Are You in or are you Out?

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It’s a reasonable question. You’ve most likely heard it a few times in action movies. You know, the ones where a pivotal decision must be made. Join up or go away. Often in the movies, you get gone in various unpleasant ways. I have experienced the question a few times. One of those times was dicey, guns and badges and unpleasantness in the offing. I made the right decision. Still around, no club affiliation resulting. I would have been in a different organization had I made the wrong decision. Other clubs, vying for a decision, were even more unpleasant. No badges, just the guns.

Are you in, or are you out? Tough choice at times, even the benign ‘clubs’ offer recognition and public notices of that. We all join up, really, all of us. The offers come at us our whole lives and it starts pretty early on.

The sports team, class officers, teachers assistant, hall monitor. Decisions that last our whole lives. It’s not on Facebook, it’s in the class yearbook. A moment in time that some of us are still living in. We see it a lot. “Remember Miss Bertie’s physics class? You were her assistant and pet student!” That worked out nicely for me. She decided to have the whole class walk over to my house and observe my ham radio outfit that was set in my bedroom. Russell avenue north in Minneapolis. I made easy contact on AM (voice) with a local operator and demonstrated the rig. The best part for me was one of the class girls siting on my bed, visible to my right. That was a good memory for a while. That club was short lived but on the whole, enjoyable.

Often, the joining is almost involuntary and known by us to be critical for survival. Back in ‘the days’ I joined an outfit that promised skilled training and excitement with nice uniforms. Saved mys life perhaps but had other things, unpleasant things to go with it. I had to join, the government wanted me too, all they promised at worst was a quick death. That process was called the draft, but now it is just a term to describe selection for a sports team. Join up! Promotion guaranteed and fame to go with it.

We all have to make these decisions to join or not in our lives. Most often, the decisions are not even a problem. Unless, of course, your friends think it’s a bad idea. I seek council over seemingly trivial decisions to join a team/club/association etc.

I do not join anything easily, even temporary things. Protest marches or sit ins were popular in the sixties. However there was the unpleasant tear gas, rubber bullets and the new invention of plastic ties. The record of the experience resulting in something a bit worse that a parking ticket. Another club for life. A record of offense and even incarceration as initiation.

Joining benevolent organizations are hard for me too. They promise camaraderie and friendships with people. If you follow the rules, which often includes a dress code. I am just wary and afraid that this joining up will turn into another club. Initiations such as crossing the equator and becoming a shell-back (Navy stuff) are fun and humiliating and that’s it. If you enjoy drinking alcohol a lot and the comradery the vets bars are fine. I enjoy an excellent scotch on the rocks. Seldom and those bars do not stock the 15 year old stuff. White shirts an M14’s at funerals are boring and showy. Live rounds would be ‘interesting’ and a rain of bullets from the down turn of upward protectory would add reality and suspense to the funerals. No one knew who was going to be next before, why not now? Best to stay inside a while.

Military divisions are different in a way that reduces the seriousness and actually builds camaraderie. Last memories before the waves wash over you. Or perhaps the thunder of a crushed hull below. Terrifying it is said but quick. Maybe my original club of the Navy boats (subs) wasn’t such a good idea anyway. Dangerous club for sure. Your fellow club members will remember you forever.

I have had a hard time with clubs. It very well may be because I have joined so few, been invited to less, and somehow always felt ‘out of it’

Finally I did join the best club. . The kind that welcomes hunger and thirst and an organization that promises eternal joy and fulfillment. You know it. The real outfit that guarantees all those things in writing. You have to ask the creator of the club to join. Membership is lifetime and Eternal. The outfit that amazingly that all of us are asked to join. At the clubhouse the music is heavenly. Usually. I have regretted many life altering events and attendant decisions I have embraced. Not this one! I was astonished, tear filled and overjoyed when I became a believer In the Lord Jesus. A few decisions of course are made after this life giving and altering event.

Where do I go now? If I stop, look and listen I will see exactly where to go, what to do and what to say when I get to where I should be. There is a handbook that explains this ‘club’ Is does not have all the answers for my questions. I ask the questions to the Creator of myself and you and He listens every time. I then have to look into my heart and soul and listen to Him and in His timing, He will answer everything.

Being eternal, Jesus sometimes will tell me, “Soon” A little smile goes with that answer. I am satisfied and when I feel His Face shinning upon me, I am very satisfied.

Stop, look, and Listen is a strong memory of my railroad track worker times. Good advice.

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Chief Cornerstone Communication

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was early afternoon, it was below zero and I was headed down to the wood shed with the empty wheelbarrow for yet another load of ‘all nighters’ if I could find some among the rank.

Suddenly, I felt His presence again. Unexpected, not a result of praying or listening or reading particularly. I felt just for a moment something was going to happen to me, perhaps unpleasant and God was about ready to soften the event with a bit of a heads up. I thought it was the end. I began silently singing cornerstone where I am firm with no scheme of man could pluck me from His hand. I was shaky but ready Lord. Very clearly Jesus asked: “Who is condemning you?”

He just began talking to me and showing clearly that the anger and fear were totally my own doing. Simply put that I did not have to condemn myself for failures with relationships. With All the family. All of them along with close friends

“Listen, ask questions and above all, don’t retreat into yourself feeling once again everyone, is pointing their finger at you” They love you, I love you, I love how you write about me. Reveal your heart as I am teaching you to do so in your writing. Now it is time to open that door you have been longing to have swing open. Let them in so you can really see them the way I do!” 1.

I am worthy! they are worthy! The only one who can do any condemnation is me! Why do I do that?

An old habit, decision, who knows. My life has been filled with decisions made to myself from the world and in doing so, the glass door that leads into my heart has the sign ‘Closed’ visible from out side. Protection that I thought was needed! Open heart indeed! Many betrayals is the worst feeling of all. “How can I make this right?” this is the way to begin. Ask a good, heartfelt question.

Betrayed or the betrayer. To be dealt with in a similar fashion. Pursuing rectitude in all directions. The really hard stuff we know is our lot in the world. Always lurking around corners for all of us. The sudden intake of breath and the surprise heartbeat increase. Realization of a boatload of bad decisions and coming to a conclusion that there is no end to it and nothing that can be done about it.

Beyond depressing. Your last meal of love already finished and all that needs doing is a little washing up. Stack the cups of anger and defeat so they can be used once more. Open the cupboard of your heart once again that is stacked with these cups of wrath.

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” 2. The blues from the one who knew these things.

Upon finishing up the wood stacking on the porch, I came inside and Julie handed me a short post on Valentines day with a beautiful healing message on healing the fear of rejection. It had come into her computer in-box when I was out, doing the wood and being spoken to and comforted by the Lord. I was ready for that. Perhaps the first time in my life. Eager to learn, eager to heal and be healed. It’s pretty good.

Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

1. Chief Cornerstone 2. Louis Armstrong

Open Windows II

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

As goes a saying, especially in a novel by George MacDonald (At the back of the North Wind), the window in our hearts has to be open for change to enter. Of course, the change has to be done by Adonni. The man of no reputation, the healer and the Abba Father. More on that later.

I used to think that the window was the focus, as could be interpreted in the novel. After all, the North Wind says it isn’t A window, it was Her window. The Holy Spirit’s window.

If the cleanliness of the window was the issue, it would not be good. My heart especially. If you have read a few of these columns over the last few years, you know a bit of my life. Not very sociable is a light term. Speaking of which, another column more recently addressed that issue. Especially church attenders and faithful ones too. Open Windows.

This column is dedicated to the folks that have been attending church for some time, some even since childhood. Deacons, leaders and elders too, attentive and a lot of times, complimenting the Pastor/speaker on their talk. Just say ‘thanks, I needed that’. It’s good, don’t misunderstand me. As had been said by my very closest friend, Julie, “don’t take condemnation”Pay attention to what I am saying without judgment please. It works to think beyond our image of ourselves. Growing up is better and preferred. It’s hard and often embarrassing. We all need to grow, constantly. It’s why we listen.

All this illuminating about scripture can be rather distracting if we are not paying attention to the complete conviction and the very passionate person standing in front of you,saying these important things. It’s not a college lecture on philosophy or metaphysics. It’s not the old Greek style of a famous orator. Taking notes is very good, I do that too. The notes are not the passion. They are to be read now and then. After all , you wrote them for that reason! Just as in school you wrote crib notes for the coming exams. The thoughts of those notes return

‘Watch, look and listen’ just as at a railroad crossing is good advice. If we don’t, it’s easy to get distracted by the speeding train in our minds. “I wonder what’s for lunch?” “That gal I saw in the lobby certainly caught my eye till I remembered God’s word on that!” the worst one for me is “I wonder when church will be over, I’ve got to get some shopping done”

We must open our hearts to what is being said, don’t concern yourself about schedules and perhaps about the dirt on your ‘window’. Throw up the sash and let that cool breeze into your heart. When you start to weep, that is the first sign of successful communication and often, astonishment. Those besides you may ask, “What’s wrong!” The correct answer from me is: “these are tears of joy! I cry at great music too”

A word of caution! Don’t wipe your eyes, just get the run off. Tears are good for you. The Lord says he treasures them for grief and this grief is real. It’s conviction for how short our arrows fall when we think we are making a bulls eye with our life. The voice you hear goes way beyond the speaker in front of you.

Let the transformation begin when our dirty window is even slightly open. It isn’t a window per se, It’s just our guard we have developed to protect our damage and disappointments. Filthy windows, and hard to see into as well. We know the dirt and smudges and they mean nothing to who we are. We are created as one of a kind, a miracle of incredible complexity and unique potential. Throw open the sash and indeed, the tears will flow when truth is heard. We don’t usually hear truth about ourselves supernaturally. It’s pretty good. Norm / Jack

Discarded

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I was in my twenties when I found an apartment that fitted my mood. Recently discharged from the military and I was going to art school! The apartment fit the inherited car from his Grandfather, an old, square shaped Buick sedan. It wasn’t like my first car, the British Racing Green MGA with the real knock-off spoke wheels and Pirelli Cinturados and a Derrington wood rim steering wheel. No, It was the car of my discarded Grandfather, now passed down to me. Discarded because the once strong fireman was not capable of driving or putting out fires anymore. It felt good to me to get that old Buick.

