The Power of Humility

I believe we can all wrap our minds around the concept of power for it resides all around us. It has many faces, many sounds, many smells, many reactions, many implications but power, we understand!  The concept of humility, I believe, gets, many times, lost in the winds of rhetoric for people will tend to use the prism of weakness or ineptness when meandering down the pathway of humility. So when you link Power and Humility together in a subject of a blog, it feels strange and incongruent; and I am the one doing the writing!

 

In my life I have been privileged to work with some really great people and some very powerful men and women.  I have always been drawn to that turbine of energy that powerful leaders exude not necessarily to copy it but to understand it.  It is amazing!  If you have been in the presence of celebrity, a national level politician, a professional athlete, a great preacher, etc, you know that feeling of awe that consumes the air you breathe whether you wish to admit it or not.  I believe, properly aimed and channelled, that turbine can generate great change. I remember as a young second lieutenant listening to and shaking hands with General William C. Westmoreland that commanded all troops in Vietnam.  I remember having fifteen minutes in the snow in Cleveland with Doug Collins and Michael Jordan. I could expand the list to a very long list of interesting people I have met on this journey.  How does that affect me personally at the time? Most would not believe it but I find it hard to piece together tangential sentences meaning words get stuck somewhere and I babble like an idiot. that is Power and it makes each of us react in our own unique and usually out of context way reacting to it.

 

Then there is humility.  For me the best example that comes to my mind would be Jesus. He was meek which for me is defined as strength and power under control.  Humility, for me, is when you find yourself with absolutely no where else to turn, nobody to turn to and you have no answers; it is a sense of complete emptiness which can be devastating for many including myself.  Many of you that know me know I have worked now over a decade in jail and prison ministry.  I cannot begin to tell you how many sermons, Bible references, examples, songs sung, questions being asked, etc. I have listened to and participated it. I can tell you that what I am realizing more and more is that i am seeing more and more very real examples of true humility in the population of the inmates.

 

Many will scoff at that and I can understand that to a degree but in having now worked with over 200,000 inmates, I feel I have learned much about the psychology of inmates. There is no crime that will shock me anymore. There is no tattoo that will cause me to take pause. I hate the smells, the misfitting orange jumpsuits and worst of all the strange beige colored shower shoes the inmates wear.  I realized of late that I had allowed myself to get too hung up on the way things look and smell but have realized a tremendous shift in my heart for these men and women I see almost on a weekly basis.  Last night was a classic example of how this decade has changed me; at the heart!

 

When God's presence is there in the chapel and you are leading nearly forty men of all ages, several ethnicities, innumerable crimes, dozens of fatherless children somewhere needing their dads at home with them, it makes my heart hurt. Last night a young African-American man stood and asked if he could give his testimony which, of course, we allowed. It was touching, sincere and came from a fellow inmate. I saw a whole complexion change for I saw eyes stop wandering, I saw tears from grizzled looking men, I saw and felt humility abound in that moment.  It was amazing.

 

As I stood to end the service before the deputies took the inmates back to their cells, I had the group of forty to stand around me and to put their hand of a fellow inmate meaning each inmate was touching two other inmates as I held two inmates close to my sides. I prayed but it was so uniquely different in that close proximity of men that were hurting, fearful, disappointed but had been touched by the Hand of God through the songs, the sermon and the testimony! That was Power of Humility personified.  It was absolutely and uniquely exhausted when I got home after the two back-to-back services for both were powerful in the presence of God!

 

Most of you will never see the inside of a jail or a hospital or anywhere where people are hurting, celled and truly frightened about what tomorrow will bring.  I look at these men and women and see a future meaning a future that they have chosen through poor choices to be left behind in the opportunities of our nation.  Each time I leave the jail tired, I leave those men and those women with a sense of hope and challenge for their obstacles are myriad worse due to be incarcerated. But as I sit in my care to ready for the drive home, I realize all over again that it is I that has received the blessing for the work, the energy, the time away from family, the sacrifice but it is such a blessing. It is always my greatest hope that the seeds are planted and that God will raise the fruit for harvest; He will!

