Find God

I’m writing this post from my front yard under my favorite tree on my beautiful 5-acre plot of God’s creation called my home. For all of you who may be joining the ranks of the depressed. I’ve been here for about twenty months now, since my stroke, so I’ve got a head start on this journey. I have so many thoughts and so much unwanted time to think.  My mind piles up thoughts that I can scarcely keep up with to be inspired to write about or can organize them into coherent English.

 As I sit with my faithful companion, Bear dog, who rarely leaves my side, I look out and see many things my kids and I have built over the years. The greatest things were things like the now huge oaks lining our driveway that we snatched out of one of our job sites and re-planted years ago. They were destined for destruction by a front end loader and a root rake.  We plucked them out and brought them home to our place and planted them as young trees. We just dug holes and stuck them in the ground, added a little water, and out of certain death, God did his magic and made this place so beautiful surpassing anything our hands could do. Now that the virus is here and everyone’s world is upside down, I have an odd personal feeling.  Right now, there is despair and panic and fear everywhere and an eerie quiet except for the occasional suicidal maniac (Motorcycle Rider) on his crotch rocket speeding down US1.  I find that now I have company. When this gets over  I will return to being on the outside.

For those who are currently working at home, because the same technology that has reduced our minds to artificial intelligence is now our only connection to each other, while there are many hardships and worries for those, who have to work at home behind their screens, all of the rest of us who put the pipes together build and maintain the very infrastructure and homes you live in; we are left to witness the wreckage of years of spiritual neglect. We don’t know how to act when we have to be with our families. Adam Carolla said it best, ‘Instead of not being able to go to Johnny fantastic to get your hair cut remember the days when mom would pull out the stool on the back porch and cut your hair and talk about life, and it’s treasured memories.  We can do best in the time to appreciate the closeness of family.   I am so blessed to have this little piece of heaven like my sister does in Wisconsin on her little farm with a bit of space and God’s creation so close, not a zero lot line house with panicked neighbors on each side. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of your creation.

As I wonder in my brain cavern, I thought we have all these science channels large brains postulating the theory that mankind is 100s of thousands of years old a product of evolution when they need to refute just one simple fact. Why is so easy to understand how this pandemic started with just one person in China and spread throughout the world in a matter of months and yet it’s so hard to grasp the Biblical fact the entire human race started with just two people a mere few thousand years ago   The self-important know it alls of modern science can’t even answer that one. If a great scientist like Francis Collins could understand it than maybe these secular pompous self wanna be masters of the universe might start using science as a road to God not from Him.  

 On a lighter note, one of my dear friends over the years who is an admitted believer but also admits to being an irreverent Catholic sent me this clip of an even more irreverent poem to music. Living room post, I won’t recite it for you in this blog because it is funny as hell but a little too earthy for some of my Christian friends.  I sent it to one of my closest and dearest believer friends who selflessly comes most Saturdays to the house and fixes my broken stuff and we chat under the tree.  This comical little song is loaded with f-bombs. Still, it is such an accurate satire of the present character of a society gone cowardly and self-indulgent in this time of pandemic paranoia.  He replied that it was a great song as for us f-bombers it was funny and for most people, that is the only language they understand. I replied, I guess that makes you and I bilingual, my friend. We can speak this language and God’s Word as well only hopefully not at the same time. I guess that just makes us more like a very feeble attempt to be like Jesus did.  Dinning and speaking with tax collectors and not distance ourselves from the unclean, including us, as the Pharisees did. Neither Christ nor Pharisee, we, my friend, are just regular folks sometimes doing wonderful things that Jesus loves us for even if we let off a few f-bombs when that wrench slips off the bolt head and we smash our fingers on that old lawn mower we’re trying to resurrect.

 As a sidebar, I have been spending evenings sitting outside under the stars setting the perfect ambiance for a heart to heart with God. Most of the time, I leave those moments still somewhat frustrated as to why I’ve heard more crickets than the voice of God. But last Saturday, He spoke to me in his way in his time to deliver me a message.  I was trying to get my stubborn riding lawn mower to start, and after many tries and my wife patiently waiting in the truck to charge the battery and enduring my f-bomb barrage at the infernal machine. I sat down and just said, “please, God guide me if I wait another 15 minutes, will you help me get this POS to start so that I could manicure your wonderful creation?” At 5 minutes into the wait, I wanted to crank it, and a hushed voice from somewhere inside my thick head said “wait upon the Lord” I said alright God, but in 16 minutes I’m going to give this one more try and if that doesn’t work I’m going in the house and give up. On the 16th minute, I skeptically gave it one more  try, and it fired right up. Even though I probably flooded it, ran the battery down, and overheated the starter from repeatedly cranking it, the message was clear. Wait upon the Lord. So as I ponder the failure of our business and all the craziness around me and sit here in paradise threatened by the financial  collapse and being land rich and McDonald’s dollar menu cash poor, we will wait upon the Lord.

So find God, pull up a chair and join me in thanking God for every little thing and pray for those who do not have much.