First Monday Trade Days: Ripley Mississippi

My son Caleb and I frequent First Monday Trade Days in Ripley Mississippi. We attend this Redneck Flea Market Extravaganza faithfully. He loves the place. Frankly, there is nothing not to like for an observer of humanity and all things sort of strange and out of the ordinary.

Caleb loves the fact that almost anything under the sun can be had with cash money, and almost every price is negotiable. With cash you can get a duck, a pocket watch, a pit bull dog, some chickens, a hammer, a plum tree, a guinea fowl, a turkey, a dream catcher, an army helmet, a pot-bellied pig, pickled eggs, peanuts, a rabbit, an AR 15, a dog collar, a miniature horse, a llama, a good axe, a beagle, a car jack, fall honey, a game cock, a knife, a ninja sword, any kind of wooden handle, a pistol,  a shotgun, a Rebel flag, a look at a chupacabra for 50 cents, a funnel cake, a velvet Elvis, a snow cone, a Louis L’Amour novel, a set of bras,  a three legged lizard on discount, a socket set, a hamster, an iron pot, and a Mountain Cur puppy. All good stuff, and only a sampling at that.

At First Monday, the stuff is only half the joy. The people are the other half. Mingling in the dusty lanes between the rows and rows of vendor booths the various strata of Southern society rub shoulders looking for a bargain.

Of course, there are more of some strata than others. People missing prominent teeth gather here in great numbers and greet each other with broad grins as if to vie for the honor of having an expanse great enough to spit a watermelon through. We have seen a man whose neck was missing entirely as if someone had used his head as a railroad spike and  driven his neck into his torso. We saw a man with long, thin, flowing gray hair flapping beneath a straw cowboy hat, sporting a thick beard, wearing a wife beater t-shirt, holey jeans and cowboy boots, with an AR rifle slung across his back, leading a gigantic German Shepherd by a length of log chain with one hand and carrying his plastic grocery bag full of who knows what in the other. We’ve seen a woman riding a bicycle wedged so tightly into a tube top that the spillage at both ends jiggled like mashed potato jello causing me to cover Caleb’s eyes and poke myself in both.

 But these are the high-lights, most everybody else is plain and normal. Except for the guns.

A considerable number of folk tote shotguns and rifles about like it was Dodge City, but as Caleb notes we have never seen one violent incident nor one police officer in uniform. I imagine some plain clothes officers mingle in the crowd, but everyone always seems so agreeable that I can't imagine they get much action. 

We do love First Monday. You ought to go some time . 

The Glorious Pay for Children's Play

I have told my kids since they were little that their job was to get dirty. They have always taken their work seriously, However, my son will often re-confirm that standing order just before he plunges into some muddy quagmire. I suspect he wants to make sure I have his back when we arrive on the deck with another ruined t-shirt stained beyond recognition. 

The Glorious Pay for Children's Play

The glorious pay for children’s play

Is found behind their ears.

On dusty brows and dirty cheeks

Streaked clean with laughter’s tears.

It’s dirt that’s pay for a youngster’s day

When he romps through bright sunshine.

Then it’s off to the tub for a hearty scrub

To wash the soil away,

And trade the beads acquired in play

For a ring round Mom’s white tub.  

Then off to dive in clothes-line-dried,

Sweet smelling, twin bed sheets. 

Warring with Teenagers

Five days out of seven I go to war with the most maddening race of people on the planet: the American Teenager. I just finished my 18^th tour of duty in my current theater and have slogged out of the trenches this time more ragged than usual. The little vampires had almost bled me dry. Then summer came and airlifted me out of the battle zone.

I don’t mind the hand to hand combat, the grappling in the mud over ideas, the squelching and throttling of teenage ignorance, and the thrashing about of their half-baked thoughts gasping for the sweet air of logic. I relish the blood and gore of students and teachers clashing in a battle of wits. That is the adrenaline high that keeps a good teacher coming back for more, coming back with a bigger and better pair of boots for stamping out their ignorance. The clash of ideas and the exchange of intellectual fire keep me wading back into the fray again and again.

