Live

The world where we live is a hard place. Mistakes aren’t tolerated. Issuing forgiveness is a luxury for many of us, a gift we reluctantly seem willing to share. A person need look no further than the ride home from work to see how little we seem to value those around us as we mutter insults under our breath at the driver behaving irresponsibly. That person, no matter how infuriating, is just as much God’s child as I am. And that person is just as forgiven, when he asks for forgiveness, as I am when I ask, when I implore, when I beg, when I cry, for the same favor when I have failed, when I have hurt others, when I have tried and failed again and when I can’t entangle myself from my own foolishness. But I am who I am and the fact that I too often am the center of my own universe blinds me to the fact that God loves me as much as He loves everyone else, and He expects me to learn to love that way, too.

When will I learn to love the way I should?

"I then shall live as one who’s been forgiven
I’ll walk with joy to know my debts are paid
I know my name is clear before my Father
I am His child, and I am not afraid
So greatly pardoned, I’ll forgive my brother
The law of love I gladly will obey."

The world where we live is a harsh place. Caring is considered soft. Softness equates to weakness, and the world tells us, only the strong survive. A body needs look no further than his own neighborhood to see how short our arms become when caring comes to mind. We lament how we don’t even know the names of our neighbors, so how can we begin to know how and why they hurt when they hurt. Still, these people hurt just as I do and God knows the pain of these people just as sure as He knows the pain I feel even down to the marrow of my bones. These people need the same concern I want, I desire, I crave, I demand, when my pride, my ego, my heart, my life, breaks. But I am who I am and reaching out to others might mean I might have to reach away from myself but since that might somehow show some weakness on my part that allows me to ignore the knowledge that God’s care extends beyond my needs, and that He expects me to appreciate true compassion only after I provide it to others.

When will I learn to care the way I should?

"I then shall live as one who’s learned compassion
I’ve been so loved that I’ll risk loving too
I know how fear builds walls instead of bridges
I dare to see another’s point of view
And when relationships demand commitment
Then I’ll be there to care and follow through."

The world where we live is a hopeless place. People don’t care, they don’t forgive. It’s easy to say, ‘leave them to their own devices, let them wallow in the misery they embrace’. A soul need look no further than his own family and friends to realize the depths of despair some revel in, a cavity that quickly swallows people whole. Yet, God has extended the same hope to these family and friends as He extended to me. He is there in that black-as-coal pit with them just as He is there when I crawl to that place when I am damaged, pitiful and shaken. These family and friends need hope just as much as I do, the same hope I expect, I need, I anticipate, I count on, when my attitude, my path, my purpose, my world seems without hope. But I am who I am and noticing people without hope is a hard thing to do when I am so wrapped up in my own useless plans and not concerned with His plans for me, plans He expects me to understand begin and end with my very own life.

When will I learn to live the way I should?

"Your kingdom come around and through and in me
Your pow’r and glory, let them shine through me
Your Hallowed Name, O may I bear with honor
And may Your living Kingdom come in me
The Bread of Life, O may I share with honor
And may You feed a hungry world through me.
Amen."

May we all have a safe and enjoyable Christmas time. May the New Year be injected with the things we need to survive a hard, harsh, hopeless world…forgiveness, compassion, optimism. May God bless us with these gifts, and the desire, the courage, the willingness, to share these gifts with those who need them more than us and the understanding, the strength, the commitment to share these gifts with each other when we need to do so.

Matthew 1, Matthew 27 & 28

(I Then Shall Live was written by Bill and Gloria Gaither, 1980)

I'll Have Another Brownie Please

You know when you’re a kid and you eat a piece of candy and it’s so good, you go back and eat another piece of candy and then you eat another piece and then another piece and then you end up sick from all the candy? Well, that’s about where I am right now with all the holiday events. They’re good but sometimes there’s just so many of them that enjoying them becomes hard to do after awhile.

