Don’t talk, just listen! The silent conversation of surrounding emptiness, filled with the thundering voice of God; echoing inaudibly through pages of written conversation.
Speaking through winds with no words, the heart’s ear open and tuned to miraculous melodic messages. Blending realization, comprehension and certainty; knowing. Swells of swirling revelation wrapping comfort in the security of His magnitude. Trembling in smallness at His certainty; at the wonderment of His presence. Ignited consciousness sensing discussion, feeling dialogue, absorbing counsel. Wisdom warms the moments set aside, yielding, in silent awe of words unspoken. Shielded in a moment of grace. Hidden in the shadow of His wings.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” John 10: 27

The muscles that make up the motor system of the human neck will allow the head to swivel from left to right and with a hard shift of the eye muscles to either side, the ability to see what’s behind may be possible as long as the object is static. For the most part, the head is not made to be twisted backward. In fact, the normal range of neck movement ends when the chin aligns with the shoulder. The best way to see what’s behind us is to stop and turn around.
Living in regret is like stopping all forward movement and turning around. It’s like building a monument of respect to the place or the thing that nearly destroyed us. It is an alter of sorrow; pity even. It’s the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve futility we know to be completely unproductive yet, it is often a place of repeated visitation.
Rather, there should be a marker and a testimony to go in that spot. The marker is the place where life change happened; the “road closed” warning not to proceed further. The testimony is the story of how God provided a means of escape.
God never meant for us to live our lives looking backward and He has always taken repentant souls forward from the situation (the marker) they were in. Consequences notwithstanding, whatever ground we are currently standing on is an important marker of forward movement in our lives. Going back to old failures is like turning around from the place God is leading you and honoring the place you left behind. It’s dangerous! For Lot’s wife it was her final condemnation. Gen. 19:26.
God is our Father who wants us to move forward and not to languish in our past sinfulness. The father of the prodigal son was not interested in the details of his son’s indiscretions; they were not a factor in his forgiveness! The fact that the son had returned was cause to celebrate and move forward. Luke 15: 11-32.
There is no need to contort ourselves unnaturally in an attempt to peer back at failure nor is there a reason to stop our forward progress for sympathetic visitation to monuments of imperfection. Those things belong to the enemy!

God, help me to go forward from the ground I am standing on

There is an unwritten agreement in sports that brings frowns upon the excessive scoring of points or goals when winning is a near guarantee. In some cases we have applied a “mercy rule” of forced surrender to protect the weak. The message is: we should take it easy on the competition, we shouldn’t pile on or attempt to purposely shame them. If we know we’re going to beat them anyway, then it doesn’t matter if we beat them by 1 or we beat them by 20, except that beating them by 20 will most likely dampen their spirits. There are many of life’s lessons that can be taken from this show of compassion that man created in order to care for his fellow man but this rule, this principle of man-made mercy, only changes the goal posts.
Good people with good hearts and good lives, make good rules. Good people grimace at the outward display of cold hard ambition thrust upon the weakness of the inferior. Why? Because blood-thirsty fight fans don’t want to see blood? No, because it’s no longer good competition!
Therefore, good people’s basis for goodness lies in their own good feelings, which come from good origins but are subject to bad teaching.
The mercy rule was created to make us feel good. Like a trophy for participation, it means we won but we didn’t get greedy. And therefore, everybody won? But everybody didn’t win, and everybody never wins because winning is final; it’s definite; it’s exclusive. Running up the score is not the insult; its’ the assurance of winning. When David killed Goliath he sunk a stone into his skull, stabbed him with his own sword and cut off his head, 1 Samuel 17: 49-51. Cutting off Goliath’s head was the assurance and the final proof of David’s victory.
Unlike the example of man’s weakness for merciless sports whippings, David’s battle called for no mercy; for the good of Israel. He came in the name of Jehovah, fully prepared to finalize the victory. Likewise our attempts to do good should be grounded in God’s good. They should be an overwhelming effort to defeat the enemy; to run up the score. Man-made mercy is often an attempt to shield ourselves from witnessing our own evil intensions.