But this year… this year felt like bludgeoning baby bunnies. This year felt like beating the proverbial dead horse. This year they discovered that my kryptonite is apathy. The little vermin went armadillo on me and curled up into a ball of Apathy and beat me down. Or rather I punched myself out like Apollo Creed on Rocky’s thick skull. There can be no grappling and squelching and throttling of anything that curls itself into an inert ball. All weapons are blunted against the round thickness of Apathy’s hide.

Or at least that’s the way it felt for most of my campaign against ignorance this past year. Having tried with all my might to pry the aggravating little armadillos open, I was spent. Then, in typical teenage fashion, they surprised me. As I read their last exam (a very long essay question), I began to see that my battle had not been in vain. I saw thoughts ---thought out thoughts ---coherently put forth on paper. Here at last was real, tangible evidence that their firewalls had been breached. Many of them actually learned some things. And then glory of glories, they were kind enough to say thoughtful, warm things about their experience in my class.

The truth of the matter is the more I read the kinds of things they had written, the more I realized that I really love my students. Of course they would never suspect that their responses on an English exam could be encouraging, could in many ways validate my whole year and send me to base camp with a fresh wind in my sails. They really screwed up at the end. Now I will be sharpening my sword and polishing my boots for tour of duty number 19 to stamp out teenage ignorance. Looking forward to the war. 

Boys Need Old Books

Boys in trouble need good books. Good old books. They need stories of heroes with swords and armor and desperate odds against them. They need stories of brave, honest, fierce men battling for what is right and good and honorable. The books on their shelves should stir their hearts to action, should motivate them to rescue the helpless and defend the weak and speak the truth with courage. Good old books teach honor. Boys need to witness honor so that they might grow to emulate it. Our world needs men of honor.

I don’t think it would be overstatement to say that King Arthur and the Elven lords of Tolkien rescued me time and again as a high school boy. They gave me laws to live by, a code. They pointed me in a direction and gave me surrogate fathers to live up to. When I read about the heroes who strode the pages of their books, I wanted to be them. They helped keep me out of really serious trouble.

So I say to fathers, defend the hearts and minds of your boys .Give your sons old books. Point them to the heroes of  legend who still live on in ink and paper. Then point them to the cross where the warrior king Jesus fought on our behalf, was slain and buried and rose again victorious over death and the grave. All the other stories are just shadows of His. His is the best old book, the best story, the one from which all good stories draw their power. 

On Being Married Twenty-five Years

Heather and I just recently hit the 25 year mark for our marriage. I love her attitude about it. “Honey, it’s just another year. What is so special about 25? Is it more important than 26?” Granted she is not a romantic, but I admire her practicality. Her comment is fraught with meaning. At the very least, it means I have at least one more year before she kicks me to the curb. But I know that statistically speaking, we are an anomaly. We lost a child to cancer---we should have already divorced. I suspect that if that couldn’t tear us apart there really isn’t much that could.

The good news for me is that I caught her young, before she had enough sense to suspect I wasn’t the greatest catch in the world. Now that she knows better, she also knows that twenty five years to train a man is way too much time to throw away in hopes of getting another one of higher quality. Besides, I am no fool either. The chances of me scoring another girl like her are zip. I went yard. If she leaves I am going with her.

I also think she suspects I love her. I laugh now at the sappy, moon-eyed love I used to declare for her when we were dating or the passionate, all consuming, conflagration I called love when we were first married. Twenty-five years later love is so much more steady, so much more informed in what matters most. I am married to a woman of noble character, tested in the fires, tenacious and loyal and loving. Once upon a time I just thought I loved her. Now I know I love HER.

I love this woman who reads my mind and tells me what to do, who has given me every truly good thing in my life, and who loses everything from her keys to her coffee cup. I’m not going anywhere. I suspect twenty-five years is just the under graduate program for how to love my wife. I’m gonna work on my masters for the next twenty-five years. 

I am Happy Here

This morning I took my coffee cup and my Bible out to the deck and realized once again how much I love this little place of ours. My wife Heather and I and our children live on this unimpressive 6 acres in a very small, frame house, not even 1,000 square feet until we closed in the back porch to create another room. We have an old barn made of oak with a rusty tin roof that houses the chicken coop, covers my lawn tractor and four-wheeler and keeps the feed dry.