In a seven weekend span beginning in mid-November, Jennifer and I will have had five weekends with some kind of family or holiday event. One of those “free” weekends has yet to come around so we may end up booking it with something before it arrives. Some of these weekends have involved travel away from home. Some of them involve people coming to our house. This doesn’t even include other events through the week for church, the neighborhood and work, so for this time frame there is absolutely no escape from it. And, any way you look at it, it takes time and effort to do the holiday thing.

Don’t misunderstand me; I enjoy seeing family and friends during this time. I enjoy the food and the fellowship. I even enjoy the lights and the decorations and even, begrudgingly, some of the music. I like the whole concept of gift giving (and it really is more fun to give than to get). Also, I don’t know the exact date Jesus Christ was born, so I’m not too sure about the December 25 thing as it relates to Him. I do though think it’s important to understand He was born, how He was born and why He was born, so thinking of those things related to Him around this time of year is something I will do and is something I will tell myself I need to do more often during the rest of the year. So, it’s all a bit more involved than sausage balls and cherry muffins and sparkling cider and peppermint candy canes and pine-scented candles and frilly ribbons and gift bags and all the other things that seem to dominate the season.

Still, I’m struggling right now to finish the season off. It’s not because I’m depressed. I’m not being Ebenezer Scrooge. I’m just part of the way though this year’s holiday tour and I am tired, just physically tired. I want so bad to take a long nap, one so long and with sleep so deep, I might wake myself up snoring or slobbering or both. I’d like just a bit of freedom from the hustle and bustle to veg out for a few hours and not have to worry about getting ready to go somewhere in a festive, seasonal sweater. It doesn’t help that work bears down pretty hard this month and January either. So, I must go forward, no matter how good sleep sounds.

Right now, I feel like I have eaten a big ol’ brownie topped with chocolate icing and mixed with pecans and chocolate chips. It was the kind of brownie that was so good you can gain weight just from smelling it. It was so sweet, so delicious, I ate another one that was just as big. I waited a few minutes and then ate another brownie and then another brownie and then a bit later, I ate yet another brownie. So, at this very moment, I feel if you offered me a big, ol’ brownie I might just scream uncontrollably and run off down the street never to be seen again.

Never to be seen again…until I wanted another brownie.

See you over the holidays!

Yesterdays Ago

Some yesterdays ago, I was a little boy growing up in a small Georgia town with my parents and an older brother and sister. The memories from then are mostly good ones. I was very fortunate to have had a lot of extended family as well. When I count them up I had 28 aunts and uncles and almost 40 cousins. Most of these folks lived within ten or twenty miles from us. I came to know most of them real well. So much of how I view things today were shaped by that time, that place, those people.

Earlier this week, one of those uncles passed away. He isn’t the first aunt, uncle or cousin to pass away, just the latest. Sad to say, I didn’t really know him as well I should have. I was though able to make the 70+ mile drive there for the funeral. There, I saw family and friends I hadn’t seen since the last family funeral.

I left there with a lot on my mind, a lot about family and the things that tie us together, a lot about why and how things turn out the way they do in life. For right now, it’s all just too overwhelming to try to put into words. Maybe with some time to sort through it all, I can write a bit more about the funeral, my family and these feelings that come out from my mind’s shadows when one of us dies. For now I know I feel very sad because one more of the people from all my yesterdays ago when I began to grasp what family was and how it all fit together has died.

Thankful

I am thankful.

That I am reasonably healthy. That I can work for a living and have a job that allows me to provide what I have. That I can complain when I feel like things aren’t going my way although I know complaining makes me look petty and small.

I am thankful.

That my wife loves me in spite of my own stupidity, arrogance and pride. That my wife is pretty and smart, prettier and smarter than I deserve. That my wife challenges me to love her as deeply and strongly as she loves me.

I am thankful.

That I have family who put up with me enough to think I’m an okay guy. That my family cares for one another more than words can even begin to describe. That I have family whose laughter is as warm and genuine as the hugs we share.

I am thankful.

That I have more than enough to eat. That I have clothes on my back. That I have shoes on my feet. That I have a roof over my head. That I have a couple of automobiles to get around in. That I have more "things" than I really know what to do with.

I am thankful.

