It Started with an Embrace

Note the wrapped right hand for IVs

It started with an embrace in the delivery room.  And then, another embrace, 9 months later, as we were unexpectedly back in the pediatrics ward of Huntington Hospital with a very feverish lump of 9 month old baby girl resting on my shoulder.  She would be in that hospital for nearly a week, overcoming a serious infection. It was a frightening time.

In that pediatrics ward her mother and I were quite worried.  Our little girl had a very high fever and was listless and lethargic.  Among the marks of real Providence in our lives was the alert response of our pediatrician, who admitted our baby girl immediately.  As it turned out, she was exactly correct.  Several days of serious intravenous medication ensued, followed by a surgical procedure, and finally, gratefully, discharge from the hospital.

I will never forget those moments in pediatrics admitting, holding that baby girl, wondering where this suddenly very scary journey might take us.  I had no idea, and I was petrified.  She was so little.

But in those moments of fear, I also experienced a feeling that was entirely unique, solitary, and mysterious.  It's something I have only spoken of a couple of times since; it is too difficult to articulate.  There, in the bustle of a hospital, holding that child, I felt an almost tangible sense of God's presence.  Strangely, as if something far more infinite was there with us all, in that room.  Something Sacred. 

And at the same moment, a single vivid and entirely unexpected thought seemed to overwhelm me and become more clear than just about anything I have thought or felt in all my years.

"I will be with you, wherever this leads."  

More than anything else that scary day, I knew we were not alone.  I can't explain where this came from, or even what it meant at its deepest level.  This baby's sickness was not a random event.  This was Peace, washing over me.  And I needed it.

I have been reflecting on those days, and the arc of that girl's life these past days, as her mother and I have returned from Seattle, going the slow way home through Washington, Oregon, and the coast of California.  On the road you have a lot of time to reflect on the mystery and wonders of the past seasons of your life.  And you have time to ponder where God showed up in your life as a family.  The road gives you the gift to forget your schedule for a while, and helps you put all those years of raising a family in perspective.  The long road home helps you enjoy the slowness of the journey, and reminds you of where you have been.  I think we spend too much time flying over life; the road connects us with what really happens down here on earth.

It started in a hospital admitting room, and, in part, it ended on an open quad at college, in a slightly tearful goodbye for the start of freshman year.  This is the point when we all, parents and child, admit that its time to begin to part - to all find our own way in the world.

On that day last week, strangely I had a reminder of that same sense of Peace from almost 19 years before.  It came in that sacred moment when I watched daughter and Mom embrace for a moment of parting.  A hug.  Tears.  Peace.  Right there, in front of me.  How could that be?  She was leaving us - how would she do?  What would her future be like?  Millions of questions.  And yet, Peace.

I know this because 10 days ago, that same little girl, now grown and entirely ready to go, rested her head, for just a moment in a hug, on that same shoulder of mine.  Then, she turned, smiling and making fun of her emotional parents, and walked confidently forward toward her new life in college.

So many years have passed, each one filled with a unique mixture of tears and laughter, frustration and joy, challenge and opportunity.  I have this other name besides Steve.  This girl calls me Dad.  It will be the most sacred and joy-filled name I will ever be called.

Friends ask us how we are doing.  Thankful.  The word hardly begins to describe how we feel.

The Heavens declare the glory of God

This certainly illustrates the point of Psalm 19.  Make sure to watch it full screen.

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

Are We Paying Attention to All This?

Its late summer now and the daylight here is growing shorter.  Past is the 54th anniversary of my arrival on this planet.  Lately, over the course of this summer, I have been reflecting on how much of this life I am really understanding.  Or appreciating. Or celebrating.  And I don't blog here as much as I did during my late 40s - I should change that.  Maybe that could become an exercise in more frequent reflection and celebration.

How much do I grasp of this journey and the remarkable relationships I have been given?  And as we all move from day to day, how often am I missing the presence Divine in the midst of the everyday?  I might be missing a lot, and I would like to change that.

Now deep in middle age, and passing more milestones in life, do I even have something close to a sense of wonder and mystery about it all?    Is there, deep within me, a glimpse of a vague understanding of my part in this relentless, remarkable, enchanting, mysterious gift I have been given in the form of friends and family?

