Some of This is True

"At Christmastime it is hard for even the unbeliever not to believe in something if not everything.  Peace on earth, goodwill to men, a dream of innocence that is good to hold onto, the mystery of being a child, the possibility of hope--not even the canned carols piped out over the shopping center parking plaza from Thanksgiving on can drown it out entirely. Maybe we cannot manage to believe with all our hearts. But as long as the moments last, we can believe that this is of all things  the thing most worth believing."   from The Faces of Jesus, Frederick Buechner.

Since retiring from church music a few years ago when I had no choice but to engage in Christmas, I have become an observer of "Christmas" and not much of a participant.  The "shopping center carols" tend to drown out any semblance of  the authentic mystery and wonder of the season.  This year was different.  I told my wife early on that I'm "all in."  And for the most part, I was. We not only participated in several family gatherings, but at my bidding sought out Christmas social gatherings and events. One of those events was a concert of choir and orchestra at a local United Methodist Church. We chose that one because we knew the conductor and knew that it would be good music. In January of 1976, my  good friend Ken Medema began a concert at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama with an improvised  song that included the lyrics, "Tonight you're going to hear more than just music." These words became true for me that fateful night as well with the concert a couple of weeks ago. Because of my education and experience, if music isn't technically good, then I can't enjoy it.  I just pick it apart. And after I get finished picking it apart, there's nothing left to enjoy. It's like peeling an onion to find its center. The music at this concert wasn't just good, it was astoundingly good. The orchestra was in tune and well-balanced.  The blend, balance and intonation of the choir was impeccable.  The diction was uniform and superb. The repertoire was perfectly balanced. The program saved the best soloist, a tenor, to the "contemporary" number at the end. All the musicians deserved the extended standing ovation they received. I joined in the applause

It's a shame that I  pick music apart. Because of that habit, I miss so much. Unfortunately, I am very capable of picking Christmas apart as well. And when I'm finished picking it apart, there's nothing much left of its mystery and awe.  Those "canned carols" take their toll. I understand and acknowledge that "the holidays" include many more celebrations than Christmas. And  for better or for worse, "Christmas" has come to include so much more than the birth of Jesus. Family gatherings, concerts, social events, shopping in the stores and online, the exchange of gifts and the activities from the North Pole are all a part of Christmas.  "The true meaning of Christmas" is different for everyone. Even so, the Biblical birth narratives for many Christians are at the heart of the season. I know that as beautiful and holy the narratives of the birth of Jesus are in Matthew and Luke, they're not the same. The genealogies of Jesus aren't the same. Some of the details of the visitors don't jibe. What  the holy family did before and after Bethlehem isn't the same in both accounts. Over centuries Christians have combined elements of both stories into one story.  This unified story has been retold and celebrated in carols, choirs and liturgical readings for so long  that it's impossible to separate them.  This unified story has become the Christmas story.  The first three chapters of Genesis contain at least two, and some scholars say three, different stories of creation. Since they aren't the same, does that mean they're not true? Something significant happened. Because we're here.

When my wife and I got back in our car after that incredible concert, I was still filled with whatever is "more than just music."  I was filled with the very heart of Christmas.  In that moment what I didn't believe about any of it didn't matter at all. And I looked at her and said, "Some of this is true." And in some sacred place in me, that doesn't demand certainty, all of it was true. I think Frederick Buechner is right, that in spite of it all at the heart of Christmas is "the possibility of hope."

So now will I stop picking music apart?  As long as there are screeching sopranos, strings that are out of tune and "canned carols", I will keep picking music apart. Will I stop picking Christmas apart? Can reindeer fly? Can I tune out current events?  Do I enjoy the company of every single person I see? I can't stop picking Christmas apart. But what I can do is to remember that in its essence, Christmas love, joy and peace is not only possible, but is real for those who choose, in spite of it all, to embrace them. No, I never saw a Baby in a manger, but in  a United Methodist Church that night in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I found  Him in my heart.  And for me, "this is of all things the thing that is most worth believing."

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

Every year we have to endure "the war on Christmas."  We not only hear about "the commercialization of Christmas" by the retailers, but we hear about specific retailers.  Starbucks, for example,  has come under fire in recent years for the logo on their coffee cups.  Other retailers have drawn fire for similar things.

But one of the most powerful aspects of "the war on Christmas" is many Christians' disapproval of greeting each other with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." The reasoning seems to be "Happy Holidays is secular and excludes Jesus, whereas Merry Christmas is the only acceptable way to be true to the real Christmas story, the Biblical stories in the Gospel narratives". The most important story that concerns them, of course, is  the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.

Your particular preference in choosing a greeting is whether you want to be more inclusive or more exclusive. "Happy Holidays", which includes a multitude of other celebrations, also includes Christmas.  "Merry Christmas" although I will argue has become more inclusive as well, is more exclusive than "Happy Holidays".Those who use "Merry Christmas" thinking it is the "Biblical" and "Christian" greeting, need to look at the history and the current trends.  A recent poll suggests that 55% of Americans no longer consider Christmas to be a religious holiday.  So just like "Happy Holidays", "Merry Christmas" now refers to a multitude of celebrations and traditions that do not necessarily have anything to do with the birth of Jesus. And before someone considers Christmas to be the exclusive territory of Christians, he needs to look at the history. Centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, Druids celebrated the Winter Solstice each year around December 21st. To celebrate this annual cosmic event, they used evergreen trees, holly and mistletoe as symbols of ever lasting life. Keep in mind too that the celebration of Christmas on December 25th didn't happen until the 3rd century AD when Pope Julius 1 made the official proclamation. Early Christians assimilated the customs and the traditions of the Druids into their own religious celebration. Then Christians quickly began to treat the season as if it was their own good idea.

This is not an exhaustive list, but you'll get the idea.  "Holiday" celebrations in November, December and January include Thanksgiving, the Solemnity of Mary, St. Basil's Day, Twelfth Night, St. Nicholas Day, Epiphany, Advent Hanukkah, Winter Solstice (Midwinter), Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Kwanzaa, Mawlid el-Nabi, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. So if you meet someone on the street and  you're not sure which particular celebration is theirs, then "Happy Holidays" includes them all.  There's nothing wrong with saying "Merry Christmas",  but this greeting is less inclusive than "Happy Holidays." If you want to be even more inclusive and say, for example, "Happy  Hanukkah" to your Jewish friend, just be aware that she celebrated the eight days of Hanukkah this year from December 2 through December 10th.  But she may still appreciate the effort. "Happy Holidays", though,  includes her without knowing the details of Hanukkah. "Merry Christmas", except for the recent secularization of the term, doesn't include her at all. It also makes you one of a million who don't seem to know there's a difference. It always feels good to people to be included.

I know Christians, however, whose attitudes are  "This season is Christmas and I'll say 'Merry Christmas'  because it's Christmas and if people have a problem with that, then they can just get over it."  If you say that, they probably won't  get over Christmas, but they may get over you.

"He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight--
Happy Christmas to all or Happy Holidays would be at least slightly more inclusive without excluding either Christians or those who drink Starbucks coffee."

Are you ready for the holidays?

