Divine Detour Along an Irregular Trail

The Detour Leads Where?!

Short? 

A short post from the Wild Gray Goose? 

Well, not zackly.  Meditating over this beach sunrise IN the Wild Gray Goose (the name we lettered on to our travel trailer), I read my January then my March posts.  They were too good to let slip on to the past post right margin.  A read, smile, teared.  You see, my trail has been irregular and irregularly wonderful.  It's all a gift from a God gracious beyond comprehension. Then the detour.  Such requires re-thinking, re-planning, but mostly re-committing to the Wild Goose I follow no matter the trail, speed bumps, or detour He guides me past.  Yes, "past." 

I think I was taking for granted the laziness of my formerly passive prostate cancer. When I sent the Provenge special forces to the battle, the pc enemy screamed, "GAME ON!!"  Seems there are now outposts in multiple locations in my skeletal and lymph structures.  I start chemo in five days.  Yuk!

SO, it may just be that my contribution to man/woman kind, especially my faith-framed brothers and sisters, is that I aquit well my Finish Well leg of The Race.  Thus, I offer you five minutes, perhaps more, of reflection by directing you to the January and March posts.  Poetic but centered, these captured my state of being along the trail.  Turns out that race is neither a dash nor a marathon, but a cross-country run over obstacles and even detours.

I Starbucked a post at Gendads while awaiting my visit to the oncologist.  Thoughts for you when you are caught between learning What Is and knowing I AM is in utter control.

Winging My Way in Life's Dusk-Light

I am prompted this morning by my quiet wonderings our of yesterday's event as big expensive medical machines scanned silently for a battle report; my Provenge-trained guys in white hats against the fierce black-hatted prostate cancer thugs.  Mostly it's long-forgotten, esoteric writings that give hints of glory found at life's end.  I thought it was time for an update.  Thus, this morning's journal entry.  Long, but deep.  Don't start reading if you don't have five more minutes to grab some dusk-light.

Thoughts along the trail are more like a slide show than a You Tube video of the journey; more a head and heart report than a travelogue.  Oh, but what a journey it has been--AND IS!  There is room in my heart but no words my lips can shape to express the inexplicable glory of Grace and the presence of Jesus deep down and throughout my being.

Seems my life's light is taking on the faint glow of dusk. My reflections may be prompted by the old fashioned stinky day, now yesterday's history; too busy by half, too unfulfilling by whole.  Or, could it be the passion for Cari, Taylor, Colton, Brooke, Gracen, Charis (oh, yes, now there is The Gift that keeps on giving), and Kira.  And Matt?  Distinct because sons-in-law as best friends reflects the unique role we play in each other's lives.  Or, it may be that all of this is framed by the extraordinary love of an extraordinary woman and which makes the reading of today's Scripture so powerful with joy that I find myself--again, inexplicably--grateful, even excited, that the Journey's end is just over there around the corner shimmering in the somehow glorious glow of dusk.

Whatever the source--or, The Source--this glow from the deeps of my soul and the tear forming just above each corner of my smile encompasses a very small world.  I have no fame of worth that is not granted by these few.  And, it is enough.  And it brings cherished light to David's rejoicing in Psalm 9, spoken out of the terror of life gone wrong, "I'm thanking God from a full heart with whistling, laughing, singing, and jumping for joy."  Then my pal Apostle Paul said of a life of worship portrayed vividly in Philippians 4(v4-9) that a "sense of God's wholeness will settle you down."  To which I said, "AAAaaaaah, yes, this God I worship and walk with is worthy of more praise than I can give Him."  And I can ride around that corner on  the trail lighted only dimly at dusk but somehow bright and alluring as if I were finding Home.

MYSTERIOUS AND WONDROUS

Pretty much sums it up, Mysterious and Wondrous.  That date just below, April 14, should read today, July 18.  I liked reading what I sensed in the journey back then.  The mystery is in the Sovereign Father's gracious care over me compounding the mystery of  Prostate Cancer.  Don't feel a thing.  It's the monster lurking in the shadows. But as death has no sting, Grace tames the monster. While it is still ugly and barely restrained by medication, the taming is in my sheer lack of fear. The Gray Goose comforts me; His call is slightly  muted and doesn't drive me wild as before, but there is no more assuring a chorus, than His call...I swear I hear tones of the Heavenly Host echoing in the background.