Older Daughter is back beginning her final year in college at DePaul in Chicago, after a great summer at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, helping to lead the Sting Rays Swim Team.  Younger Daughter is weeks away from starting her own remarkable journey at the University of Washington.  As the seasons of adulthood change, am I really taking in all of this amazing ride?  Do I get it; do I really understand?

It seems we hold these moments of life with our children like some kind of impossible net made of gossamer threads.  We can never get a complete or permanent grip.  And, it seems, this is the way it is meant to be.


Kevin Kling is a storyteller, and I recently heard him interviewed.  He said this, that completely struck me; it was an epiphany of sorts:

"As children, we are closer in time to the Creator.  I realized who I connected with.  As a kid, I connected with my grandparents.  We were in the same light. I was in the dawn, and they were in the twilight, but we were in the same light.  They were heading to the Creator, and I was coming from the Creator.  And, because of that, we spoke a very similar language.  I wondered as I was getting older and as I looked back, where that goes.  Because it does go.  We become entrenched in this world.  As time goes on, and we come to the end of our lives, we return to that point."

"Because it does go".  My goodness!  Where has it gone for me?  In the busy-ness of running my own business?  In the blur of the everyday? Sometimes, we just get lost in the immediate, don't we?  We become entrenched in this world.  I love that phrasing.  Heading off to work each day, dealing with the immediacy of life. We are like the people in the Rockwell painting"Lift Up Thine Eyes".  Although its too small to see, the print on the sign reads, of course, "Lift up Thine Eyes".  Beneath it, the hoards of the city trudge onward to work, heads downcast.

As this new chapter of life in the form of "empty nest" comes into focus, I want to pay attention, to make a difference in the lives of others, and to remember and celebrate it. 

Your Work Has Purpose

To me, this is a wonderful example of ordinary people working together to do extraordinary things.  That we all might be so inspired by the work we do.....

Mars Curiosity - Amazing!

On August 5th, Mars Curiosity will land.  Cross your fingers.  This is stunning!

This Marriage - Eric Whitacre

Heard this today for the first time.  So sweet and sublime.....

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage.

Lindbergh's Grave and Memorial Day

Earlier this week, I experienced a small epiphany of sorts at 37,000 feet over the Midwest. 

I was returning home from a 4 day business trip to Washington DC.  Before I departed, I downloaded several pages of one of my favorite blogs, Flight Level 390, to read on the plane.  It seemed fitting to read about the adventures and musings of an airline pilot while flying home myself.  I simply love the periodic reflections of Captain Dave, and heartily recommend them.

One of Captain Dave's posts was a reflection and a poem on Charles Lindbergh.  This recent May 20th was the 85th anniversary of Lindbergh's courageous and record breaking transatlantic flight, a flight that forever changed the world.  And here I was, with 120 or so other souls, 7-plus miles in the air over an unmarked Midwestern state, traveling at 0.83 times the speed of sound, in a metal tube with wings.  How far we have come since that single man dared the odds and transformed history.

And tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we set aside for the first trip of the spring to the beach, or barbeque's, or pool parties.  But the meaning of Memorial Day is so much more. 

Lindbergh's grave near Hana, Maui.

I remember about 35 years ago my parents and I made the drive to Hana, Maui; a picturesque and winding road that ends at the small clifftop Hawaiian village of Hana, a place directly out of Heaven on Earth.  My Dad kept talking about Lindbergh owning a small home there, and having recently been buried someplace nearby.  My Dad thought Charles Lindbergh was an amazing American icon.  He was right.  At the end of his life, Lindbergh chose to be flown from a hospital in New York, where he was being treated for lymphoma, back to Hana and the place he loved so much.   His grave is simple, and not marked on maps.  Those who wish to honor him find the grave site on their own.  

And there I was reading this poem, speeding through the sky with ease, tears in my eyes, reflecting upon many things; the amazing advance of technology, the courage of a man to go it alone, the character of this generation that preceded ours that took risks like Lindbergh, and the service of my own Dad to his country as a B17 pilot in World War II.  Many things in this poem struck me as deeply meaningful, I share it with you, in the hopes it might have meaning for you as well.

Lindbergh's Grave

That long green swell that sears my eyes

As I lie in this bed of black stone,

Is it the Irish coast rising in the dawn

Beyond the brushed silver of my blind cowling

Where, throughout the night,

I trusted Not in some desert God's directions,

But in the calibrated compasses of man?