Grandpa had killed my cat when I was young, because it had to be as Grandpa could not have my cat in his home when Mom and her new husband went on their honeymoon to Sweden. I had no say as I was in grade school and felt discarded, set aside and not worthy of dialogue or even gentleness. Mom and her immigrant husband never went on that honeymoon either. One of those memories of the life of a person now dead but living within me. a.

It felt sort of similar too that my family sold my precious MGA when the draft came in with a whirlwind of death harvest for Vietnam. I signed up first before I could have gone west to the jungles. I went east to the Mediterranean sea instead.

So I sold Grandpas Buick right away, traded it for an Austin Healy Sprite. It felt good to be in a roadster again. Made up a bit for the Green MGA and the cat.

My apartment was a dump. Second floor above a Sherman Williams paint store on the wrong side of the tracks. Corner store, separate entrance. I had a neighbor who was down and out and bummed smokes from me. When I would ask him how things were going, the neighbor always said: “just take me to the dump” That memory reminds me of Marvin the paranoid android in Hitchhikers guide. “I’m not getting you down am I?”

It seems that the latest attitude we all have. “It’s at the end of it’s service life” or “that old thing? Too expensive to fix, toss it” “ You’re what! Pregnant! Git rid of it, You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!” and our favorite: “Heck, he’s over 80. Forget that cornea transplant. I mean really, how many years does he have left anyway?” “Put her in a home, she won’t notice anyway” And so forth. As side note, as I edit this post I just had eye surgery for cataracts and I am 81. Love it! I can drive without glasses now.

Feeling useless because the popular philosophy now is Existential in nature. One man in particular, a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, went insane in the most beautiful country in the world, Switzerland. He came to the point of knowing the tension and despair for the loss of meaning in his life because of the loss of a personal God. His words are profound: “ But all pleasure seeks eternity-a deep and profound eternity”. Groucho Marks said: ” I want to live forever and I’ll die trying it” Truth from a great comedian.

Our country has found itself discarding our God of Creation perhaps because He is inconvenient and is sort of a kill joy because of all those rules he has. “I can’t follow all those rules in the Bible!” Of course we can’t, that’s the point of the rules. We need Him.

So we discard what we feel and know is not worthwhile to us. An old car, out of date food and personal relationships that are used up and don’t make us feel the way we want to. Or the way we feel we are entitled to perhaps. We have so much ‘stuff ‘ that it gets in our way when we don’t like it or need it. Broken things, old things past their expiration dates. Things that we don’t even remember acquiring. And so it goes on and on until it becomes easier to discard than repair. “That car, it was getting old and anyway, I was tired of driving it” How much different is it when it comes to this? “He was getting on my nerves. All this talk about going to a church marriage counselor! It was his fault, so I divorced him”

It seems prudent to us to just put it in a blue plastic container and park it down by the end of the driveway every Tuesday. ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! Throw out the tub too!’ I can do what I want, that’s what the world says. Another philosopher, De Sade put it well: “If there is no standard, no real moral base, then that old woman walking down the road can either be helped or run over. No difference if there are no moral standards” Those standards have been firmly set by an eternal infinite loving God who knows us and desires us to love him with the same passion he loves us.

So, it’s our choices, the small ones that make a great impact on everyone. Should I discard this friend? This inconvenient baby? This old fashioned religious teaching? This God who never did anything I asked Him to do?

Always, always our choice to build, repair, embrace and seek truth in the eyes of the Man who is more alive than any man who ever lived. Jesus, the master repairman of old and stressed lives. It’s pretty good.

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator For continuation of this story line see ‘Motorcycle Pilgrimage 1-5

a. Mark Batterson “please, thanks and sorry”

Neighbors Noises

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I was curious. There was a noise about a mile away, maybe two that was irritating me. A noise like a Chinese water torture. A machine emitting the beep beep beep as it backed up. Over and over, all summer and fall and now approaching winter. None of my family was irritated, but I heard a constant A above C wherever I was working on the ranch. Over and over for months and finally it was time to find the source. Perhaps a bobcat or Track Hoe building a road or parking lot. Big parking lot.

Finally, the last wheelbarrow of dry firewood was stacked on the porch and I had it. I got into the old Ranger and drove to the noise. Backtracked once but found the source. There is a road that goes off the main highway to a gated housing community. New homes. Gravel road. Gator drove up to the gate which was open. An electrically operated gate. There was a new road punched through the woods covered with #3 coarse rock for a short distance. I could hear the beep beep and knew it was the source area. I began walking up after shutting off the truck with it in reverse gear selected.

Realizing I might look out of place, I grabbed a couple of papers out of the glove box. Looking like an inspector of sorts as I walked up the wobbly rock. There was a parked truck just up ahead. It wasn’t bad going until I got past the truck. Then wet clay with puddles. Nope, too mucky.

Nothing within sight, curiosity somewhat satisfied, I started back to the truck. No truck. What! I looked left and right for it and rounding the corner, saw the truck. It was parked in a ditch on the wrong side of the road. A rather steep ditch and walking up to it, I found the ditch as ‘a bit wet’. Truck was ok, started but just spun the wheels (not 4wd). Suddenly a young man up on the hill at the only home on the road so far, called out to him and said he could help. A tractor started and began to warm up in a shop and the young man walked down his driveway with a canvas tow strap and chain attached.

Astonished, I immediately got down on the wet ground and hooked the strap to a convenient tow hook on the front of the Ranger. The strap was of a perfect length and shortly, down the driveway came a nice sized New Holland 4wd tractor. Gator easily hooked the hook to a small length of chain on the top of the bucket. A nod and thumbs up from the driver, back to the Ranger and the tractor pulled me out to the road. I crawled back under the front end of the truck (now with wet pants but not in 2 inches of water) got the strap off and the young man came off the seat of the tractor. He had a lit cigarette and I asked him for a smoke. Standing there with the crisis over, I was back in the military when only a smoke would do to relax. I have not smoked for decades but it is the thing to do when your life has been saved.

Several cars drove by, high end cars without a glance in their direction. Nice Mercedes’. A few minutes earlier, there would have been a serious problem. A sixty thousand dollar car with an old Ford rolling backwards across the road. I must have missed the last quarter of an inch engaging reverse or perhaps it just popped out from the strain of the steep road. The parking brake cables had long ago broken and if you are familiar with rear drum brakes, the repair is not fun, expensive and who needs parking brakes anyway? We never think those are also referred to as emergency brakes. I didn’t, I do now.

It was amazing and impossible. Shaking and humbled, I drove home, thanking the Lord over and over for His protection and help.

My expotition (family word from wind in the willows) was successful as my rescuer filled me in on the development project. It was a driveway to a sold winery that overlooked Little Trade Lake. A good friend and neighbor that lives on the lake, Rick, the was pleased as this turn of events. The winery had numerous parties that echoed over the lake waters late at night.

We could hear those parties now and then, but high above the water with amplified acoustics, it was over the top for our friend Rick. Of course, as a small bonus, lake development in rural America is funding a large amount of township taxes. I lived in the ‘cities’ most of my life and can comprehend the quiet of rural lake cabins. Mostly quiet. Now it’s power bass boats and jet riders but only on the weekends that are warm. As a pleasant sound, those weekends are sprinkled with kids laughing and sporting their parents side by side ‘golf carts’ up and down our road. It has to be an incredible feeling of freedom for them and does not irritate me at all. Just the incessant beep beep backup alarm on a bobcat. For months.

We disconnected that on Rick’s bobcat a long time ago when we serviced and used it. No one has gotten run over yet.

It’s pretty good. Norm/ Jack

Unrepeatable Beauty

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There it was, so fleeting perhaps and gone quickly. So many moments in our lives that stun us that we cannot reproduce. The fragrance of a smile in the midst of a ferocious storm or a measure of music that was perfect, even in a recording cannot reproduce the moment you heard it. A memory of beauty is not the moment it was seen or heard or even smelled. A farmer working his field with the music of his machines. A hummingbird, dancing in the lilac bush just outside the window that I opened. The sound of It’s wings, the sight of the bird going back and forth, dancing for his mate just inches before him. Exciting, unexpected and so intimate that I had to sit on our bed and thank my creator for that gift.

The beauty of paintings that come close is a slight opening to the painters grasp of a face. The Mona Lisa of Leonardo described by Vesardi :”There was a smile so pleasing that it was more divine than human” As I meandered in the halls of the Vatican almost sixty years ago, I was silent and amazed at the masterful paintings, the priceless paintings that came close. They made me long for the painters mind and visions that he tried to capture. Beauty close but not all of it. The smell of the oils, the touch of the brush on canvas and the gift to see what conveys some of the experience.

Later in my life there are moment’s still strong in my memory of desert sunsets. The sound and motion of lying in my bunk at sea, rocked to sleep with the rush of the warm bunker oil beneath the deck. Describing it can invoke memory but it is not being there. Beauty and comfort in a war.

The sound of laughter and an overwhelming partnership between a couple next to me. We were playing and singing in upstate New York, Cafe Leena near Saratoga . I was with Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson on my left. The song was obscure but the music swirled about them. Judy’s laugh and Bill’s smile created beauty for eternity.

A small storefront in Northwest Wisconsin that my family had transformed into a place of musical worship was beautiful. To the family, remembering years afterward of those moments of unity indescribable. We all played and sang together in the evenings. The small, hand painted sign over the sidewalk, hanging from the awning is gone. (Recently, that prayer room has been turned into a tattoo parlor.)