It appraises now for even less than we paid for it because of the economy. But it would cost someone a great deal more than its appraised value to get me to consider parting with this place. Too much life has happened here. And too much death. All my children have called this place “Home”. We first moved here when Jacob was a little fella, and Allie was kicking her mother in the ribs from the inside.

Jacob died here. We moved away. It hurt too much to stay where every tree and every floor board were reminders of what we had lost. But when the pain had subsided enough, we moved back. We moved back because those same trees and floor boards were reminders. Only now the reminders called up more medicinal memories than malignant ones. We could remember happy smiles and riotous laughter and joyous war whoops. We could remember the triumphant spirit of our son and the infectious energy of our little girl. We could remember the hugs and kisses and bonfires and porch swings in the evening. What should have destroyed this place for us only infused it with the riches of memory.

Now when I have my coffee and read my Bible on that deck looking out past the barn to the pasture I feel the richness of tangible memory. The barn’s not just a barn and the chickens are not just chickens. The old hulk of the apple tree’s trunk and the rusty tin of the barn roof are more than physical. They make this place spiritual. They conjure up memories that minister to my soul. They make me pause and ponder the works of God in my life. They are Ebenezer stones to remind me of the blessings that come from both the triumphs and tragedies of this life.

I remember and I am happy here. 

DEFCON 1: Personal Armageddon

The military has an alert system it calls DEFCON or defensive readiness condition. Most people mistakenly think that the highest and most dangerous level is DEFCON 5, and that is when the stuff is about to hit the fan. However, that is actually backwards. Five is the least serious level while one is the most serious---essentially a declaration that nuclear war is immanent. I don’t know about you but I have a similar alert system for my own countdown to personal Armageddon.

Irritation would be the equivalent to DEFCON 5. This is generally signaled to anyone paying attention by a tightness in the jaws and curled corners of the mouth as words are enunciated with precision in an even tone of voice and ending the statement with emphasis on the last word. This level of alert happens with some frequency but can almost always be observed anytime I have a mission to accomplish.  This will signal everyone within five miles of me to line up and inquire into the nature, duration and reason for the mission thereby impeding the mission and potentially moving the alert level to Agitation.  

The Agitation alert (DEFCON 4) includes all of the indicators of Irritation coupled with a withering glare meant to stun the agitant (not a word according to spell check which in and of itself is an agitant but the word is serviceable in this context none the less). Every moment in this level is likely to see increased volume levels with a slightly more malevolent hiss to the voice. On occasion I simply stalk away and the alert level begins to fall as the distance from the agitant is increased. However, some days I just want to fight.

The desire to fight of course leads to Pissed (DEFCON 3). Pissed removes any possibility of retreat and a potential decrease in alert status. Pissed manifests itself with a suddenness of movement and requires some object be forcibly slammed to a hard, preferable resonant surface, making a startling, explosive bang. Objects may be thrown but not always. The stance is erect and the deep drawing in of breath results in an expansion of the chest and the head and neck are tilted slightly back so that the glare can be directed downward and to the side. The withering glare is thus intensified to the level of death ray and there is usually a cessation of verbal expression as the brain begins to be slightly fogged.

Sick and Tired (DEFCON 2) begins with the declaration that I am “sick and tired” of the agitant. It should be noted that the agitant need not be an animate object and more times than not the inanimate objects of this world provoke this alert level. At this point a verbal barrage is immanent. It does not necessarily include profanity, but if it does, it is the garden variety type with no real art behind it. A great deal of pacing about accompanies the soliloquy as I enumerate all the wrongs I have had to endure and the complete injustice of the situation. The rising level of frustration is not stemmed by ANY kind words from anyone and certainly not my spouse. Any introduction of reason and logic into the situation by ANYONE only increases the rapidity at which Sick and Damned Tired (DEFCON 1) is reached.