So What Will You Do Differently?

As we are now into the first week of January of a new year, many resolutions have been made and I learned this week that in America, less than 10% of resolutions are kept; not a surprise.  We all make them whether we put words or energy to them don't we?  My wife and I were talking about this just this morning as we are encamped another day with our five grand kids in polar conditions so given that ambiance, my mind has begun to drill more deeply into the title question.

 

I am one that seems to reflect on history and also have this almost manic need to understand why things happen and why people do what people do be it good or not good.  I watched Dennis Rodman and his team of former NBA players in an interview with CNN this morning that turned contentious, rightly I believe, about being in North Korea. I was amazed to watch Rodman literally incapable of articulating with any clarity his thought and answer to a direct question.  Some will no doubt think or say I am being "racist" which has become a cop out term which is a default when someone does not agree with you, your skin color, your political leaning, etc.  

 

Someone posted on FB a couple of days ago, no doubt being sarcastic, about some of the commercials every thirty seconds during the football games of late about black only dating sites.  I saw the commercials and found myself with this strange crawling feeling about how our world has so changed. There is a Congressional Black Caucus; why is that?  There is the NAACP so I ask why not a NAAWP in our times of tolerance and equality?  As I grow another year older in March, I see my nation drawing farther and farther apart instead of embracing each other; so sad!  As I  write this with all five our my grandchildren hovering in front of the fireplace due to the cold, I look at my beautiful African grand daughter and see how happy she is with her family which is her brother and sister and two cousins and her Grammy and Poppy. We are family so I then question from the joy this child from Ethiopia has brought to our family, why can we as a nation find a footing of togetherness?

 

I am about to decide that politicians, pundits, lobbyists, media really do not wish a drawing toward each other in our society for in the division and divisiveness resides funding for causes and campaigns all at the expense of harmony and true peace.  I grew up in Alabama, saw the marches, watched the coverage of dogs and bombings in Birmingham, Selma, Mississippi, the Freedom Riders, the bus burnings, the Colored and White fountains and bathrooms, back door entrances for blacks to the same doctors and dentists white people got to go into through the front door and on and one.  I wish there was some way to erase all that but that will not happen I realize.  But to continue to throw gasoline of division in the twenty-first century using the hate and hurt of a generation ago just seems wrong to me.

 

In my own family in the three years we have had our African queen, Ms Hope, we have seen her bring smiles to tears, joy to hurts and warmth to anger time and time again. If one black African child can bring that to a family and to a wide band of families, why could that not be caused to happen in the macro population? Answer ... too many people do not want that to happen for residing at the core of division of political power, overflowing coffers for political gains that seek to foment the age old hatreds and shreds of division maintains the means of more and more anger.  Some will say I am a Southern boy that has lived in the North long enough to be "Yankeeized." for I have heard that and read that.  Perhaps true but fact is, I have found a way to truly embrace people with vast arrays of differences from me racially, ethnically, economically and spiritually.  When I read caustic or insinuative posts on FB that are hurtful to a person or to a race, it simply angers me and frustrates me for it is ignorance that resides at the core of such actions I believe.

 

So what will you do differently in the days ahead is not a rhetorical question but rather a fundamental probing of why we are granted yet another day on this earth.  For me I choose to be even more open to other opinions and seek to be less judgmental while at the same time seek to understand with more clarity what the Bible instructs us to be and to do.  Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, BIBLE, is a great description of the Holy Bible.  I will close by restating the five step platform of my view of living a life today:

 

1. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten
2. If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything
3. If you do not know where you are going, that is exactly where you will end up
4. Whatever you seek in this life, you will find
5. Stay in the fight!

So my new year resolution begins with seeking to be clearer on God's Word and direction for my life, yearning to be a better example for my grand children for they are watching and listening in a games of Monopoly, commercials, reactions to football games; every thing I do they are watching; WOW!  I want to use the talents God has granted me to His Glory only and find great joy in using that talent.  I want to find an even deeper joy of life and living.

