ADDING TO THE BEAUTY

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses. – Lao Tzu

We too often walk about with our heads so full of the day we miss the beautiful little moments. I do this. Just now while I was working on a story I am writing my son came in and interrupted me in the middle of a thought. I was momentarily annoyed. Until I noticed the red-rimmed eyes. He had been touched so deeply by something he had tears in his eyes and he wanted to share it with me. What else is there than that? A son coming to his father to share his heart.

Hit the brakes. Turn off the engine. Get out of the car. Stop the world. Pay attention.

A few days ago, at the start of the vacation I’m on now I stood on a hillside as the snow was falling on Colorado; big flakes settling silently on the landscape and on my clothing. For a few minutes as the snow fell into my world everything else fell away, all the junk that has been necessarily occupying my mind and distracting my attention. The more snow that fell, the more silent the world became, all the noise being muffled in the blanket of white, swallowed up. And for those moments I was mesmerized, caught up in the beauty.

On this thought train I was reflecting back on what my friend Rick the Scribe wrote in his latest book about lugging his stuff across the parking lot into his office building day after day, eyes on the pavement rather than on the “wild, craggy beauty” of the east slope of the Rocky Mountains just west of where he parks his car. When he takes a moment to listen he hears a voice say, Rick, take your eyes off the asphalt. Look up and into the beauty. Let your eyes rest for a moment on my beauty.

I wrote earlier this year about the idea of finding the art in the everyday, and took that thought a bit further suggesting we look for the artist. Sometimes when we tune in and open our eyes we even get to glimpse the heart of the artist.

A couple days before leaving on this vacation I was following my friend Walt as he maneuvered his car into a parking spot outside a grocery store where he was picking up a few things. In the car with him was his 18-year-old son, Ryan. I pulled my car into the next slot behind him. I switched off the engine and watched Walt get out of his car and walk around to the back where he opened up the trunk. He reached in with both hands and wrestled out Ryan’s wheelchair. I joined him as he unfolded the chair and wheeled it around to the passenger side where Ryan had already shoved open his door and was waiting for his dad to position the chair so that he could slide from the car seat to the chair. I instinctively reached down to help the boy, when Walt held his hand out to stop me saying, “no, Ryan can handle this part.” I watched Ryan use the arm and hand which have good strength and fair motion to pull himself up out of the car and into the chair, his legs dragging into position under him. Then he looked up at me with his great smile I see so often, making it clear he was glad I had joined him and his dad on this outing. I walked alongside as Walt wheeled him into the store.

I have been privileged the past few years of my life to see my friend Walt pour love out on Ryan. He and his wife adopted Ryan as a newborn from Korea and found out a few weeks after receiving the infant that the child had cerebral palsy. It was hard news to hear. It had quickly become clear the adoption agency had not been entirely truthful. Did he have it in him to be the father of a boy with such special needs? Should he even try? Should he send him back? And what future would the infant have if he returned him?

Then, a few nights after finding out the truth, he woke suddenly in the early morning hours. He couldn’t sleep for the burden on his heart and the worry in his mind. It probably wasn’t the first such night since finding out the truth, but on this particular night something came into his mind that would not go away. A verse from the 82nd Psalm. He didn’t even know the verse. Had never heard it or read it before. But there it was, loud and clear in his mind. Defend the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy.

Over the past four years or so that I have known Walt, I have watched him with Ryan, watched his tenderness, his commitment. Over and over again I have thought to myself how clear it is that God Himself brought Ryan to Walt, and gave Walt the heart to be that boy’s father.

Sara Groves wrote a song called “Add to the Beauty." It talks of our opportunity to add to the beauty of God’s creation. She sings…

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces,
calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
Shine with the light
that’s burning up inside

And this is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace, an invitation


**
(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

LESSONS FROM MAGGIE THE DOG

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.
– Henry Ward Beecher

The other day I met with my friend, Rick the Scribe, for our once-a-month discussion over coffee and told him I was feeling a bit weary lately and was nearly consumed with a strong urge to run away to a remote, tropical beach somewhere for a few months. If I could only slip away to such a spot for awhile… Take long walks on the sand and the occasional invigorating swim in the open sea. Drop onto a cot or beach chair for several naps a day. Slow down. Think. Pray. Read. Watch the tide come in and go out. Listen to the waves.

But who has the time? There is the work to be done. Always the work.

Rick reminded me of a 3 day retreat he took this past summer to a Benedictine monastery high in a canyon in the mountains near Aspen. You don’t have to be a monk to hang out there. You just call ‘em up, make a reservation, and check in like you would at a hotel. He says it is a beautiful spot, and quiet. (It is a silent monastery, so the only thing you hear most of the day is the occasional breeze singing through the trees.) He suggested it might be easier to swing a two or three-day break there than three months on an island.

Imagine a guy who talks on the radio for a living spending several days in a place where you have to be silent. I’m considering it.

Although there’s probably no need to go to such an extreme.

