my best voice to offer comfort. This would not be easy.

In unusual irony, Nathan sympathized with me in my struggle. His eyes conveyed compassion. He leaned forward in his simple, primitive-like chair. Its crude design was more suited for one given to half-reclining than to sitting.

Brother Jerry, he began, I want to say something.

It was my turn to lean in and listen.

I forgive these men who have done this thing. I forgave them actually once I learned of the sad event.

Was I hearing correctly? Not a trace of insincerity belied his calm, low voice. The faint tilting of my head along with some puzzlement in my look provoked him onward.

I know these people do not understand the badness of what they have done. They do not know. They do not understand. They need Jesus and I have begun praying for them that they should know him and gain his peace.

Listening to this humble shepherd-leader I was perplexed. I felt myself deeply moved. And I was suddenly aware.

I was aware of the presence of God. Here, just beneath the long grass weavings forming the roof of this Kuria home. I was seated in Solomon’s magnificent, newly-dedicated temple of the Living God. I was next to Isaiah, trembling at heaven’s voices crying Holy, Holy in the hallowed sanctuary. And the earthen floor under my feet might have easily dictated with hushed voice that I remove my shoes.

A reversing of roles had occurred. I, the missional teacher had come to give comfort. I sat voiceless now as the young, ill-educated, near-impoverished pastor had stepped up – so to speak – to his lectern. His non-sermon to me, this audience of one, conveyed with conviction and decisive action the message of an ancient, extravagant grace. Radical forgiveness issuing from one baptized in mercy.

The Lord be praised. Indeed.

March 30, 2016August 28, 2017

Spice

Chutzpah. “ho͝otspə”

The Yiddish word even sounds brash. It’s meaning – supreme self-confidence, nerve, gall, audacity, boldness.

While chutzpah doesn’t fully define Claire, some days it seems close. Her fabulous mother – my daughter-in-law who may carry her own chutzpah gene – recounts. . .

On our way home today in terrible traffic, I was driving like a boss — only centimeters between myself and the many cars around me coming in all directions – maneuvering to make a near-impossible left turn.

Knowing I was doing a great job, I nevertheless voiced to Claire, “Driving in Kinshasa is not my thing”.

Claire responded, THAT’s for sure – Which left mom questioning with a teasing glint,

“What do I have to do to impress this girl?

Such spunk, tempered by her wise parent’s guidance, could well cinch feats in life for Claire the more faint-hearted may only dream of.

***

Relational

Here, grandpa, I’ll take that inside for you. Grandma, let me carry that. The middle child – and indeed his siblings as well – from early childhood volunteered aid to the seniors come to visit.

With daily livestock duties at the family farm, tending to his restaurant job and his full college load, T.J.’s still keenly attentive to relationships. How ya’ll doing? escapes his lips as much as any phrase.

***

Industrious

Saturday – Easter Eve, my wife’s birthday – arrived. While she busied herself in the kitchen with granddaughter and daughters, I sat visiting with my two sons-in-law and grandson, Travis. Our most recently-added son-in-law responded to questions about the small brood of ducklings being nurtured at he and his new bride’s Tulsa home.

Travis, second-born of our grandkids – now married and parenting a fine toddler – ably engaged the discussion,

Hundreds of my baby chicks made it through. The incubator care I gave them made a difference.

Travs’ poultry enterprise began when – in diapers still – he shadowed his mother to the chicken-house, tending to his chirping, feathered buddies. Overseeing the full process fell to him in short order. As did other outdoor tasks, requiring a sharp mind and a ready body.

Three youngsters – Claire, TJ, Travis – all share in the qualities of confidence, warm-heartedness and industry. Yet each one – a one-of-a-kind – in personality and virtues.

As with them, our creator grants us every one, giftings, graces, ways of being. To touch a life, a family, a society – bringing things of good to our needy world.

Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.

– William Cowper (poet)

March 9, 2017August 28, 2017

We’re BACK. Jerry’s ‘Second-book’ narratives

Hi Reader-friends,

After the release and enthusiastic reception of Living With A Limp, I’ve plunged into the next chapter (pardon the pun) of my memoir narratives.

Enter the journey with me. Read week-by-week posts which I’ll include in the coming book. Simply follow this website blog. Also, it’s easy to catch the unfolding episodes by a simple mouse click. . “+follow”.

First post of the new series is Thursday, March 11, 2017. Comments, Feedback welcome!

