My purpose in writing today is to sort of set the record straight—as if it needs to be.

I had this thought the other day that if someone entered my life about the time I began to blog they would get an entirely different perspective of it from those who may have known me for the many years prior to me making my private thoughts public.

There are some that would come away from reading my posts thinking that I am a whinner—some would think I am a winner and others might think I live somewhere in between. Perhaps Japan or the middle east.

The exploratory process—though painful at times—is not without its’ mercy component. I am actually better off than I surely sometimes come across in blog-land.

I have recently come to understand that there are dark places inside that need some light in order for them to be healed and/or released in order for us to move forward in this Christian life. That the people we are closest to will likely be the ones that help this process by poking in just the right places. And at all the right/wrong times.

Of all the years I have lived the latter seem to be the years of acceptance and introspection. I can well remember the years of coasting—where everything seemed to fit into a place that had been designed for it. Those were the years when even the stupid things we did worked out for good.

Then came the years of drilling wells in order to find water—and the enemy came and covered them up and we went out and dug new ones and so on and so forth. We finally figured out how to cover them and pipe the water directly into our homes and things have been a bit different ever since.

Then came the years of understanding in which our children finally decided we were not all that bad after all and their father’s day cards were sincere and appreciated. We also began to see, during the years of understanding that most likely things were not going to turn out the way we had hoped.

And now, after going through the years of dispair that followed the years of understanding, we are in the years of fullfillment (which piggyback the years of acceptance and introspection)—only the time seems short and I spilled something on the map and can’t see where I am completely but can see all the roads leading to other places like spider webs in the sunlight.

Yes…there are more pluses than minuses in this year we are in—grace abounds where uncertainly begins. If we are looking for information—there is enough: for faith—it is within earshot; for love—we just need to open our eyes and see that there are a lot of people standing in the white fields. Some are looking at us and some are looking at someone else—there is enough.

During my recent trip to see my son and daughter in Raleigh, NC, I of course went to my nearest Barnes and Noble Bookstore while my wife and daughter shopped the mall. I found a book by a greek poet Miltos Sachtouris and another by an Israeli poet named Yehuda Amichai. Both are poets that seem to have reached a pinacle in that particular artform. The poem below is by Amichai and gives you a little glimpse into his world in Jerusalem. Enjoy!

What Kind of a Person

“What kind of a person are you,” I heard them say to me.
I’m a person with a complex plumbing of the soul,
Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system
Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century,
But with an old body from ancient times
And with a God even older than my body.

I’m a person for the surface of the earth.
Low places, caves and wells
Frighten me. Mountain peaks
And tall buildings scare me.
I’m not like an inserted fork,
Not a cutting knife, not a stuck spoon.

I’m not flat and sly
Like a spatula creeping up from below.
At most I am a heavy and clumsy pestle
Mashing good and bad together
For a little taste
And a little fragrance.

Arrows do not direct me. I conduct
My business carefully and quietly
Like a long will that began to be written
The moment I was born.

Now I stand at the side of the street
Weary, leaning on a parking meter.
I can stand here for nothing, free.

I’m not a car, I’m a person,
A man-god, a god-man
Whose days are numbered. Hallelujah.