+ The Good Life

Christmas Vision

A woman captured my attention at Rotary Club.  “I’m a mutant,” she said. “Most people have three color receptors in their eyes. I have four.  I see 99 million more colors than the average person.” 

I goggled Concetta Antico. Her story seems legitimate. Concetta said, “I consider my mutation a gift.” Her vision acuity is called tetrachromatic.  She uses her ability in her profession as an artist.  “But sometimes my vision gift can become a challenge,” she acknowledged.  “The riot of colors in a supermarket aisle, can be a bit overwhelming.”  I wonder how Concetta does with Christmas tree lights.

Tetrachromatic vision has its benefits, but super-human vision is not needed to see the beauty of the earth and the glory of the skies.  Much more important than an additional receptor in the eye, is the focus of the mind.  Consider Vincent Van Gogh.  He covered his canvas with brilliant colors, and some scholars now believe he was missing a color receptor.  They suggest that he was colorblind.

Whether we have two, three or four color receptors, we humans have the ability to choose how we focus our mind’s eye.  Will we decide to look beyond the horrid sights that sometimes fill our screens when we flip a channel or click the mouse?  Will we envision an alternative picture of hope?

The Christian scripture teaches that while mad kings were doing their dastardly things in days of old, God was bathing a little town of Bethlehem in light. God still imparts to human hearts the blessings of heaven. I have found that when my head gets to the heart of this message I have better potential to become a receptor and reflector of God’s beauty.  

Endless Love at the End of 2014

Heap on more wood! — the wind is chill;

But let it whistle as it will,

We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

Each age has deemed the new born year

The fittest time for festal cheer.

And well our Christian sires of old.

Loved when the year its course had rolled,

And brought blithe Christmas back again,

With all his hospitable train...

Old Christmas brought his sports again.

’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale,

’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;

A Christmas gambol oft would cheer

A poor man’s heart through half the year.  (From Sir Walter Scott 1808, Marmion)

 

Cigarettes and Baptism

 

As a child of seven I began to wonder about death.  I lived in upstate New York near a railroad track and just beyond that was the shores of Lake Champlain.  One day I heard about someone getting hit by a train.  I learned about another falling through the ice on the lake  when they ventured out before the lake top was solidly frozen. Then my great Grandmother died and I wondered about her.

 

I went to my mother and I asked her, “What happens when you die.”  My mom gave me an answer from the Old Testament that carried a rather biological tone.  She told me, “From Dust you come to Dust you Go”

I looked under my bed at home and I saw a lot of dust.  I thought  “That’s my Great Grandma--   And That’s my future.” 

I started to do some thinking about whether there were any better alternatives for me.  I started paying attention at Sunday School and church.  The main message I got was that I had better be good if I want to go to heaven.  Reflecting on this message I did an elementary personal assessment of my moral character in order to determine my potential spiritual destiny. I wasn’t too encouraged. I didn’t get along with one of my older sisters.  I smoked cigarettes that I took from my dad’s cupboard.  Some of my buddies were starting to steal things from stores and encouraging me to do it too.  The pressure was on from my little peer group.  I feared that I was messing up my life.  I was headed to DUST or worse.

I knew I needed some help for my young life.  I asked my mom if I could talk to the chaplain at the military base chapel where my mother was the organist.  She set me up with a meeting.  I met with Chaplain Lindal, a Lutheran Pastor, at the base Chapel at Plattsburg Air Force Base.  I talked with him about the love and forgiveness of God that Jesus taught.  I remember learning about how Jesus will take care of me forever, even when I’m dead.  I learned about the strength that God provides to help live a better life.

As a result of my discussion with Chaplain Lindal, he baptized me.  I was seven years old.  At times I have had people ask me if I ever smoked.  I tell them I stopped when I was seven.

Peace to You

For the past several years I've put together a family video at the year's end that serves as a retrospective for the previous 12 months. This year I lost both my parents, while at the same time serving as a First Responder Pastor helping a church through the grief process after the death of their longtime pastor. A Rotary friend, Larry Potter, came to my church and helped our choir with a very poignant Christmas anthem that seems to sum up our year of heartache, abiding faith, and prevailing joy.....................................................................

The Arresting Spirit

I’m amazed that any teenager makes it through adolescence alive. Young people do   some very stupid things, especially when they are under the influence.  In youth there are feelings of invincibility, surges of sexuality, and an emerging search for identity.

I was not a crazy teen.  I was in many ways a model of responsibility. I was the model student at Bossier High School in Louisiana.  In fact I was elected best citizen by my peers and teachers.  I had school spirit and lived by the honor code.  I was the president of my school class, a letterman athlete, and a leader in the School Band.  At church I was the President of my Youth group. I earned the Eagle rank in scouting and traveled around the country giving speeches representing The Boy Scouts of America.  I was advancing through adolescence in stellar fashion with an impressive resume for which I was proud. Then one night I got arrested.  It happened at a Spiritual life conference at Ouachita Baptist College.

We had traveled north from Loring Air Force Base to this college campus to join other military chapel organizations for a regional event.  A couple of girls from Mississippi were throwing a party in their room after curfew.  A buddy and I went over to their room and scaled the wall up to their dorm room.  We took off their window and started climbing in.

Just as we were entering their room, a spotlight shined on us.  Police yelled, “Halt!”

The Chaplain who was the director of the Conference was roused from his sleep and came to the campus police station to address the situation.  He was crazy mad and cussing up a blue streak.  I looked at him and thought, what a hypocrite.  He considers himself a man of God and yet he lacks any integrity.  He should not be talking the way he is.  He has no self control.  What a hypocrite!

Then I thought about myself.  I too was a hypocrite. I was one way with some of my teachers and friends and then a different person in another setting.  I decided that night I wanted to be the same inside and out, and in every situation. I wanted to be a person of integrity. 

I look at Integrity as the polar opposite of hypocrisy.  The way I have come to think of integrity is that your PERSON is INTEGRATED.  You are the same through and through.

Being arrested, breaking into a dorm room was not only humiliating but it made me realize that I truly desired the reality of God’s life deep within and all around me.

On the last night of that Conference there was a Baptism Service for two girls who had committed their lives to Jesus.  During their Baptism with water, I thought back to my Baptism by Chaplain Lindal in New York .  On that night I opened my heart to the deep infilling of God’s Spirit .  I prayed, “God come into me.”   And God did.  It was like I was baptized with his Holy Spirit.  

The next day there was a visitor to the conference .  He was introduced to the people attending the last meeting before going home.  It was Chaplain Lindal.  He kept showing up at important spiritual times in my life.  His presence was a confirmation that God was working in me through his Spirit.