When we were there, the Pioneer bar that gave free internet to us through the brick walls. It burned badly years after we left and that bar looked like it got the wrong end of a 105 mm. Next to the burned bar building was a closed bakery storefront. No small tables with good breakfasts and glass cases displaying the sugary delights. All memories that cannot be captured with photos, smells or conversation. No more pedestrians walking out with with white bags of donuts. Those memories are stored away within and are precious.

As I edit this, the bar is being rebuilt, with the bakery part of it. A common plaza shared by them offers me a vision of sitting there with a crafted beer and a donut, enjoying the new view and ‘sus’ the ambiance of a rebirth. Worship music on the jukebox perhaps? God does interesting things.

The sighing of the wind through a tree top, the sudden smell of flowers as my son rides by on his opposed transverse 4 cylinder Honda. The sound of the power coupled with that wind. Where does it come from and where does it go? That is an old question asked by Jesus to Nicodemus. No isobars and satellite images that guess at where the breath of God comes and goes. Nicodemus could not answer that question either. Can you? As the song goes, “This is the air I breathe”

A combined beauty of things seen, felt and smelled that cannot be captured to enjoy again. Fleeting and a glimpse of eternity. Our memories are reminders but not the real moments, of stunning beauty

My navy best friend Chuck told me about it in five words. “It’s better than you said!” He said those words appearing to me just as he died several thousand miles away. Another memory, strong, stunning and indescribable. I do wonder what I said when I visited him. We grasp the wind and paint with our camera’s lens, beauty heard and seen.

“At the family burial plot, all the people I have ever known are buried there—the bouncing boy, my mothers pride, the pimply boy and secret sensualist; the reluctant military man; the beholder at dawn through the hospital glass of my first born child. All these selves I was I am no longer, not even the bodies they wore are my body any longer, and although when I try, I can remember scraps and pieces about them, I can no longer remember what it felt like to live inside their skin. Yet they live inside my skin to this day, they are buried in me somewhere, ghosts that certain songs, tastes, smells, sights, tricks of weather can raise, and although I am not the same as they, I am not different either because their having been then is responsible for my being now.” Frederic Buechner: ‘The Alphabet of Grace‘

It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

Synopsis of a Fool on the road to Redemption

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

A recall of my life is now being revealed to me, bit by bit. Indeed all the mistakes, roads taken that had no outlet or were literally dead ends, were there to take me to a place I did not know I was going. This is the reason I was given the opportunity to write this book. I thought it was my idea!

The Author whose books anchor a sagging bookshelf in our library, has given me hope and excitement as he has done for so many. C.S. Lewis. The first name Jessie Seline and I decided on for my Fiddling Gator identity was Jack. {It was Clive Staples Lewis’ nickname.}

So many authors have that first name in fiction writing and Jessie and I decided it was perfect. Punchy like Jack Dempsey. Masculine and only four letters long. It stuck after being known as ‘Mr Gator’ for years. That story comes to light in this book. A simple newspaper article about my role as a judge in a fiddle contest with a cartoon of an alligator, rocking back on his tail. playing the fiddle.

I know, without any doubt, that our Lord Jesus has me on speed dial to my spirit. I did not even know I had a phone like that before others before that have those, taught me how to listen. I listened when I was a big fool and now I am a tool. Those two letters are close on keyboards and are pushed with the left forefinger. Pointing the way to Him.

My counselor, Mr. Beeves, told me he had never met a man with more trauma than I. He also told me it would always be in my mind and would have six tenths of a second to turn off the reaction of fight or flight to perceived new trauma. Recently, I have asked Jesus to have a USB port put into my head and a jump drive with a program to dive deep and encase those memories where they belong. The past. He has recently acquiesced to that request! Very recently. I did not know He could do that or that I could ask. Look for the port if we meet and I will split hairs with you and show it to you.

Go, Set and get ready. Go to Him set your heart before Him and with Him, and you are ready. Stay on that Highway to Holiness, for “the road to hell is an easy slope, soft underfoot with no warning signs” a. I have asked many friends that were near death to meet me as I ‘cross the bar’ to eternity. I saw one of them leave with five words as he disappeared: “It’s better than you said!” It is.

a. C.S. Lewis

Parking Diagonally In Small Town America

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Nature and God—I neither knew yet Both so well knew me. They startled, like Executors of my identity”

Emily Dickinson

Frederic Wisconsin, is a small town with almost a thousand people, and several deer. A small red fox runs across the state highway by the gas station around 4:30 every morning. The town has a restored railway station which is very authentic. There’s a caboose on a siding, a semaphore signal, a metal-wheeled cart with wood barrels and a bright yellow track-section car. A chain-saw carved wooden bear, stands near the roadbed where the metal tracks once ran. We live 7 miles to the west. A short buggy ride for the Amish who are half a mile from town.

The train station anchors Main Street, which is about a block and a half long with diagonal parking. Frederic has a smattering of small shops: a hardware store, two bars, a library, and the usual shops that sell antiques and knickknacks to tourists and used furniture to the locals.

Leaving town on the state highway you will find a gas station with well made waist-expanding doughnuts a car dealership and a tidy golf course with another bar. It is a cute town with a nice cafe and a second rate self-service car wash. The people in the town are fairly reserved but will speak with you if you speak first to them. A few of the people will wax nostalgic about the glory days of the railroad and the daily passenger train.

When first told of the twice-a-day train schedule, I knew I had missed something by being born 20 or 30 years too late. Of course, the tracks are gone except the siding with the caboose but the roadbed is now a merged bicycle/snowmobile trail. The bicyclists park by the bakery and the snowmobile folks park at the bar on the corner.

Much to the towns confusion, the bakery has been closed for several years from a fire. Now they only sell wholesale and the main street side windows are covered up. There has also been a fire next door above one the bars. A fire no-sale. Two for the price of 1. Soon, the two buildings, which were destroyed, will rise from the ashes become one. A patio for patrons of the bar and bakery will finish the project. As I write this there is still windows and doors to install and the insides finished. The town is excited about the project. Have a pastry with your beer and relax.

There are five churches of the usual preferences, and even a small Amish community on the edge of town. Their carriages and the clip-clop of the horses add charm and fertilizer to the main street. The small town chugged along pretty well and the years brought the expected changes. A late night two dollar store and an old department store now selling secondhand furniture and dishes. There are treasures worth searching for: top line toasters and old hard-bound books. The two dollar store has a red box for last years latest movies. I always wonder why everything anyone buys from those quick two dollar stores smells like laundry detergent.

The early-morning men gather every morning, parking in the same parking spots and sitting at the same table. sipping passable coffee and eating good sourdough toast. The restaurant on the corner was named ‘Beans’ and now is known as ‘The Tin Shed.’ It is an early morning place of connections and warmth on winter days. The Tin prefix refers to the new metal siding. Well done face lift. The huge ventilation fan, dripping delicious smelling grease is still around the corner over the sidewalk. Bacon and french fries mingle their smells delightfully.

On those snowy winter days the village sweeps while its people sleep, the snow and drift removal goes on with the metallic rasp of shovels and the diesel snort of the plows. Some merchants shovel other store-front sidewalks because they have hearts for it. There is camaraderie in the winter, a hunkering and shared misery too: dead car batteries, ice on the roofs and leaking roofs in downtown with all the flat roofs common in row-house shops.

The down-town sometimes appeared like an old man with teeth missing. There were too many empty store-fronts. The draw of the big box stores about 25 miles south takes a toll on local merchants. A small town can only support one antique store or one that has used books, Jackets and couches. Frederic had a burned out bar, the bakery with no public access, an empty appliance store and an excellent hardware store, an old one with everything you need. A new pharmacy and clinic. There is a friendly grocery store with a deli and things the big box does not handle. (My favorite is Lingonberry jam.) There is an exit power door that sticks open slightly and that is a reminder that the wholesale grocery business operates on a rather slim margin. It still works but keeps the entryway nicely cool in the winter.

There is a food truck that shows up in the summer by the old railroad depot with great gyro sandwiches. A tow behind coffee business is faithful a block up the main street parked at the laundromat lot. Great coffee. to be continued

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The origin of Jack Gator

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

There was young Norm, I was moving through my life as though it was a normal one. I am a high functioning Asperger’s child and did not trust anyone with my love. No one. There was a secret place in me that is a go to place when my life feels scary and in need of protection. I found that comfort in various ways. I have body moves grounding me in a way with a touch on a silk blanket or just zoning out with movement patterns. A little sniffing on the back of my hand. You have seen the movie The Accountant. The main actor was affirming to me with his portrayal of a a survivor of Autism.

I made up stories and submerged myself in music. Still do. I learned piano early on, then guitar over in Italy. I graduated to mandolin and violin/viola later on with country western and square dance bands. That worked for a while until I was almost 70. By then, the made up stories were real ones and music was my dream world. Listening and playing.

Recently, I began writing about my life and observations of astounding events that only be classed as theologically overwhelming and usually joyful. I recently got some good advice on writing. “Try to be original and you will not succeed. Write your heart as best you can and you will be original” I got that advice in a dream as I sat at the feet on Earnest Hemingway as a boy. I’m sure someone else has been quoted but the dream worked for me.

I began writing day by day and I filled up a journal once a year. There is a stack of them on my desk shelf. I began reading them and saw all the stories and many people began to say to me; “you ought to write a book. I like your stories and the way you tell them” As a known raconteur, I told stories all the time. Writing them down helps me to remember them!

I had the nickname of Mr. Gator from a photo I put into the local paper. They needed one for an article on a fiddle contest I was judging. The picture was a little alligator rocking on his tail, playing a fiddle. It stuck, I even had Mr gator license plates too. Decades later, a close friend, Jessie, drew a picture for me of an alligator resting with a fishing pole and I use that as a header now and then. He said it was something he sketched out the night before. I was stunned with his talent and friendship. He also is a writer of action stories with gold coins and thieves and murder. (I can’t wait for the next chapter!)