I'm sure that I've been asked, "Are you ready for the holidays?" many times before. But this year I have noticed the question more than ever.  So when something gets my attention or intrigues me, I start assigning meaning to it, or I at least try to find the meaning that's intended.

I would understand  "Are you ready for the holidays?" in the days leading up to Thanksgiving or the days immediately following Thanksgiving.  But isn't asking "Are you ready for the holidays?" the week before Christmas a little like at 30,000 feet the flight attendant asking you , "Are you ready for your flight?"

I can appreciate the fact that the speaker is really only making polite conversation and not probing for intense personal information.  But still...

I've been told that the question means "Are you finished with all  your Christmas shopping?"   or "Are you prepared for all the family that's coming in?"  But if that's the case, why not ask something like, "Are you finished with all your Christmas shopping?" or "Are you prepared for all the family coming in?"  I've also been told that "the holidays" in the context of this question means Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Since our family is scattered from coast to coast, we have learned that "Christmas" happens the weeks and days that include Thanksgiving through mid-January.  If we waited  until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day to celebrate Christmas, we would have totally missed "the holidays." I think "the holidays" is an attitude more than a time and place.  For me, for many years, "the holidays" certainly hasn't been December 24th and 25th.

I have a suggestion.  When you run into a friend, acquaintance or stranger during "the holidays" and you're searching for something to say, instead of the knee-jerk "Are you ready for the holidays?" ask instead "Are you enjoying the holidays?".  Obviously, now instead of asking her about something that has not yet happened, you are asking about something that is already  in progress.  So instead of conversation about Christmas day, perhaps the person will respond about the concert that she attended or the holiday gathering that happened the previous weekend.  Or maybe, even the week before Christmas, she will share what happened with her family at Thanksgiving.   For me there is a world of difference between, "Are you ready for the holidays?"  and "Are you enjoying your holidays?"  Of course with that latter question, he may say, "No, I'm not."  and he goes into some detail about how things are not going well at all.  Unfortunately, Christmas" can be very difficult for some people. If' that's the case,at that point the conversation has been ratcheted up to another level. I suggest you use the opportunity to listen and to offer your love and kindness. You never know when such a conversation is the only TLC the person is going to get that day.

So far I've been patient with people who have asked me, "Are you ready for the holidays?" but if somebody asks me on Christmas Eve, I'll be tempted to say, "No, but I've got a year to get ready." And if,  while in the air, the flight attendant asks me "Are you ready for the flight?"  I'll say, "Ready as I'll ever be. But please ask the pilot and let  me know what he says". Prayer works wonders.

My Most Unforgettable Christmas

I grew up in affluence and abundance.  At the time I never considered my family to be wealthy and by some measures we weren't wealthy.  My father owned his own concrete construction company, but he never took more than about $20,000 a year out of the business for our family to live on. And even in 1960 dollars, that wasn't much money.  But beyond that, I was wealthy in every way possible. My maternal grandmother was the widow of someone would have been a self-made millionaire if he had lived. But in his fifties, he died with a brain tumor. However, he left enough wealth in real estate that my grandmother  and my aunt never worked another day in their long lives. Well at least they never worked because they needed income.  I never knew who inherited what, but my entire extended family benefited from the windfall.  That grandmother's sister, my great aunt, owned a lot of property around Enterprise, Alabama some of which she inherited from her brother-in-law. She also owned a tire and boat shop in downtown Enterprise that my grandfather established. He convinced his sister-in-law, who was then a school principal in Birmingham, to come home and help him run the business. When he died, she and an uncle continued the business.  Besides her Enterprise customers, my great aunt's  customer base included a steady stream of GIs with Enterprise's proximity to Ft. Rucker, a US Army base.  It was a thriving concern.  A few  years before he died, my grandfather bought a house at Laguna Beach, Florida.  That house was available for all the kinfolks and select friends to use for the nearly fifty years it was in the family. If we needed a place to stay at the beach, we just drove 90 miles to the beach house and opened the door. When we got ready to go on the beach, we walked out the front door, crossed Highway 98 and we were on the beach.

My fraternal grandmother was not financially wealthy, but she owned a farm of many acres  And she worked this farm. She grew every imaginable variety of fruit and vegetables.  When we wanted fresh fruit and vegetables, we drove out the Damascus road and picked it. "Help yourself."  My grandfather, her x-husband owned a cattle farm out the New Brockton Highway.  Our freezer stayed stocked with a side of beef. "And on that farm he had a" pecan orchard and a pond.  If we needed pecans, when in season we just found a sack and filled it up with pecans.  There were fig trees in his yard as well. If we wanted fish for supper, we drove to the pond with poles and bait and caught them. We caught bream, bluegill, shell cracker and large mouth bass.  We took them home and dressed them, and mother battered and fried them. We feasted on fresh fish, grits and cornbread (the kind that's flat and brittle on the edges that some call hoecakes).

I grew up in affluence and abundance.

My immediate family and maternal family all congregated at my grandmother's house at about five o'clock pm on Christmas Eve.  The evening and night for about twenty five aunts, uncles and cousins involved feasting on food that included sandwiches, cakes, pies, puddings and cookies. And someone always made boiled custard. My great aunt played as we sang carols. My parents, aunts and uncles talked and laughed while the rest of us played together. My aunt got out the eight millimeter projector, loaded it with a reel and showed old family movies and a black and white "The Night Before Christmas."  It was a crowd favorite. And then all twenty five people spent the night there or across the street at my great aunt's house waiting for Santa to come.  At around ten o'clock, Santa rang a bell to tell all the children to go to sleep. If it's not enough magic for Santa Claus to visit every home in the world in one night, in our tradition he visited them all twice! We knew Santa was real, because you couldn't see him even if you tried. Looking back at what happened on Christmas morning is embarrassing. Besides finding wrapped and tagged presents that the parents, grandparent, uncles and aunts gave to each cousin, Santa left an abundance of unwrapped presents under the fireplace and the tree spilling out onto the floor. It took over an hour to open everything.

I don't remember very many of the presents, but I wouldn't take anything for those times with my family at 309 W. College Street, Enterprise, Alabama. I still have all of my siblings and all of my cousins except one; everyone else is gone. The house belongs to someone else. If I ever happened to be in Enterprise on Christmas Eve, we would stay at the Hampton Inn. Ho Ho Ho.

And yet my most unforgettable Christmas was not one of those Christmases.  My most unforgettable Christmas was the Christmas my wife's mother died, the Christmas of the ice storm in Jasper, Alabama. My mother-in-law died late on December 23, 1998. After a bizarre series of events, on Christmas eve my wife's entire family was together in her mother's house with no electricity and no food.  In the south, church folks bring food when someone dies. But they had no power with which to cook it and no way to get there on icy roads if they did cook it. Our only light was from the gas heater, a lantern and some candles. Our shadows danced on the walls and ceiling in the dimly lit room. But along with our poverty and our grief,  there was a feeling of connectedness and of mutual love. Our seventeen year old son and his "girl cousins" were playing with the flame of a candle when he looked up at his mother and said, "This ain't half bad."  And my wife put her head on my shoulder and cried. On Christmas morning there were no presents and no breakfast. I was able to get to a friend's house who had a pan of lasagna for us to share.   Lasagna had never been more appreciated or tasted so good.