 

I will close by challenging you to do what I challenged a large group of jail inmates to do last week ... take a piece of paper and write yourself a letter than nobody will ever see but you. In that letter, write your biography and in that letter list the five most important hopes for your life. Go ahead, try it!

A Year to Remember ... ney, a Year Ahead to Ponder

I always love this time of year when everybody loves to produce programs, sitcoms, documentaries, editorials, etc, looking back on the year about to end.  I think that not a bad thing but it does not align with my approach to life.  Those of you that know me know well I tend to always be looking toward the horizon and not through the rear view mirror of life's bucket.  There is little to nothing we can do to change, correct, transform what has happened but there are mountains of things we can all do in our own unique world and life about what happens ahead of us.  I suppose that is this perpetual optimist that is me for I have never seen a glass half empty even when the view pained me.

 

The year ahead will, no doubt, be a year filled with national and global challenges. We will see diplomats go to the far reaches of earth to try to ease tensions, raise expectations, lift the flag of improvement over the lands but rare will we see measurable positive improvement.  Yes, America will draw down and thus out of Afghanistan as we did so virtuously in Iraq and in the dust of departure, the killings, assassinations, economic corruption and decline will continue to decimate the landscape of an already scarred world; especially the Middle East.  Do I feel we "won" in Iraq? Certainly not if you define winning as leaving in a state of diplomatic stability with a political system that is functioning. Given that yardstick, certainly we did not leave in victory. Our military, as with Vietnam, deserves all the praise they can be given but war is always less about the soldier and more about the politicians. After all, that is the definition of war which is to, by force, correct the failed political system of a nation and the turn it back over to the politicians. Think about it!

 

I would love to live the remaining days of my life with our nation, my nation, not engaged in military actions somewhere on this globe but I am pragmatic enough to know that will never happen.  When you realize huge forces and structures are being garnered in the Horn of Africa due to its strategic geography due to the escalating explosiveness of Islamic fundamentalists, you know there is a cauldron of fire awaiting ignition. In other words, Afghanistan and Iraq were opening salvos of global terrorism and the "Arab Spring" uprisings, Syrian, etc, are all examples of what resides ahead. I believe 2014 will be a year of extreme military interventions for the US.  But the downside is that should America choose the path of weak kneed diplomacy not backed by a strong striking military hand, America's rapidly declining influence in the world will accelerate exponentially.

 

My list of concerns for our nation, remember I am being positive here, is with the apparent decline in moral fabric that was woven generations ago but is unravelling at an alarming rate.  To test this, turn on the TV and just watch for an hour.  We may laugh at what we see but if you look deeply at what we are being fed, the new norm for our next two generations is frightening at best.  It is not normal for literally almost every program to have a gay theme running through it usually shrouded in humor lines but still this subliminally is creating a new norm.  I watched my five grand kids here Christmas day with the eldest being eleven and the youngest being four. I found myself thinking about where their lives will meander in just the next ten years given what they see and hear as "normal" for we are the sum total of our behaviors which defines "culture" I learned from a great friend years ago.

 

Culture is the cocoon that holds it all together with that cocoon being woven by the strands of values.  I have grown to observe more and more of our world through the prism of Values. I saw the values of my 1960s Vietnam War generation deteriorate so rapidly that it still baffles me. It was from that deterioration that the Baby Boomers, I being one, lock stepped all 76 million of us into the late 20th century armed with new technology, cheap money and ever evaporating morals and mores.  Bill Clinton for me is the poster child of what America should never have become yet history will record him as one of the great presidents.  Scandal was accepted as normal thus the seeds of scandal have now being brought to root and thus what our children and grandchildren are being fertilized with in myriad ways.  Honestly, it scares me to think about what my grandchildren are able to access and given the power of peer pressure, one can only begin to contemplate that new norm in the next thirty years will look like.