ODD THING, THIS "BUCKET LIST"

Yikes!  Oct 26 my last post? Odd. This one of the three I participate in is my favorite.  Few visit; sorta private.  This would leave you to believe I'm delinquent or dead.  Not yet; "dead" that is.  Guilty on "delinquent."  May I explain?

Been caught up in my passion...legacy building.  It's my swan song, my "finishing well" focus.  It's living with the grandwonderkind, daughter and soninlaw for weeks at a time and writing; living it and writing it.  Writing these days is compressed stuff.  Blogging on http://www.gendads.com/ and http://www.legacydad.com/ and doing queries to editors of major mags in vairous readership cultures. (Harder than writing the actual article). The book, Generational Fathering, not so much.  Soon will pour four isolated days each week. I hope. We'll see.  You can watch the progress on http://www.generationalfatheirng.com/

THREE GENERATIONS OF COWPOKES

This brings up the "bucket list". Yes, I'm still working on the five-year statistical framework of my fourth stage prostate cancer. If it were you, would it be a good thing? It is for me. Forces focus and value to each minute, each activity. Multiplied by 365, that just ain't that many days. Does 1852 sound like a lot. It didn't yesterday. Today it's 1851. "Yikes!" again. Which is why I go to my bucket list. Revision 6 or 8 or something. But, I do like this one I shared in a blog comment.

Before I share may list, let me share this. My son's life was transformed JIT by reading "Sacred Romance" by Curtis and Eldredge. He died six months later of cancer. He both announced and demonstrated the "romance" notion. Chapters 11 and 12 are a gateway to "getting it," to understanding what the journey is all about. "Coming Home" is a clue. Life of my 75 (or so) years is preparation for the rest, the un-countable years into eons into eternity. I'm ready. Soooo, dear friend, my "Five Year Window" frames my look out on to the Coming Home scene with Jesus and the Heavenly Hosts smiling and singing, probably dancing, too.

Well here 'tis:
A REAL Bucket List...as in "kicking the bucket." A narrowed and definitive window to Walk With God, love my wife more and better, family and friends, too. Rest of the bucket list gets less important, less urgent. Funny how the urgent "geterdone...NOW!" list is so much shorter. Yes, The Book(and speaking on Generational Fathering.com), and the Elk hunting trip as a passage rite for the oldest two grandsons, finishing the personal testimony tract--AND using it. Rest of the list is in 8 point type. Long term legacy stuff tops that list. Like maybe a trip to India with four grandkids so they know the world is bigger and poorer than they thought. A visit to the Cameron Clan homeland in south-central Scotland. Short term semi-legacy stuff like, magazine articles and blogs galore, return to Alaska with whole family( and revisit a Ketchikan high-lead logging site of my youth) and take the family by train to Denali, one sky dive (not toooo short a legacy, I hope), my Wheaton College 50-year class reunion, maybe one more beach honeymoon with my still-beautiful, still-alluring and fun bride. That's a pretty full five years. Bonus time will be spent hardening the foundation of our grandchildren's future as lighthouses for the dark generations of the future, maybe pitching in with daughter and son-in-law's dream ranch for intensive full-family therapy.

CLASS REUNION MESSAGE: LIFE IS SHORT, HARD AND ...

I never said this when I was young.  Especially in high school.  Then comes the 50+ year reunion.  Darick, our son dying at 31, my brother, Craig, in late 20's, a war hero; they didn't say it.  But I did after they passed; "Life is short, life is hard, life is unfair, and it's end is uncertain." I should add, to return the smiles to reunion bliss, maybe in bold type, too, "life can be wondrous and full."

Reunion time.  All these years, all these trails, all these adventures.  They passed so quickly.  Mike, Roger, Ronnie, Bobby, Sharon, Johnny, Coach Sisca, and all the folks I didn't remember well until the stories from back yonder came alive again.  Could they--the stories and the classmates--be this old? 

And what interesting lives.  Some not. BUT . . .

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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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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/ ]