Sick and Damned Tired  is essentially the melting of a nuclear reactor. The chief indicator that this utterly destructive level has been reached is the maniacal, seething, lamentation “I am sick and damned tired of…”. It should also be noted here that depending on the level of despair, several appropriate expletives can be inserted into the phrase before tired . This is of course where the artistry that was lacking in Sick and Tired comes into play. The soliloquy devolves into mindless raving, volume increases at intervals to the level of shrill mad man. Objects are slammed, thrown and condemned to the nether regions. Dogs are kicked, cats are kicked, chickens are kicked, and eventually an immovable object is kicked shooting searing pain into my brain and leaving me crumpled in the dust a blubbering, incoherent, but utterly spent heaving lump.

I must admit I was somewhere between Sick and Tired and Sick and Damned Tired to day. A nut started me down the path of destruction. It was “A nut on the end of a bolt on the bottom of the mower.” It should have been a routine operation. I have done it many times before. However, the repair shop must have used some kind of nuclear adhesive when they put the blades back on this time. A special trip to Lowe’s, a gallon of Liquid Wrench and a broken ratchet along with some busted knuckles sent the hammer into the barn wall and launched the soliloquy of a thousand words, very few of which are repeatable. Tools were strewn about and my wife attempted kind words. Having reached Agitation in record time, she went back in the house.

I have come to the conclusion---again--- that this world is fraught with troubles and frustrations of all kinds. How could so much of this life meet with frustration at every point? And how can I be so felled by those frustrations if I were not indeed Fallen myself? One nut on one bolt. What ridiculous madness if this were really the way things are supposed to be.

This frustration highlights my brokenness and spurs my yearning for rest.

It calls me Home. 

The Decline of Masculinity: a Remedy

I have long maintained that a boy cannot properly be prepared for manhood without having owned a real dog. By real dog, I of course mean one whose breeding, or lack thereof, makes it worthy of respect. I think it goes without saying that dogs with handles like Mall Tease, Shit Sue, and Pro- Iranian can contribute nothing to a future man’s growth and development. For that kind of work, a boy generally needs a dog more in line with Labradors, German Shepherds, Hounds or a  good Mutt of no little heft. This does not necessarily leave out the smaller breeds, but they need to be breeds with grit. I prefer the Dachshund or Rat Terrier or almost any terrier for that matter so long as their coat is too short for bows.

One of the reasons a little boy needs a dog of considerable size at some point in his childhood is so that he can crawl inside Fido’s house and see what the view from the inside is like. This will be helpful once he falls in love and marries the woman of his dreams because if the boy turns out to be anything like most of the men I know, it won’t take him too long to dash her dreams and find himself in The Dog House. Luckily, having spent plenty of time in my dog’s house as a little boy climatizing myself to cramped quarters, fleas, and ticks, I was more than prepared for extended stays in The Dog House during the early part of my marriage.

Another advantage for young boys growing up with real dogs over those who don’t is a greater understanding of the definition of loyal, friendship. Rare is the occasion that a boyhood dog turns out to be traitorous. A boy’s dog will stick to him through even the most thunderous tirade of a father who has just realized the two of them have transformed the smooth, green surface of the backyard lawn into a moonscape in their quest to dig to China to feed all those starving kids. Neither is a boy’s dog  daunted by the irate mother raining down threats of being Sick and Tired of filthy foot prints, and once clean sheets being used for capes and tents for the army. A good dog sticks closer than a brother---who is usually found squeezing under the fence and heading for the hills at the first hint of trouble.

Boy’s need real dogs to teach them courage. A big dog can teach this, but they generally need a full blown, immanently dangerous, death at the door step kind of crisis to really shine. On the other hand, I have found that the smaller breeds can teach this lesson with something as simple and handy as a coon in a hole. Nothing shouts courage more to a boy than watching his gritty little dog plunge head first into a dark, mysterious, coon filled hole in the ground. And nothing stirs the pride in a young boy’s heart more than watching that same little dog coming grunting and growling out of that hole with a mouth full of coon hind end. But doubly blessed is the boy that has a pair of dogs--- one big and one small for crises of all varieties.