 

I believe the year behind us will be viewed as pretty good even with the shootings, suicides, bloated prisons, aberrant lifestyles, children in families that provide little to no more fiber of right and wrong using Scripture as the examination tablet.  I believe the year ahead will see our nation plummet  more rapidly as we pull further and further from the God that created us. Many will read these words and simply say he is old and going to die so let him write out loud ....!  We are the sum total of our decisions and thus behaviors. This is so profound it is frightening in its reality.  Where are the leaders I loved to look up to, wanted to be like, imitate? Perhaps it is my age or stage of life but frankly, I see no leaders anywhere I yearn to adjust myself to. Certainly I am not saying that I am great or anything special; far from it.  But great leaders cause people to want to be like them! Where are they?

 

Each morning in my time with God, it continues to amaze that each day I find an examples of a great leaders in Scripture that cause me to want to strive to be like them.  I love my country. I love the potential of this great nation. I love to know who we are. I do not love what we are allowing to be a new norm that is wrong, disdainful and unBiblical. God has shown time and again how He dealt with His children when they were unfaithful to Him.  Are we any different, really?

You Will Only Crave That Which You Experience

Good morning from rainy NE Ohio. I actually hate to see the snow melt away knowing flooding comes quickly in the lower areas of Ohio but also know we have much winter still before us. It has been a couple of weeks since my last blog and that is for a purpose, of course. I wanted to take a mental break and step back to do my reflection on our world.

 

In the last two weeks no doubt the most publicized event is the whole Duck Dynasty matter. It, for me, is a stupid show about stupid people doing stupid things and is a slap to any person born in the South. Other than that it is probably an epic in the minds of some.  However, while I have felt the heat swell on FB and the media over the comments one of the "rednecks," the silver lining for me has been seeing the collective, corporate uproar from Christians in our nation; something I have not witnessed in far too many years.  So for all the rights and wrongs of the whole matter, it was great to see people, like me, that claim Christ as our Savior, to rise up against the A&E approach to the comments. Personally, I think the entire channel should be banned when you look at the programming but will not venture down that gun barrel this morning.

 

Last evening my wife and I attended a live play of the great movie IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. It was a bit long and a bit funny for it was staged as a live radio broadcast but that movie always takes me to a place I always wish to go in realizing what a beautiful thing life really is.  In the last two weeks I would imagine I have heard from well over three hundred former students wishing me well, updating me on their lives, seeking my advise; a Joy to me in knowing they are moving ahead with their lives with all its struggles and disappointments but you move on.

 

This week we, the family, learned that our son, Taylor, got confirmation that he has completed all the work for his Doctor of Ministry degree from Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Boston.  Our entire family has been on this journey in an array of ways so therefore this was such a blessing and my pride for my son could not be measured in human metric. He has worked diligently and prayerfully while fathering a young family, a wife, a church family and all that goes with that, coaches a basketball team. Just proud I am I am!!!

 

As I look at our Christmas tree with abundant wrapped gifts primarily for our five grand kids a few feet from me, I can envision the craziness and joy of Christmas morning when the entire herd is here. It is in that few minutes that I realize Christmas is real for it is the joy of the children that makes it real. My wife does a phenomenal job of assisting Santa each year and I know she loves it and that fact alone brings me great joy.

 

Reading some of the end of year letters from friends spread throughout the world is a joy as well for some have experienced great victories and others great loss but at the core is a love for Christ that supersedes those hurts  and disappointments.

 

This year I have found a renewed fervor and joy with the ministry work in the jails as another year has brought hundreds of men in orange jumpsuits and tan sandals into my reach. Getting to proclaim God's message in word and song and to see, to SEE, the touch of God on those captive lives lifts me each night.  Further seeing that predictably, group after group in the chapel will show an average of sixty percent to being admittedly addicted grabs me by the throat of our new reality staggers my mind. The grip of drugs in our culture today is insidious on a grand scale and far too many do not realize and far, far too many could care less.  Seeing all ages, colors, ethnicities, languages populate our jails and yet seeking to attend chapel services gives me a ray of hope. I and the men I work with feel such a burden of responsibility to say and do and be with those men and women what God would have us to be as example in hopes they will seek to emulate what they see when they get released.

