That’s not a knife…

Young  widow lives just up the road from us.

She called yesterday.

Wanted to know if  a red van  had stopped by our place  recently?

Why yes I said, but we hadn’t answer the door only because our son had called and given us the heads up.

Red van had stopped @ his place.  A young hispanic, in her late teens/ early 20′s had asked if she  could clean his carpet for free.  They had a couple of crews in the area and  were checking with  all the neighbors…  see who else might want a free cleaning…..  all they asked was  to have a chance to give a short sales pitch.

She was very smooth,  asked too many questions,  was way too observant.. Son said it took 15 minutes to get rid of her….

Young widow who called me  was not so lucky. The 3 cleaning guys weaseled their way into her house, even after she’s point blank said she was busy and didn’t have time.  She told me it took over 4 hours to get rid of them, and that was only after she  threatened to get out her shotgun…and yes she really does have one      This same van then stopped by her brothers place.  The sheriff  was called.  Turned out all three men had criminal records, and one had an outstanding warrant.  Warrant said he was to be considered possibly armed and dangerous.

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We live in a broken world.

That is the cold hard truth.

Even if you mind your own business and play by the rules.

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Have to tell you a story my grandpa told me…

Grandpa was   one of 13 children, 6 boys and  7 girls.

That’s him in the back, far left

He grew up farming with horses.

The boys used to wrestle in the  haymow  for entertainment.

In his prime, grandpa stood  6 foot 2, weighed  240 pounds.

One of the gentlest, most soft hearted men you would ever meet.

I heard it said more than once, there was not a person Grandpa didn’t get along with….that’s probably where I get some of my disposition.

One Saturday afternoon   grandpa stopped by  Hayen’s  general store, collecting for their country church.   Five young men were hanging around  outside waiting for the dance to begin.

Grandpa said  “hi”  , but the guys just grunted. Back  in the 1920′s some people looked down their noses @ the Germans in the area.

Twenty minutes later as he  walked  out the store, someone hit him on the back of the head.

  ”As I came out the door of the store someone hit me from behind. 

The next thing I knew I had 4 or 5 guys piling on top of me. 

I got  up and started swinging.

By the time it was over,  the last one  was in  the car  hiding in the back seat.”

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Heard on NPR yesterday, that the crime rates in New York City and elsewhere continue to trend downwards…while @ the same time, gun sales and gun ownership is @ an all time high…..Makes sense to me.

The trick is to love people,  be engaged with life yet  without loosing sight of the fact there is such a thing as evil.

I’ll close with this short clip from one of my favorite movies…..

Friendships in the Blogging world

Blogging brings with it the temptation and false illusion of deep friendships.

Last night I was thinking about the many, many people I’ve had the opportunity to get to know   via my wordpress blog since  2007

I’ve observed a pattern.

most  eventually drift away…not all of them, but most.

It is actually a good thing.

Apple trees do the same thing every summer.  (we have a small orchard)

The tree start out with hundreds of newly pollinated apples in late May, but by early June, many have fallen to the ground.  The remaining apples  will then  have the nourishment and energy they require to mature.

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The following is a portion of an essay on friendships by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

      “Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen.”

     Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk, in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it.

Respect the naturlangsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration.”

Naturlangsamkeit: a German word for a slow process of ripening.

(In other words, friendships take time to ripen…you can’t really hurry the process….)

      “There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness .”

       “We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man, who, ….. cast off this drapery, and, omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms…… But every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain-dealing. 

     “The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity (Magnanimous: generous in forgiving) and trust”.

  “I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest thing we know.”

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I’ve had the  privilege to meet (4)  of you  fellow bloggers  in person since 2008.   Felt like I was meeting a long lost sibling each time…which tells me that the process of  “Naturlangsamkeit” was in fact taking place….

      It is possible to build healthy friendships via your blog.

And finally, I posted  this on facebook last night:

       There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound. ~Diana Cortes

restless

The title of this  song by U2 (Still haven’t found what I’m looking for)  captures where I’m at again today.