That I have a spiritual family of people who are like me, broken, damaged, imperfect but redeemed by the life and blood of Jesus Christ. That this body of believers reaches out to each other and beyond it’s own doors to the community where it resides and out into the world. That these people are examples of dignity and love in a world that increasingly believes what we cling to is outdated, old-fashioned, not nuanced enough and just plain stupid.

I am thankful.

That I live in the greatest country in the world. That braver men and women than I have fought and do fight for the freedoms we have, even for the freedom some may have to disparage and malign those who do serve in the military. That even in our country's tough times, our nation is still blessed beyond what we should expect.

I am thankful.

That God loves me when I am unlovable. That God loves me in spite of my failings. That His love sent His Son to be in my place.

I am thankful.

For Cherry Coke. For iced coffee. For Sweet Tarts. For shrimp chimichangas. For reading glasses. For our cat, Daisy. For long Sunday afternoon naps. For quiet Saturday mornings as the sun rises on our street. For good memories. For mistakes where I learned something. For all the little things that make me smile, laugh, question and consider who I am, where I am and what I am doing.

I am thankful.

For the life I have lived, am living and plan on living.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Things Change, Things End

Things change. Things end. It’s just part of life.

Here I am and a major thing is ending for me.

There will be some separation anxiety. This thing ending has been a part of me for ten, eleven, twelve or so years. It’s hard to track time as you get older.

Deep down, I knew this thing would end. I may not have really wanted to think about it in such terms but I knew there would come a day when it would be the end.

Monday, November 24, 2008 was a cold, harsh day here, weather-wise. It rained most of the day. The wind blew the rain sideways like you see the wind blowing sand in those movies set in some desert. That seemed appropriate for the end.

At the end of this Monday, I left work and stepped into my red Toyota pick-up, started her up, flipped on the lights, turned the radio down a bit, clicked on the wipers and made the trek home being careful on the rain-streaked streets not to drive any crazier than I should.

Once home, I pulled up to the mailbox and pulled out a few bills, a few notices and a magazine or two. I then eased into the comfy confines of the garage. Before climbing the stairs into the house, I pulled our garbage can out to the side of the house so that I might roll it out to the curb after rounding up the rest of the garbage. I then unloaded my laptop and my coat and the mail from the truck and started up the stairs. Before I did though, I stopped and gave a knuckle bump to my truck. She had gotten me home safely one more time, this time on wet streets through rush hour, arriving home just as the darkness of the night settled on our street.

My truck has been my old familiar companion for years. Monday, November 24, 2008 it began a vacation from me. You see, things end. And, things change.

Two days earlier, Jennifer and I bought an almost new Honda CRV. For now, I will get to drive the CRV. This means the deep red Toyota extended cab gets to rest from her 190,000+ miles for awhile.

This morning we drove to the auto dealership and took possession of our 2007 Honda CRV. I then drove this new-to-us vehicle to work. I drove around our campus to my usual slate of parking spaces, no doubt sitting up straighter than usual. As I neared my final turn, I couldn’t help but feel a wee bit nostalgic already for my old red Toyota pick-up but, deep down, I knew things had changed.

Things do change and things do end. It is just part of life after all.

Leaves, Colors, Rain, Fog, A Remarkable World

The leaves have been beautiful the last few weeks. Brilliant shades of orange, yellow, red and green all mixed together have been remarkable reminders of how God changes seasons where we live. Set that beautiful palette on rolling hills against the backdrop of a blue sky and you discover another meaning of beauty.

Recently, my job took me and a couple of co-workers to a remote place an hour away. The majority of the drive is remarkable, open skies, mountains, trees. When you get there, the base of the mountains are within sight, so close it seems you could stop the car and take a few steps over to it. On this particular day, the rain fell. It was hard to see the sky since it was shrouded in a fog that was as thick as soup in places. Through the raindrops you could see the mountains and the kaleidoscope of colors on the trees. While this trip is always enjoyable and at times breathtaking when the sun sits high in the sky, there was just something hypnotic about the wet leaves dangling from the trees, the heavy fog clinging to the mountains like a bashful child clings to his mother’s dress, and the chill of autumn nudging at my skin. It was beautiful in a way that the brightest, sunniest day could not even match.