I have no guilt about the way I grew up. It was the family I was born into and we lived with the means we had earned and been given. Those Christmases in Enterprise were very special and the recent ones with our granddaughter have been divine.  But it's the Christmas when we had nothing that I remember most fondly, because in our poverty we experienced the very heart of Christmas. On that first Christmas in Bethlehem, there was a baby in a manger in a barn with his parents. They had only each other. Then  there were angels and shepherds and wise men bearing expensive gifts. There was extravagant abundance. But years later when Mary was asked "What is the most memorable part of your son's birth?"  I would  guess that it wasn't the gold, the frankincense or the myrrh. I would like to think that she said, "Angels chanting is pretty remarkable, but my favorite part of that incredible time was being in a barn with a lantern, my husband and my son."

Whatever you have or don't have this Christmas, whatever you can afford to give or not give, whoever is left of your family and friends, whatever good memories you can muster,  I hope that sometime on Christmas Eve, you hug your spouse or your dog or your cat and say to him, "This ain't half bad."

The Time Value of Anything

"Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.  He who understands it, earns it. He who does not understand it, pays it."  Albert Einstein

Time does things to things.  You've heard it said that "time heals all wounds."  I have found that that is not necessarily true.  But one thing's for sure, the pain of the wound usually diminishes significantly over time.  This depletion of pain applies to physical as well as emotional wounds. Physical pain can subside quite quickly, but grief, insults and other emotional injuries can linger for years.

In 1982 an insurance agent changed my life.  Without a doubt he changed my financial future, but he changed me. He was trying to get my wife and me to invest in a monthly accumulation program called a tax-sheltered annuity (TSA) through the hospital where she worked.  The program was already approved by human resources. All she had to do was sign her name for the automatic pay period withdrawals to start. On a financial calculator, he showed me something that through nineteen years of formal  education  I had never seen.  He showed me the time value of money(TVM). The agent showed me what $25.00 per pay period  could accumulate to over our financial lifetimes. We didn't have a lot to invest,  but we could consider $25.00.

In this case, he used thirty years for the future value computation.  Because his program involved managed investments, there was no fixed interest rate. So he showed me this accumulation at a hypothetical  8, 10  and 12%. I found the results of his calculation to be remarkable. At 8% interest, our $25.00 would accumulate to $54,761,00. At 10% the result was $123, 685.00. At 12% over thirty years, our $25 per pay period would accumulate to $191,592.00. The only variable in these three scenarios, a difference of about $140,000.00, was the rate of return. In an instant I understood why everybody in town was after my $25.00. Turns out it was worth quite a bit. I understood why investors invest and why they took risks.  My wife signed the form.  Although she worked no extra minutes or hours, and with no extra effort on her part, the money began to accumulate just as the insurance agent said it would.

But as I said, time does things to everything. Time is so important that through his General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein demonstrated time to be a dimension  of space along with height, width and length. This phenomenon he called space-time. He said that the sun's gravity, for example, doesn't attract the earth like a magnet.  The earth falls through the fabric of space-time to make its annual pilgrimage around the sun. This phenomenon repeats itself with every heavenly body in our solar system, our galaxy and throughout our vast universe.

Time does things to relationships. In a significant relationship such as marriage, each person invests love and trust. Over time that love and trust grows. Each person not only makes contributions, but can also make emotional withdrawals. Just as with money, the contributions need to exceed the withdrawals so the emotional resources are not depleted.  It's important too that each partner is making both the contributions and the withdrawals for the relationship to be viable and healthy over time. I've been to some very sad 50th anniversary celebrations. Marriage shouldn't be an endurance test. It's possible for a bad marriage to last too long. Not everything gets better with age.  Our miserly neighbor had hoarded hundreds of cases of food in his basement. When his daughter and son-in-law opened them after his death, there was nothing in them. The boxes were still there, but they were empty.  I read once that if you want an expensive wine, buy a five dollar bottle and leave it alone for fifteen years. But even fine wine can turn to vinegar over time. One marriage can grow into a sheltering tree and another become an empty shell. It all depends on what the couple invests in the relationship over the years.

Four years after the fateful conversation with the insurance agent, I had become so fascinated with the concept of the time value of money that I passed the Series 7 stockbroker exam. I became a financial advisor with IDS/ American Express Financial Services. During that time a local high school home economics teacher invited me every year to speak to her class. What did I talk about? TVM.   I showed her students  how to read a compound interest table. I showed them what $10 per week could accumulate to over forty years with three hypothetical interest rates. No one ever seemed amazed, but at least they saw the concept many years before I did.

So if you and the person you love invest wisely over time, The Golden Years can be a reality. But you need to get started while time is on your side. Compounding only works when something's there.

Finding Your Wild Self

“I'll tell you right now, the doors to the world of the wild self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door; if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much that you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”  Women Who Run With the Wolves. Clarissa Pinkola Estés


It is normally not a good thing when "wild" is applied to a human being. If a  teenager goes wild or a forty year old man goes wild, if someone throws a wild party, then the meaning of wild is negative.  Obviously, this is not the definition of "wild" that Estés is using. Her definition of "wild" as it pertains to human beings, women in particular, is much different.  Likewise with wolves.  Being "thrown to the wolves" is not a good thing.  "A wolf in sheep's clothing" has negative connotations.  But Estés has great admiration and respect for wolves. Their wild nature is not something to be feared or to loath, but is something to be admired and emulated. I like to think by "wild self" she is referring to our true self, our true nature, the person we were created to be.

With that clarification, we can begin to understand the meaning of her words. 

"I'll tell you right now" says that she is speaking from a perspective of deep conviction; she is not mincing words. With each subsequent, emphatic statement she builds her case  for finding the deeper, full life. "The doors to the world of the wild self are few but precious." In other words when life opens one of these "doors to the wild self" we would do well to walk through it. And when you look at her doors we see that they are doors we all have experienced.   Do we have deep scars?  Of course we have deep scars.  Do we have old, old stories?  Of course we have old, old stories. Have we loved the sky and the water so much that we couldn't bear it? If not the sky and water, we have looked up into a canopy of stars and burst with fullness as we pondered the grandeur of creation and our own relative insignificance.  Or we have witnessed the birth of a child and almost passed out for sheer gratitude and joy.  There have been those who did actually pass out.

So all of us are qualified to approach these doors and walk through them.  What is this deeper life? Estés doesn't say.  It's as if she's telling us that we will know it when we get there. I'm quite sure that she would say this "deeper life" is unique for each of us. I'm also quite sure that she is suggesting we don't have to die to find this deeper, full life.  This fullness is possible in the here and  the now.

Estés says that through these doors we can yearn for a "sane life."  Sane compared to who? To what? There is a Broadway rock musical called Next to Normal. The main character is Diana, a bipolar wife and mother. Toward the end of the musical Diana's daughter says  to her boyfriend that she will probably never be normal, but she can be next to normal. And she decides that "next to normal" is okay,  So now we can walk through doors that we all possess toward a deeper, fuller life that is at least next to normal. And all of this is possible because we  have discovered our wild self.