 

In writing probably 300 letters of encouragement a year to some of these men and then to receive return letters from men from five, six, eight years ago some out of prison, some still serving life sentences but reading how God has invading Satan's space in their hearts and lives is what keeps me energized year after year.  2014 will be year of some new staffing of region churches to conduct the services and to see the excitement in more churches wanting to be part of this vital ministry is exhilarating. God is so good and this ministry is so very important; what a blessing to part of it now for almost ten years and over 200,000 prisoners; wow!!!!!

 

The Pathway Quartet has had a great year and looking forward to 2014 with special focus on the ministry of getting to sing in regional assisted living homes.  It is such a blessing but it is also a bit depressing in realizing so many of the wonderful elderly people are placed in these homes and are never visited by family and friends. These are still very viable, educated people that have experienced much and now find themselve alone as the days of their remaining lives slip away as a whisper. Seeing the tears, hearing the stories, feeling the hugs, the words of thanks makes all the work of readying the music worth it; a blessing! 

 

I titled this blog, You Will Never Crave Something Until you have Experienced it ... is so very, very true. There is a positive element of that and a very negative element of that reality.  My prayer is that each of you will find ways to experience something this next year that will change the path and course of some one's life and in so doing, you will develop a craving to want to expand and do more and more for serving like that can be wonderfully addicting.

 

As Alicia and I move toward our 66th birthday in March of next year, please know that it is such a joy to have so many friends throughout our world from so many walks of life that have touched us in very unique special ways.  I thought about developing a special list but chose to not do that for knowing I would miss someone.  I learned a life lesson the day our son graduated from Kent State from the Indian commencement speaker when he said, "I am a part of every person I have ever met."  So very true so I want to thank each of you for your touch on my life and my heart. As well, I want to thank each of you that have allowed me to have touch on and in your life; it is so humbling and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE illustrates just how precious life is.

 

So when you hear a bell, maybe an angel does not have wings distributed but when you see a person hurting or in need, be part of that person's return to the good side in hope that they will play it forward.  The fields are truly ripened for harvest.  Seek to CRAVE by EXPERIENCING!

 

God is good, no wait, God is GREAT!

The Smells of Joy

Been a couple of weeks since I have done my blog but have a few minutes to pull my thoughts together on this holiday.  Much has happened in my life since I last wrote but today, as my wife begins the cooking process for our family meal tomorrow, I am impressed with the wonderful smells of Thanksgiving.  I love the food we will be blessed to experience tomorrow but this day with grand kids running in all directions bringing in snow from outside after rolling in it, NO I NEVER DID THAT, having quality time with our children and their spouses in a warm home, I found myself just breathing more lightly, smelling the coffee, listening to the conversations and smiling about how great life really is!  Then to be manicured, pedicured, back scratched and a new hair do by my three grand daughters, well, you get my point!

 

Now that the herd has departed for Thanksgiving meals with the spouses' families, Alicia is now underway cooking for our family meal tomorrow. I love the smells of Thanksgiving that are almost as satisfying to me as the food itself; well, sort of!  But what I love more than any of it are the experiences of this life that may be very good or perhaps not very good but resolve in greatness. Wow, doesn't that feel great when that happens? ANSWER: YES!

 

I was greatly pleased to work two jail services yesterday with my great friend, Pastor Neal Wheeler, in which we were about to bring church to roughly sixty men. The presence of the Lord was so evident and it was a pleasing aroma to know hearts had been touched and, prayerfully, that lives will be changed due to the experience those men had in song, in word and in prayer.  The smell of coffee inside the chapel seemed especially lifting in retrospect.

 

Last week while at The Cove of The Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, NC. the smells of Fall wafted through the beautiful woods. The food, which was amazing, was part of the whole worship experience I believe but for me the food tasted even better with the beautiful contact with the people that served us at The Cove.  All were gentle, helpful, kind, funny and efficient plus that light North Carolina accent made the aroma of the whole experience even more of a blessing. 