Perhaps the decline of masculinity can be traced to the absence of real dogs in the lives of our boys. Every boy should have eaten after his dog on occasion and likewise had his dog eat after him when dinner proved too healthy. Every boy should have to scoop poo and fill water bowls and pull round, glossy ticks from his best friend. And in turn a boy can expect to wipe his tears away in a warm friendly coat and have his picked scabs licked clean to prevent infection.

It doesn’t take a village to raise a young man, just a good dog. 

I am Quite Satisfied with my Life

In most regards I am quite satisfied with my life. I don’t really waaaant anything. That is to say that all the stuff that I am currently living without has proven to be remarkably easy to store and maintain and not the least bit taxing on my time. Nor has any of it been an economic drain since having not purchased it has proven to be considerably less expensive than purchasing it would have been.  

Don’t get me wrong, there are things that I often declare that I want. I mean I wouldn’t turn down a new truck if one was offered. But on the other hand, just the other day when I was considering just such vehicular infidelity, I couldn’t help but think how I would miss my old two-toned, copper colored, ’94 Ford F-150 XLT Lariat if we ever parted. Yes, Rusty leaks fluid from all of its orifices at varying rates, but it has character, a character born out of adversity.

 My farmer neighbors know when I am coming because for the last few years Rusty has emitted a low, whining roar from somewhere down in the bowels of his drive train. He is addicted to brake fluid. He smokes a little too. His driver’s side window will still respond to the down command just not the up. I have trained myself not to let it all the way down, that way I can still grip the top of the glass and tug it up, then push hard in and up against the glass to finish closing it. I can reach down and rub my fingers across the crusty upholstery on the front of the driver’s side seat and recount all those hasty gas station fried chicken dinners as I rolled down the road to a fishing hole or deer stand and the seat served as my napkin. How could I part  with a truck whose console houses everything from old chewing gum, Vienna sausages, various caliber rifle cartridges, shot gun shells, a bottle of coon urine, a spool of 12 pound test,  and a crow call. The chances of accumulating a collection like that in a new truck console would take years. I don’t really waaannt a new truck.

I really think I don’t really waaaant anything. My four-wheeler runs fine now. I got a new tire for my tiller so now it won’t just plow in circles. My lawn tractor makes a funny noise but is still cutting. I have all the guns I need to shoot what I want to shoot. I have a squirrel dog and a dachshund that will drag a coon out of a hole. I have more fishing rods than I have arms so that’s plenty. I don’t really need another knife. And my son has 35 chickens, give or take.

My house is just the right size. It’s cozy. We live close. I love my wife. I adore my daughter. I’m proud of my son. I have a great job. I’ve got all the stuff that really matters.

Sometimes I wish I made more money, but you can only use it to buy stuff. I’d rather have treasure. It’s impossible to lose. 

The Dad Longing

I would maintain that even a bad dad stirs the hearts of their boys. One of my earliest memories is of my nose pressed to the glass of our front door on a frosty evening, wiping the fog off the pane, watching and waiting. Waiting for my dad to pull up in his truck. Waiting for the physical man, but waiting too for that something that was Dad. Waiting for the Dad feeling, that feeling of celebration that his arrival would prompt. I am certain that my father never actually considered his station, his deity in my eyes. He was Dad, and when he came home it was good. Not even the screaming and shouting and fighting with Mom that often shocked us boys out of our dreams could destroy the Dad longing.

They divorced---he drank and beat her--- he moved away. He would show up and make promises, big promises to a 6 year old. “Gonna get you that 30-30 this Christmas.” Santa didn't get the letter, but I was sure it was coming. Santa never got the letter. Damn Santa.

The Dad longing dies hard. That joy of the celebration of Dad coming home lingers well into adulthood. I don’t think it can be eradicated. It haunts the heart that has done without it. And those whose hearts have basked in its joy only to have it stolen away groan inwardly for its return. That longing can turn to bitterness in a boy, but is best turned to resolve, a firm resolve to always be the source for that celebration in our own children so that they might fully understand the real source for that Dad feeling, the Lord Jesus. 

Despite the nonsense that some would have us believe that fathers are optional, I firmly believe my longing to celebrate at my father’s arrival home was a type for the real celebration of the Father’s love. We were made to know a father's love. I was reminded of that again this morning in church when we sang “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”. It is that love that is the cause of real celebration in our lives, even in the lives of broken hearted little boys with their noses pressed to a window pane.

