A month of thankfulness, Part Three

I want to share these posts with you, to help you consider what you are thankful for. Perhaps some are identical, perhaps some are analogous, perhaps some are completely foreign to you. But the thing that should stick with you is having an ATTITUDE of GRATITUDE, always. Just this one simple change in your life, on its own, can transform you.

Some of the details of these posts are rather personal; obviously, I'm not revealing anything i don't want to reveal. At this late stage, my life is an open book for reading and enhancement of others. But it also means there may be things which don't make sense because you don't know my background. Hopefully it will be clear enough in context, but leave a comment if there's something that's unclear, and I'll clarify. May God bless you in this season of thankfulness. 

A month of thanks.

Nov 11. I had this huge post about how we were founded on the principle that the people should govern - that yes, originally it was the “white male landowners”, but gradually it’s expanded to the ideal that ALL men and women were created equal (even if elements of society today want to renege on that belief today and use bullying tactics to scare us in that direction).

Then I talked about how the 240 years of believing in the American Dream - the idea that the economic power belongs not to the bourgeoisie but the innovative and hard-working - led us to become the greatest economic and not coincidentally military power on earth. And that a strong military can be a danger when its beliefs run contrary to the nation’s, but that we’ve been blessed with ten generations of leaders and recruits who were the staunchest defenders of those principles - sometimes even more so than the elected and unelected people in our government. They have defended not just the people of this nation, but the very principles this nation stands for.

Finally, I thanked the men and women who have served in that military, who put their lives and families at risk so that I never had to, and that I have never forgotten that privilege, I promise I never will forget it, and that I prayed that those who read this would never forget those who were the living manifestation of Romans 13. It was a really great post, to be honest; I was very proud of it.

However, that post seems to have disappeared into the ether. So this is not that post; it is merely a tribute to that post, a tribute to the tribute to the men and women who may not have made this nation the exact ideal the Founding Fathers envisioned, but who have made it closer than any other nation than any other country in existence. Thank you, veterans.

An intermission, on an ugly topic...

In 1986, the McMartin pre-school trials were a frightening moment in American history, when people were convicted in the public eye through only the testimony of young children - children, it turned out, who could be easily manipulated by prosecutors (even well-meaning ones) into accusing people they SUSPECTED of guilt.

I know this because a twelve-year old foster child wrongly accused me of such behavior that year as a math teacher because she was getting a D in my class and wanted to get me in trouble. It was professionally the scariest moment of my life. I have always been grateful to both her foster mom and my principal, both of whom believed in me and refused to go public with the child’s allegations without more proof, despite the public mood - and sure enough, it quickly turned out that the child was lying about a great number of things, including some items she’d stolen, and my crisis was averted. But those types of accusations ruined many people back then.

I wonder how many men are being accused falsely now and are watching their careers explode. I’ve no doubt most if not nearly all of these accusations are probably true, as there’s been an unspoken culture of male sexual gratification for decades, it seems. But it would be trivial to do what the poor twisted foster girl did to me right now: accuse someone you didn’t like for your own vengeful purposes without evidence, and the public would believe your accusations over his defenses without question in this environment.

It’s hard to say that without sounding like I’m belittling those women (and men) who are finally seeing some justice for their pain. That’s not it at all. It goes back to the American ideal: innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. More than anything else, we are supposedly a nation of laws. I would hate to see that vanish in a climate of innuendo and hatred.

A month of thanks.

Nov 12. I am thankful for the pain and severe fatigue that I enjoy from my Tubular Aggregate Myopathy.

I have to be, because God allows it to take over my body.

Originally, its purpose was to slow me down enough to bring me to the Lord, with Melissa’s loving help, and it did that, forcing me to quit my band teaching career along the way. I appreciated that, actually, and the morphine, oxycodone, and gabapentin were able to keep me sorta functional in the meantime.

Now, it’s progressed to where I’ll be retiring at the age of 53 as soon as the paperwork and evaluations get done. No amount of medicine is preventing the fact that I can no longer drive or even travel any significant distance, or do more than superficially hold or touch my children or my Dana. I’d thought it was to give me time to write for the Lord, but I barely have the energy or strength to do that anymore.

So, I don’t understand what the purpose of its continued progression is, except perhaps to teach me humility. Which is fair, because the pride of life is what’s killing me, and my loving God knows what needs to be honed before I enter His Kingdom. So thank You, God, for loving me enough to force me through this. It means I really am Your child.

A month of thanks. No different than any other month, except this one’s on Facebook.

Nov 13. I am thankful for where I live, and where I have lived.

I spent the first 28 years (minus a year and a half at Caltech in Pasadena) living in an old house in little Newcastle, California. Three acres on a little knoll, pastureland and gardens and room to run around and explore. It was wonderful.