While the leaves are beautiful for awhile, they soon become a nuisance for me. Every year, one fall day, a rain will come or strong winds will blow for hours. This day was the day that began the separation of the leaves from the trees in our yard. The yard where I struggle to grow grass will soon be overtaken with leaves of all shapes and sizes. The gutters which run the length of the front and back of the house fill with leaves in the blink of an eye. The shrubbery which lines our driveway catches stray leaves from the neighbor’s yard. Almost every inch of the yard will be covered by leaves.

So, over the next few weeks, I’ll drag out the rake and the leaf blower, crank up the iPod and spend hours moving piles of leaves from one place to another so the yard can be seen again. By then the pretty colors of the leaves will have turned to a earth-tone brown while I hope the grass will revive into a bright green in a few months. And maybe for a moment, the memory of the radiant color of the fall’s leaves will pass through my mind and remind me the annual leaf moving exercise is worth the beautiful colors, the sunny skies, the rainy skies and the clinging fog to live in the remarkable world I live in.

Worry and Love

Today is my Mom’s birthday. A couple of weeks ago my Dad celebrated his birthday. In four months, they will celebrate 60 years of marriage together. They are grower older. We all grow older. They, though, are beginning to show age on their faces and in their steps now more than ever.

My mom is the best worrier I know. She worries about me even now and she worries about my brother and my sister and their spouses and the grandkids and the great grandkids and the sisters and the brothers and the in-laws and the neighbors and on and on and on. Growing up she worried about my school work, my driving, my bike riding, being out with friends, traveling, going off to college, finding a job, finding a spouse. My dad is not a major worrier like mom although I know he has done his fair share of worrying. He tends to let things simmer inside hoping the answer will somehow bubble to the top.

Lucky me, I do both.

Now, I worry about Mom and Dad. I worry that they take the right medicine at the right time. I worry that they eat right. I worry when they leave the house and drive somewhere. I worry they sleep too much. I worry I don’t visit them enough. I worry when I mention my concerns about these things to them and they just blow them off like there’s nothing at all to worry about, so I let it brew inside, hoping the solution to all the worrying will magically appear.

It never does though.

Later today I will call Mom and wish her a happy birthday. We’ll talk and I’ll try to read the worry in her words over things I know she has tumbled over in her mind time after time. I’ll tell her not to worry about things she can’t change. She worries about those she loves making choices she doesn’t agree with or understand. I try to tell her that these people are adults and can make their own choices and by doing so have to live with the consequences of what they decide. Naturally, that only causes her more worry. She’ll worry about my sinus headache or whether or not I wear a jacket in the cool morning air. I know all that worry she and Dad do over all of us stems from love.

And when I hang up and wish her a good birthday I’ll wonder if she can read the worry I have for her and Dad in my own voice because I do love them so much.

Matthew 6:33-34

Shades of October

The approaching end of October gathers speed. The leaves on the trees continue to change color only to quickly find a new home on the ground. Once any existing fog rises in the morning, the sky usually explodes into a brilliant deep blue words can’t quite describe properly while the sun emerges from the horizon in a yellow-orange super-sized circle. The cool air in the morning lingers later and later into each passing day clearly signaling a change of season.

Another October is here, and now, like the leaves on those trees outside, is about to go away. What is it about October that almost always leaves me considering it’s merits more than any other month? October seems to be one of those months I can’t quite figure out and I'm not sure why.

Good things reside in October. My dad’s birthday is in October. He shares his birthday with his great grandson, Conner. Watching those two together, especially on their shared birth date, is truly one of life’s great joys. Conner’s mom, my niece, Carrie, has an anniversary with her husband, Russell, in October. My dear grandmother, Carrie’s namesake, celebrated her birthday on the 31^st of October. October also finds college football in full swing and the rivalry games all kick in during October making the good-natured ribbing between friends something to enjoy when your team wins and something to endure when your team loses. The change in weather is also a welcome relief from the usual four or five months of a hot summer.