After Jessie gave me the drawing we decided that the Gator needed a first name if I was going to write with that name as a byline. Jack Dempsy, Jack Ryan, Jack Clancy and C.S. Lewis’ nickname, Jack. It stuck. Masculine with punch.

I began publishing these stories at a local newspaper once a week as the editor liked them a lot. I give a lot of credit to Jesus in most of them and that was OK for a while but the new manager was uneasy with that. After 4 years of writing one a week I had well over 300 columns stored away on several drives. I resigned with grace and dignity from that paper. They deserved it. I still write for a great newspaper in Ashland, Wisconsin. The bottom Line News and Views.

Again, “You ought to write a book.” I already have written a book, I just need to jump in the water and get it published. Of course then, I have to mention my book in conversations and carry several of them in my briefcase to sell. Easy sell if someone says they would be interested in reading it. And paying for it.

Meanwhile, I keep writing and publishing on my web site. Gatorsgracenotes.com No ads of any kind was my decision. I don’t like pop ups and no one I know likes them either. That money stream is out of the equation. The grace note thing is a double entendre. It’s a very fast note or notes played that are too rapid to write down on a score. And Grace is what Jesus gives me time and again.

I have faith that it will all work out. Faith, it’s the very gift of God.

Gator picture by Jessie Selin

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Motorcycle Pilgrimage 5

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

My back was not so good from my Berkeley projectionist job as I had to also pick up the popcorn boxes under the seats and sweep up too. The earlier three thousand plus miles on the Enfield bike put wear on my lower back facets. A lot of bending working the theater, and my back ‘went out’ A doctor I visited told me to have a lot of bed rest, cold packs and of course, I lost the theater job. I did not know about workman’s comp and the owners were not telling me either.

After I began to heal, I was invited to go on plane rides with a pilot that had a room down the hall in the mansion. We flew into various places and it was a thrill to fly alongside an expert pilot. He flew with the German Luftwaffe in WWII. We flew sideways through Yellowstone once.

He was curious about my extensive radio background and asked me to build a portable radio that is used for ground to air communication and also ground to ground. I was paid good money just to do that in the desert for his smuggling operation. Perfectly safe and harmless marijuana from Mexico. It was almost legal in California and everyone smoked it. Why not?

I got to meet the ground crew on a practice run and they were older and liked to carry around wheel guns. They parked a miles away from the end of an inland landing strip with limited tower presence, and I went up to my designated hill.

A perfect contact to the plane and the ground crew. They didn’t know a thing about communications and just got frustrated and drove back to a rendezvous area. The plane landed spent a short time, did a 180 and roared away. I had an odd feeling about this, and so went out to where the plane made a U turn. The sand was packed and hard and when I puttered up I saw a lot of ‘sea bags’ in the moonlight.

Somehow I buried all of them but two and took those to the rendezvous area. Knocking on the camper door, I got a gun in my face. I proclaimed what I had done and I unloaded the two sea bags. Something illegal for certain. VW beetles are rather scarce in roominess. They do have good traction and that made traction in that sand easier. I made two more trips and the drill was over. “Well done” the pilot said back at the mansion. I wondered what the bags really had inside and was told it was smuggled pot from Mexico! The money man was a famous rock star, Sly Stone who lived right across the bay in San Francisco.

Not too much later, I was really getting used to the money with the pilot and his girlfriend, and whole business. Rent was not an issue and I was wanted as a team member. Just like being useful back on board ship. There was a lot of my back pain and the team got me comfy with a powdery pain reliever. Heroin.

The pilot that paid the rent was very kind to me and the heroin was very pleasant and I liked it, a lot. One day, in my room alone, I was eager for another snort of the powder and heard a clear voice behind me say: “Life or death—choose now” I quickly turned around and there was no one there. The door to the room was still closed. I stared at the pain reliever and remembered how good I felt using it. The pain of all the rejections in my life as well as my current back issue. I no longer lingered on my recent Minneapolis fiance that I met just after discharge that ran off with an actor from the Guthrie and my hard childhood trauma. It was more than pleasant to not be consumed with any pain.

After a short while, it was obvious what the voice meant and I said “life?” My addiction was gone instantly and there was no withdrawal either. Of course it was the Lord saving me for His plan. I bundled up the remaining heroin and took it down the hall to the pilot’s room. “I don’t need this” and the pilot was surprised with an odd expression on his face. Another friend introducing me to drugs. I never searched out those things, they found me. No income and shunned by the pilot and co-pilot (RAF vet)

Obviously, I saw homelessness coming and I bought an old International pickup truck and built a camper in the bed. It was finished and cozy with French doors on the tailgate area and those two rugs I thought I bought from the earlier resident in what was now my room. I slept on the narrow one. Wool Oriental. Class again. There was even a skylight of Plexiglas and windows on the French doors in the back. The couple that I replaced in the mansion lived down in the flats and helped me build the camper. A chop saw, jig saw, some hand tools and a Swiss army knife did the job in short order. Time to get mobile.

After being told to leave the mansion, a new job came into view. Playing guitar in front of the Safeway grocery store in Oakland for while and garnering enough change to buy a can of Dinty Moore beef stew, drive over the bay bridge and park at McClure’s beach. Enough money for Bridge tools and gas too.

Open those French doors, get out the little one burner stove and enjoy an ocean like one I so recently used to be on. I still have a can of it now and then a half century later. Looks and tastes the same. Julie is amazed I would eat the stuff but it IS nutritious and the potatoes stay firm in the sauce.

The chow was OK. Plain but it satisfied. Out of the mansion and into homelessness. Not by choice, but it worked. Sometimes people would put groceries in the open guitar case. A banana or two, things like that.

The smugglers acquaintances found out where my new venue was. They offered me sympathy for the loss of my ‘job’ and said they had a place for me to stay and clean up a in ‘the city’. The tenant was gone for a few weeks and I enjoyed the luxury of a real house. A few days later, there was a knock on the door and I opened it up to a well dressed man with a pistol in my face and a badge to back it up. Just like the movies with cars parked diagonally and other guys in suits next to them.

The official from Federal immigration told me “Hold it right there. He called me by the pilot’s name from the mansion job. After a ‘pleasant’ conversation in the living room, I convinced the government men with the badges that the pilot had left the country with my girl. I was a very controlled angry man and it was a good improvised act and they left. One of the other agents was fiddling with the telephone in the living room. The fellow that that was obviously in charge told him to ‘knock it off’. One of the agents came dashing in the door stating: “It never was red!” I realized they were confused searching for a red truck. My truck was green. I had painted it with a brush under the eucalyptus trees up in Tilden park. It started out primer black. Pretty good job painting an old pickup with a brush. The painting was thorough but thick here and there. Brush was a toss.

The pilot’s truck was in Mexico by then. Later, after all the afternoon excitement, I was interested’ in leaving and looking for a broom to clean up for my unknown host, I found some book sized plastic bags stacked in the closet about waist high. I then knew what was in the sea bags! I grabbed my meager belongings and my guitar and decided to hit the road with my homemade camper. Quickly.

It seemed that I had been set up to make sure disappeared for a while. The shower had hot water and the pressure was good too. But It seemed prudent to leave. The broom went quickly back into the closet and it was time to head back across the bay bridge. Safeway was waiting for my Martin D-28 rosewood guitar. It still has a good tone.

I lived in the camper for a while, and played at the food market. A bully from Oakland approached me as I was playing an old country blues song. He said; “whatcho gonna do if I take dat guitar?” Big guy. With conviction and eye contact, I told that man: “I’ll just fight you for it till one of us dies” After a stare down, the man turned away and said “That’s cool” Oh well, work place harassment. That Martin was the only thing that allowed me to make it for the can of stew, gas, and bridge tolls. Death and taxes. One or the other, nothing new. Bluffing worked in Kansas and I am good at it. Poker face. Actually, I meant it and he saw that in my calm demeanor.

An old friend of Bruce’s found me at the Oakland Safeway sidewalk and he had a big sack of rice with him. Change of menu. He said: “Want to get out of here and go with me to a commune in Oregon?” Sure! We put the bag of rice in the back of the camper and headed off to Eugene.

Another adventure ensued and that was the end of that part of the motorcycle pilgrimage. Off to live with the hippies up north in Eugene. A typical commune of the sixties story. 30 people in one house and with one bathroom. Shortly back to Minneapolis via Omaha. Next stop, West bank. Check out ’40 acres of musicians’ It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

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Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 3

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

.. After the dust- bowl town with the Angel and the woodruff key, we were on Route 66 and westward bound. Gas was cheap back then our slim wallets still had enough to get to ‘the city’ in California.

The bar up ahead looked promising after all that desert in Nevada. It appeared to have just been dropped into place. A small parking lot with two cars, one of them with California plates. There was literally, nothing visible from horizon to horizon. Just the endless highway. A few dust devils and actual sagebrush.

Out of the saddles and into the bar we strode, awkwardly as riding can do things to your body that doesn’t relate to standing and walking. It’s just the odd feeling from all that vibration that your hands are on opposite arms. Weird. Akin to my illusions at sea when land would not be visible. After a few weeks in the ‘middle’ if the ocean, it seems the ship is standing still and the water is flowing by!

Any way, most motorcycle riders get the upside down hands thing after 100 miles or so, no one talks about it. Our bikes were a little rougher on the road than today’s huge highway cruisers. Bruce’s BMW was a little smoother than the Indian Tomahawk/Enfield. I shudder even now thinking how it would have been on the 600cc Matchless single.

So after we shook off the muscle memories and went in, the bar had two women patrons and the barkeep. The two women were older and looked at those two young men like coyotes gazing upon a nice jack rabbit nearby. Smiles and almost instantly, an offer to cool down with a few cold ones. ‘Sure’! After a few (the women were drinking hard stuff) it was revealed that one of them was a California Senator and the other woman was the Senator’s aide.

Betty Fiorina was the Senators name, I never forgot it. It pops up now and then in the news and in my mind.