So touch that deep scar. Remember that old, old story. Imagine that sky full of stars. Open the doors that they reveal  and walk through them. You may seem insignificant in the scheme of things, but you are wild and precious. No one has your scars.  No one knows your stories. Only you can live life to your fullest. Wild is not just for forty year olds. But there's no need to buy a red sports car.







  . 

S'mores

The famous conductor Arturo Toscanini discovered the music of Samuel Barber when Barber sent him the score to his Adagio for Strings.  Barber was offended when he immediately returned the score with no comment.  Later Barber would learn that Toscanini returned it because he had already memorized the entire score. Toscanini premiered Barber's orchestral arrangement in 1938, two years after Barber had composed it for string quartet.  Barber's work was an immediate musical and commercial success and remains one of the most performed American  works worldwide.

I discovered Adagio for Strings in September of 1971. When I entered music school at the Enterprise State Junior College, the only music I knew was what I had learned at church, listened to on my family's stereo or heard on the radio. The "music suite" at the junior college was a large rehearsal room with a  grand piano and one other room.  It was that "other room" where I spent most of my time. Imagine a small, narrow walk-in closet. The contents were simple--three turntables with three sets of of headphones and a wall full of albums. I would think that some of my assignments included quality time in that room, but I didn't have to be told to go there.  If I wasn't in class or in the library, I was in that listening room. One fall afternoon, I randomly pulled from the shelf an album of the music of Samuel Barber. Holding the album with my palms I  reverently placed it on the turntable careful not to put my fingers on the grooves, and I dropped the needle for the first time on his Adagio for Strings.

I've been married to the same woman for over forty one years and I love her with all my heart. Our romance, however, was not "love at first sight." The night we met, we were mutually unimpressed. By a year and a half later we had worked up enough love to exchange meaningful "I dos". We did. And we still do.  But that afternoon at ESJC as that needle dutifully followed the groove on that record, and as those vibrations were transferred to my headphones and my ears as music,  my world stood still. It stands still as I listen to it now forty six years later. Different music medium. Different headphones. Same ears and same incredible music. 

If I didn't already adore the music, I discovered a few years ago a recording of Agnus Dei.  This is an a cappella arrangement of the piece which I learned the composer himself had arranged for unaccompanied choir and published in 1967. Now there was text to accompany the incredible music. And it was not just text, but meaningful text,  text extracted from that great body of liturgy know as the Latin Mass. "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem. Miserere nobis." (ahnus dayee, kwee towlees pehkahtah moondee, donah nobese pahchem. meesayrayray nobese).   Translated: "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace. Have mercy upon us. Have mercy." But the words are not sung sequentially; they are sung simultaneously. As each voice part carries its text, the text is different for each voice part.  Even before  the listener knows any translation or  meaning, the effect is magnificent.  Then when  "grant us peace" is  sung simultaneously with "have mercy upon us", for example,  both phrases take on new meaning.  The combined words mean so much more than the sum of its parts. When marshmallows are toasted over  an open fire and squeezed between two graham crackers loaded with Hershey's chocolate, it becomes much more than the individual ingredients. And can you separate the s'mores from the chill, the crackling of the fire, the ascending sparks and the laughter? Who would want to. The first recipe by the Girl Scout leader Loretta Scott Crew in 1927 called the concoction "some mores".  Whoever later combined the words  created a catchy masterpiece. 

I pride myself on being able to recognize many different aspects  of music. I notice things about music that most people have no interest in knowing. Since I recognize and retain these aspects of music rather quickly, what happened last week came as somewhat of a shock. Over the past forty six years  I've listened to Adagio for Strings and Agnus Dei  hundreds of times.  Last week on YouTube I discovered and listened to a performance of Agnus Dei that included the vocal score.  For the very first time, I viewed the score as the choir sang. And right then and there before my very eyes was something my ears had never noticed in all my years of listening.  Samuel Barber based his famous Adagio for Strings on Gregorian chant. It was immediately easy to see and to hear how Barber's Agnus Dei was chant, but I also then understood that those strings in the original orchestral version  had been singing Gregorian chant all along. The melodic steps and small leaps could not be denied. And then Google confirmed what had been there all along. With no neumes or Latin text,  Barber had written chant sung by human voices for lifeless instruments--violins, violas, cellos and basses.  Not only was the vocal score transformed, but the orchestral score as well. Thirty one years separated the strings from the voices, but now neither can be separated. And why would I  want to?

I  excelled academically and musically during my first two years of music school at ESJC. And those six quarters propelled me to ten semesters of music education in two more institutions. But after seven years of music school, in so many ways I can trace a significant part of my education to that small room in Enterprise, Alabama containing  those headphones, turntables and record albums. None of them work without the other. 

Adagio. Agnus Dei. They even sound alike. You can't separate them.  And I dare you to try. 

TFOMTBS

I'm sure that you are familiar with FOMO, the fear of missing out.  And you may know about FOBO, the fear of a better offer.  But have you ever heard of TFOMTBS, the fear of missing the best song?  I doubt it since I just made it up.  I say I made it up, but it's actually somewhat of a problem for me.

My first car was a 1950 Chevrolet Deluxe.  No I didn't buy it new. I was born a few years later. That luxury sedan that sported a powerful flathead six under the hood got me around town in style.  And "around town" is literal since I wasn't comfortable taking it very far out of the city limits of Enterprise, Alabama. The cabin amenities included an AM radio with one speaker in the dashboard.  The radio had six presets, but that was five too many since Enterprise only had one radio station, WIRB. At night, though, it could pick up WLS 89 out of Chicago.  Listening to WLS late at night had a magical quality to it, even through one cheap speaker. So during the day my music choices were simple, tune to WIRB and listen to whatever they played. At night I had two choices. I usually just listened to the music out of Chicago.

My listening choices in my Nissan Altima are nearly unlimited. Through the Bose surround sound system I can play the radio, and also Spotify playlists and radio stations. I can play CDs. With the radio I have Sirius/XM satellite radio or AM/FM stations. XM radio alone offers me 223 stations. You may say, "So, you pay for your radio music?"  We all pay for radio music.  You can pay a subscription and listen to music virtually commercial free. Or you can listen to commercial radio and listen to three commercials for every song you hear.  I choose to pay the subscription.

XM gives me four pages of six presets, three pages of XM stations and one for  AM/FM stations. Although I have chosen stations for all twenty four presets, I usually just listen to the six on the first page. Number One is Channel 116  CNN News.  Some call  it "fake news" I just call it news. But I don't listen to it often because of the commercials (which aren't fake either, just annoying). I also don't appreciate the often disturbing nature of the information. Number Two is Channel 34, Lithium. This station is Alternative 90s music.  This music was the music of my son's teenage years. I enjoyed it then and I still do.  Number 3 is Channel  6 the 60s station. Number 4 is Channel 18, the Beatles Channel. Number 5 Channel 32 is The Bridge, folk 70s music.  Number 6 is Channel 26, Classic Vinyl.

