PASSING...NOT AWAY BUT ON

Following the call of the Wild Goose frames the way early Celtics saw God's leading, His Holy Spirit. That quiet, haunting, clear call comes from within for those indwelt by that Spirit.  Rebirth through Jesus,  our Savior, assures the Goose has nested, though He never rests.

Then there is life's long journey to consider...actually our lives are a very short trail when looking back from its latter parts.  It's value beyond survival is all about following the call of the Wild Goose.  The unexpected--like our son's sudden, untimely death at 31--or the inevitable--like aging often accelerated by cancer like my slowly progressing variety--is an expected part of the short story we call our life.

When seen in this context, life's design and purpose takes eternal dimensions.  We all think about it now and then.  Life's end, I mean.  Ironically, the earlier the better.  Here is where I put in my pitch.  If I may extend the metaphor,  I want to repeat the Wild Goose's call.

Life's end is not about "passing away," a strange euphonism, to be sure. LIFE IS ABOUT PASSING ON. Ok, "passing on" to a better, an eternal life.  Sure.  But what about passing on the values, the spirit, the milestones of a Walk With God to those heirs of your journey can impact what seems sure a much darker, more chaotic world than we have known.  It's called LEGACY.  And a godly legacy is not accidental, it's intentional.

That's why I invite visitors here to www.gendads.com, my blog.  The blog is all about passing IT on.  This site is about what's going on in me.  Inside the cancer (prostate) journey and in my heart, a heart made so much richer by my following the Wild Goose call to invest my life in my grandchildren.

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.

Life's Stuff-flood and Me

It's a flood. Stuff, I mean. Tides rise, so do rivers. So does stuff. They all ebb, too.

Let's do life's stuff-flood for a reflective moment.

Mine is a crowded life suddenly. So, I'm taking time over a quick PBJ to reflect. Nevertheless, heart beats fast and axienty crowds my focus.

Go over to the blog--we call it a DIAblog--soninlaw, Matt, and I are building for our book. You'll love the two latest posts: "Generational Hike or Death March?" followed by today's "The Soon-to-be-man Son, His Dad, and Dad's Dad Are Actually..."

We are actually going on our 100-mile, five day mountain hike. Full day packing, shopping. The last week in 4-mile test hikes. I'll turn 70 somewhere in the mountains near Moab. "Imagine," Carolyn said, gleelessly, "IF you return, you'll be 70!"

For all the effort, our www.GENDADS.com DIAblog has been a long, hard struggle, but not quite ready for prime time. It's needed these days for publishing.

Then there is the madness of five grandkids next door (we're parked in their long gravel driveway for the summer).

What's my point worth reflecting? Thanks for asking.

Busy, sure. But the priority is my grandchildren. (Sure, God and wife and country, etc, but I'm talking about where I put my time, energy, and those persistent little daily sacrifices). Of the four older than 1 year, I can see basic personality pieces that will be with them the rest of their lives. Personality pluses and minuses we all have. That's what being filled with the Spirit of God addresses. You know, "Love, Joy, Gentleness..."(that's the one I pause on the most) to offset the character flaws that emerge from untransformed personality inventories.

Ready for the point? Almost there.

I was wondering what makes so many grandfathers disassociate from their grandchildren. I think I see it in the basic personality. Some, raised in strong families, especially Christ-centered ones, will have a ready platform for future family focus all the way to grandparenting. Others must need that transformation of character that is willing to make the significant sacrifices required to fulfill the fathering role and needed to build the legacy of good and godly children.

I'm about to write the whole book here. So, let's stop withthe point: Are you, young dad and older dad, prepared to do now and in the future what is necessary to extend godliness though your life-blood (or, as they say so crassly and clearly in Scripture, "your loins")? Are you prepared or preparing for the initiative, energy, commitment, sacrifice to make your children (or, there we go again, "seed") the models of godliness for future generations

CHALLENGER, WERE SENDING UP A SOLUTION

Stay glued to your screens Wild Gray Goose fans. New plan. Matt and I are opening an entirely separate blog, we call it a "diablog," to be the active platform for our book, Generational Fathering. GenDads will feature discussions, ideas, musings, and surveys. And, we hope, lots of dialog. We think we have something to share with you out of our lives about fathering--together. We need to hear stories and ideas and those revolutionary (ok, "outlandish") concepts of parenting from you. It'll keep our book real. And, we'll listen to the struggles you have that are common to fathers. We've been there and Matt makes his living rescuing families at the residential ranch for, well, "challenging" teens.

