My Word of Honor

Sometimes my most lucid moments emerge from the calm of profound exhaustion. Not sure why.

Happy tired. Listening from the back seat to the cheerful chatter of people I just love, my head against the window...

"Ketchup please."

"Lime or strawberry?"

"Did you get your fifth?" 

Rubber purrs on pavement and we whistle along. Ski slopes behind, home before. Backdrop of sunset and rolling hills covered with a fir coat of pine.

"What page were we on?"

The book opens and the story goes on. An old fashioned tale of a century ago, alive with meaning and simple joy. I listen, but only with half of my head. Because forthwith I'm snagged by this old-fashioned story, and an old-fashioned concept that shouldn't be remarkable, but is.

His word of honor. 

Used to be, a fellow was slow to make a promise, because a promise meant something. 

Mhm, mhm, yes. Doesn't it still?

I don't know. You tell me. 

When I say a thing, can the world set their clocks by it, and keep good time?

When I say I'll ____, do I actually deliver, or do I just try?

  I'll pray for you. 

     I'll be there at 6.

        I'll remember.

           Sure mum, can do.

              I will. 

                 I won't.

                    I promise. 

Really?
Really?

Darkness gathers over the high country. I pulse this resolve.
To treat every "Sure, I'll..." like an old-fashioned promise.
My word of honor.

Revolution to Revelation

Because every revolution,
every revolution,
goes somewhere.

Ends somewhere...

-  -  -  -  -

We're going to do this again.

I sat there like some of you did, arms folded, but soft.
And when he said we should, this symphony in me agreed...

I'd only been home a day or two when the same girls who dreamed up the last audacious charge tapped me on the shoulder. That made three.
And that three has already become a little army.

Maybe I'm a big dreamer.

Or maybe, just maybe I dare to believe that this generation is actually willing to be different than the last.

And maybe, just maybe, that's exactly what it's going to take to get us Home.

Revelation: Before Men and Angels.

Because every revolution worthy of the name goes somewhere.
And in our case, and in the case of the last 12 men to turn the world upside-down, that revolution existed for this one purpose: that Christ might be revealed to a world in darkness.

Revelation is the goal.
And memorization is the challenge.

Again, count me in.

-  -  -  -  -

But I'm dreaming bigger than just getting all of my friends to join. 

(That is my dream. Already been up and down my street canvassing the neighbors. Ask them.)

I want all my friends to get all their friends to join. 

Because that's how a revolution spreads. 

And just to be sure nobody can legitimately say "I haven't got the time," we've got two projects in the pipeline. Starting February 1st:

Revelation: Before Men and Angels

404 verses, or 1-2 a day.

OR (and? ;))

James: Before Men and Angels

108 verses, you do the math.

I think you can. And what's more, 

I believe you will. 

And I believe your friends will too.

Because the only thing better than winning is winning together. 

Determined Nation

di-ˌtər-mə-ˈnā-shən: firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end...

Around the tree he goes. All business.
I stop to watch with mild amusement; my mind on other things.

Whether or not I can sense it, (I can't) something was there. And his sense is strong enough that he won't be easily put off. So he leaps and claws, and sniffs with this furious intensity, so excited he's almost blind to his own opportunity...

I smell nothing, but I can see what he cannot.

"Listen, son."

I have his attention.
"You might be able to actually get up there. But you'd have to start from here. See?"

I point to a new spot on the ground, then tap anchor points up the tree to well above my eye level.

"Then here, here, and here."

I frankly don't expect him to try. But I underestimate his determination.
He runs to where my finger started; whirls around. He doesn't even pause to assess the viability of my suggestion.

He makes this scrambling charge, and he climbs.

He climbs to the point of no return, and just when I am thinking I should have thought this through better before making the suggestion, he flies out of the tree, squirrel-like.
And then he does it again. The whole thing. Nose working overtime.

He does it four times. Until his own nose and I finally convince him that what was there isn't any more.
Crazy dog.
Or is he?

We turn to go. He, on to the next conquest.
I, to my thoughts in the quiet woods.

"Determination: firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end..."

Intention fueled by the recognition of a reality the rest of the world totally missed.

What if we were like that?
I mean, the holy nation. The peculiar people...
Fueled by a recognition of a reality the rest of the world totally missed...

Who says the impossible is... impossible?
Dogs can climb trees. Especially if someone points out the way.
I can prove it.

Maybe Someday? [Reflections on The Revolution]

So, I'm back.
Sometimes one needs to step out of their own world for a moment, in order to really see the universe...

But now after 10 weeks away pursuing silence, I return with this one question:
These pages, these words, are these enough?

I don't know the answer to my own question. But I do know I am not satisfied with just words.

In fact, I am more than dissatisfied.

I suffer this chaffing bred of a dreadful frustration.

Frustration because while we pass around polished platitudes, (from the comfort of our bedrooms on our MacBook Airs) and sing all the glories of the giving,
our missionary heroes are growing old in their fields, and they can't find dedicated replacements.

What in the world?!

Her voice was only barely louder than a whisper, this friend of mine, and the granddaughter of one such missionary, but her words could have drowned out a thunderstorm.

"[She's] getting tired..."

Down three sets of escalators those words grind deep into my consciousness. Across the street in a blast of chilly Seattle this flush rises, falls, rises again. Up thirty-three floors to the top of the city, the slipping in of the key, and an open door to the skyline; I stop and stare.

This makes me so upset.

And the most upsetting part is that I'm one of them.
One of the privileged generation. With a heart that's been prepared for ruthless giving, by all that I've been given.
And yet, I'm still here.

I can no longer be satisfied with "maybe someday..."

Scratch the "maybe," dear Jesus. And may the "someday" be soon...