So when I was a teenager listening to music on the radio was very simple.  I turned on the radio and listened to music.  Now just on Page One of four my music choices are immense. Thus TFOMTBS is a reality. Now when I'm listening to the Beatles station, for example,  and  they're playing something I don't particularly like, I can keep listening or five more options are a finger poke away. More often than not I change stations. When I'm listening to my favorite XM station, Channel 32, The Bridge I let it play through several not-my-favorite songs before I bolt.  But if they play three or four songs I don't particularly enjoy,  I press another preset, usually the sixties station. My adolescence straddled both of those decades so I often hear something I remember and like.  Sometimes when I turn on the radio, if I don't particularly enjoy what's playing I will sequentially go through all the presets to see if they're playing one of my favorite songs. If that search doesn't yield positive results, I'll just go to preset 1 and listen to the news.  It usually doesn't take very long, however,  for me to choose another option. Besides the commercials, there's only so much news that  I can stomach. Even if  some of the news is fake, my reaction to it isn't.

In spite of my somewhat OCD issues with the radio choices, there are times I put the radio on one station and just listen to it for a while. When I force myself to do that, occasionally the music approaches that WLS magical quality of my teenage years. "Then if that's the case, why not do it all the time?" you ask.  TFOMTBS ! Changing stations is as easy as pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Yesterday I  read about emerging technology that will allow someone to steer a drone with only his thoughts.  I hope they'll use that technology in our cars.  It would save me a lot of time and effort.  And would be a lot safer as well.

A Very Important Part of My Past

"I realize that there is something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they're experts at letting things go." Ginny Rometty

It is not unusual for my wife to say something profound. Although she seldom sets out to say something profound, she quite often does so anyway. That was certainly the case earlier this week.  She picked up a piece of paper with a phone number on it and asked me if I was going to call this lady regarding her loss of a significant person and I said, "No, I don't think so. Are you?"  She looked at the scrap of paper, then looked at me as she was throwing it away and said, "No. She was a very important part of my past."

Just like that. Presto wham o, she explained something that I had been feeling for the past few days. It would actually be more accurate to say something I had not been feeling.

My grandfather bought a small house on Laguna Beach, Florida several  years before I was born.  This small two-bedroom house we called "the cottage." The house was remodeled several times and my great aunt bought and   annexed another small rental cottage to it to become quite a large beach house. We affectionately called that annexed  house "the Holiday Inn". The most recent newlyweds got to stay there.  Now the cottage could easily sleep 25 people. Until my family sold that house some years ago, it had been in the family over 40 years. The house is located just across Highway 98 from the beach.  To spend time on the beach, we only had to walk out the side door, cross the highway and we were on the dunes of Laguna Beach. We then walked/ran/stumbled down the sandy path to the white sands and the Gulf of Mexico.  Various members of the family at various times of the year would use the cottage. But on the fourth of July the entire clan of my parents, siblings, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins converged for a long weekend. This weekend included much time together in the cottage, much time on the beach, much time water skiing at Phillips Inlet, much time fishing with Dad on West Bay and much good food  and laughter.  Have you ever heard of "beach toast"?  My mother made beach toast which you can only make at the beach.

For reasons I have never completely understood, nearly 20 years ago my mother and her sister sold the cottage to complete strangers.  As far as I was concerned, the cottage was gone. I certainly grieved the financial impact to the family but I mostly grieved the personal loss. All those people would never be in the same time and place again.. Significant funerals have brought many of us together, but never all of us. A significant relational rug had been permanently pulled out from under me.

But over the years my grief for that place has been replaced by the grief for those people. Most of them are dead and gone--my grandparents, my parents, my aunts and uncles are all gone  All but one of my cousins are still alive and we're next up. Even if we still owned that house, there would be no 4th celebration on that scale; there would be no beach toast, only my mother could make that.

I didn't realize that I had made complete peace with that time and place until last week.  My wife and I stayed in a condo less than a mile from that house.  I considered driving by the cottage and decided that I didn't want to or need to. To get to the beach from our condo all we had to do was take the elevator down fifteen floors, walk out the back door through a gate and we were there.  The water had never been more beautiful, the sand more white and clean,  and the sunsets were divine. The blue/green gulf water didn't know the difference between the cottage and the condo. I felt perfectly at home. Did I miss that house?  Sure I did.  Did I miss all those people?  Sure I did. But what I had was so much more than what I had lost.  What I wasn't feeling was much more important than what I was feeling.

Although her loss was great, and the relationship had been meaningful, neither of us called that lady who had been a good friend. "She was an important part of my past."  As important as it is to connect and reconnect, as much as it matters to "be in touch" with people from our past, it is much more important for us so spend time with people who are a significant part of our present. We can learn a lot from trees.

Suffering for a Worthy Cause--My Granddaughter

The last leg of an incredible  week of friendship and celebration was for me to take our granddaughter to the Atlanta airport.  There she would fly unaccompanied to Indianapolis to meet her mom to take her back home.  With her dad, our son, in San Diego and her mom in Indiana, she is a seasoned traveler. She has been flying unaccompanied since she was seven years old. I had been on the pick  up end of this process, but  I had never been on the hand off end. Last year I had the opportunity to fly with my granddaughter on Southwest Airlines.  There were three unaccompanied children on that flight so I was able to see for myself just how well they took care of the children  in their care. I was not the least bit concerned about her safety and welfare.

With all of that said, I had rather have a root canal as to drive through Atlanta, Georgia. With apologies to those who suffer with actual PTSD, I experience a sort of PTSD on that trip. Sixteen years ago I dealt with a traffic incident in downtown Atlanta. The torment of the situation lasted about two hours before I had any sort of relief.  Recalling the incident later in my counselor's office, he said, "You had a classic panic attack."  Two minutes of a panic attack is a long time. Two hours is cruel and unusual punishment. My psyche never forgot that incident.

The drive to the airport south of Atlanta gave me two bad choices.  I could drive straight through on I-75 south or take the I-285 bypass.  I decided to drive straight through as I usually do. Although part of my brain knows that there is signage above the interstate instructing me to the airport, I set my BPS for turn-by-turn directions.  The GPS gave me another level of comfort.  A few minutes down the road my granddaughter asked, "Big Dave, can I have  your phone?"  "Why don't you use yours?" "Because I don't have Netflix." So I turned off the GPS and handed her my phone.  No matter, I'll activate my GPS when she's through watching her movie.

The traffic started backing up about fifteen miles north of Atlanta as I had predicted. That wasn't a problem since I had built that time into the trip. I asked her if I could have my phone back and she said the movie wasn't finished. Now I would have to take my chances with those signs. South of Atlanta I started seeing the signs to the airport.  I followed  those signs to the north terminal and to the parking deck. An airport parking deck is a prison where I can get trapped for the rest of my mortal life.  One night when I was in the wrong exit line the machine swallowed my ticket. When I got in the right line and explained that the machine took my ticket and that it said I owed $30.00, she said, "But I  have to have your ticket." This discussion went on about ten minutes when I finally said, "I can stay here to the second coming or you can take my $30.00 and let me through." She finally conceded. Another time I couldn't figure out  that I was supposed to put my credit card in the same slot as the ticket. With traffic backing up behind me, I finally saw the button to call an attendant. But I decided to deal with all of that when I left the airport. My granddaughter handed me my phone as we walked to the terminal.

