Tranquility in the Airport Lounge

 Amex Lounge, Minneapolis Airport. 

Tranquility to me is simply being in a place that you don't want to leave. An airport lounge is usually not such a place. But on this day I am sitting alone, writing, drinking coffee, watching the day unfold undisturbed. I am on a trip to  Charlotte to wrap up a family business matter. It is without controversy or messiness. It is unfolding just as it was supposed to. Nearby are people to assist me with my travels but they keep their distance and are silent. If you were sitting across from me I would speak this now: "I could stay here all day". 

So as I write I am draw to other times and places when I had this same sort of sense, that temporary well-beingness. I know this will pass but it was worth the wait. This overwhelming desire that the day last very very long. 

Other times...

Once when sitting in the parking lot of a Best Western in Oregon. Cigar and crossword puzzle in hand. Why this always comes to mind is lost to me. 

An evening with good friends at Cajun's Wharf restaurant in Arkansas. 1980's. 

Fishing with my oldest daughter in the dawn of her adulthood. 

On the couch with my wife, watching the snow fall. Any winter. 

Listening to Jack Buck call a Cardinals game. Cigar. Back deck of my brother Kevin's house. Early 2010s. 

Driving across the Flint Hills region of Kansas with my youngest daughter. 

Throwing a baseball with my son, mid 90s, our back yard, 8pm. 

Roan Mountain State Park, When I am the only one there. 

Jackson Square, New Orleans. Cafe DuMonde. Early Morning. Katrina aftermath. 

When a drug addict steals your F150

 My truck was stolen last month. Once it was recovered by the police, it was obviously the woman, or man, who stole it, had not yet mastered the art of driving an F150. It was Kevin's truck once. 

Our Lord says to pray for your enemies. I do so by keeping a list of those who have been particularly unkind to me and my family in order to pray for them. This person became #8, and was added to my list on September 5, 2022. 

As I looked through the drug-related trash left in my vehicle it was hard not to feel sympathy for the thief. Especially when you know there was a time in your life, so many years ago, when you could have gone down this path. I grew up in an age when the life of the aimless, drifting, drug user was romanticized. 

In a way I will some day understand, I was preserved from going down to such a defeat. So far.

  

On the 57th anniversary of the birth of my brother.

I am doing some genealogy work. Ora Asa Butler, a minister in New York state, was my fifth great-grandfather and died in 1811. Like my youngest brother he died at a relatively early age. As I read his obituary I could not help but think of my brother. The author had a wonderful command of the English language that still holds beautiful meaning, 210 years after it was written. 

"...it pleased the Lord to call him, in the midst of his usefulness, to rest from his labors, to the great grief of the church, and of his numerous brethren and friends. 

...it has pleased a righteous God to call us to mourning. Our dear brother has been called from this militant state, to join, as we humbly trust, the saints in glory. 

He died of a painful disorder but his soul appeared full of glory. He left a striking proof of the power of Divine grace to comfort and support in a dying hour."  

Flowing through these four sentences is the idea that the pain and suffering of the righteous can bring glory to God. Not in a way that we understand, or like, or can ever figure out. Sometimes we get it, often we do not. But He can and does use it, of that we can be certain. He promises us a day when all of this will come crashing down and he will gather his followers and "wipe every tear from our eye". 

He's not playing golf.

My brother died a year ago today. I miss him more than I can write about, so I won't even try.

A friend pondered, in a sort of joking/sort of not joking way, "I wonder who is in his foursome today". Around  major sporting events, he has told me my brother has "the best view of all".

I don't have any real conception of what heaven is like, but I think I am on firm ground when I assert that it is not at all like golf. It is not like watching Alabama/Auburn in football

The Bible tells us over and again that our mind cannot conceive the glory of this new land. Perhaps it will be familiar but in a way that gives new meaning to the word familiarity. My brother is going to this land beyond land in a time beyond time worshiping the King of all Kings. Perhaps he is already there.

The eve of Thanksgiving eve.