At the same time though, it’s sad to look around and notice the green leaves and grass are giving way to less vibrant colors. A sudden wind can be a reminder that much colder weather waits and may hang around for longer than the last puff of wind that just blew by. I also always remember my grandfather died in October. His death was the first death I really understood. Understood is not the right word. I still don’t fully understand death. What I mean is he was the first person I had known who died. His death, and the realization we are all mortal, sticks with me thirty plus years down the road.

Maybe it’s because my job runs me hard from June until September and October is that moment when my running can slow down so I can regain my feet underneath me that allows me to give pause to October. Maybe it’s knowing that Thanksgiving and Christmas and a few dozen other important things have to be done in the sixty or so days after October ends that makes me consider October like I do.

So it comes down to a month of unfulfilled reflection and then at the very end of the month comes Halloween. At Halloween, Jennifer and I pass out candy to neighborhood kids, some too young to have any idea what the fuss is about, others who will stockpile their candy like a squirrel would hoard nuts for the winter and still others who should probably consider staying home next year to study for the SAT. Dressed-up strangers and neighbors ring our doorbell and ask for candy, so we willingly oblige.

Eventually, the last trick-or-treater will step off our porch and out into the yard crunching the leaves which have fallen during the week. The porch light will remain burning for a few more minutes before one of us determines this social aspect of Halloween is over. The candle lighting up the jack-o-lantern will be blown out. I will find the leftover candy and rummage through it as if I were looking for a long-sought-after treasure or like I were looking for answers on how to better understand October. Outside the moon will rise high in the black sky and the fog will quietly crawl in from October's shades.

And then tomorrow, November will arrive.

Smoke

I picked up my gray hoodie from the laundry pile. It needed a good washing after the weekend. My nose though honed in on the smell of smoke, which had permeated the cotton garment.

Smoke often isn’t a friendly smell…out-of-control blazes, cigarettes, a burned food product still resting in a toaster oven; those types of things usually don’t house good thoughts. This smoky smell though was different. It was the smell of a deliberately set, controlled fire from Saturday night at our family reunion.

My brother had built a fire pit and most of us sat around it for at least a little while and warmed ourselves from the cool air of a north Georgia October night. We roasted marshmallows and made Smores and talked and laughed. We gazed at the sky wondering how many stars God had placed on display for our viewing on this particular night. Other times we caught each other staring hypnotically at the flames wrapping its fingers around the logs, lost in our own thoughts, oblivious for a brief time to the chatter of others and the crack, snap and pop of the fire itself, and, to the world at large.

It was a great weekend. Yes, Saturday’s wind was sharp and felt more like December than October. We won’t remember that though when we think back at this weekend or review the photos from then. We’ll remember those kids running without abandon kicking the soccer balls and the games of horseshoes and croquet and Facts in Five. We’ll think about the BBQ, the stew, the spaghetti, the cakes. We’ll cherish holding the newborns, trying to get them to burp or smile and feeling a sense of accomplishment when we can get them to do one or the other but never both. We’ll laugh at the family photo remembering the efforts it took to get everyone to stand still and smile for just a few seconds. We’ll recall the piñata that took a beating and kept on swinging. We’ll secretly lament how we can’t keep the little ones from growing up and knowing hurt and pain and how we can’t protect our older family members from growing any older and knowing any more hurt and pain as well. We won’t remember the chill of the wind but what will linger will be the warmth we found with our family.

Now, this load of laundry must find it’s way to the washing machine. Soon, the gray hoodie will be overwhelmed by water and some sweet-smelling detergent designed to make the garment smell different than it does now, you know, like lilacs in springtime or like an ocean breeze in summer. With the washing, the hoodie will lose the faint smell of smoke from Saturday night’s fire.

As we left the reunion late Sunday afternoon, I noticed someone had stirred the ashes around in the fire pit. In the glare of the sun, a small flame had found enough air to find life. From those ashes, a puff of smoke rose and I stopped long enough to take a deep breath of the sweet smell of smoke.

And today, that smell of smoke lingers, my, how it lingers.