There is this spot on the carpet in our living room – just below the window that looks out onto the lawn and large evergreen tree on the south side of our home – where the sun shines in during the mid-morning. This time of year, with the sun far south on the horizon, its warm rays break in below the higher branches of the tree, falling onto a place about three feet square on the carpet between the window seat and the coffee table. If you were to be standing in the entryway of our home and happened to glance into that room you might have the urge, on a cold winter morning, to lie down in that space to rest for awhile.

Our dog, Maggie, used to do that. After a long lifetime of blessing our home with her sweet spirit, she passed away a few years ago. I still think of her every time I see the sun warming that spot. No matter what else was going on in the house, if the sun was shining onto that place on the floor she would seek it out and place herself in the middle of it, soaking up its warmth.

In the 16th century Copernicus took up the then controversial position that the Sun itself was the center of the universe. He said one could not deny it when one considered the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole universe. In the face of those who came out in opposition to his certainty he said they should face the facts with both eyes open.

Maggie would usually close her eyes when she was basking in the sun, at peace, content. She wasn’t one to be drawn into a debate about the position of the sun. She would simply go in search of it and when she found it she would curl up in it and she would rest. It was a transcendent thing.

I suppose that is what I am really talking about…seeking the son and finding peace there.

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

I just finished opening a pile of mail. Lucy usually does the mail thing but I am home this afternoon and had taken a walk up and down the hillsides around our home to get some fresh air and as I arrived back home the mailman was just driving away so I thought to stop and clean out the box. Some bills, of course, along with a bit of junk mail and a few Christmas cards. They have begun to come in larger numbers each day, each day reminding me that we need to get started on ours.

The cards that arrived yesterday were still on the table in the entryway and I put the new arrivals down in the same spot, pausing to look at some of the pictures friends had sent of their families. I noticed, next to some of the cards, a small, attractive little picture frame holding a picture of a nice-looking couple and their two children. I had no idea who they were. This happens sometimes. I will stare at a Christmas card family picture for a good long time doing my best to recognize a face and remember a name but it won’t come to me. Lucy will come in and pick it up and say, “Oh, honey, I can’t believe you don’t remember them. That is Roland and Gertrude Frankentoot and their kids, Conrad and Brenda. Remember, Roland was my college roommate’s sister’s uncle’s father’s cousin from Baltimore. You met them five years ago when we ran into them in the airport in Paris. Surely you remember?”

Umm…yeah. Sure.

But I don’t and she can’t believe it and so when I saw this picture next to all the other cards I was determined to figure it out on my own before she came in and had to tell me. I spent several moments looking at it, even carrying it over to a window where the light was better. I was thinking that whoever sent this had gone to a lot of trouble, mailing it in a little frame and all. It was at this point my wife came in and asked me what I was looking at. I was determined to at least take a guess so I held up the framed picture and said, “Isn’t this that family in Seattle we always hear from at Christmas?” Lucy came over, looked at the picture, and started to laugh. She said, “Honey, that is the picture that came with the frame. I got the frame yesterday and just haven’t had a chance to put one of our pictures in it.” And then I noticed, in tiny little print at the bottom of the photo, the words, “Place Photo Here – © 2006 Hallmark Cards.”

I’m making an appointment with the optometrist.

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more." 
- Dr. Seuss

Today is St. Nicholas Day.

What’s that?

I’m glad you asked.

St. Nicholas Day is the day when (according to tradition) Santa calls his doctor to get his Valium prescription refilled. Hey, you try flying to billions of homes around the world in one night, dragging that bag of toys through airport security. Talk about stress.

No, St. Nicholas Day is the day (according to tradition) kids hang up their stockings. It’s true. I didn’t know that either. We jumped the gun and hung our stockings last week when we decorated the house. Actually, I should have said when my wife decorated the house. I sort of didn’t help Lucy at all this year. But I have an excuse. I was out of town when she got the urge to transform the house from the fall decorations to the Christmas decorations. While she was hanging garland all over the place, I was sitting at Sky Harbor International waiting for a flight. Oh the joy of returning to our home to find it dressed for the season. There is garland over the fireplace mantle. There is garland on the bookshelves. There is garland wrapping the banister and the railing atop the stairs. I expected to find garland stuffed into my sock drawer.

There are already gifts under the tree.


Where do they come from? I haven’t even begun to shop. What is it they say? Christmas is the season when you buy this year’s gifts with next year’s money. It is the time of year we join the rest of civilization in the venerable tradition of trying to find a place to park at the shopping mall without causing anyone else to want to run you over with their car. The mall parking lot is the first place I go to find peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. If Caesar Augustus had had to deal with the sort of traffic we have these days, that census he decreed would have been a total bust. Joseph never would have made it from Nazareth to Bethlehem. He’d still be trying to get out of the parking lot at Costco.

If the Gospel was written today it would read: “Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. This will be a sign to you: You will find half-price sales at the mall, but you won’t be able to park within a mile of the place.”

