WHEN A FRIEND ASKS A SIMPLE QUESTION: "How's it going?"

None of us need walk alone on our way to the Wedding.  Though the Groom awaits, the journey there is anything but smooth. 

Got a note this morning.  "How's it going?"

He's a friend.  A good one.  Never "met" him, though.  Except electronically, and that was through mutual comrades in the Ransomed Heart Net online-sphere.  Then our similar blogs Strategic Fathering.  I knew he was my kinda guy when he signed off, "JC Dude".  "So," he asked, knowing I'd recently discovered that my once-contained Prostate Cancer had begun to wander,"How's it going?"  So, my answer starts out cute, then got more more serious.  Reflect on the latter. 

No, "fun" isn't a form of denial in this case.  It's a field leveler.  When the notion of life's finality become reality there are several routes built around attitude. 

Here's the one I took.  Wonder with me if you'd take the same trail through the forest, the one to the sunny glen or through the dark, if majestic, evergreens. . .    
 

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SPOSE THEY'LL FIND HIM...THE "BAD GUY"?

Dunno.  Prolly not.  Finding the "Bad Guy," I mean.  Caps indicate proper (or, in this case, "improper") noun, a name.  The Devil? No, 'he" is really an "it". 

Confused?  So's everyone, even the Urologist and Oncologist.  They don't say "confused" because they are paid a lot--A LOT!!--to know stuff but not tell stuff.  But their eyebrows lift in response to "Where's it going?"   "How far along?"  "How long?"

The "bad guy" ain't there.  In the world of blaming Bush and almost anyone/anything else, I suppose we could pin this one on God.  Yea, the Sovereign One, Creator of Heaven and Earth.  Jesus, we are assured, is the creative agent AND the "Sustainer" of earth.  And health.  Let's blame them.  I do. 

After all, it is a mean, onery, vengeful Judge who carries out the punishment for sin just like He said He would. Blame Him, not Adam who stood by passively as the Snake cajoled his wife.  He watched her succumb and didn't even lift the Garden hoe to the Snake's head.

OK, enuf bloggish sermon.  I do blame God for the extraordinary life that has no explanation but Grace.  It's been a long one, in and out of more danger than a Tuesday evening of TV.  Seventy years worth and, they tell me, probably ten years or more to go.  At least I know what my schedule is. Sorta. 

So, other than Adam (and Obama is just as related to him as Bush), ain't no one to blame.  You take the Whole Story to account and recognize every day we have is a gift from the Source.  

Romans put it this way in 5:17(Message)  If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

Have you visited the book site recently.  I just did.  I LOVE it.  (Which is why this is a break in my headlong effort to meet a book proposal deadline).  http://www.generationalfathering.com/  Subscribe, why don't you?


  

CONTEMPLATING DEATH/LIFE...FOUR GENERATIONS APART

She almost died.  But for immediate, savvy action by her dad, a survivalist and therapist, wee little Charis, faced the end of her life at one year and one week.  Way out on the Aquarius primitive campground in Utah's Boulder Mountain, three family groups had a moment of horror.  Gathered for breakfast someone noticed Charis was struggling, not breathing.  Before panic spread to chaos, dad upended his precious new life by her feet, whacked a couple of times.  Nothing came out, but breathing and serious crying followed.

Breathing and crying are pretty typical human activities.  The former is always a good thing.  The latter?  Well, crying, spelled "whining," is typical, seldom good.  There is pain, crying, gain.  Good thing.  There is sad, hurt, overwhelming-life-stuff crying.  Let's face it, since the Fall, there are mosquitos at Aquarious, vipers in the desert, and "snakes in the grass" of our lives.  But WAIT...crying is a sign of life.

The phone call prompted fears and tears at even the thought of our extraordinarily precious granddaughter, Charis, not being there to greet us at Christmas.  It also prompted deeper thougthts about my own life.  Three days apart, Charis was one and I was 70.  HMMmmm.  She's alive and quite well with the Aquarious incident to remind us how fragil life is.  I go TODAY for a consultation on my prostate cancer.  Second procedure didn't work.  PSA rising slowly.  Matt's not there to upend me and whack me to recovery.

The Last Three of Five Are in the Un-named Generation

Cultural characteristics change about every 20 years.  Academics label them with a tell-tale name.  So, academically, my Traditional Generation (then Boommers, Generation x, then Millennials) is four official cultures sets away from Charis (hers still unnamed until they see what characterizes it, but a return to traditional values and built-in digital savvy is a mixed blessing). 

So what?!

So, prayer is something God likes more than almost anything.  It's talking, relating, enjoying, thanking.  It's worship.  Here's the SO-WHAT:  Pray--worship--with a sense of life's uncertainty, its brevity.  Boy, oh boy is it brevitacious seen from this end.  Thank Him for your life and, yes, the tears you survived.  Pray for a friend.  Include me, if you will (and Carolyn who's most affected...I don't "feel" a thing).  Pray for at least one friend with illness, sadness, or who is missing out on personal salvation and its glory of eternal rescue from both fears and tears.   

[ To enjoy the delights of the Oldest's, Taylor's, Rite of Passage--AND MINE--go to our DIAblog, http://www.gendads.com/ ]