 

So I have found joy in the woods of North Carolina, in the jail, in a beautiful Thanksgiving Eve service at my church last night and in my own home just in one week; wow, my smeller is overwhelmed but it is tempered with a deep sense of love for a God that provided all of this.  So on this day, take a deep breath, inhale the blessings all around you with family, friends and make it a point to call, text, email, smoke signal or scream loudly to someone that has made a difference in your life with their special fragrance!

 

For those of you that read this, please know how much I appreciate you and your touch on my life in word, comment, encouragement, and caring. Yep, feeling pretty blessed as I ready for my next major league inhale of some great smelling labor from the hands of my wife for I know she does it with her heart for our family; all smelling pretty good!

Kiwi --- Life is Good!

Many of you will know exactly what I mean by the title of today's blog for if you have been in the military, we know the aroma of Kiwi.  When I attended Officer Candidate School, the Alabama Military Academy in 1973-1974, I had two pair of Corcoran jump boots.  I did basic training at Fort Bragg, NC in 1970 which was home of the Airborne so loved seeing those guys in their dress greens and bloused pants with highly spit shined jump boots.  From that experience I worked very hard to learn the art of spit shining.  I love highly shined shoes but it requires work and focus.

 

Those two pair of boots had no telling how many thousand coats of black Kiwi. I learned the key to spit shining was a soft cloth, water and a light flame.  You put a heavy coating of Kiwi onto the shoe and then run a light flame over the waxed area to melt the wax into the leather. Then you take a very soft cloth like an old cotton diaper that has been washed about a thousand times, wrrapping the cloth tightly around three fingers, you soak the cloth and begin a circular motion on the shoe using plenty of water. You continue that process with increasing elbow grease until the shine begins to show.  Drying the remaining water, you cake more wax on the heel and the toe of the shoe and repeat the process again and again until you can count your teeth in the shoe. I am not being cute in saying that.

 

As the years have moved on and shoe styles changed, I basically left spit shining in my memory basket until about a month ago when I purchased two pairs of solid black Florsheim leather shoes. Yep, you know where I am going with this!  I have fallen in love with spit shining all over again. It is something very personal to me for it brings such great memories.  My daughter will tell you that I would have her stand in my jump boots when she was two years old so I could spit shine the leather out in the sunshine. I enjoy taking thirty minutes, now, to get the stuff out, take a deep breath from the wax and then smell it melting into the leather; ummmmmmmmmmmmm! I would then take Johnson liquid wax and coat the finished product of my boots.

 

Tonight as I did my shining, I let my mind think about the process in the context of life. We all want things we hold dear to be the best they can be, to feel a sense of pride that something fresh and special can bring but remembering it always takes work.  The work does not just happen for it has to be done via a process; cloth, water, flame, technique and energy expenditure. Sounds familiar to many things in life does it not?

 

Tomorrow will be a very busy Sunday for me but I look forward to seeing what God will bring into my pathway for I had a great mentor a few years ago tell me something that has remained with me ... if you are going to see the King, you should dress like you are going to see the King. Another great mentor told me once it only cost one more dollar to go first class.  Another said that if it is worth doing, it is worth doing it to the best of your ability.   As I finished with the latest session with the Kiwi, I must admit I sat the shoes in a bright light and found myself admiring them but admiring the fact that the process yet again worked. I felt very good about the energy burn and the melted wax. Nobody will probably even notice but I will know for when I dress for my day at church, I seek to be the best I can be. Our quartet is singing a great song in the morning worship service, AT THE RIGHT TIME. I believe that song will be wonderful fit with the sermon our pastor will bring.

 

So why did I choose this unique topic for my blog?  Simple, whatever is worth doing is worth doing the best you can.  My AMA brothers and sisters and many veterans that will read this will understand it immediately. It is not about the wax, the shine, the flame but it is about readying yourself to meet someone greater than yourself. I know God will be in the house at Canton Baptist Temple tomorrow and any of us being part of the meeting in worship should and will do their very best in every aspect of the worship experience. My shoes are ready, too! Ummm, love that Kiwi smell!!!!!