After both of my parents died and I didn’t have anything tying me there, and as I saw the prospects for education in general and music ed in particular looking worse and worse - and the urbanization of the region increasing by leaps and bounds - I resigned at Penryn and spent my spring break looking for a place to move to. The Treasure Valley, greater Boise, felt like Sacramento had growing up, and so after the school year ended I moved up to stay with my godparents Jerry and Vivian Gilbert in Emmett, while I looked for a job.

God was looking out for me even then. Despite moving so late, I had four job offers as a band director in my first ten days there. I took the job in Kuna and spent a year in an apartment in downtown Boise, a wonderful time I spent with my dear Heather Kelly-Smith. Over time I found a house out where Edwards is now, and after she met her future husband, Jesse, I ended up meeting my first wife, Wendy. We bought a house on the Meridian side of town, the house where Hamilton was born. Seven great years teaching in Kuna and living in Boise.

But that kept growing, too. Wendy and I were both country folks, and when Payette came calling with an offer I couldn’t refuse, we moved into our favorite house, the original hospital in Payette on Center Avenue, built in 1900. A big box, beautiful home in a lovely little town an hour out of the city. Even with the difficulties of the job, that was a wonderful place to live and raise our boys.

And for the last twelve years, God’s places us all here in the loving, lovely community of Jerome. I’ve always loved the Magic Valley - had offers to work down here for years, and though the offers were never right, we loved the idea. My dear friend Riqui Peterson had this band job before me, and set it up wonderfully for me to succeed here. We had a lovely house here, where the kids and I continued to live after Wendy left; where Melissa and I spent our marriage; where we lived until a year ago this month when it was clear I was too ill to care for the home anymore and I moved to this trailer park.

So now, I’m in a perfect place for my current situation- tiny home big enough for the kids. But to my surprise, it’s been great for the children too. It’s the first real neighborhood with other children we’ve been in, and the three youngest in particular love it here. Rutherford spends more time outside than he ever had before! And yet it’s quiet here, close to the middle school, close to the J Center. Perfect.

And when it’s time to combine families with Dana, we are both confident that God will find us a perfect home in Jerome to settle into. He’s been so good to me and to her throughout our lives.

A month of thanks. No different than any other month, except the thanks are also on Facebook.

Nov 14. It seems appropriate today to express my thanks to not just Pastor Gene Kissinger and Jerome Free Will Baptist, my current and presumably final church home, but also to my other church homes: Clay Ramirez and Jerome Believers, Kevin Lindley and the Life Church of Jerome, and Jeff Norton at Northridge, which is where I first attended even before being fully led to my knees while married to Melissa (who’d been saved since she was nineteen).

They have all been such amazing men of faith, men of Scripture, and four of the finest examples of what a Christian should look like. Well-read and extremely adept at sharing God’s Word with not just Scripture itself (the absolute must) but with real life stories and examples, analogies and applications to our lives. Each has his strengths and areas that I’m sure they’d be the first to describe in humility, but every one of them was a literal God-send for me and my family, exactly who we needed at that moment in our lives.

Now, Jeff and his amazing family (Caron and their children) are on the east coast again, in their original stomping grounds. (And I miss them terribly. Even by pastoral standards, Jeff Norton may be the most upstanding man I’ve ever known, true to His Principles to the core.) Jeff is the most erudite Biblical scholar I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing preach.

Kevin and Allison Lindley have found their calling elsewhere, too, and last I heard were awaiting God’s directions for their next step. I, too, have that sensation in my life right now: knowing that it’s time to leave this post but not sure what the Father has in Mind for me next. Scary, if you don’t have complete faith in His Plan for your life. (And He has never failed me. Ever.)

Clay and Heather and their beautiful little ones are still here, doing what the two of them do best: bringing newcomers to Christ in easy to swallow steps that don’t water down the Gospel, but still make church an easier transition for those who hear His Call but may fear what Christianity might “mean” in their lives. Believers was always filled with young people, many of whom were even younger in the Lord than I.

And Gene and Sandy Kissinger have been friends of mine for years - their oldest child and mine were classmates. Gene’s guidance as a pastor and as a friend has been one of the most indispensable elements of my life these past few years: he has been my biggest supporter as a writer, and so unwavering in his imitation of Christ as to be living proof of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the world. As he would undoubtedly say with all humility, he couldn’t possibly be so perfect a demonstration of everything a pastor should be without Godly aid. My children and Dana and I have been unreasonably blessed by his teaching, his example, and his friendship. (And we’re now sort of related, since their daughter married my step-son. Or vice versa.)

In my final career, God has called me to go to work full time for Him (although certainly not behind a pulpit!). I can only pray that I can do half the job these four men have given me as examples to follow. Thank you all.