At the Southwest ticket counter she asked me if I was her father. I said, "No, I'm her grandfather." She said, "I show her father is to hand her off."  I said, "Well, I'm not her father, I'm her grandfather." Then  she asked for me for information that I didn't have. After a couple of phone calls I gave her the information and she gave us our boarding passes. The security line was long and ended up rather intense and invasive, but we were finally on the other side.  We grabbed lunch and with granddaughter in tow, we walked together to our gate.  We arrived at the gate with an hour to spare. When we sat down I pulled my phone from my pocket to catch up on Facebook, my email and the news.  The battery was nearly gone.  I didn't know what happened when the battery was totally depleted, but it couldn't be anything good.  But I would watch it to be sure that didn't happen.  As I booted up Facebook my granddaughter asked, "Big Dave, can I have your phone?" So I gave her my phone for her to watch another movie. After about forty five minutes she handed the phone back to me and said the battery was dead.

As an unaccompanied minor they called her  up first to board, with a lump in my throat I hugged her goodbye and she disappeared alone down the ramp to the jet.

But my work wasn't done. When you hand off an unaccompanied minor, you are required to wait at the gate until the plane is in the air. So it took another forty minutes for everyone to board, the plane to taxi to the runway and get airborne. At that point the attendant said, "She's in the air; you are free to go."  Instead was taking the tram,  I needed the exercise and enjoyed the thirty minute walk. I found the walk and the moving sidewalk enjoyable and relaxing. Besides it bought me a little time before facing the parking deck.   At Ground Transportation I noticed one of those kiosk machines where I could prepay my parking ticket.  Since it was in the car, I walked to the car and retrieved the ticket and  walked back to  the terminal to use  the machine. After inserting the ticket and my credit card, it gave me my ticket back and told me I had an hour to leave. In the car I tried to activate my GPS, but even with it plugged in with the battery totally depleted it didn't work. Apparently, it's resurrection takes a little time.  I would have to trust those signs again.  Driving toward the exit gate, I was more that a little anxious that something would go wrong and car would back up behind me while I figured it out. Inconveniencing people is a cardinal sin. I got to the machine and inserted my ticket as instructed and the voice said, "Please wait."  Please wait for what?  For their computer to reboot? For Christmas? For Christ to return? Wait for what?  After what seemed like an  eternity, the gate opened and I drove through to freedom.

My wife called me before I got out of Atlanta to tell me that our granddaughter was safe in the arms of her mother in Indiana.

I followed the signs that were very plentiful and clear back to I-75 and followed I-75 back home. Because of the  traffic through Atlanta and about fifteen miles north of Atlanta,what used to be about a two hour trip took me about three and half hours. But ten hours after I left home for a ninety mile trip, I was home.

A few  hours prior while my granddaughter and I had been in the worst of the traffic north of Atlanta she asked me if we were nearly there.  I said, "We're not far from the airport, but because of this traffic, it will still take a while."  She looked at me, smiled, and said, "That's okay.. That's all the more time I get to spend with my Biggy."

If she needed to go to the Atlanta airport today, I would gladly take her again.

On the Cusp of Joy

"We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy."  Joseph Campbell

If for one reason or another you feel bad most of the time, it's important for you to know that it's possible to feel good most of the time. The Buddhists have a concept called "basic goodness."  Think of it as original goodness instead of the Christian concept of original sin. But the Christian perspective is not much different from the Buddhist concept if the Christian goes back past the forbidden fruit. It's as if for many Christians, the world began at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with sin, when it fact it began in the Garden of Eden. And just after placing the crown of His creation there He said, "It is good. It's all good." The was nothing in the Garden of Eden that was bad, including Adam and Eve. Perhaps Adam and Eve had been in the Garden of Eden for years before Eve tasted the forbidden fruit.  Even the fruit was not bad; it was just forbidden. An oven is a good thing, but we have to keep our children away from it. If the child touches it, no one else has to punish her. And she didn't sin. She just burned herself.

When I wake up every day, I wake up into a world of goodness.  I am not so insensitive and naive as to not be aware of what's going on.  I understand that there are things happening that could destroy the lives of those I love and destroy the world. There are plenty of things for me to be anxious about and even get depressed about if I wanted to.  I just don't want to.  I choose to feel good instead of feeling bad.  And as Joseph Campbell said, it is in fact a choice.  I make that choice in the first few seconds of any given new day. And if you want to feel good instead feeling bad, you will have to make the same choice.  If your default emotion is sadness, you have to choose another emotion.

I could tell you what's going on with me and you would say, "No wonder you're so happy.  Anyone in your situation would be happy." And I would say that's partially true.  But you would have to understand that "what's going on" is less the circumstances of my life and more what's going on between my ears. Anais Nin said, "We don't see  things as they are, we see them as we are."

Black Elk, a holy man of the Lakota Sioux said, "Draw a circle of power around yourself, and stand in that circle."  Whatever else you keep in your circle of power, keep goodness and joy."  One could do worse than to view the world through rosy tinted glasses. Your joys and your sorrows will take on the colors of a sunset. The sorrows will  still be there, you just won't see them.

For What It's Worth

Anything's value is what it's worth to you. There is no intrinsic value in anything. The financial value of a home, for example, which is usually discussed only  when the home is for sale, is the amount that someone is willing to pay for it.  The value is decided with the meeting of the minds of a willing buyer and a willing seller.  But the value of a home goes much, much deeper than its financial value, doesn't it? Our homes are where we live and move and have our being.   Maybe your home is on a farm and that farm was owned by your great grandparents, your grandparents, your parents and now by you.  I would think that the value of the farm to you is much higher than its financial value. And yet when you put it up for sale, it is only worth what someone is willing to pay you for it. None of the family history transfers to the closing documents.

I own a  2005 car that I bought in 2008. This car has had few problems and has served me well.  I think about trading it for something newer, but the book value is only a few hundred dollars.  The car is still in  perfect running order. In spite of its powerful 255hp six cylinder engine, it still gets about 30 mpg. The car is  worth quite a lot to me. So for now I'll keep the car. I'm just not willing to sell such a good car for a few hundred dollars.  I'm tempted by those 2015, 16 and 17 beauties, but my money is worth more to me than  a new car. And my '05 drives just fine.

"For what it's worth"  is most often used as a preface for an opinion.   The speaker says something like, "I don't know if what I'm about to say will have any value to you or not, so take it 'for what it's worth'. "   So there again, what the words are worth to the speaker and what they are worth to you are entirely different things. No matter what the words mean to the speaker, they may be worth little or nothing to you.

One of my favorite movies is the futuristic Pixar movie Wall-E. If I like a movie for no other reason, a good soundtrack is worth the price of admission. Thomas Newman's music does not disappoint. But I like WALL-E for many more reasons than that.  During the first part of the movie when WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot,  is still alone (except for his roach friend), he is scavenging the landscape for collectibles. At one point he sees a small ring display box in a pile of rubbish. He reaches down, picks it up, holds it up to the light, opens it and views the large sparkling diamond it contains. Considering his options, he discards the diamond on the ground and puts the box in his storage container to carry home to add to his collection.  What was the diamond worth to him? Nothing. The ring box?  Who knows.