Reality when it becomes Real!

Last evening I had a wonderful experience with many part of that wonderment when I "dated" my eight year old grand daughter to a Father / Daughter Dance because her dad, my son-in-law was unable to go with her. Was I excited about loud music with a hundred screaming little girls?  Ah, perhaps not but I was ecstatic to have some real TIME with our Bella. She is a very quiet, low key young lady with wonderful manners and very sweet disposition.  She is the one of our grandchildren arrangement that we all feel is most like her Grammy at a personality level to which I fully concur.  It was two hours of blaring disco music, yep, DISCO, with hula hoops, scream sessions and all the things that  make a grandfather's ears to hurt and burn a bit. But it was a great night for many reasons!

 

One of those reasons was captured in a FB post I put up last evening:

 

Met a young Army Sergeant E5 in full dress uniform at a Father / Daughter Dance because he was just back from second tour in Afghanistan and his daughter wanted him to  wear   his unform. He is a drill sergeant additionally. I did my crisp hand salute which he returned, hugged each other and talked for about 15 minutes. Departed with another hand salute and a hug; thrilled my heart yet again. We talked about my days in uniform and about his time in Afghanistan. We have some great people pulling a heavy load. Tonight; priceless! (and he loves his daughter very much)

 

I have found myself continuing to process that time with that young E5 in watching the gleam in his eyes in talking with his very excited daugther all dressed up for the dance.  He stood out, of course, in Army Dress Greens with all his decorations and patches perfectly displayed. He was a combat engineer and was expert in demolition meaning he blows things up; a very dangerous job in a combat zone some of you will attest.  He was so happy to be home, to be with his family, to share that night with her and, hopefully, our fifteen minutes of "talking Army" was memorable to him also. I loved it for getting to render a sincere hand salute and hand shake and many times a hug is something that I love to experience. I have experienced many tears with veterans, wives of the veterans, family of the veterans as their pride for their own unique veteran is rekindled.

 

But the point that has most embossed my heart is seeing the blood and flesh of these young men and women that go to fight with their lives and the lives of their loved ones for us.  The gravity of that came back to me in so many hues last night as he and I spoke.  These people we hear about on TV as numbers or statistics can become just that to the watching / listening public. I remember the body counts shown on news casts during the Viet Nam War and, in retrospect, feel almost guilty because I did not give the due respect to the implication of those numbers multiplied by a factor of family members and their hurt and loss.  Seeing this little eight year old daughter all dressed up in her formal dating her dad in his Class A uniform made it all so very real to me yet again.

 

As I have stated many times in my writings, I am very displeased with this Administration, the Congress that has grown dysfunctional and the decay of our society eroded by growing entitlement and government spending and corruption are all increments of a nation moving backward on the global stage. But looking more deeply, in the coal black eyes of that Sergeant last night, I was reminded that it is they that must "carry the water" for a nation. Frankly, they deserve much better that we give them.  We are nation that is tired of war and in that exhaustion I fear we are losing the warm blood of true patriotism-driven emotion from We the People for what they are doing for us.

 

I did not intend this for "Veterans Day" hoopla but the experience last night with that E5 made it all so real to me again and thus reliving losses I expressed in friends not that many years ago in that faraway place nobody could find on a map that made names like Khe Sanh and Highway 1 household names.  War do that you know. Who on earth ever heard of Gettysburg or Sharpsburg or Verdun? Nobody until much American blood was shed and families torn apart for generations.

 

My ending will be to thank each and every veteran I have known, have taught, have saluted, have shook their hands, dabbed our tears of thanks and memories knowing the end of not to be seen for the Bible is quite clear that there will always be wars and rumors of wars; that is the human endeavor.  We are blessed as a nation so find a veteran and thank them with your HEART!