The standard of good we often claim
Excuses wrong and places blame
Not “standard” at all, it’s never the same
And can’t be used in Jesus’ name

What was the name of that guy who followed Babe Ruth in the batting order on the 1927 New York Yankees team? If you’re a baseball aficionado you probably know the answer but for us regular folks, evoking the name of the great Babe Ruth could only mean that the guy who batted next was not nearly as important to the team.
We often find ourselves in a similar position in life, where the person that precedes us or accompanies us, also completely overshadows us. We step up, knees rattling and teeth chattering, hoping to hit a home run and after three quick whiffs we begin to doubt our abilities. Maybe we’re not cut out for this. Maybe the level of talent in this league is too great.
In my military experience, one of my best assignments was instructing young officers in preparation for their fleet assignments. The challenge they faced was enormous. In terms of requirements to display leadership, responsibility and sheer seat-of-their-pants adaptability the expectations were off the charts. At a ripe old average age of 23, the likelihood that they would hit all the wickets the first time out was dismal. For most of them balancing life and a high-stakes job at sea was not something they’d ever done before. Add to their challenge that they would relieve a seasoned officer (of 3 to 4 years experience) when they reported to their new jobs. Visions of Babe Ruth circling their heads, they set out to become the new home run champ.
Of course the requirements of the job did not call for Babe Ruth qualifications. Babe Ruth was an exception. He was the Apostle Paul; Moses, Goliath, and all they would have to be was a good “{insert name}”, but wrongly focused, many of them set themselves up for quick failure in lieu of the gradual success plan that was already in place for them. I remember inwardly snickering at their arrogance and predicting the unlikelihood of their successes.
Let’s look at this a different way. When James and John asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand, Jesus quickly let them know they were out of line; that they didn’t know what they were asking and they were wrongly focused but he also addressed the others. Mark 10:35-45. In other words after Jesus would have told the young officers they must first become good at being the lowliest member of the team, He would have turned to me to correct my indignation. I wish I had known that there was a lesson for everyone in that scenario.
In finding their way, they had to follow “THE” Way. If they focused on becoming the next superstar, they would often burn out in frustration at the overwhelming standard they established for themselves. As for me: If you’re (I’m) helping someone find their way don’t be surprised or indignant about their idealistic zeal. Don’t deflate them.
The guy who followed Babe Ruth in 1927 just happened to be a guy named Lou Gehrig because Lou Gehrig actually had a higher batting average and was the designated “clean up” hitter but that’s not the point. The batting assignment to be the guy who follows Babe Ruth comes with a specific job requirement. The expectation is that you will be able to do that job. The hope is that you will eventually do better. Finish well good people!

Being “in the pocket”, in the “sweet spot” of musical composition may not be the ultimate in popularity but the look on the faces of jazz greats tells a story of completion and satisfaction and oneness, and a temporary lack of stress that signifies cool, which implies peace and mimics fulfillment. The harmoniously blended tones of improvisation seemingly represent a model of cooperative interaction, forcing dissimilars and opposites to merge into random but beautiful conformity.
Wisdom offers a life comparison; a religion in which the rhythms become the doctrine and life’s imperfections pose questions about the composer. Shouldn’t life be as smooth as jazz? Shouldn’t Christianity?
But jazz is jazz and Christianity is honey in a can labeled “beans”. It’s the face of the angry politician whose cookie jar-stained hand wields the “old rugged cross” while his pointing finger chastises those he’s stolen from. It’s the snarky Monday morning receptionist voice of a gracious Sunday school teacher. It’s the justification of a closed wallet; the everyday crass conversation of congregational braggers; the sad, joy-less lives of the saved.
Oh but the sweet spot is truly a sweet spot; a suite spot that lasts as long as humility pays the rent. In other words that’s temporary too but leaves the half-full, fully filled with fuel until the next refill; a paradox of perfection designed for the imperfect.
Free but at a price; given but never owned.
Maybe Jesus gave us jazz as a parallel.
The synchronized coolness of repetition and rehearsal inhibits faults and imperfection.
And yet the inevitable errant note is repeatedly covered in musical forgiveness.
The repetition making the fault increasingly less likely, and there, the parallel ends.
There is no smooth, no cool. Only disturbances of personal peace followed by the peace that surpasses understanding. There’s building and re-building; a life permanently under construction. And from the outside looking in, from a human perspective one could assume that if God could make random musical notation work so harmoniously, following Him could have been made to work along the same parallel.
But jazz is jazz and it’s just cool but Christianity is God’s absolute best, often badly represented.

Christians don’t own the sun, we try to stand in the light of the Son and live in His reflection

There comes a time in every person’s life when we have to face the inevitable; the scary; the dangerous. At my age, many of the people that have touched my world in one way or another, have passed on to their eternity. I have no way of knowing whether or not they fulfilled their dreams or reached whatever level of satisfaction they were seeking. I only know that for me, the fulfillment of a lifetime of unique experiences begins with the  expression I hope to share on this page. Hello World!