Describe a Circle

Today is Halloween.  My kids are a little too old for trick-or-treat, so we decided to visit a haunted house for our Halloween entertainment instead.  It just so happens my niece is a member of her high school drama team, and her fellow thespians decided to stage a haunted house as a fundraiser for their school.  We thought it would be a great place to take the kids for a fun night out.

However, our plans were thwarted when my OTHER niece, a sassy, don't-mess-with-me ten-year-old, informed us the spookhouse might be a little TOO scary for our daughter.  She had visited the haunted house the night before, and based on her own experiences, deemed it too scary for Ellyn. 

By this time, we had made costumes, reserved our tickets, and generated a LOT of excitement in our household.  It's hard to come up with something more tempting than the notion of a garbage bag full of candy.  What to do?

My younger niece suggested we go forward with our plans, but build a human wall of protection around our daughter.  With mom on one side, dad on the other, brother & cousin in front and Aunt Allison bringing up the rear, she thought we could protect Ellyn with enough love and encouragement to steer her through the spookhouse with minimal trauma.

It worked; in fact, it worked so well, she wanted to visit the haunted house a second time.  Truth be told, the haunted house wasn't as scary as we expected.  But the strategy made me realize how perfectly God protects us from evil.

Job 26:10 says,  "By Him, a circle is marked out on the face of the waters, to the limits of the light and the dark."  In other words, God draws a circle around us, making it very clear that we will remain in the lighted inner circle if we trust in Him, while evil remains outside in the darkness.

I don't see anything wrong with surrounding each other with a wall of safety and love.  The darkness may spill over from time to time, and our light may be dimmed by the vicissitudes of life.  But if the boundaries are distinct and unmovable, the darkness can never overtake the light.

And if a werewolf happens to jump out from nowhere with a buzz saw in his paws, just draw the circle in tighter and scream a little louder.  And if you pick up a few chocolate bars along the way, chow down while you can.

BROWN TREES

It’s finally autumn, my favorite time of year.  I love it when we get that long-awaited reprieve from the scorching Texas summers.  I love having a good hair day every day.  I love the colors, the smells, the tastes.  I used to pretend I lived in New England, watching the trees change colors from vivid green to gold and orange.  I’ve been in Massachusetts in October; I’ve been in the Amish country in Pennsylvania, too.  There’s nothing like it.  It’s nature’s “big dance.”

A few of the native Texas trees do change colors, but I began to notice it earlier than usual this year.  Then I realized something else was happening: trees are dying all across the south due to the brutal drought we’ve experienced for the last six months.

Our mayor has asked for close to a million dollars to begin removing the trees, to help avoid forest fires. The city’s manager of trees, Victor Cordoba, says "They work all day. They sit outside all day. Then they turn to get some water and there’s none — for months, so they go into stress and eventually they die off..."

All over town, thousands of trees are brown and lifeless, interspersed with green trees and semi-dead ones struggling to stay alive.  What I don’t understand is how one tree can be full of life, and right next to it, an identical tree is completely dead.  Why does one tree survive, and its twin die?  Does the stronger tree grab the water and nutrients from the other?  Is it survival of the fittest?  What about the ones that are halfway gone – is there any chance we can save them? 

It’s an allegory for life.  Physically we're all basically the same – arms, legs, head, torso – and we have roughly the same subsistence – food, water, shelter.  But deep down in our root system, we’re very different.  Some people are under stress we may never see or understand.  Some people don’t have access to the same life-sustaining basic elements.  Others have simply taken such a beating there is nothing left to hold onto. 

We're a lot like these trees, aren't we?   Working all day, existing the best way we know how in a drought that has lasted far longer than we expected.  A hurricane will do the same thing, but much faster.  Once the dead trees are gone, what will be left?   Where do you turn for water?

I like to think of a quote my character M'Lynn said in the last play I performed, "Steel Magnolias" : That which does not kill us makes us stronger.  

The Interceptor

INTERCEPTOR: one that intercepts; specifically : a light high-speed fast-climbing fighter plane or missile designed for defense against raiding bombers or missiles.

My son caught another interception today, his 11^th of the season.

In his first year of junior high, he plays on the football team for his small Christian school.  He is as talented an athlete as any child I've ever seen; he's plenty strong and fast, but he has skills way beyond his age or stature.  He has great field strategy.  His coach tells him he has the best hands on the team.  Another parent says he plays like a high school kid, not a 6^th grader.  

All I know is that he's caught at least one interception in every game this year.  The Eagles have a winning season, thanks in no small part to him.