One serious flaw of human nature is that we often assign value to things that should have no value. Someone says something to us that hurts our feelings and we carry that feeling for the remainder of the day, or the week, or the month,or the year, or the decade. Within minutes the person who said it never gave it another thought and we've carried it with us for years. We assigned value to it, meaning  to it, wrote stories around it and kept it alive in our nervous system.  The other flaw is that we assign value to the wrong things. Like the song The Cat's In the Cradle, your son wants to play catch and you choose to watch a football  game. Twenty years later you so wish your son and his family would come to visit, but the kids are sick and he's tied up at the office. "But we'll have a good time then, Dad, you know we'll have a good time then."

A thrill seeker may value the adrenaline rush more than his life. A heavy drinker may enjoy the effects of alcohol more than the physical and social toll its taking on  his life, his family and his health. This list could go on an on regarding the trade offs with what we value.

The value of some  things changes constantly and other things change very little over time.  Many times we think of a share of common stock as something with a "closing value."  Or a group of stocks, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as a number at the end of the day. That stock is traded all day long and its value changes thousands of times before the close.  Any average, such as the DJIA, changes constantly as well before the news reports its value at the closing bell. Then there are the intangibles such as the value of friendship that may stay constant for a lifetime.

My point is this you are the one  who gives something its value. Something is only worth what it's worth to you. Like WALL-E, you may enjoy the box more than the diamond.  We all have seen children on Christmas morning who play with the boxes and the wrapping much more than they play with the expensive toys

So the next time someone starts a sentence with "For what it's worth," think about WALL-E and consider thinking "Nothing, until you convince me otherwise.".  It's not okay to say it, but it is okay to think it. And if you're thinking, "Yeah, I don't have to value your words here either." You'd be right.

When Your Story Meets Jesus

Yesterday morning we met friends at their church.  This church is a "contemporary church" with five campuses.  We were at the main campus.  The lead pastor, however, was at another campus and he was at our location via video. This was my first experience with this and I was surprised with my own reaction.  Instead of feeling disconnected with the minister and his message, there was little difference in being live or on television. There actually was the illusion that he was in the room. When he said something funny, the congregation reacted with laughter just as if he was standing there.

Just as the praise band was finishing its set and was about to hand things over to the lead pastor, the praise band leader said something that got my attention.  He said, "I hope that here you find a place where your story meets Jesus."  Something about those words spoke to me. The Psalmist ends many of his psalms with "Selah" (pause and calmly think about that). So then I must admit that during the sermon, I was simultaneously listening to his message and processing the words of his associate.

I continued to process his words while in the NICU yesterday afternoon.  As a reminder, NICU is the acronym Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  I think it's easy to forget when calling the unit the NICU the force of those four letters.  Without the N, it's ICU.  When your family member or friend is in the ICU, he is there because he's very hurt or very sick.  Normally when someone leaves the ICU, he does not leave to go home, he leaves to go to a room, In other words, he's now well enough to go to the hospital. Babies in the NICU are in Intensive Care for a reason.

And each and every baby in the unit has a story. Some stories are happy. Others are tragic and sad. But each story is unique. And in one way or another that story meets Jesus. Hopefully, that meeting is only in the figurative sense.  Just like when Jesus told His disciples, "Let the children come to me, because the Kingdom of God is made of children", in the NICU these babies find total love and acceptance.  The doctors and nurses do not ask them about their insurance. They could not care less about that.  They don't notice the babies' ethnicity. It doesn't matter. They do not ask baby about his religious affiliation. Each baby gets the same care and attention regardless of the color of her skin,   texture of her hair or her religious beliefs. The only requirement is that she is in need of their help. But unfortunately, sometimes, just like in the ICU for big people, the  baby doesn't make it.  In that unit he meets Jesus in the literal sense.  He was just too sick when he got there.  In spite of the best technology and best medical help in the country, the baby breathes his last breath. And Jesus says to St. Peter, "Let that baby come to me. That baby  has a  place with me and he will continue his story here."

I took my story to church yesterday and it met Jesus.  Our friends were babysitting for a local family. And the child in their care was a baby, just a few weeks old.  And I took my turn holding her during church. While sensing her warmth against me and feeling the slight rise and fall of her chest, I couldn't help but remember that my mother kept "the bed babies" during church at the Hillcrest Baptist Church in Enterprise, Alabama. While the rest of us were attending Sunday School and church, she attended to  those babies. And I was reminded why.  Until yesterday, I had always imagined Mother sitting in a rocking chair watching those babies in a crib.  You know, "bed babies." There's not a chance those babies were in a crib. There were at least two hours that day that those babies were in somebody's arms. Against somebody's chest.  Feeling somebody's heartbeat against their own. My mother knew a long time before I did that holding a newborn baby is like being Jesus, "He's got the tiny little  baby in His hands. He's got the whole world in His hands." In church yesterday, her story met Jesus, and He was me. "Let the children come to you and you will be the Kingdom of God.  Her very life depends on you. She has no other Jesus but you."

One of my favorite books by Frederick Buechner is Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale. When I read the book the first time over thirty years ago, I could not have imagined how relevant it would be yesterday. Tragedy, comedy and fairy tale are alive in the NICU each day.  Each of the doctors and nurses in the NICU has a story. And when each of them comes to work their story meets Jesus. In one way or another as he or she scrubs in and attends to a newborn baby, above that baby's crib is invisibly inscribed, "Once upon a time in a land far, far away..."  And that baby looks up and sees Jesus.

Comes The Dawn

This beautiful poem has been attributed to at least a half dozen people, so I'm just going to call it anonymous.

Comes The Dawn

"After a while you learn the subtle difference,
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul.

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning,
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts,
And presents aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats,
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn,
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth,
And you learn and learn,
With every goodbye you learn".

I resonate with the entire poem, but there are two passages in particular that speak to me. "And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and  your eyes open, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child."  And "and you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong, and you really do have worth, and you learn and learn, with every goodbye you learn."

Accepting defeat is not easy for me. It never has been. I'm not so arrogant as to believe that I never make mistakes, but I'm enough of a perfectionist to think that I never should make mistakes. I find mistakes to be personally painful. And yet I've been told by someone who  cares about me very much, "Humans make mistakes. You are human. You will sometimes make a mistake." So I am learning to "accept my defeats with my head up." And I'm learning that these mistakes do not diminish my worth as a person one iota.

"And you learn and learn, with every goodbye you learn." I've said goodbye to many people over the years. Most of them I had no idea was a final goodbye till months or years later. Others, during the conversation I knew a chapter was closing. I knew that at some level it was goodbye. But with those goodbyes I learned.  I've learned to pay closer attention to goodbyes in case it's the last one. Frederick Buechner tells the story of helping move his older daughter into her college dorm.  He didn't realize that in the next few minutes all of their lives were about to change forever.  He got distracted by something and realized  later, "I said goodbye with my back turned." I've also learned that goodbyes, whether in the social sense or the final sense, are a part of the circle of life. After all,  half of the word "goodbyes" is "good."

The first three words are perhaps the most important words in the poem-- "After a while." An old backwoods preacher was asked what was his favorite verse in the Bible and he said, "And it came to pass."  "After a while" heals an abundance of pain. As for "sunshine burns if you get too much", I learned that a very long time ago.