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us

Stuart Townend

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that left Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
(REPEAT)

Changing the World an Egg at a Time

Sometimes teaching at ECS makes me feel like a little kid with his nose pressed to a giant window pane, looking out at the world on the other side of the glass in wonder. In my mind’s eye that’s me … only bigger,  my nose and forehead pressed against the glass of the window of my corner room in Eagle Hall, straining to look out at the wide world and at what some of my former students are doing.  

The view can be breath taking. One day I looked out and saw that quirky former 7^th grader trekking Bibles in Nepal, going to law school, and waging war on human traffickers. Then another time it was the kid who played third team defensive back … at best, and is now a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps planning convoys in Afghanistan, coordinating air strikes on really bad guys, and keeping the men in his care alive. And just the other day I mashed my nose a little flatter against the window and looked out to see Sam Holcomb.

Sam Holcomb, class of 2005, is going to sell eggs. Thousands and thousands, if everything goes well. And he is going to raise 6,000 chickens. And get water from point A to point B. And help little kids learn. And help provide jobs for their parents. And share the Gospel … in Rwanda … Africa. Not Arkansas. Not America. Africa. For the next two years.

To tell the truth, I had to wipe the fog off the window pane. This proved almost too much to believe. Sam Holcomb, going to Rwanda for two years to manage a chicken farm and to work on a hydroelectric plant to supply water to these same chickens and the people in that town? Sam Holcomb, the kid with the suspect academic work ethic and impulsive personality? The guy who almost didn’t get to play in a state football championship his senior year because he…get this… barked in the face of an opposing player. Yep, like a dog. And got ejected from the game. I found him after the game that night behind the field-house weeping bitter tears over his ridiculous mistake. It wouldn’t be his last.

This same kid I half-expected to one day call me asking for bail money had finally thumped his compass and gotten his heading. Over the course of our recent conversation, I realized that like Captain Jack Sparrow, his compass was now pointing to what he most desired, a mission bigger than himself.

 I love his story because it is decidedly not the caricature some people have of the “good” little ECS student who goes off to college to study hard in yet another Christian school and become a missionary to pygmies.  Sam still needs about 20 hours to graduate from Ole Miss. Listening to him talk, it was pretty obvious he came off the rails more than once in his college career. At one point he decided to join the military because he thought it would give him the discipline he needed, but couldn’t pass the physical because of allergy issues. He dropped out for a while. Went back and messed it up again.

Until just a few months ago, he had settled into the idea that he would be the tour manager for his brother Drew Holcomb (ECS class of 2000) and his band, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. He was working with Drew, making decent money and had decided he was going into the music business. And then, for the lack of a better explanation, God moved, or better yet, continued to move things in the direction He had ordained from the day Sam was born into the family of Hamp and Nancy Holcomb.

It had long been Hamp’s habit to expose his kids to lots of options, and one of those was to meet lots of people doing kingdom work. “I always encouraged my kids to talk to lots of folks and meet lots of people and have lunch with people who I thought were doing interesting things.” It was Hamp who prompted Sam to have lunch with Tom Phillips, the president of Diversified Conveyors Inc., a company that donates at least one third of its profits to charity. And it was that lunch which helped him plot this course for Rwanda.

According to Hamp, after having lunch with Tom and his wife and hearing about the One Egg Project they were supporting, Sam came home from that meeting and for the next few days had a tough time sleeping. He couldn’t get that One Egg thing out of his mind. It was then that Hamp urged his youngest son to accept the opportunity to go to Rwanda with Tom for a tour of the projects his company supports.

 Within a month Sam was on a plane bound for Rwanda to tour One Egg Project sites with Tom. A week into the trip “I knew I was going to come here. There’s no way to explain it. Maybe being the youngest in the family, I’m just not used to making decisions. It didn’t feel like a decision, I just knew,” he laughs. “ I mean, man, I was talking to these interns working on their masters in engineering from Dartmouth at one of the project sites, and they keep telling me how much they would love to have this job, and all I can think in my head is ‘I already have it and I don’t even have my degree.’”  He is laughing the whole time he is trying to explain the unexplainable, but that’s Sam. I have known him since he was a middle schooler,  and this sort of ridiculously absurd kingdom adventure just fits him. He is just living up to his father’s defining question for deciding how his kids should pursue kingdom opportunities: “Why wouldn’t they do it?” That same question freed Drew to pursue music and Clare (class of 1999) to be a missionary with her husband in Panama.