I kid you not when I say even Santa Claus has trouble handling the stress. I read in the news today that a survey of the members of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas – I swear there really is such an organization – found that many have been complaining about work conditions the past few years. A spokesman for the order said the job is more than just sitting in a chair and letting children crawl all over you. Santas are exposed to germs, they hurt their backs lifting kids, and they get overheated in the red fur suit. Every day more than sixty percent of Santas get sneezed or coughed on ten or more times; 75 percent have children cry on them; 90 percent have kids pull their beard to see if it is real; half have their glasses pulled off. One-third say kids have wet on them. Consider this when you send your kid off to sit on the old boy’s lap: his beard has more bacteria than a bus station mop. He could carry penicillin around in an oil drum and it wouldn’t be enough. Imagine dealing with all that and living in constant fear that someone else is about to soil your underwear.

So… Rather than go to the mall, let’s go somewhere else for a moment.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." - Luke

Over the past bunch of years I have been blessed to experience the story of Christmas every year. And not just this time of year, but throughout the year. But I love this time of year in particular. I was talking with a woman I know who helped decorate the sanctuary in our church for the first Sunday of advent. They did something with the cross that I have never seen before. You always hear, of course, of the baby Jesus being born in a manger. We are familiar with the nativity scene. But she and the others wanted to do something more this year. Rather than just tell of the birth of Christ, they wanted to tell the whole story. But they wanted to do it without words.

When we walked into the church on Sunday morning we saw before the cross a manger, a crown of thorns, and a golden crown. Three powerful symbols suspended in the air in front of the cross. It is a powerful visual telling of the full gospel story. It makes you think.

The scene captured me.

My response was more than just some intellectual comprehension, more than a simple mental registering of what was being said. Because this same story fully captured me 16 years ago, because the person at the center of that story has drawn me into the narrative like nothing and no one else in my life has ever drawn me, the story itself informs and shapes everything else in the world for me. So I stood there still as could be, yet deeply moved. It is through that story that I see everything else. Or at least, it should be.

**

Think I was kidding about there being an Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas? Click here: AORBS

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

LIFE AS A HOUSE

Restaurant in Terminal 3 – Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix


I debated over ordering anything and decided I was hungry enough to risk airport food. Turns out they serve a good burger here. I practically inhaled it. Should have savored it, as I now have another hour and fifteen minutes before my flight. So with time to kill and nothing shaking here but a USC/UCLA game on the television behind the bar, I decide to see if there is enough battery left in the Mac to get some writing done. So far so good.

One of the servers is giving the bartender a hard time over the game. UCLA scored first and is up right now by 5. I feel I ought to care who wins so I ask someone nearby which team is favored and the answer I get is USC, so I’m rooting for UCLA. I always root for the underdog. I’m sure a psychologist would have some insight into that particular decision on my part but I won’t concern myself with the deeper meaning.

A number of years ago, when Brandon was maybe 4, he and I flew to L.A. to meet with my brother’s family for a couple days at Disneyland. We stayed at the Westwood Marquis, which as it turns out, is not far from the UCLA campus. I had borrowed a bicycle from my brother during our stay. He also loaned me a Burley bicycle trailer….. so one day I packed Brandon into the Burley and we went for a ride that ended up on the campus track complex. We watched the track team working out and soaked up the southern California sun for a few hours (it had rained the day before, clearing the sky of the usual L.A. smog). It was one of those cherished, peaceful respites in the midst of the unrelenting rush of life. I remember lying back on the lawn on the periphery of the track and letting the sun’s rays warm my skin while Brandon charmed some of the college girls nearby. He has always easily managed the social scene.

So I have a connection to UCLA. Another reason to root for the Bruins.

Not long ago I found some journals I had kept during those years. It had only been a year or so before that L.A. trip that I had both taken a job at the Washington bureau of the Associated Press and then, a month later, quit that very same job to move to Colorado to work at KHOW, the radio station I had listened to growing up. I remember agonizing over the thought of packing up to move across the country. Three weeks after settling in Denver my general manager came into the studio with a copy of Broadcasting magazine in his hand and a mischievous smile on his face. He plopped it down on the desk opened to an article, complete with a picture of me, telling of my having taken a job at the broadcast desk of the AP in Washington D.C. So much for accurate, up-to-the-minute reporting.


**
Lately I have been reflecting on what I have been “building” these past many years. Lucy and I rented “Life as a House” the other night. I highly recommend it. It will have you thinking about how you are spending your years. Are you tending to the important things? Are you building something that is significant? In the film, George (Kevin Kline), gets a wakeup call. Toward the end of the story, as the sun sets, casting golden hues along the edge of a cliff where it drops into the ocean, he says this: “With every crash of every wave, I hear something now. I had never listened before.” His “house” is almost complete, and he says to his son, Sam, “If you were a house, this is where you would want to be built. On rock. Facing the sea. Listening. Listening.”

Jesus talked of the wisdom of building your house on “the rock.” The rains come down and the streams rise and the winds blow and beat against the house, but it will not fall.

It is good to stop sometimes and take inventory, to think about where you have been investing, where and what you have been building. I’m wandering around the construction site a lot lately, trying to better see what is taking shape.

Am I standing on rock? Am I listening?

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)