Remember your Veteran

Once again this Veterans day I am providing a place for readers to tell the story of their favorite veteran.

Most of us had the unfortunate opportunity to have the ultimate sacrifice veteran have made over the years clearly broadcast and brought to mind through the Fort Hood attack and the resulting memorial service. Horrible as it is, it was a clear reminder to all Americans.

Before you go, take a moment to comment on this blog about Your favorite Veteran. My readers and I would be extremely grateful and proud to read about those who have and still are putting their country ahead of their personal ambitions to make our lives a little safer.

I will lift each one up in a prayer of thanksgiving for their sacrifice, and pray for their good health and protection. I further encourage everyone who reads these accounts to do the same. It is the least we can do on this Veterans Day 2009.

God Bless you all and God Bless the United States of America

En Servicio Como Padre

Dave

Thanks to http://www.freerepublic.com for the Picture

When my daughter was very small, she had a favorite song she would sing, very loudly, often for hours at a time.

 This song is one most, if not all, of us know very well. “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”. Just mentioning the song has many of you singing it right now.

 Like many children, my daughter, when she was first learning the song, replaced some of the correct words she could not remember, with something else so she could continue the song.

 In her case she added the words “whumpa whumpa”. Here is how it went:

 “The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.

And the whumpa whumpa spider went up the water spout

Down came the rain…..”

The effect of this addition was, it created a closed loop that never reached an ending. On long road trips, this became quite annoying for her brothers who had to sit in the back seat and hear the never ending song. Eventually, eliciting a desperate plea to “make her stop!”

It’s funny how we now look back and cherish some of the annoying things our children do because it is part of what has made them uniquely who they are today.

As fathers we sometimes add a “whumpa whumpa” to how we live our lives.

Physically, emotionally, and spiritually we add a “whumpa whumpa” and get locked into a never ending loop of responses, actions, reactions, thoughts, and etc. This “whumpa whumpa” causes those around us, as well as us, to become frustrated with the way our lives are going.

We keep doing the same things over and over without seeing any change in our lives. In fact, like the siblings in the back seat on a long road trip, we find ourselves digressing into destructive or argumentative behavior and not growing in a positive way.

Many of the American Indian tribes believed that life is a great spiral beginning at birth and ending in the afterlife joined with the Great Spirit. The expectation was always that what you see today you will see again in the future. The trick is that as you complete each circle, in life, you should not be seeing things from the same perspective. You must see things from a higher vantage point or you are not moving closer to the Great Spirit.

If we use our Father God as our example of perfect fatherhood, we will find ourselves constantly searching for new pearls of wisdom to become better fathers. As we seek we will learn more about our Father God and be drawn closer to Him.  Thus we will spiral ever closer and as we complete each circle in life, we will see the past in a different way,

Like when we look back on the annoying actions of our children and cherish them as part of what makes them uniquely who they are, we will be able to look at the things we face today and cherish them, no matter how bad they seem today, as what is forming us into better fathers who are more aligned with the perfect Father God.

Do not allow the “whumpa whumpa”, in your life’s moments, to lock you into a never ending loop of immature fatherhood.

Break free and climb the water spout again.

En Servicio Como Padre

Dave

I was thinking about some things I learned a few years ago, back to February of 2005 to be exact. It was then I had the opportunity to hear a particular message from Rick Godwin.

Rick’s message was about taking risks and how important it is to be willing to take risks in your life. There was one statement he made that hit me so hard, it still impacts me today. He said, “you can change the world…start with yourself, by becoming extraordinary”.

One thing I have learned over the years is it is very difficult to become something unless you understand what it is.

Extraordinary [ik-strawr-dn-er-ee, ek-struh-awr-] adjective
1. beyond what is usual, ordinary, regular, or established: extraordinary costs.
2. exceptional in character, amount, extent, degree, etc.; noteworthy: remarkable: extraordinary speed; an extraordinary man. (Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com)

In Hebrew, the word we translate for extraordinary is yotzai dofen; (lit. “go out from the wall.”) Balashan-Hebrew Language Detective, February 16, 2006; it is the word used in the Hebrew language for cesarean section.

Cesarean Section, as you know, is the act of opening the mothers womb and removing the child. Often this act is performed to save both the life of the child and the mother.

For fathers, this reference to an act performed on a mother takes on an even more significant note when we think of the world around us as having such a significant impact upon who we are. Both good and bad, the world around us has molded us into the person/personality we are today.

If we continue on in who we are now, with no change, we will not only continue to perpetuate the past, through our children, but we will never grow to a point that we can make a difference in our world.

Cesarean section is not without pain, danger, or complications. This is where the risk comes in. As fathers we must be willing to change the world through yotzai dofen. We must “go out from the wall”, for at the wall there is protection, security, even warmth, but we must move away from the wall. Away from the wall, away from the shadows cast, there the light can shine directly on us and things become much clearer. We will see things in a new light, the clarity of which has the potential to change the world.

As a society we have walled ourselves in to protect our children and not allow them the exposure to risk.

A wall we fiercely protect and sustain with every financial and physical advantage we can give. Our children have little opportunity to change the world. From birth to graduation from college, we maintain the wall and then turn them loose on a world that is in need of extraordinary people to save it. With few tools at their command, true change is not likely to happen.