Apparently Sam couldn’t come up with a good reason not to do it, so, he’s going to head off to Rwanda in March to manage a chicken house for the One Egg Project. His 6,000 chicken operation will provide jobs and skill training for adults, food for children, and a product for the market place that will in turn impact others in the community.  According to the One Egg website:

            These businesses, employ local workers, are locally owned, use local materials and purchase local    supplies. In addition to job creation and food to children suffering from malnutrition, eggs and chickens from OneEgg partners are also sold within local markets. This will help to further the development of food markets, ultimately impacting the overall health of developing regions by providing affordable sources of high quality protein.

I read this and realize that Sam has indeed found a mission bigger than himself. But I also realize that his quest had its roots in Christian parents whose response to questions about their kids always ended with “… and we’re still praying for Sam.” It involved a community of believers at church and in the community. And according to Sam, it involved coaches at ECS who “let us into their lives” and modeled what it looked like to invest in people. Together this threefold cord helped bind up in his heart the need for meaningful work. Work that would last for eternity.

Thanks to Sam Holcomb the view from my window in Eagle Hall makes the world look a little wider. From it I can see all the way to Africa. 

The Eye Gate

Purging images from the mind strikes me as an impossibility, especially strong, vivid ones. The one below was a moment I tried to capture from the time Jacob underwent his bone marrow transplant. I had scribbled it down on a scrap of paper and recently found it tucked in with some other writings. I read this again for the first time in probably a decade the other night. I can still see that moment even now.

The crystal drop spilled from the bottom of his eye. Having found that exit, it slowly eased down his cheek like a piece of sleet on a warm window pane --- only not dissolving clean away like sleet is wont to do. The tear’s trail could be traced back to the liquid, pain-filled eyes. The drop simply stopped at the down slope of his cheek and stood. It wasn’t wiped away; it just melted into the soft pores off his skin marking the end of the damp trail. He had closed his eyes now and thus squeezed out the last bit of moisture before falling back into sleep. That drop too hurried down the damp trail but couldn’t succeed in dashing off his cheek. It too melted away at the trails end.

Those crystal drops just stick in my mind. Their movement seemed to communicate the course Jacob’s pain had taken. No rapid attack--- but a slow assault finally melting away to a faint reminder.

Unlike so many images that crowd my mind, this one came to the Eye Gate unbidden. And like so many images in my mind it will never go away. Not that I want it to go. It has become sacred.

But, Guard the eye gate. What enters by that way seldom leaves. 

The Gift

I wrote this for my wife for our tenth wedding anniversary. Upon further consideration and almost another 15 years of unwrapping, I still consider her the greatest gift with whom the Lord has blessed me , for through her have come all the best things in my life. A marriage is not all RC cola and moon pies. We have weathered some heart breaking times that have strained our marriage to the breaking point, yet the Lord  has been gracious.

The Gift

Ten years now I’ve had this gift

I pledged to have and to hold.

Its wrapping is a complex weave

With facets manifold.

This gift in not yet opened,

Nor can it fully be.

For years have passed and layers plumbed

Yet layers new to me

Have come to light through trials and fright

And shared anxiety.

Yes, layers more are underneath,

The ones time pulls away.

New shades and colors, lines and shapes,

For yet, another day.

My gift, though still concealed

And in its fullness yet unknown,

Has made my life a richer place

By the layers it has shown.

As time slowly pulls away

The layers of my prize,

I understand its beauty

And where it truly lies.

It lies not in the wrapping,

Though fearfully and wonderfully wrought,

But in the inner sanctum,

The place where Christ was brought.

For it was Christ who made this gift.

‘Twas fashioned just for me.

This gift I love and speak of

Is the wife Christ gave to me.