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Update/ the next morning..

I’m always tempted to delete this sort of stuff.

The gnawing  restlessness  I was experiencing last night has subsided.

I need to keep a journal and keep track of how often it happens.

My response last night was to suck it up, and ride it out.

I still contend it’s a universal condition. (ie everybody experiences it)

Most of us (myself included) just don’ talk about it, who wants to  come across as a  looser.

I am blessed with a healthy marriage, a job I love,  a very real sense of God’s  presence in my life, I have purpose, my self worth is good-  I love being who I am, the age I am, etc. etc…..I have several close friendships…

and yet, this restlessness still creeps up on me @ the most random times.

I have two questions for you….

can you relate to what I’m talking about?

What do you do about it when it happens?

As always, thanks for reading my stuff. DM

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PSS  Another update the next day

This morning my wife read this to me from her morning devotional:

“Do not be ashamed of your emptiness.  Instead, view it as the optimal condition for being filled with My Peace.

     It is easy to touch  up your outward appearance, to look as if you have it all together.  Your attempts to look good can fool most people. But I see straight through you, into the depths of your being.  There is no place for pretense in your relationship with me.  Rejoice in the relief of being fully understood.  Talk with me about your struggles and feelings of inadequacy.  Little by little, I will transform your weaknesses into strengths…”

Taken from this book January 14th’s reading.

My lover, my wife

“Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, shelter, food, loves gentle balm? Or what is it ye buy so dear with your pain and with your fear?” Percy Bysshe Shelley

Wednesday morning wife and I had an appointment with Marilyn, a friend and Christian counselor. I went in to work for a couple of hours then met them at her office. As I got out of my truck I felt like the Thanksgiving turkey walking into the butcher shop.

gobble gobble

These things were going through my mind:

#1 I am not going to play any mind games, I am going to own up to anything that comes out of this session where I am in the wrong.

#2 Lately, God has shown me how completely he sees into my heart. There’s a verse in scripture “Before him no creature is hidden but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do..” He sees into every nook and cranny, and still he loves me.

99.9% of the time he is just a silent observer, but once in a while something will happen to show me that yes he does know about X Y or Z, and I’m just fooling myself if I think otherwise.

#3 Marriage takes work.

Like tending a garden in Iowa. After that initial excitement , the weeds start to show up. If too many days go by, I can’t even see the stuff I planted. Wednesday was “weed pulling time.” My eldest asked me last week,” Are you going to write mom a letter ?” (referring to the series I’ve written to my children) We will mark 33 years of marriage this coming April. Our children range in age from 31,30, 25, and 23.

For the record, our relationship rocks. It has not happened by accident. Talk to 10 different couples and I’m guessing they will tell you 10 different things on what is the key to their relationship. For me, I would say it’s an intentional choice to make our relationship a priority over any other area of either one of our lives..

over being a parent (the best gift you can give your children is a healthy marriage),

over our jobs which some of us love as much or more than any lover,

over ministry.

Throw in large doses of forgiveness, humility, honestly and kindness and there’s a good chance you’ll do just fine….

Now to my letter…

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To my best friend and soul mate, Thank you for saying “Yes” so many years ago. It is hard to believe over 30 years have passed since the night I popped the question. There are so many things about you that I am attracted to…like I said the other morning, at the top of the list is your kind and gentle spirit..and I’m not just blowing smoke. Just last week I was looking in your eyes. Felt like I was noticing how grey they were for the first time. I love the way we continue to discover new things about each other. Won’t get all mushy for you on the blog…will save the rest over coffee…

XXXX Your farm boy

ps the picture above was taken when we were on the West Coast visiting our daughter…we were looking out to the ocean…made me think later it was like the two of us were standing side by side, looking to the future, the sea was a little rough, it was overcast..there we were, standing side by side, facing the future, come what may.

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pss this one was originally written in 2008.  Since it’s been a while and buried in the archives, thought I would repost it for some of my new readers. DM