Lots of laughs and some mild flirtation ensued and it was time for the gals to hop into their Buick convertible and us to kick start the bikes and weave down the highway. Blood alcohol content, who cares? Not a car in sight and road hazards were an occasional sign and a few lizards or ruckchucks. 1. If you noticed, motorcycles now do not have kick starters. You have seen them in movies where you heave your body up in the saddle and push hard on the way down onto a pedal on the right side of the machine. It usually started on one kick.

Class act meets Brando and Lee Marvin and no one knew what to do except drink and laugh. Much later, a decade or two, I caught a name on some senate bill and it’s the same last name of the Senator they met. Family business. There was a photo and she looked very trim and self assured. Splitting image of mom.

Onward to Northern California and the back entrance to Berkeley on Shasta Road. Bruce was confident, I was just stunned. The place we wheeled up to had several chimneys, a tile roof and a pretty good view of the San Francisco bay . More class and style than either of us had ever experienced.

An old friend of Bruce’s, Charlie Jirousek, lived there with about six other people. He was a luthier and built guitars out of Brazilian Rosewood. So he was broke too. He also had a massive Malamute, North, that shed hair at a bodacious rate. A month later, Charlie covered the C.F. Martin logo on the tuning head with one of his, a mother of pearl arrow. His guitar business was called ‘Arrowhead’ I was concerned that even at this time, the Martin logo would encourage theft. It works. To this day musicians that hear of play it remark on it’s tone and beauty. “what is it?” I tell them to look inside the sound hole. Martin D-28.

Charlie had a big sack full of the hair and stated someday he would make a shirt out of it. 4 decades went by until the shirt appeared. It had an odd smell and dogs seemed attracted to Charlie. So The three of them spent a lot of time around the main living room fireplace playing guitars and eating peanut butter from Charlie’s jar. A half gallon jar. White bread used now and then. It was enjoyable for me to meet another person as pleasant and eccentric as we were.

To this day, I still enjoy a peanut butter sandwich with heavy butter on both slabs of bread. Add the thick crunchy style peanut butter. Those sandwich’s were free and the music was excellent and heart felt. A lot of joy around that fireplace.

We all knew what our lives were like as we played the same music. Leadbelly, Blind Blake, Willy McDowell. It’s called country blues music. There was one tune, Old Country Rock that just hit the spot. We played it a lot. It was pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

1. Ruckchuck . An animal nearby in the weeds that makes a lot of noise. Scared away by an aluminum cooking pot swinging in front of our headlamps.


The trip was instantly planned with my new friend Bruce, just back from ‘Nam’ and anxious for safer adventures. I was fairly fresh from overseas as well, with Comservron 6 and several tours in the Mediterranean and the six day war with Russia and Egypt. We were on the Israeli side. It was dicey over there too. Lot’s of military muscle being deployed. Older Navy people know the nomenclature. It seemed our nation was muddled up in several wars. Fubar was the term. Bruce and I knew the score, or we thought we did. I was better off at sea. Bruce had just recovered from the Jungle and I had just recovered from a shipmate trying to kill me. We were both suffering from PTSD and it felt so good to just go on our own. It was the summer of love and we needed some of that whatever it was, it sounded good to us.

Older motorcycles and younger riders seemed just the solution of affordable transportation.

We had an easy itinerary: Route 66 to California. Just head south and take a right. Back in the days of paper maps and freedom to improvise and walk the line between a long trip and danger. I sold my Austin Healey Sprite and Bruce had his Chevy Bel-Aire to trade for the bikes. I was offered a Matchless 500 single cylinder. I chose an Indian-Enfield 500 twin instead. Bruce got a BMW 500. The offer to me was a Matchless single cylinder. I declined that one for a long trip. It was like riding a vibrating pogo stick.



Off they went, both bikes with ‘sissy bars’ and their guitars strapped on behind us upright and some luggage and a camping tent. Money and a hunger for vistas unseen.

Good weather and full tanks and some spare parts, we left to head south first and catch 66 down by the Oklahoma panhandle. Camping was first choice and other than that, we didn’t have a clue about what was ahead. Just in our early twenties and now free to make our own travel choices.

Bruce had made some friends when he got back from China Beach. Those friends of his lived in ‘the city’ out west and that was good enough a destination as any. Money was tight. First adventure was in Omaha. Somehow we met a group of hippies, and were embraced as sojourners to the headquarters of the love movement; San Francisco.

The hippies took us to their home, right across the street from the big race track, Aksarben, (that odd name is Nebraska backwards). Beds available and very starry eyed girls seemed a pretty good place to stop over. Schedule? There wasn’t any and that allowed leeway. Waking up the next morning, both of us were greeted with a breakfast treat of a small pill. Guaranteed to be an interesting experience. The only thing I remember was being taken to Arby’s and trying to order food. The colorful mushrooms growing out of the counter mans chef’s hat got in the way of comprehending things. ‘Have you ever been experienced?’ went the song of the times.
A quick goodbye and we were back on the road for adventures that seemed to be working out pretty good, so far.

On down the road to Kansas and an uneventful ride until we stopped in Liberal. Foolishly, but with great enjoyment, we gave rides to more starry eyed and bored young girls on our bikes; exotic transportation. the young men on the sidewalk gave squinty eyed stares, the Clint Eastwood trouble for you look. We thought as veterans of two different wars, we deserved good attentions from everyone. We were not wearing our old uniforms.

It was great fun until the town’s police chief approached us and asked if we would like to stay overnight in the town jail! At first thought we wondered what we did wrong that would incur incarceration. The chief stated: “ It would be safer in my jail for you both.”


The doors to the cells only open one way and we declined the offer. that single officer in town told them: “Them boys is a comin’ for you tonight at your camp site”. “Oh. Well, we’ll take our chances chief , thanks for the offer.” was our reply.

The local young toughs came after them later that night.. (to be continued in Motorcycle pilgrimage series)

Motorcycle Pilgrimage The beginning chapter 1

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Jump in the Water

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

“Let’s go down, come on down, let’s go down to the river to Pray” 1.

How many decisions do you make in a lifetime? How many in a day? How about right here, right now? Life seems to be mostly decision making. All the little things we have to constantly consider. Where, what and how mostly.

The very important decisions can be interesting. Myself, I was given an interesting decision problem five decades ago. I made the right decision because I am still alive. Things like that leave an impression on us. “Are you serious?” Some decisions are not deal breakers, they are quite simple and are mostly easy to make as well.

A few decades ago, I was given the choice to be Baptized. I was what is called ‘New in the faith’ up to that choice, I wanted to be just like God and be my own man. Just look into my heart and obey what I thought was right. Of course, I was desperately wicked as are all of us. I didn’t have a clue about those things of trust, faith, grace and repentance.

The pastor that came to minister to my dying mother spoke to me instead of her because she had died the night before his appointment. We sat at the kitchen table when he came and he asked me questions about life. I spoke of Gandhi and Buddha and all the rest. He then asked me it wasn’t about them. it was about me. He gave me a C.S. Lewis book, (Mere Christianity) and I read it. It read it a lot. It’s one of my ‘go to books’

Julie and I began attending his church that weekend and they did a funeral with all the trimmings for my mom with no charge. They even lit a candle every Sunday for a month for her. It was astounding and humbling. Not what I expected after some ‘bad’ experiences with the church in general. Usual things we go through as broken people resenting anyone that tells us there is a mending to that brokenness. “Sure, easy for you to say.” Etc. Not really understanding that narrow walk. An iron worker 50 stories up on a big I beam, just walking. What if I go off the path? “The wrong path is soft underfoot, an easy incline with no warning signs.” 2.

That Christmas I was at a cantata in a very local church and as the choir sang ‘Mary did you know’, I was stunned by a man in the choir who spoke the words of the song. Did you know, that those tiny hands flung the stars into the sky. I did not believe in evolution and said to myself, someone had to do it! The song went on and I began to cry. “It’s all true, it’s all true” I then knew Jesus was Lord of all and have never turned back since that time.

A while later, Julie was out walking on our road, up the hill from our mailbox and the Lord spoke to her about being baptized. When she shared it with me, it seemed like a good thing to do. Infant baptism just not adequate for her and thinking about it, not for me either. I was whisked away as a baby by my Uncle and baptized in Duluth. It seemed to not be my decision at that time. We felt that Baptism falls a little short of John’s style. “Repent and be Baptized” Was a breath of sweet air when Julie said that and we agreed together to do so. We both had a few things to repent of. So the Methodist camp where Julie and I had our first romance (Spirit Lake) was the place where we went to be Baptized. Friends came and we put agates in our pockets to give them as mementos. They stood and watched us as we were baptized good and thoroughly.

Pastor Barry did our Baptisms differently. He had never done a full immersion baptism before. He dunked us three times. “For the Father.. for the Son.. and for the Holy Spirit.” I was down on that perfect sand bottom and saw him above in the clear water. When I came up I knew he was looking right at me the whole time. I asked him, “what did you see when you were looking at me?” “A dead man” he replied.

I came up somewhat wet and let go of my nose. Then Julie and I started giving the agates from our pockets to our friends on the dock. They were beautiful as they glistened and we burst out saying because they have been in the water with us and we are clean too.

That was the beginning of a new us, especially a new me. I needed to die and it was a long process and still is. I am getting better as are we both. No longer dead inside but open to our King and Savior as he began breathing life in us. It’s not an instantaneous change because we have to listen and learn from Jesus and read the instruction manual He has graciously given us.

We are learning, every day it seems. Loving God and ourselves as his own and then loving all those people he gives us to love. The neighbor thing to say it, a lifetime to learn. Akin to washing one’s hands in a way. Scrubbing and washing clean. There are many things in our lives that pivot around those those words Jesus gave to us: “Love one another as I have loved you” The love your neighbor as you love yourself was stymied until I forgave myself and began loving my life with the Lord. He started it and He will complete it! Now I know how good it is.