Front porch

Early Saturday I stepped outside to retrieve the paper. The sun had yet to appear from the east. The morning was still draped in a slow-to-disappear dark cover. The air was fresh. The temperature was just cool enough to finish waking me up. The wind softly rippled the chimes at the end of the porch. No cars were on the street. The only intrusive sound was a dog barking a few houses away. It was a moment of tranquility before the day really started. Before I made the trek down the front steps and the walkway and down the driveway to where the paper carrier had tossed the paper, I stopped at the top step of our porch.

In that brief moment, I went back to my maternal grandparent’s front porch.

My grandparents lived in a large house with giant oak trees scattered throughout a very large yard. Their large, white house was trimmed in red and was surrounded by a porch that wrapped around about half the house. At yard level was a small gate that opened onto the porch. The porch then inched higher off the ground as it stretched down the side of the house facing the road and around the corner to the back of the house. Red palings traveled the same path and kept all of us from the porch’s edge.

Most every Sunday we would visit my grandparents. You never knew who would be there, local aunts, uncles and cousins or even aunts, uncles and cousins from the big, ol’ city of Atlanta. A baseball or football game might break out in the yard. In the spring, we might get into a crabapple fight or in the fall, an acorn fight. On the porch, the adults discussed religion, politics, NASCAR, pro wrestling, recipes, work, music, TV shows, hair styles, clothes, and, no doubt, now and then, some family members not present at that very moment. It was the social scene for my family most Sunday afternoons. It is where we connected as a family.

After my grandfather passed away and time moved on, the porch became my grandmother’s safe place. You could drive by there and as long as the weather was warm enough for her you could find her in her big brown chair on the porch. As we all grew older and apart from one another, you could always count on my grandmother sitting on her porch even though many of us didn’t get to visit her on the porch as often as we could have or should have.

In cold weather, my grandmother retreated to her living room but anxiously waited for warmer weather. And who could blame her? Even in the hottest summers, the porch there was cool with the breeze and shade provided by the giant oak trees. From her vantage point, my grandmother could look up and down the road. It was an ideal place. Looking back, maybe being there reminded her of earlier times when the porch was filled with laughter and company and times she missed.

Our porch has white palings which touch the corners of our porch stretching around the front of the house only to be separated by an opening for the front steps. Two white rockers sit on the morning sun side of the porch while a swing hangs near the other end. While our front porch hasn’t been as busy as the porch of my grandparents, it has served to be a place where we have entertained family and friends. It’s been a place where she and I have tackled important issues we faced. Sometimes, it’s a place where I sit and talk on the phone. I have even dragged a laptop there and worked from home. On some occasions, I find myself there pleading with the cat to come inside and stop her menacing glances at the neighbor’s cat. And sometimes, I just find myself there missing another porch from another time, miles away from here, yet close enough to still revisit in my heart from time to time.

Rain

Sometime during the night our power went off. This morning all our clocks were flashing with the incorrect time. By the time I wake up enough to know the world is waiting outside, I’m already late. The radio traffic report says there is an accident about two miles from our house on my way to work and to be careful because the streets are wet with rain. When I enter the bathroom I notice Jennifer, my wife, has left her cell phone on a counter. I call work to let them know I’ll be a few minutes late but instead of a live human being, I get voice mail. To top it all off, my head hurts, mostly due to allergy season.

This day is getting off to a great start.

On my way to work I slow down because of the wet streets. My tires are getting older and I don’t want my precious truck to slide all over the place. Meantime, others zip around me as if Mr. Magoo had accidently driven onto the track during the Daytona 500. At work, traffic is thick. The three lanes into work are bumper-to-bumper as we all try to jockey into the correct lane before it’s too late and we end up in a parking lot where we have never parked before. Finally, my parking lot is within sight. Due to my lateness, I cannot tell whether or not there is an empty space left. There is. A few hours later though I return here in the rain, without my umbrella, to make sure I had turned my lights off.

Once at my desk I spend a good half hour trying to get my email to open and then another half hour or so trying to diagnose and fix the problem. No matter what I do I have no success. My comfort level, disguised now in the form of quiet panic, begins to crash. No computer? What will I do? Can I actually do my job anymore? How will those who need to communicate with me feel when I don’t return their email promptly?