Our ancestors did not have the luxury of walling in their children. They had to learn to adapt. They had no 401k, no social security, not pension, just extraordinary faith. Extraordinary faith is the basis for extraordinary risk and thus extraordinary acts. Extraordinary acts performed by extraordinary men creating extraordinary change that made this world great.

Today, we must “go out from the wall,” for if we do not, we can’t expect to change the world.

Become an extraordinary father

En servicio como padre
Dave

Recently, as we were driving home from church, my son, sitting in the back seat, was contemplating his shoe size. Reading the tag under the tongue of the shoe, he observed that in Britain his shoe was a 6.5, in the US a 7.5, in Asia a 26, and in Europe it was a 40.5. For a second he was silent, then he commented “in Europe, my shoe is sure big.”

Although he knew it was the same size in all countries, he was attempting to say the European number sure is a different measure than here in the United States.

Sitting here recounting his observations, it strikes me that this little exchange has an application to us as fathers.

One of the basic things we need to know to be a good father is “who” we are.

When we were born we had all the DNA, physical as well as spiritual, we will ever have. Being born helpless, we were dependent upon our mother and father for everything. We had all the bodily functions we do as adults, but our perspective was ruled by our basic need to survive.

Who knew what we would become, especially us, being we only saw things from the measure of satisfaction for the moment.

We were us, and our measure of success was very simple.

As we grew, we entered into early childhood. Here we began to step out of helplessness and try out some of our independence. Given the choice between a red or a green truck, we would choose which to play with based upon our desires of the moment. We might, in that moment, prefer the color red over the color green, and we would exercise the power of choice without dependence upon our parents.

Although still dependent upon our parents for basic needs, we were given the freedom to choose, within some limitations. Most us us learned to recognize the benefits and consequences of our choices. Although more complexity was introduced into them, our measures of success were still relatively simple.

Our measures of success had changed, but we were still us and we had an idea who we were.

We flash forward; now to our teen years. Radical changes begin in our bodies. We grow hair in places we never had before, our height and weight seem to change overnight, our voices seem to be out of control most of the time, and we think we are ready to be independent of our parents.

Discovery of the opposite sex, suddenly complicates our lives and what was a measure of success just days before, now has no meaning at all. Success now has varying levels of attain ability.

Our measures of success now are determined largely by those who are our peers. We struggle to find ourselves in a sea of conflicting priorities, yet we are still us, albeit, we are harder for us to find.

We turn around and find ourselves in adulthood. We have found our mate and have begun to raise children of our own. Success now has multiple dimensions.

The stakes here are huge. If we fail in any one of them, those who have come to depend on us could be harmed. Our measure of success now has little to do with us. Others are now defining much of what success is for us. Or so we think.

After all, we are still us, but we have forgotten who we are.

This is the time we need to take a moment to peer inside and examine our definition of success. What are our measures and where have they come from?

The complications of life today threaten to bury us and hide our spiritual DNA forever.

If we take a few moments to assess our measures of success against the simplicity of who we were at the beginning, we will find that we are still us and that is all anyone wants us to be.

En Servicio Como Padre

Dave

I sat on the deck early one Saturday morning savoring both the strong cup of coffee in my hand and the quiet rustle of the trees as a morning breeze navigated its way through the leaves. It was a time with no distractions and was ripe for contemplation and stealing a moment of silence with my God.

In my eyes corner, I noticed a slight movement. I sat very still trying not to move and in the process frighten the gentle creatures that entered my bastion of contemplation.

It was a mama deer and two small fawns.

As I watched, the trio cautiously approached the salt lick, I placed under a tree several months earlier, each took their turn taking in the salt, minerals and vitamins the brick red block provides.

I contemplated the scene before me. What was it about the salt lick that drew these three, and countless other animals who share the rural Georgia land on which I live?

Salt is a basic mineral that is necessary to life. Without it there would likely be no intelligent life on this earth.

“Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are necessary for the survival of all known living creatures, including humans. Salt is involved in regulating the water content (fluid balance) of the body.” (Wikipedia)

Salt is a preservative, a flavoring, and was so valuable in history, Roman solders were partially paid in salt, and ancient merchants traded salt ounce for ounce for gold.

Salt represents longevity and endurance. It is durable and lasts for centuries.

“Salt has played a vital part in religious ritual in many cultures, symbolizing immutable, incorruptible purity.” http://www.saltinstitute.org

Depending upon which resource you use, salt is mentioned 30-41 times in the bible. Once such reference is Numbers 18:19:

“All the holy offerings that the People of Israel set aside for God, I’m turning over to you and your children. That’s the standard rule and includes both you and your children – a Covenant-of-Salt, eternal and unchangeable before God.” The Message

Salt was to be added to every sacrifice made by the ancient Hebrews. Salt was a symbol of the everlasting covenant between God and His people.

For those of us today, we are a part of that ancient covenant through the shed blood of Jesus.

Salt is significant in both physical and spiritual life. Without it there is no hope and no life.

After several minutes the big doe raised her head and stopped her gaze directly on me. She did not panic, she wasn’t even startled, she knew I was there all the time. In her eyes was a look of trust and even thanksgiving.

As I watched; the trio slowly made their way through the trees in my back yard and casually disappeared in the forest. Leaving me alone with my thoughts and contemplations.

En servicio como padre
Dave