When? Houston is sending up a rescue ship. Should reach us in yet another week. GenDad diablog hopes to premier August 1. Yeah!!

And the Goose? Still wild and a little grayer and filled with the Wild Goose. Gary will blog here weekly or more. Idea is to engage others in their walk with God. Learn a little, prod a little. You might read a subtitle as Wild at Heart Redux.

Gathered by the River

Recent ponderous pondering to frame the book vanished this morning. The Father massaged my heart in family worship. In simple conclusion it was rediscovering that life in Christ wasn’t as much about how we march out the Christian conventions drawn from scripture but about how we walk in the heart of The Story; His heart, His story.

Where’d that come from? The kids, i.e., grandkids . We took a family Sunday at the wild water world of Lake Powell, the dammed up Colorado River in Utah. Five little ones, four big ones huddled in the air conditioned cool of the RV before boating. Sang some of those kids’ praise songs on the CD. “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord…I want to see You.” Then, “Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down…to say you are my God.”

My wife then un-TIVOed a Joyce Myers message she thought would fit. It did. Even the kids (5 to 12) “got” it, especially in family discussion. Life is a warfare against the enemy of our hearts. Setting aside our hearts for God and not spending it on ourselves, now that was something the kids understood.

Then came the reading. “Obscure” OT stuff, of all things. The kids took turns reading The Message rendering of Deuteronomy 30. And it’s very worth the read for Legacy Dads. It’s about the consequences of following the Lord…for generations. Verses 6 to 8 talk about freeing our heart to love God and live a full life. We all liked the part where verse nine assures us with “God will start enjoying you again.”

Popi, that’s me, offered another set verses God-breathed but not often read. Micah (yes, Micah) 6: 8 and 9, “He has showed you, O man, what is good, what He requires of you: to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Across the page in my dual version Peterson puts it nicely, “…And don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.”

The kids, our legacy, got it…for the moment. But like all children they do what they see. Will they SEE us take God more seriously than we do ourselves and follow our model with their lives in to the next generationS?

PROVERBS, TUFF LOVE, MODELLING, PRAYING

I just have to toss something out to you from early morning reflections. It’s simple and has been prodding me all day. Caught an email reply from Don who I had saluted in an email for the powerful interview I had with his son, now 21 and a front line missionary in his second year of Arabic language learning.

His father is a poster dad for creating intentional legacy. He is one of today’s most effective business-as-missions leaders. Son, Pete, says that dad was there lots in the young years (they all lived overseas), less in dad's more vigorous world-changing years and as the father-shaping need grew less. But, he said, around age 17 just before he left for college in the States, the sit-down chat included a reference to The File. It was finished. Pete never saw The File but knew it existed. It was his mom and dad’s organized plan for principles, activities, and truths of living they wanted covered before releasing the two sons. The File had transformed the hearts and the flesh of two young lives. But now it was finished.

Here’s what’s for us dads and grand dads who recognize the legacy we hope for is not alone in sound doctrine or proper church manners, but in holy lives imparted intentionally with care, caution, love, and prayer.

Here is Don’s response back to my question about the secrets to his successful fathering. This was nearly his entire email reply, in true laconic form:

"Not sure what to write on fathering. I spent a lot of time in Proverbs with the boys, was tough on them, but always explained my actions. The rest was just modeling. And praying."

Gary
(site) www.generationalfathering.com , (blog) www.newseason.us

Blue Moon snow ride...at midnight.

So, we are here again. So soon? Yep, with the first venture of soninlaw (and Best Friend Forever), Matt. We're saddle mates in several dimensions.

Last night, toward the end of 2010's first day, we did one of our Saddlemate cigar rides, full (“Blue”) moon, on a snow cover at 9000 feet. Organized the book a bit, but mostly we awed at the incredible beauty the Creator sets aside for those who take the time to take it in. Until both horses got stuck in a drift and, lurching to survive, threw me, cigar sparks flying as I rolled along the crusty snow, it was a lovely sortie. Another story to add to the dozen similar rides. Somehow, they’ll fit in the book. The Traditional Gen co-nurturing with the Next Gen over the Millennial Gen. There’s something to bringing heritage down from the family tree and applying all those “old” generations have to offer in order to leave a legacy that will cycle in each future generation. If I were rich, I could leave a hospital wing. Better, even if so, I leave living monument of goodness and godliness

This is the tone of the blog; personal stories relating to the Cowboy Way of walking with God. They'll spill from and in to Matt's and my book, Generational Fathering, now in the research and composition phase.