Of course there are workarounds. While the good folks in computer services take control of my computer, I get out my tablet PC and decide to fire it up. I can get to the same places on it as I can on my big old honking desktop. As I plug in various cords and cables and turn the tablet PC on, I glance out my office window and something catches my eye. Slow down I tell myself. Look at that. I then realize all morning I have yet to really grasp that it’s raining. It’s been right there around me all along but I have yet to really appreciate the rain. It’s been weeks since the last significant rainfall in our area and this morning the rain is falling from the sky like God has turned a bucket upside down.

I gaze out my office window. I see the tops of a handful of trees between my building and the next building. Raindrops bounce off the leaves of the trees. Now and then a stray raindrop sticks to my window. I hear my tablet PC whizzing and know it’s ready for me to go to work. It’ll wait another minute or so though so I can linger at the window and watch the rain fall. I then realize my headache is gone and that I made it safely to work and that Jennifer will survive without her cell phone and that I’ll soon be able to do my job and that the clocks I left flashing at home will still be there at the end of the day for me to reset. I can handle that today.

Riding the Brakes

The song says life is a highway. That seems an appropriate metaphor in today’s world, fast-paced, always on the move, foot on the gas pedal, gas pedal to the floor, always looking for a cheaper way to refuel to keep going, and always trying to get to some destination…just so you can do it all over again later.

Thinking in those terms makes life seem like some endless cycle or to keep our metaphors on the same road, like an endless black ribbon (shameful plug to an old country song). Either way you wish to describe the journey, you don’t have to be out there on life’s road long before you realize you cannot easily pull off the side of the road and quit moving on.

So , what keeps us moving on? Urgency sometimes motivates us to get to certain places but is that really why we keep on down that highway every day? To me, it seems what keeps most of us moving on is usually the destination or the company we keep along the way. Let me try to explain.

Recently, my wife, Jennifer, and I traveled to the Gulf Coast for a vacation. It’s an eight hour or so drive. Obviously, the drive was so much nicer having Jennifer along so we could talk and laugh and so she could gasp a few times at my questionable driving skills. Ultimately, though, the whole trip was all about the destination. We understood this clearly the minute our feet sunk deep into the white sand while the wind stirred just enough to slightly run its fingers through our hair. At that moment that long eight hour drive including the traffic jam between Birmingham and Montgomery, the thump-diddy-dum of the pavement and the cramped-up sense you get riding for an extended time in a car simply faded away just beyond where our eyes could no longer see past the ocean’s horizon.

Other times it’s the company we keep that keep us moving along. One summer years ago, when we were all much younger, my niece Jill came to visit my mom, dad and me for a week. At the end of the week we drove Jill back to her home in South Carolina. I’m not sure how old I was then, although I was old enough to drive which would make Jill a pre-teen or teenager. Somewhere during the trip, I was charged with driving. As we barrel down a road in rural South Carolina around midday I notice a woman walking along her driveway after retrieving her mail. This woman was decked out in her nightgown, house shoes and topped the whole look off with a crown of hair rollers. My mom, dad and Jill all locked eyes on her at about the same time. Without missing a beat, I began blowing the car horn and waving as if this woman was our neighbor. Not missing a beat herself, the woman turned and waved at us as if we were long-lost family. Needless to say, all of us in the car broke out in laughter that lasted several miles. Years ago, that moment made a long road trip seem a bit shorter. Now it brings back good memories of laughing with family. Whenever I travel that stretch of highway in South Carolina even today I can’t help but smile when I drive through there remembering that brief moment from years before. Somehow it makes things just a bit more tolerable.

The purpose, at least initially, of this blog, is to take a few moments and enjoy the things that might get missed otherwise. It’s the modern day version of stop and smell the roses. So, if life is a highway and getting on that highway is inevitable I am suggesting now and then along the way to ride the brakes a bit. Slow down. Enjoy the ride. Don’t miss the scenery and the company along the way. You’ll get to that destination eventually and then it’ll soon enough be time to get back out on the road.