NICU Clocks

My junior year of high school I had chemistry with Mr. Baker.  Behind his head was a large clock with a black hour hand and minute hand.   It had a red second hand that, as you already know,  made its complete rotation every 60 seconds. It had big black numbers to measure every five minute interval. The fact that I had no way of ignoring the clock made that third period class just before lunch the longest class of the day.  I remember one particular morning seeing the minute hand on the seven, twenty-five minutes till twelve.  I was hungry and ready for a break and time stood still.

All of modern science flows back to Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and his General Theory of Relatively.  In that theory, time became a part of his equations.  He called the phenomena of time and relativity, spacetime. He postulated that for an object traveling near the speed of light, time would virtually stand still.  Albert Einstein must have reached this conclusion in the NICU of a hospital.

In the NICU time stands still.  There are clocks everywhere. Big clocks, small clocks, wall clocks, digital clocks. Every wall and surface hosts a clock of some sort. The reason for this is that the charting of any particular baby includes the time.  This might be the time the baby eats. The time the baby poops. The time a particular medical devise is put on or taken off.  There are any number of reasons the nurse needs to know the time. Also for hygiene and safety reasons, the nurses don't wear watches.

The room where I cuddled a baby girl this morning had three clocks.  There was a clock on the wall beside me about the size of a clock radio.  It  had an hour hand, a minute hand and a second hand.  But I couldn't see that clock if I didn't turn and look over my right shoulder.   And then northwest of my field of vision was a digital clock on a monitor.  Besides constantly displaying the heart rate, respiratory rate and other bodily functions, there was this digital clock.  The display, about three quarters of on inch tall, ticked off the hour, minutes and seconds  one by one.  Under the clock, in smaller letters was the digital date. The digital hours didn't seem to be moving any faster than the digital date. I could see this clock while I rocked my little girl. But the clock that was the problem was the one right in front of me. This was the old-fashioned large wall clock,  exactly like the one in Mr. Baker's chemistry class.

I want to make something clear.  I very much enjoy holding these babies.  That's why I'm in the NICU. And I never have anywhere else I need to be or would rather be. The love I feel for and from these tiny infants is beyond description.I look forward to the experience week after week.  But when you are surrounded by three clocks all ticking at one second intervals and you're in a room by yourself (and a sleeping baby), two hours can get to be a long time. This phenomenon has given me much respect and empathy for nursing mothers.  Although "society" has relaxed somewhat about mothers nursing their babies in public, in many places it is still taboo. Or the nursing mother is modest and has no desire to nurse in public, In either case, this mother is segregated from other people for several hours a day. And I can tell you from experience that this sort of time is a long time.

In a science fiction movie such as Interstellar, when a person gets back from a deep sleep in deep space, his family and friends may have aged 60 or 70 years, and yet the space traveler has only aged a few years. This is not just science fiction; it's science fact. It's a theoretical  phenomenon that has been proven by science in many ways. Einstein's theories are the law. But add to spacetime, NICU time. It is as equally bizarre and real.

That twenty five minutes in chemistry class must have eventually ticked by because that was forty seven years ago.  In some ways the forty seven years have gone by as fast as that twenty five minutes. The trip home from the NICU takes me about twenty-five minutes.  Although I was traveling well below the speed of light, it took no time at all.

Remember the Sabbath Day

"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8

I spent the summer of 1971, the summer after my high school graduation,  selling family Bibles and Bible story books door to door near Fordsville, Kentucky. . It was rigorous work that involved knocking on doors twelve hours a day, six days a week. When  I knocked on their door, yes we were trained to knock on the door, most often  the homeowner didn't invite me in.  Sometimes the homeowner invited me in. Other times the person not only invited me in, but actually bought a book from me. Sometimes the homeowner didn't buy a book,  but offered something to eat or drink and engaged in welcomed friendly conversation. In this particular instance, the very nice lady didn't invite me in but engaged in conversation on her doorstep.   I was in a really good mood because it was a beautiful day and I had sold some books that morning. We got into a discussion about church and about worship and I said something like, "And you know, it doesn't matter much when you worship as long as you worship".  It was at that moment that I was introduced, up close and personal, to a Seventh Day Adventist.

The main point she made was  the directive to honor the Sabbath Day was a directive in the Ten Commandments. She reminded me that the Biblical Sabbath was from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday because in creation  God rested on the seventh day. God also commanded us to rest on the seventh day.   She said, "I know most Christians honor 'the Lord's Day' on Sunday, because Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, but the commandment is to honor the Biblical Sabbath". She then asked a very good question, "Where in the Bible  did God issue a different commandment?" I was speechless. I had no response.

I didn't become a Seventh Day Adventist, but I never forgot the conversation.  I never forgot her question of when did God change his commandment.  Christians changed their practice, but God had never changed his commandment.

Then over the years I noticed something. If the Lord's Day is a day of rest, Sunday for a dedicated Christian is anything but a day of rest.  They go to church morning, noon and night. And then they have all sorts of rules about what you can and can't do on the Lord's Day.  If anything, they go to bed tired on Sunday night. And then I noticed something else.  Most Christian's favorite night, like most people,  is Friday night. And their favorite day is Saturday.  On Friday night they get with their best friends over food and drink. And on  Saturday, they do the things that they enjoy the most. In other words, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is a day of rest and relaxation--the Sabbath. Meanwhile, the Seventh Day Adventists go to church all day and have all kinds of rules about what you can and can't do on Saturday.  So who is honoring the Sabbath Day?

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is actually one of the  most horrible stories in the Bible. It's not my favorite because it's horrible, but because it's a prime example of why you've got serious problems if you say you believe the Bible is literal. In Numbers chapter 15 verses 32-36 you will find a most gruesome story. You can read it for yourself, but in this story a man is caught "picking up sticks on the Sabbath Day."  He wasn't chastised or put in time out for an hour.  God told Moses to have him stoned. So they took him outside the camp and stoned him to death. If you've ever read about stoning, you know that it is one of the most cruel and most painful methods of torture. They did all this because he was picking up sticks on the Saturday. God forbid he had been mowing his lawn !

The famous mythologist, Joseph Campbell, says that whereas the stories of the Bible aren't literally true, they are, in their essence true.  It has been difficult for me to find a kernel of truth in this story, but I will offer this.  You need to find Sabbath in your life.  You need a day or at least a few hours to call your own.  You need to carve out some time for something you enjoy doing. If because of obligations and responsibility you have lost your ability to enjoy much of anything, then you need to cultivate that ability. Whereas God won't kill you, if you have no Sabbath rest then you will eventually die.  No, you may not be six feet under, but you will die to your true self. You will die to the things you enjoy.  You will die to the ability to relax. You will die.

The day I had that fateful conversation with that nice lady was a Saturday.  I guess it wasn't work for her to talk to me about her faith on the Sabbath.  I, on the other hand, according to her beliefs was violating the Sabbath by selling books.   And yet there she offered no lecture or condemnation. She offered kindness and understanding. Today is Saturday.  I've listened to some of my favorite music, finished reading a book I've been reading, but I've also been working on a book that I am writing. Now I'm writing this. So did I violate the Sabbath Day? My friend in Kentucky might say "Yes."  I say "No." In  the first place, I'm pretty sure that God has no problem with it.  In the second place,  I honored the Sabbath because I was enjoying what I was doing.  But you can be sure that I didn't go outside and pick up sticks.