It is two days before Thanksgiving and I am in the Charlotte airport. Flight out of Knoxville was delayed so I spent a ew hours at my brother Kevin's house waiting. Had a real nice cigar and a snack of crackers and pimento cheese. Watch the second half of last years Clemson Alabama game on his deck and talked football and Thanksgiving plans. A nice break from a routine business trip.

Charlotte airport is packed with happy people, off to see family and friends. No one has more to be thankful for than I.

Taking it with you....

Last week I chatted with a hospice patient. One who insisted he did not know why he was there and that he felt fine. Not resigned to his fate but a fighter who still has a few rounds left in him.

Somehow we got on the subject of retirement and finances and money. He told me... " I never wanted a lot of money, just enough to pay my bills. I never wanted to be rich. All the rich think about is how to keep what they have." That may not be an exact quote but it's close.

I thought about that statement over the weekend. I suppose there is some truth to it, but it also is full of error.

I know wealthy people who think a lot about how best to give their money away. How to use it for the Lord's work. How to be the stewards that He wants. I really dont know any who only focus on how to keep it, though I'm sure there are some.

For me, dollars are like rocks strewn along the road to righteousness. Some days there are just a few decisons to make and they are simple ones. They are like pebbles, little annoyances. Other days there are big decisions, boulders. They don't block the road, they never do. But they always distract, make you look the wrong way, or take a different path.

I have never heard anyone say that having more money brought them closer to Christ, though millions would testify that being without it certainly did.

Augusta National 2014

I had the privilege this year of attending one of the practice rounds of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National. I went with my brother and his two best friends.

I am not a golfer but I wanted to see this famous place in person, and with someone who cherishes it.

I cannot appreciate the course as a golfer would. I can only see it through the eyes of one who loves grass that feels good between the toes, well groomed shrubs, sugar white sand, pine straw. There is a perfect combination of these things here in Georgia.

It has been my honor to travel to a few places where people took special pride in appearance, an almost fanatical attention to detail. So perfect you want to test them, to see if they are still paying attention right.... now. I wanted to drop trash on the ground, though I didn't, just to see how long it would take for someone to pick it up.

I do not recall every hearing about the Masters as a child. We were not a sports family and one would never hear anyone call out "the game is on!" at our house. That would come in later years when the boys grew up and inserted sports fan-ness into the vacuum. The Masters finally got my attention when I watched Jack Nicklaus win it in 1986. Why I happened to watch it that year I do not know, but my memory of the old lion charging across the course is etched in my head, somewhere.

The first time I heard about Augusta National was when a friend of a friend was invited to play there in the mid 1980's. He spoke as though I would know how special a course it is, and I acted through the conversation with the appropriate nods and chuckles.

On this day in 2014 just about everything was perfect. Members greeted you warmly as you entered the gates, green jackets with a fit that made their tailors proud. Coffee was hot, but not too so. My cigars seemed to know where they were and the Onyx Churchills burned smoothly and evenly throughout the day.

We spent time on hole 16, Redbud. Any boy, golfer or not, would love to watch the players try and skip balls across the water hazard like skipping stone on a pond. This part of the game I understood, the clowning around, putting on a show for the folks behind the ropes.

I followed Phil Mickelson and Jason Dufner for a while, chatting about who knows what, like they were just two guys getting away from the wives and kids for a few hours. They would both miss the cut and would soon be back home cleaning gutters and bathing the dog.

The Eisenhower Tree was gone this year, which made it even better for me, because I don't like pine trees. While it is etched in the Augusta memories of all golfers, there will soon come a day when it will only be known by the stories. No one playing the course will have actually seen it. I am ahead of them, for I have no memory of it at all. But then why should I, I am not a golfer.

The day ended almost as good as it started. There was a mind numbing wait for one of our group to check out every item in the gift shop, and a long walk back to our parking lot, but those are stories for another time. This day was about two brothers who made it to an important milestone in time. We welcomed a spring together that just months ago we were not sure we would see. Husbands and wives might have better days in their own ways, but not brothers.