That rushing sound,

is it the hordes at Orly,

Swarming past the barriers and lights

To scavenge my Spirit,

and lift me up

Into the air that only heroes breath?

Or is it the age-old sigh of sea on stones,

Known to those who pace the shingle

And the swirled black sands that seep

Up from the sea's loom to wrap

Impossible islands in a shawl of waves?

That painting daubed on the chapel's window-

Not the roselined mandala at Chartres

Where flame in glass misprisoned sings-

But a cruder Savior, bearded, browned and popular,

An icon obtainable to plain sight,

a trim God Flat upon the glass in dull gesso limned,
And, when light moves behind it, looking down....

Is this the sign in which, at last, we conquer?

Conquer? I'd laugh the laugh of stones

Had I but eyes to see and lips to breathe.

No, I am content here where man and apes

Together waltzing lie, having done at last

With all horizons, having done at last with sky.

If you would see me now pass by

The small green church where ancient

Banyans looming shade and guard

The tower and the bell which you

May toll for me, or you, or all those

Not yet delivered to the stars and sea.

And then, retreating, mark the trees

Whose tendrilled branches hold but air,

And shadow both the church and stones

Beneath which wait both apes and men,

Who, foolish with their hunger for the air,

Swung branch to branch up all the years

Until, letting go at last, they learned

Through my night's leap, at last, to rise.

Sea, stone, tree, ape and Savior.

These now my long companions are.

Better here, I think, in this dank green

Cartoon of Paradise, this slight-of-hand Eden;

Better here beneath the pumice stones

Where strangers drop a wreathe from time to time;

Better in here deep than out there wide --
Hovering over the pillaring waves alone,
Suspended between the old world and the new,
Trusting in man's compass to guide me home;
Descending down the sharp cold blade of dawn.
Better, much better, in here at last to wait
In here where the shawl of the waves below
Enfolds that fire they could never snare.

Gerard Vanderleun

American Digest

Palapalo Ho'omau Church Cemetery, Kipahulu, Southeast Maui

Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons

This is the reason this song was written.  This is the reason we were born.  This is the reason I love Young Life.




[sigh no more | a reflection of beauty] from JJ Starr on Vimeo.

Lay My Burden Down - Aoife O'Donovan

Just discovered today that this touching song was penned by a relatively new artist, who I have been seeing quite a lot of these days.  Aoife O'Donovan of Boston.  When you get discovered by Alison Kraus, you are doing quite fine, thank you.

My Father's Father / The Civil Wars

This is completely haunting and beautiful to me, and speaks of the mystery of our past.  As I continue to research the history of my own family, 11 generations now in America, with members on opposite sides of the Civil War, these words have new meaning.

My Father's Father

I hear something hanging on the wind
I see black smoke up around the bend
I got my ticket and
I'm going to go home

The leaves have changed a time or two
Since the last time the train came through
I got my ticket and I'm going to go home

My father's father's blood is on the track
A sweet refrain drifts in from the past
I got my ticket and I'm going to go home

The winding roads they led me here
burn like coal and dry like tears
So here's my hope
My tired soul
So here's my ticket
I want to go home
Home
Home

My Friend Molly

Someday, I hope I get to meet Angela, who has written this beautiful piece about our family friend, Molly.....
 

Molly
She is the first reason
in 23 years
that I've ever had to wake up with the sun.
And her magic number is 21.

Born with an extra chromosome,
Molly is a miracle.

She loves musicals, math problems,
and literally refers to EVERY book she sees as her 'favorite'

Molly colors the world.

On ordinary days,
She reminds me to sing songs that aren't playing
And see things that aren't there.

At least, that is... to jaded eyes and ears like ours.

See, Molly has a gift:
She lives as if no one is watching.

A true freedom.

She lacks an ego,
Operates solely on love,
and doesn't respond well to anger.

She is hello hugs,
goodbye smiles,
and occasional slaps on the butt.

She is random questions
no; I mean REALLY random
(She once asked me what time Jesus was born)

She is beautiful compliments and peculiar observations.

Molly is bright purple boots, knee high socks, and umbrellas when its not raining.

She is cafeteria salads topped with,
of all things,
sweet relish.

She is chocolate milk.

Together, we are anything but 'disabled'
We are silly.
and it is not uncommon for both of us to laugh uncontrollably
when someone makes fart noises in the classroom.

I try to be an adult;
But it is hard when she makes the musings of childhood
seem so much more appealing.