P.S. If you’ve not picked up Living With A Limp, it’s now at a reduced rate in paperback and ebook at this Amazon site. http://amzn.to/2jBzKwW

Thankful for your friendship.

See you Thursday!

March 16, 2017August 28, 2017

Next stop. San Antonio

I nudged the clinic door. It opened and I inched toward a desk behind which sat a dark-haired middle-aged lady. The receptionist. A pain shot through my back at the waist line. My knees buckled but I caught myself, barely dodging a crash to the hardwood floor.

“Óh, sir!” Her concern was genuine. She indicated a chair. “Here. Right here.” I eased into it, contorting my limbs and back in a few deft maneuvers.

“The doctor will see you in just a minute. Another slow turn and I was seated, a trace of perspiration beading my eyebrows. Thanking her with a silent nod, I began filling the first-visit patient form. After a couple entries, I had relaxed enough to reflect on the event sixteen hours that brought me now to this house-turned-clinic.

A wry smile momentarily hijacked my features. If Francis could see me now.

Shortly before our San Antonio move, my co-worker at Tulsa’s North American Aviation had asked what job awaited me in the Alamo City. Now, between winces, I imagined his I-told-you-so if he could meet up with me today in this bone-cruncher establishment (the average chiropractor of the era hoped to see his specialty one day rise above the “snake-oil peddler” status it was often relegated to).

Well, Francis, it’s like this. Down at the corner of Caldera and Bandera there’s this Phillips 66 station. . .

Midafternoon yesterday I had grabbed two car tires, each of them encircling its own heavy rim. Lifting a heavy load while swiveling to another direction defied sound judgment. This insight was shouted to me from that waist line point along my spinal column.

But fifty minutes from entering Dr. Brown’s clinic I left convinced a miracle-worker had signaled magic to my miserable frame. Unlike at my entry, I exited the premises without a whimper. The bone-cruncher enterprise had won my vote.

This early encounter into our South Texas move served as a kind of preview for my wife Ann and me. Twists and turns of our movements ahead would usher in adventure, discovery. Pain would play its role.

How do you turn a Pentecostal into a Baptist, then to something other, and still retain qualities of each.

March 21, 2017August 28, 2017

Unlikely Union

Southern culture calls for informal titles, the common church-goer each assigned their own. Brother and Sister. The titles carry in themselves a gentle ring of piety.

“Hi, Brother Jerry! Say, I’ve been wanting to talk with you, got a minute?”

David Worthy Mulford flashed his broad, tilted smile – the left side of his mouth elevated slightly above the other. The smile was rich, conveying the easy warmth he was known for around campus. I turned his way, returning the smile. I was ten years David’s junior and part of the Lively Stone class. David, an upperclassman, served as president of The Illuminators. Titles once again – these varieties selected and owned by each class entering the freshman year.

“Hi. Sure”. I unloaded my hefty hard-bound theology text and my equally dense Thompson Chain Bible to the sidewalk. A jumble of protruding scribbled notes flapped as a gust tried to wrench them from the large books.

David launched in, his voice sincere.

“Jerry, would you and Ann like to join Betty and me in pastoring a church the other side of town?” The question struck me. First as intriguing, eventually appealing. David, my fellow dyed-in-the-wool Pentecostal, read my quizzical gaze. it was then he dropped the ‘B’ word.

“Eastwood Baptist asked me to be their fill-in pastor, until they find a replacement for the one that left. The church was saddled with a bunch of debt through the sale by a former leader of fraudulent bonds. The congregation is hurting pretty bad financially. Although it’s a sad situation for the folks there, it seems maybe the Lord’s opened a door for us to encourage them. And to maybe gain experience for ourselves in preaching, teaching and in church work in general.”

Leading worship for Eastwood Baptist came easier for me than teaching a New Testament book to adults twice my age. Paul’s ancient letter to believers in a Mediterranean seaport had grown on me.

“Brothers and Sisters, let’s open to Ephesians. Chapter one.

My gas station work fell to the wayside when a big newspaper hired me as a teletype setter operator. How about this – coming to work almost daily right across the street from the Alamo. If Davy Crocket and Jim Bowie could have seen the edifice to one day cast its shadow over their fortress. Shading my eyes I gazed upward.

The San Antonio Express towered a full eight stories. . . matching my hometown’s all-time highest building. In child-hood I could have only imagined passing through the doors of such an imposing skyscraper. And even now I little dreamed I would witness here within this structure, one of the most monumental events of human history. A culmination of a U.S. president’s audacious pledge.