I'm a fair weather football fan; I don't get into the game unless my team or my son is on top.  But when that happens, WATCH OUT.

I went to UT just after the Earl Campbell years.  I loved going to football games, but they weren't as exciting in the early 1980s.  After college, I got caught up in my career and social life, then marriage and family, and I let my team spirit fall by the wayside.

Enter VinceYoung and Colt McCoy.  I remember staying up way past my bedtime the night the Horns played USC for the National Championship in early 2006.  It was the most unbelievable football game I've ever witnessed.  I could see my son peeking over the balcony upstairs, awakened by the screaming and high fives going on in our living room.  It was a masterpiece of collegiate football.  Vince Young was, well, INVINCIBLE.

And then Colt McCoy came along.  Not only was he extremely talented, but he was a humble, gentle, Christian young man.  He had a cool name, and man, could that boy play football. Watching Colt and his childhood friend/favorite receiver Jordan Shipley whoop up on every team in the Big 12 for four years in a row will spoil you.  But Colt learned a hard lesson along the way: Prepare for open and closed doors.

Just ten minutes into the first quarter of the National Championship against Alabama, Colt was sidelined with a shoulder injury that took him out of the game and ended his illustrious college career.  After the game, reporters swarmed around him and asked him how he felt.  He responded: "I always give God the glory. I never question what God does. God is in control of my life and if nothing else, I am standing on the Rock!"

I don’t know if my son will ever make it onto the football team in college.  I just hope Colt McCoy's legacy will live on in him: Do your best, and be a leader.  Who could ask for anything more?  And if by chance he should catch a few more passes along the way, well, that would be just fine by me.

On being devoted

This past Sunday, my teen-aged daughter felt “the call” following a message by Dr. Jerry Haag of Baylor University.  It was invitation time in our church service; I was sitting on the platform with the church orchestra, playing the invitation hymn, when a fellow musician whispered, “Did you know your daughter came down the aisle?” 

I thought “Again?”  She has already walked the aisle several times.  She’s made her profession of faith, been baptized, joined the church, went to youth camp and re-dedicated her life to Christ.  I thought she was confused.  What else is there? 

As it turns out, a lot.  She told me she wanted to make public her devotion to Christ.

I’ve always been wary when someone “dedicates their life to Christ.”  A foreign missionary spoke at my church when I was young and warned us sternly: “If you give your life to Christ, you had better be serious about it and you’d better do whatever He tells you to do.”  I thought that you only had one choice: go to some God-forsaken land and devote every waking minute to converting people to Christianity.

This never clouded the vision of my innocent and not-quite-mature daughter.  Only 14 years old, she isn’t afraid or confused.  She feels called to devotion.  At first, I thought her choice of words was wrong.  But now I think she makes a lot of sense. 

She is DEVOTED to God.  She doesn’t know where or when or how she will serve God; she just knows she is devoted to him.  Devotion is “strong attachment (to) or affection (for a cause, person, etc.) marked by dedicated loyalty.”  It is “the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action.”

These days there are many choices for a vocation in Christian service.  Missions, church work, ministry, counseling, education, etc. all offer opportunities.  But being devoted to God is a call we can all answer.  “Binding ourselves to a course of action” is a new way of looking at it. 

Action may come in different ways; I have no idea what my daughter will be when she grows up.  She may be a student, a wife, a mother, a teacher, a musician, a social worker.  But whatever she does, she will be devoted.  Her actions will take on new meaning because she will bind herself to Christ. 

"Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."  Proverbs 3:3

Horas non numero nisi serenas

I had never heard the Latin phrase "Horas non numero nisi serenas" until my parents had it engraved on a silver bracelet for me to commemorate my 40th birthday.  It means, "I count only the days that are serene," or "I count only the sunny days."  It seems to be a fitting name for my blog.

The older I get, the more this phrase means to me.  Life is moving so fast, I feel like I can't keep up.  My children are growing up, my marriage is entering a third decade, friends and family are aging and changing, the economy is in tatters and the environment is in even worse shape.

Yet there are signs of hope everywhere...everyday blessings, I call them.  The first rainy day in more than six months.  A friend who reaches out after years of silence.  A good grade on my daughter's report card.  My son's first touchdown at a school football game.  A new project for my husband's freelance business.  Landing a part I've always wanted in a favorite play.  Playing in tune with my flute quartet. 

Why focus on the past, on the pain, the fear, the unknown?  Let's count only the sunny days.