The simplest and hardest thing for me to do. Every day, if I listen well and surrender myself to Him, He guides me to this new life. Jump in the water and it ain’t no trouble if you can, walk on the water. He offers his strong right hand and His mighty arm to us and lifts us out of death into life.

One day in Kansas City, I was sitting in a prayer room, waiting to be prayed over for my strained leg. I had a clear vision as I dozed off to beautiful live worship music. Jesus appeared to me and we were swimming together with a side stroke. “I know you love to swim, do you want to go down? You can breathe down there.” How deep is it? I asked. He replied “How deep do you want to go?” I awakened, healed and started dancing a little for the group waiting to pray for me. I told them I wanted pray for them. “Sure, come on in!” ‘Jump in the water, got no trouble if you can, walk on the water‘ Michael Mayor

It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

1. Old spiritual song; ‘Down to the river to pray’ Picture courtesy of Arron Dahl

2. C.S. Lewis the great divorce

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Name of Middle Names

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

A repeat of a dream for several nights. Different places, different people, same impressive sign of the times. Suddenly an impossible thing happened throughout the world. Every man, woman and child had their middle names changed.

On birth certificates, passports, licenses of all sorts. Every thing that is our ID was changed overnight and all the middle names were the same! All men, women and children. Impossible. What government Be responsible for this? My middle name changed in everything in my wallet, safety deposit box,bank and card account! You too? does this mean to us as an impossible event and what are we to do now? All humankind were now ‘relatives’ as we usually are given a middle name for someone in our family line. Thousands of years ago this became ‘set in familial stone’ One time a man deaf named his son by the simple name of ‘John’ while his family was aghast over tradition violated.

The dream I had twice in a row was similar in chaos. As in most dreams, the moving about in unfamiliar houses and cities was a given and easily forgotten in the fog of early rising. Not the middle name though. It stuck in my memory till this was written. Must be written was the inevitable.

I liked my new middle name because it was familiar and powerful. I never grasp the equality of the name. It’s not done. The respect for the original owner of that name was embarrassing if wasn’t for the fact that everyone had it too. The dream meant a new thing was happening.

The dream name is found in several songs that I sang and played. My family knows the name and who it belongs to. Of course, the new middle names are the first name of the real owner who actually was the first person to have it. It is the name above all names and is the first and last of a name for our creator, lover and written on the galaxies and all stars visible and imagined.

The name in the dream was Yahweh. Pretentious to an embarrassing degree, but there it was in my dream. What did it mean? What does it mean? It means family and a precious thought of unity and beauty imagined, only in my dreams to show me something. A time when all mankind will be united to the same family with another new name written on stone, a white stone for all eternity.

Yahweh, the beautiful, wonderful, lover of our souls, gave the dream to me not to call us all gods or think we were. It was the dream of a sign and wonder that God Himself was approaching. The time when old men will have visions. Young men will have dreams. I just got the dream as a gift. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator writing for Norm

A Sister at Laguna Beach

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

The Laguna greeter.

There was a time in my life that I was a dedicated surfer. I moved in with the president of my old high school class (King?) and far from being the outcast weirdo in high school, now I was one to be admired. With borrowed a surfboard from a slightly older young man who lived downstairs from the apartment in Hermosa Beach. There was a bond instantly between them as they both had the same last name and were both slightly autistic and emotionally intense in various ways. Different and knowing they both were.

So, I went to the beach every day and learned how to surf. Readers of this column will remember that time in the article, ‘Super Chief’ I just loved surfing and was totally committed to it. I slept on the floor of my room with the board next to me so I would rise early without disturbing the other young men and walk a half a block down to the beach. Except for the jellyfish, it was a time in my life that means a lot to me 50 years later.

At one of the parties in the apartment, a young woman (girl) took a fancy to me and slipped into my room during the party and I offered her the other side of the surfboard to lie on. No seduction. Genuine friendship and it astonished her and there was a bond, a different young man that treated her with respect and friendship. Carrie is her name

She never forgot that and after a year or so, I was in San Diego, Navy training base. After basic, I went to A school at the same base. and was then training young Naval men radio operations. I had a background in radio from my amateur radio days and still held a general class license.

I wondered if Carrie, was still at her Uncles place in Laguna Beach. I called her and she was pleased. She asked me to visit on a weekend. Since I was now on staff, I had every weekend off. I even had civilian clothes to wear. Little did I know I was in a pretty good situation right out of boot camp.

Because I washed out of the nuclear submarine service (bad color vision.) I was no longer striking for nuclear technician,so they told me I would be a radio operator. They knew my skills at being one. I trained young men in Morse code in A school and basic electronics. It was the best duty assignment I had with the Navy. Myself, I learned how to touch type listening to code. Nice thing to know when the code comes at 30 wpm

The San Diego bus to Los Angeles went right through Laguna Beach and I went to see Carrie. She picked me up at the bus stop and drove me to her Uncles place in the hills. She drove 1957 Corvette convertible, bright red and powerful with the first stock fuel injection in a sports car. Her Uncle was on an extensive art tour in Europe at that time and the car was there for her to use. A wealthy art dealer in Europe and he had a pretty good ‘duty station’ too! I never met him nor know his name.

So, I would come up every weekend and lounge around the pool that overlooked the ocean and do a little painting (with Uncles paint equipment. The brushes, canvas, tripod and acrylic paints.) Occasionally my new ‘sister’ would bring a young man home and introduce that man to me as her brother was a way of overcoming the puzzled look I got from the men. I liked that immensely. My ‘organic’ sister never liked me.

They were one-night stands and that was understood by all. A new sister that liked him, I liked that. One weekend, I called my old high school president that was living in the Hollywood hills and asked ‘sis’ if he can borrow the Corvette.

The occasional boyfriends never even got a nod with that question. She knew when they started saying “Hey Carrie can I….NO” I drove up to LA and visited my old buddies who were living large in the Frank Lloyd Wright Circular apartments. Class. The red Corvette fit right in at the curb and I got a smile nod from everyone I saw. Poseur.

That corvette was fast on the freeway!

Back at the beginning of the city of Laguna, the Greeter there gave me a wave. (The greeter was a man that stood for years at the north end of the city and waved at cars)

All in all it only lasted a season of my life and made a big difference in both of us. She shared her heart in a way nether of them thought they would do or even contemplate and it was a good start on real relationships for them both. They had no idea they were both being trained in their hearts near the ocean and some of it stuck. Carrie treasured my paintings too, she said they would be worth a lot of money when I became famous. Still waiting for that, I’ll send her my book if she is still there.

It’s pretty good.  Norm Peterson RM4 Comservron 6 Naples, Italy

Soiree At the Trade Lake Retreat

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was a perfect day for a garden party. Carrie had everyone there and she and Julie were out in the garden. Some tips were welcomed about potato bugs from Julie. She showed how they moved and where they came from. “Under the ground?” Yup. But you can control a small amount of them by just squishing them as they. Or there is a benign way by using diatomaceous earth powder! Any bug with an exoskeleton can be controlled. It was a new word and very good advice from an expert on those things. Bugs.

The round patio table was set with delicious looking pastries and snacks sorts of things. Crackers and French Brie. Croissants and small glass dishes filled with pesto. There was fine china cups that seemed to expect coffee and linen at the places where lawn chairs were set.

A high English tea picture set for the honored guests. Gary began digging into the brie and, as another writer, was delighted with all his fellow writers, and good friends, coming over to the table to join him.

There was lively conversation approaching as Dave and Sally were on either side of Nigel excitedly filling him in on Scripture verses that explain how this glorious party resembles another to come. Bob was dancing before them, sometimes walking backwards and giving encouragement to the three of them. How exciting it must be to hear these grand stories. Battles and victories with noble people. Suffering with unbelievable impact. Many things almost hidden from casual reading that book.

Dana showed up with fresh smoked lake trout and whitefish from superior. It got picked clean in a short time and the guests were welcomed into the house with towels and hand soap handy at the kitchen sink.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, just off the porch, Norm and Peter were whipping up a brew of excellent coffee. Fresh ground and just flown in with Carrie and Peter’s earlier visit to St. Helena island. Best coffee beans on the planet for only forty dollars an ounce. What a smell when the grinder did it’s work. Oh my,I never thought I would even smell coffee like this! Ecstatic with my history knowledge kicking in. The very island that Napoleon was exiled to! I wondered if it was worth the exile to have that coffee every day. It is said that Napoleon was a coffee aficionado. There weren’t better places for him to be exiled.

Eddie came in with a really nice linen towel around his arm and he was dressed to ‘the nines’ with an excellent servants black outfit. He delighted everyone when he walked out with a tray loaded with the best espresso ever. Sugar and cream in matching china as well.

It was a gathering of writers that came to enjoy one another’s company and hear stories from experienced raconteurs. The soiree lasted until the evening dew began and the grass was sparkly with the moonlight.

Have you ever thought what heaven would be like? What the King’s table that Moses and seventy some people got to dine at with the creator of everything that is and will be? This was a dim preamble of sorts.

Writers can be persnickety and filled with themselves, but not today. Not in the garden of delights. What a gift for these poetic people to try and capture it in words that just didn’t seem adequate to describe it all. It’s pretty good, Jack Gator

How much is it Worth?

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was just a memento, really. A friend had given me the coin, in honor of my service in the six day war, back in the middle sixties. (The story is in my column, Soaring.) It is a recollection of the times at sea when my ship was threatened by a Russian guided missile Frigate at night.

That young woman could buy a coffee in Jerusalem at a Cofix store or some noodles with the coin, but it meant more than that. It was a confirmation from a total stranger that Jesus holds her tight, and will always love her. Right here right now. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.

The rescue came from ‘above’ with a tomcat fighter on our side of the war. Battle group stuff.No body died at that time but it was very terrifying nonetheless. For both ships and crews.