March 30, 2017August 28, 2017

Out of this World

By my eighteenth year I had never seen a televised funeral, much less for a president.

From my elevated perch at the client’s living room I watched my dad, pipe-wrench in hand, navigating space beneath the house. Stooped beyond an open place in the hardwood flooring, he called up occasionally, assigning me a task common to plumber wannabes.

Stepping carefully to avoid a fall through the rectangular gap where the floor furnace had earlier rested I took in the somber music and snatched glimpses of the T.V.’s black and white images. The casket, draped full-length in the national flag, held the body of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It rested atop a carriage drawn by seven white horses. I shivered at the cold air rising from the opening below, the absentee furnace depriving us of warmth in the November chill.

Thirty months earlier as my Sophomore High School year was ending, this popular young president had boldly announced, “we choose to go to the moon!” He attached a timeline. By the end of this decade. That was May, 1961.
Challenging his citizens to beat the Soviets in a great skyward race, Kennedy’s speech had fueled a bigger-than-life dream. Pursue the unthinkable. That was then. An assassin’s bullet had afterward found him and eight years had now lapsed.

I dismounted my blue Vespa scooter before the newspaper plant that helped fund my college fees and support my young wife. San Antonio’s July heat bore down. Removing the bike helmet, I padded my brow and neck with a handkerchief, collecting enough moisture to quench a small fire. Relaxing a moment, I squinted across the way, marveling once more at the recently erected Tower of the Americas, landmark of the city’s historic International Exposition otherwise known as Hemisfair. Making my way to the shop floor I settled into my usual place before the teletype equipment. This, however, was no usual day.

Minutes later I joined fellow technicians before a T.V. set. In near disbelief our gazes drank in something no humans in all history had witnessed and few had dared dream. Our past president, his body long since entombed in Arlington Cemetery, had declared it, “we choose to go to the moon”.

The television crackled as a man’s voice traversed a great expanse of outer space. It found its way to an upper floor of the San Antonio Express. The voice of Neil Armstrong.
“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

All about me the newspaper’s work area rang with cheers. I fell silent and revisited memories of a different work place. North American Aviation. Where I had not that long ago, sorted, filed and fetched engineering blueprints.

April 5, 2017August 28, 2017

Lunar – Logic – Lord

Once I met a man who had walked on the moon. At the time I little realized how crazy rare that kind of thing was. Only 12 people have felt moon turf beneath them. Ever.

Later that day I sat entranced as this astronaut talked of his journey, not only into the cosmic world but into the Christ world.

To some this could seem odd – a believer/moon-walker? Aren’t astronauts those brilliant, super-intellect types, flying scientists whose knowledge of matter and time and space should anchor them in tangible certainties? How then could such an intangible thing as faith in an everywhere-present, unseen supreme being penetrate that world?

And yet.

There was John Glenn, the first American space-traveler to orbit earth. Following his much-later space travel as crew member on the Discovery shuttle, Astronaut Glenn reflected. “To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible. It just strengthens my faith.”

Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong – first humans to set foot on the lunar surface – live in the history books of the young and in the memories of their peers.

Before stepping out of their Apollo 11 ship, Aldrin took up a Bible, a bit of sacramental bread and a silver chalice containing wine – emblems of the sacrificial body and blood of Jesus Christ. Celebrating God’s loving act to redeem humankind, the astronaut postponed his moon-walk a few moments. For what? Adoring reverence to the Almighty, to the one who, in Aldrin’s mind, poised this tide-governing ball in the spinning universe.

Frank Borman, commander of the first space crew to travel beyond earth’s orbit, looked down on his home planet from more than 200,000 miles. Borman radioed back a message, a Genesis message: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

“I had an enormous feeling”, the astronaut remarked, “that there had to be a power greater than any of us – that there was a God, that there was indeed a beginning.”

And there is Astronaut James Irwin, whose 1971 scientific expedition moon visit inspired his statement, “I felt the power of God as I’d never felt it before.”*

What is that alluring phrase voiced now and then near Christmas time?

Wise men still seek him.

***
Remember where you were when Armstrong declared “one small step. . one giant leap”? It would be fun to know. . . assuming your beginnings predate 1970!
Resource: BreakPoint.org November 5, 1998 Chuck Colson*
©2017 Jerry Lout