Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Cadence of Time

It has been two weeks since I did my last blog. As I think about what has transpired in those short few days of life, it astounds me at the mastery and the majesty of life and yet, the unforeseen events and people that enter your life that make a lasting brushstroke on your life.  I will begin the blog with remembering a great experience for many reasons with my travel to my hometown of Gadsden, AL to be part of a home going celebration for my college basketball coach, Coach Riley Whitaker.
 
Funerals have a way of making or causing you to stop and reflect, don't they?  I am so thankful Coach and I remained connected through the years since that one year I played for him in 1967.  To be asked to eulogize him at his funeral and get to sing one of my favorite songs, He's All I Need, was a great time for me and apparently for many others I saw for the first time in far too many years as well as some wonderful people I had not met in my days in Alabama. Memories are treasures I realize as the years pile up and the memories turn to higher elevations in my mind.   A side point but a pertinent point in now having attended and sung at many funerals in the last few years is that there is a tremendous difference in a funeral for a Christian and one that is not a Christian. Coach and his beautiful wife, Marie, were well in the shadow of our Lord and we all know Coach is there in Heaven; a blessing!
 
Seeing the guys I played basketball with so many years ago was a true joy. We laughed, we shared, we bonded once more after the battles we fought together in that successful season for it was Coach that drew us together and then transformed us into a cohesive unit. He was a master at that in his quiet, low profile manner but always focused. I loved him for who is always was; my Coach and I will treasure that time in Gadsden to my last day and beyond!
 
I love to meet new people but meeting new people from the town where I grew up is even more special for we share a common root structure in many ways.  A dear friend I had that year I played for Coach that was accidentally killed in an auto accident that shocked all of us that knew him that year.  To be honored to meet his wife at the funeral after all these years is remarkable on many fronts that began with unexpected handshake at the conclusion of the funeral.  Seeing many friends I worked with at Goodyear in Gadsden, churched with, had as teachers in high school, sportswriters, former childhood friends; this list is long but the joy is greater. 
 
As I returned to Canton that Sunday, I could not escape this phenomenal reality of how much people need other people for each of us put our brushstroke on each person we meet on this journey as they do on us. We are the sum of all the people that have touched us, changed us, molded us to what and who we are! Isn't that amazing when you stop and think about it for it screams to me that, yet again, there is purpose for every act and action we take on this journey!  My heart is so warmed by each and every one of those folks I met in the whirlwind journey home but everyone will never be forgotten.
 
In the last week via a Facebook message, I would able to establish contact with my third grade teacher that is soon to be 101 years of age in December. I wrote her, Ms Adamson, a letter and she sent me a nice letter back along with a newspaper article about her on achieving that century mark. I had to smile with her letter for she closed by giving me her phone number and "you can call collect if you wish .." for there are many of you that do not recall the "call collect" component of phone calls. She also attributed her long life to never getting married and very few drugs.  A great experience and to now have contact with my first, third and fifth grade teacher is really something special to me.
 
As we as a nation and as a People work through this latest mass shooting, we realize just how vulnerable we all are for today you realize that events like that are just a breath away.  Listening to railing in high pitch after each of these about guns, mental health, poor police work, etc, etc, I am reminded of something I have known for many years. If someone wants to kill you; they will for it is about choice and will, isn't it?
 
Since returning I have been honored to sing in three local assisted living facilities where you are surrounded by dozens of elderly people. In that hour or so I get to spend with them in singing, talking, meeting and sharing with them, I am reminded that it is I that gets the real blessing by that labor of love. That has become a phenomenal ministry for my quartet, The Pathway Quartet for you realize that many of those wonderful people find themselves placed there by children or whoever just does not have the time nor the patience nor the finances to give that care they need.  I also realize now that each of those people have a story they really want to tell so the blessing comes when the music is done and you open yourself up to the stories.  There are smiles, tears, regrets, feeble hands that hold yours gently, sweet comments of appreciation; who could not love that!  I always take the time during and after the singing to talk about Heaven and what they must do to have that home prepared for them in Glory. Wow, what a ministry!
 
So time does march on in drumbeat cadence. I know that sounds like something a really old person would write but I see that cadence and hear it ever so clearly.  As physical or mental ailments begin to invade those around you and change the persons you have known for many years, it is both shocking and hurtful to see the transformation. Realizing as well that each of us stand at the precipice of changes like that causes you to enjoy every moment you have with friends, loved ones and family.  My grand kids are now in the fifth, fourth, third and second grades with one yet to start school; that takes my breath for I know each time I see any of them now, they will be markedly changed since the last time I held them.
 
I will close in a few words on the exhilarating power of hugging.  As big as I am I have to be careful in hugging someone that is frail and elderly not to hurt them. But in being gentle, you can see the power of hugging in lifting a frown to a smile, a tear to a twinkle, a dread to a hope. Wow! And I get to see those transformations oh so frequently in my ministry in the jails, in the homes, at the funerals, in my family. Humans need other humans but more specifically, people really do need people. It is my greatest hope to be able to exhort and encourage many people that will enter my life in the remaining years God will give me. For who gets the blessing? That would be me and I am so blessed.
 
So for the quick handshake at the funeral that meant so much, the many laughs, the tears of joy I saw, the stories long forgotten but now fresh, the reality of the cadence of time, I realize what a precious treasure life is.  I will leave you with that last sentence and the key operative word, "treasure" for each of those I met while back home will forever be a treasure buried safely in my heart.

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