So, many decades later, that five shekel coin wound up on my dresser. Covered with dust many times and mostly forgotten with the usual dresser top debris. Pens, pencils, notes on small post it pads and a jewelry box with alligator pins, bow ties and very ancient and worthless cuff links. There even was an old hand-held ham radio transceiver up there with a nice whip antenna. Battery was dead. I found the charger and the battery works. Two meter rig, handier than a cell phone with 5 watts instead of 1/2 or less.

One day, a Sunday, I was getting ready to go to my volunteer position on a prayer team. Early in the morning as the church was about an hour and a quarter drive away. I grabbed a handful of quarters to buy an espresso and at the last moment put them aside on my desk and grabbed the 5 shekel coin and pocketed it. No reason really, just felt right in my left jean pocket. It belonged there that day.

On the somewhat dark morning drive there was a whisper in my spirit that I was to give the coin to the first person I met when I walked in the door. This is an interesting time of day to get into the church as it doesn’t open the doors until 8. I had left a message with a pastor that oversees the facility that I would be in early. I was being dropped off by my son who works at another campus of the Eagle Brook church nearby (Blaine) He is a director of the media department and has to come in early to set up the equipment and test the simulcast stuff. I was early at 7 and walked up to the big doors from the parking lot and it was pretty quiet. Lots of parking at that time!

When I reached the locked doors, a woman inside the second set of ‘airlock’ doors smiled, and came right up and opened the outside door and greeted me by name. Very pleasant considering there are over 800 staff people in the organization. Ten times that many volunteers. I dug into my left hand pocket and handed her the Israeli coin. I told her briefly why I did so. She widened her eyes and told me I did not know how much this meant to her. She is a missionary to Israel, is involved with these things and later, at an early gathering on the second floor, she gave it to a young woman that was going to Israel soon. Her plane had been canceled due to the new war.

This post was written several years ago. Since that time I have moved to the Blaine Campus and am an assistant director in production. I still slip down and join the prayer team if they have need. Dual chitizenship!

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A Tap on the Shoulder.

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was always gentle, the touch, almost as though the touch was a memory. At the first time I was surprised, astonished, and did not know who was touching me. I turned and did not know what to say. There was no one there but I knew I was to be never the same. Years upon years passed.

The story of the spoken words, five words with the touch. A healing touch and my life changed. Another five words decades later. A confirming and a beginning of knowledge and my life was now further to destiny. The fire within fanned into flame to show where the small fire had begun to glow.

I was running at the start, always running away from the pain that would not leave. All my life that pain and absence of love was the matrix of my heart. No one would ever get in again, it was too obvious that no one really cared. It was taken for truth that I was beyond all love. Trust was only a word about banking somehow or contracts for an exchange of some kind. I was abused as a child, running away only to find gangs and international smuggling with the usual weapons and anger. Run, they will torture you or kill you. Run and hide once again. Be wary and keep close watch on your heart.

There was a betrayal of an effort of love, love lost and cast away as a raft on the ocean far from land. No compass nor sextant nor even a chart to show what was ahead. Just adrift and always in the middle of the ocean once my land went beyond the horizon. No hope and only death to look ahead to. It was what I put away in a lock box in my heart, thinking out of sight, out of mind. That box was transparent. Most saw in it through my eyes. I knew it was safe in there.

So, adrift in the ocean of pity, I did not know what path I was on but I knew something was happening to me. Getting fed something good and drinking clear good water. No idea where these things were coming from. After all, adrift on an ocean does not include drinkable water. Even tears are salty.

Finally a meeting was available to see the one true love that betrayed me. She was in a bad way, in a hospital of recovery from her own trauma. Drugs used to dull the pain, like a path I also chose before five words began the small fire in my heart and saved me from a bad end. “Life or death, Choose now” Words spoken audibly in an empty room as I was staring at a line of heroin. Obviously life was chosen. The addiction was gone and there was no withdrawal. A miracle that took decades to see who said those five words. Our Lord Jesus. There was something ahead for my life, indeed there is.

Bluffing my way into the hospital as a youth minister working with her father who was the senior pastor at Central Lutheran, I managed to see my lost beloved before me. She was in a haze of recuperative drugs as she sat up on the bed in her room, clothed in hospital scrubs. Dazed, confused and finally focusing on the one she betrayed and had discarded the love we had. She had moved away with a Guthrie actor and hid her engagement ring. Now Right in this moment, I knew this time was different. Only the tenderness for her was in my heart. I again chose life.

She awakened and recognized me and asked; “Why are you here?” Without hesitation, I spoke the words of healing for her too. “Because I love you!” I Said loudly surprising them both and then I left soon thereafter.

I had showed her the wood camper I now lived in and had driven two thousand miles to see her. It was disappointingly impossible for us to see through the recessed windows of the locked area. The small fire in my heart was being fanned into flame. There were my habits still to overcome but the seed of love was beginning to grow within me and the marriage that came decades later to a wonderful woman was right and true. I never knew what happened to the girl I had loved in the hospital. Rumors from old friends then said she was now living in New Orleans.

I found her phone number and asked her to send me the engagement ring I gave her at Theodore Worth park just after discharge from the Navy in 1967. I had met her at the YMCA when I was playing guitar as a paid entertainer.

Sometimes the fear and trauma would return but my wife helped me and with a counselor that said those memories and fears of the past were just that. Eventually I realized there was no danger with betrayal, violence and guns of the past. A word or even a tone of voice was the trigger to be recognized as just a vapor of evil, trying once again to destroy my life with fear. It can happen to you.!

The burning one with fire in His eyes gives us the knowledge that we are, indeed, loved and worthy to tell others of this discovery within our hearts. My heart lock-box was opened and I have never been the same since. The flame of eternal love is burning bright with the Fire in the eyes of Christ. It’s pretty good.

Norman Peterson / Jack Gator scribe

An Actor gets another Role

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I have always been an actor. It’s my nature to behave as though I were someone else. More clever, Experienced, or just dangerous. More akin to a chameleon. Whatever the surroundings demanded,

I made use of it. Often, just for fun. Very seldom, to save my life. My son, in the photo, acts too. He picked up the habit from me. Acting as a well dressed English man at a hotel in Kansas, just for laughs at my son’s wedding just next door. We all act really. As it is said, some of us are very badly rehearsed. I asked at the desk if there was a coffee shop nearby. I was directed and my perfect Peter Sellers accent was believed.

There were several times that I had to be someone else to survive. That time in Oakland when I was playing outside a Safeway grocery with my guitar case open for spare change. A passable country blues player by this time, I made enough money for food and fuel for my house I built in a truck bed. There was change and even a couple bills in the case when a large man approached face on to me and declared: “What you gonna do if I take that guitar?” Menacing. Big, especially if you are sitting on the sidewalk looking up at him. The guitar was a fairly new Martin D28 which I had purchased right after my two tours in the Mediterranean. $400. I casually replied: “well, I’ll just fight you for it till one of us dies” Staring into each other, eyeballs to eyeballs for an interminable time. The would be thief was not used to this calm behavior from a potential victim. I said that. I also meant it. The guitar was my life line to a can of Dinty Moore stew and a bridge toll to get to the ocean. Not to mention gas for the truck. No one moved, no one sweated. The big guy finally said, “ That’s cool” and spun around and walked away. Another acting role success for me.

The would be thieves across the street from my house, coming out the window seeing me, standing with that Luger, calmly. They left. I was not going to shoot them of course, the pistol wasn’t even loaded. Murder though, according to scripture. Not my proudest moment. They were just looking for their forgotten keys. Unknown house guests of my neighbor. They thanked me for looking out for them, but were wary and distant because of how I did it. I thought it was OK. The actor gets a bad role.

In Italy I confronted a policeman as street kid (wasn’t too hard for the costume department as I had been living on the street for a month) I knew the cops were looking for him, so approached the  Carabinieri and in his best street urchin from Naples dialect, asked directions to Trevi Fountain. I knew it was a half a block away. Not fitting nor smelling like an escaped top secret military man, the cop gave me simple directions. After a brief “Grazie” (dropping the last vowel) the cop said disdainfully’ “Napolitan” Whew, that was close! Joining the other urchins in a sub basement catacomb, they all pitched in their begging money and gave it to Pino for his birthday and he ran out and returned with pizza’s and wine. He spent all of the money for a party for us. I never forgot that. Brotherhood of the lowest of the low down citizens in Rome.

The toughest acting was when I had to tell a plausible lie to evade arrest by a Federal agency when I was mistaken for a man I used to work for. It was awkward and is a long story. It came out ok and it was a ‘think fast’ situation. They went away and I left that person’s house shortly thereafter. It was a setup from the man I knew and I turned the tables on him. It was a good thing the house was not searched and that’s another story as well. The man they were looking for had used my military and radio skill set to smuggle heroin. It’s a somewhat long story. I knew the agents figure there was a connection and I put on an angry face and told them that man had stolen my girl and left the country. They went away and I was not brought in for ‘questioning’ I decided to leave that acquaintances house that was on vacation. When they came back there was a kerfuffle, and I was persona Non grata. Better than the other choice.

There were other times I had to act to save my life. It was second nature by now, I was and am a pretty good actor. I believe it is a method of acting. That role I played was a time that I and Bruce, a Vietnam vet, bluffed some bullies down in Kansas with two tent poles held underarm that with the metal ferrules only visible, looked like ‘shotguns’ Stuff like that.

I even acted at the Frederic log cabin as an old warrior, now retired as an inn keeper. It was a film set in the middle ages for a Russian film maker. Acting, it’s natural and scary at the same time. I thank my Savior for that skill that has saved my life so many times so I can write about Him. Jesus, He’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Photo courtesy of my son’s portrayal of a secret agent on our hill in winter. Chip off the old block

Steeple Chase

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I was at an ongoing book sale that a local library has in one of their meeting rooms. The books are arrayed with spines up and a double row so you can see all the titles. Only a dollar apiece and they are in excellent condition.

I looked and muttered authors and titles to myself as I fingered my way down the front row. Most, if not all were novels. The impression I instantly got was they had all been read by a handful of devotees to the genre and were not getting checked out anymore.