We chase 'bad guys' around the track during gym,
and break into show tunes in the hallway,
and whenever she decides to
I let that girl dance.

because she is preserving my silly...
AND developing my patience.

Not every day is a bowl of cherries,
See, Molly likes to sass me from time to time.

She has an attitude that rivals my own,
and is not afraid to tell me,
straight up,
to "Get out of her face"

She is charming,
but some days she gets frustrated.

Not because she cannot communicate her thoughts,
but because we don't always speak her language.

I guess the only "down" to the syndrome
is that everyone else can't seem to catch up.

There is nothing 'disabled' about her.

The problem is with us;
see, the world likes to taint the beautiful with its "normal"

But Molly is a musical when the world is silent.

One of the goals of her education plan,
Is to become more "well-adjusted"

And I can't help but ask "...to what?"

To boring?
To egotistical?
To vain?

Molly is so many things that 'normal' is not
and because of that
I've yet to watch her interact with someone
who doesn't immediately fall in love.

She makes every day happenings anything but.

Once, at fifth period,
Molly was working on her times tables,
and I was taking notes...when in her loudest voice, with a smile on her face,
completely out of nowhere,
she yelled:
"Teach me how to fly!!"

..and after we laughed it off,

I picked her pencil up off the floor and said:

"ME teach YOU..?! Girl please,
you're the one with the wings...

now get back to work."
 
Angela Aguirre

Miles and Lilly

There is so much going on here in just 1:39, I could hardly begin to tell you.  But I will.  Begin, at least.

Beauty, simplicity, friendship, innocence, room for everyone to play, exploring new things, and love.  Lots of love. 

"This is Real"

The following is based on a true story.

Her life thus far, taken in the context of the all the possible kinds of lives of teenage girls, had been an easy one.

She had grown up in an affluent suburb of Southern California, gone to the finest private parochial schools, and had seldom touched real pain or loss.  Her parents were basically good people; her father a corporate attorney, and her mother an accountant turned community volunteer.  For her high school years, she had gone to a private, Catholic all girls high school on a mountain top, overlooking the green exclusive and private hillsides of her growing-up years.  Her grades were good, she had a nice group of friends, and  had been admitted at several highly ranked colleges.  She even attended mass.  Occasionally.  Everything was going along fine. 

But suddenly, in the final months of her senior year, a weekend came that would change her more than all the combined blessing of her charmed youth.  And it would happen in a place both expected, and, at the same time, entirely unanticipated.

Each year of high school, the girls would take a long weekend for a spiritual retreat, a time away from the busy rush of school, sports, and social life back home.  A two hour car ride away was a retreat center that offered a kind of separation from the rush of modern teenage life.  For many, if not most girls, this was not something particularly looked forward to; it was more of an obligation than an anticipation.  Some even counted the hours until it was over; bored by the lack of wireless connections, and the need for a "religious event".  Silence.  What could possibly happen of worth in a place that was known for its silence?

For many girls, these retreats were not given much thought.  A time away from the annoyances of family and studies, perhaps.  For others, this was merely a time to be with friends.  If the intent and setting was intended to be focused on faith, that was at best, tolerable.

And yet, in her senior year, even in the midst of this routine of routine religious practice, something happened to this girl that was surprising, transformational, and filled with joy.  Unexpected joy.  Over the course of several days, in the midst of a structure of reading, conversation with friends and leaders, from solitude and reflection, in the most unexpected ways for this girl, God became known, Jesus became present.  To even this high school senior girl with a "good life" and no apparent needs.

As the retreat weekend came to a close, this senior girl pondered the larger questions of her future away from home and off to college, and this new presence in her life.  What did this all mean?  She approached a retreat leader with these words:

"This is real.  All this conversation about God that I have heard, for all these years, that I never really thought much about.  If you take the time to think, and pray, and ask God.....it turns out, it's real!"

Real.  Over the past 32 years, since my senior year in college, this has been my experience as well.  Perhaps that is the reason my eyes filled with tears and my heart swelled when I heard this story.  And the same thing happens every time I hear a similar story of redemption and transformation.  The kind of business God is about on a daily basis.

This girl's story also made me think of the words of G. K. Chesterton in his book "Orthodoxy":

The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick-room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.
 
Its real, my friends.  Real.

"The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots." - 1 Corinthians 1:17-18