I was startled when one of the back row books had a title of Spiritual Literacy. Quite a change from Danielle Steele’s work. Nice bindery and excellent glossy cover that book had. It seemed it was not checked out much as it wound up in the ‘cut out bin’ too. I quickly grabbed it up and flipped a page or two and what I read was enough to make the dollar price insignificant. Yard sale gem or a find at the second hand stores.

The Quote I randomly turned to was indeed on spiritual awareness and in a most direct and refreshing statement of truth. The statement tendered the astonishing way contact with the spirit of all life occurs and how we expect it to. A full range of eastern sages to modern thought was summed up. We think of a spiritual department of our life. Activity at the penthouse of our minds. Top floor.

If you are feeling a need for such things, get going and punch that 43rd floor button and get ready to pray, meditate, chant, focus on something to get in touch with the real deal of life.

Hence the steeple chase for western minds that a steepled building is the place where these things are talked about and experienced. I do look for the pointed buildings as I drive and wonder what they mean, why are they pervasive and how do you build and keep one?

Those steepled buildings are an excellent place to taste the sacred and also a good place to trigger the hunger for more. It’s the whole idea to grow and mature in our faith.

That one reference I randomly turned to goes on to state we can experience the sacred in everyday life. One simple statement startled me: “I come alive when I hear or play music” or “I come to life when I am in the garden, working with my hands” A.

Those are the areas when we are spiritual. To be vital, awake and aware. I did this today when I was swimming my laps. I started looking through the water as I swam and began to pray for the other swimmers I saw and often knew. Strokes and styles and finishing pushes. I have a really good instructor that almost won gold in a relay race. The only reason she didn’t was that a teammate jumped into the water at the triumphant finish and the whole team was disqualified.

She is my wife and I firmly believe the win. She taught me things and I teach them to fellow swimmers when they are receptive to small changes.

I like to do that and it makes me feel alive. It is connection with spiritual activity. I did not realize that until I saw the wisdom in that incredible book.

Another example: A small group of people get together regularly in a home or in a church and discuss and answer one question. They go deep and share their lives stories.

Spirit led and gifts of spirit. Volunteer work is as rewarding to the people served as the servers are. I was not aware of why I felt fulfilled working on weekends in a large church gathering, helping in media production. Visual and sound. I found people approachable and eager to share their lives with me. If I was asking questions of them instead of banging on about myself it usually ended in mutual prayer. There was connection and an uplifting spirit.

It’s easier if you allow the spirit to move within and give you guidance for the hungry and open hearts. It’s very enjoyable and often leads to continuing growth and friendships. Growth in us and them.

Recently I have been mourning the deaths of so many close friends and immediate family. Why me? Now things have changed and I am seeing the Spirit moving around me, with me and in me. Church is great and we have heard that we are the Church.

As Thomas Aquinus reminds us: “ Diversity is the perfection of the Universe” 13th Century Jack Gator Scribe

A. Brother David Steindl the music of silence

With many thanks to the Grantsburg Library andThomas Moore, and Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Gives and Takes Away

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 2 Comments

It is an essential line in a song our worship group sang. It refers to the essential way that our Lord deals with his will and plan for us. We do not fully understand this. Sometimes not at all.

Our kind and essential pastoral leaders at the time, did not want this line sung. They believed in our leadership in music and even licensed us as pastors. But, they did not understand the basic truth behind the taking away part. The understanding I have is that He gives us the choice. We can embrace a bad choice which he allows as free will or we can do the opposite.

There is always a road sign on that highway we walk upon. This way to join the summer tire club in the midst of a snowstorm is a complex choice. A parable of sorts for me. (we all enjoy parables)

Approximately a half century ago I was given those plain words at a pivotal point in my life. I have told this story many times. I would not be living here with a family and delightful small farm if I had chosen death. “life or death, choose now” A direct quote from Deuteronomy that was audibly given to me. I am still stunned by that grace I was given. Obviously what I chose.

We are all of us given that choice to choose a death or life in many ways every day. Curse or bless. People are in my way. Subtle but the reward of peace in choosing to smile and find a way to give way is pretty good. Simple things but obvious to others at times. Very obvious to me.

I love the smiles and relaxed encounters that occur now and then.

There are so many frowns that remind me to smile at pray. He gives me the joy and the prayer. He can take that away if I choose to frown too. The simple phrase of giving and taking away is a lot more complex than at first thought. He gave so many Biblical people those choices and many times there was a giving and blessing from a good choice. I have read it 58 times so far in my Bible of those things.

It’s very hard sometimes to see that choice. He has allowed so many of my best friends to die. We all die but when you live a long time they are taken away. Was it a choice for them to die?

We don’t know any of that. It involves eternity and that is beyond my comprehension. It’s an entertainment at times to be in a serious discussion with others to deal with eternity. It usually ends with laughter at ourselves and joy at the same time. It’s really pretty good we have a choice to embrace our humanity and blessings to not try to be God and know those things. We grieve and that is necessary.

One man I know chose both life and death, just for me and you. It resulted in eternal joy for all men.

As C.S. Lewis wrote: “God has an eternity to spend with a pilot in a Corsair in WWII going down in flames.” Just the two of them. Do you understand that? I don’t but I love to read my favorite author speculate and challenge my intellect. I set that thought aside most days and go back to it sometimes just for reassurance. I thank God he has given me that man’s wisdom to read and enjoy. I Love it, Life, it’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Jesus on the West Bank of Minneapolis

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There it was, there it still is. A two story mural depicting Jesus with his hands open to all who would come to Him At the intersection called Seven Corners, visible plainly from Washington Avenue. It was the building housing Souls Harbor.

That mural was painted there some time ago, it was there when I was working at the New Riverside Cafe back in the very early 70’s. Several columns in Gator’s Grace Notes have been printed in various newspapers about those times. ‘40 Acres of Musicians’ is one of them.

Seven corners refers to a major intersection that signals the end of Washington Ave and Cedar Ave and an on ramp to the freeway, Highway 35. Perfect spot really. “And there shall be a highway and a Road and it shall be called the Highway of holiness” That quote is found In The Bible, Isiah 35. As an aside to this story, I am going to use that verse as the title of my upcoming book.

I was a hippy at this time and I was happy. Living in an apartment on Cedar Avenue a few blocks away, 605 ½ Cedar. It was a hot spot of the musicians in the city as was the New Riverside Cafe, referred by the in crowd that worked there as simply “ The Cafe” Pronounced as ‘the Kafe’ by these in the know and we who staffed it. Ground zero for me, fresh out of the Navy and growing my beard and hair as fast as possible.

Lots of bean sprouts and other veggies on the menu as the Cafe was vegetarian. Cheaper and better for you and the neighborhood. The favorite menu item was soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. We fed the neighborhood, most of it pretty poor folks. I would give the soup for free to many of those people and and when they asked for the sandwich I would offer bread, good bread and explain to them that this was what we had to do for free food. For quite a time there were no prices for food there and a price for the world class music in the big room, overlooking Riverside Avenue.

The entire neighborhood is now Somali and the business’ there all have NE African names, but the people are pretty friendly. The buildings are still the same but none of them have old hippies staffing them. The free store, Cafe Extempore, Durable goods, Dinsaur Motors, and Bellvile and Hoffman’s guitar shop are all gone. As am I. I miss it sometimes and think about walking around the old place just to get the new flavor. (If I figure out the menu of the west bank restaurants) who can tell? We will trade stories!

We worked a miracle in urban development then. Stopping the development of Heller and Segal’s dream of “A new town in town’ A rent strike and political rally’s and the help of the local Anglican Diocese was the protest plan. A lot of publicity in the Tribune and it worked. At least most of the west bank that was left stayed undeveloped into high rises. Since the West Bank was so close to the Mississippi, it housed a lot of northern European immigrants in the early days before us. It was known as ‘Snus boulevard’. Chewing tobacco and sidewalks as spittoons was the Scandinavian way of nicotine consumption.

The movement of America’s Revival, the Jesus movement was in full swing. Almost everyone who worked at the Cafe’ were not interested in Jesus. Hippies were more into mantras and Eastern versions of wisdom. The impetus for the very low or non existent food prices came from Father Teska, an Episcopal priest that helped fund the whole adventure.

(His diocese was very helpful for me later on.)

We were all clueless to creation and our Creator. I became aware that my only faith was in me and as a result, I was not really satisfied with my life. It took a few decades before I understood what that mural of Christ was telling me.

The diocese helped with the legal issues I was in with the military after discharge. I was still living on the West Bank, but I left the Cafe to work for the Burlington Northern as a track worker. My first job with them was shoveling ballast for a section surfacing a hump yard. It was more physical than the work of a cafe worker. I survived and thrived. Real money then, over 6 dollars and hour! After a summer of that I got pretty jacked and confident in manual labor. It was like military comrades. Joking and sharing hard work.

I shoveled ballast for months and noticed that the guys moving the tracks just hung onto their lining bars while I shoveled constantly. Ballast to be thundered under the ties by a massive surfacing machine. I worked right next to it. I asked one of the men how do the lining bar men get assigned that position? “First one to the work site gets their choice of tools”.

The next day when I stepped off the old school bus that took us to the work face, I yawned and stretched and then burst into running and grabbed a lining bar. Lots of kidding about that for all of us. New guy wises up. I did a good part of a year on surfacing gang and then I listened to my old veteran friend, Bruce, who lived in NW Wisconsin and he bluntly told me to ‘get out of there and buy a house a half mile away from his. I got a GI loan and bought the house. I had no idea what I was getting into, it’s not like buying a truck. (more of Bruce and I in the “motorcycle diary” series.

Living rural, 75 miles away was different than the west bank and it took some getting used to. I then began commuting to a section crew that was in Dinky Town, just across the river from the west bank!

A few visits to an old friend from the cafe, Raplh WhItcoff at the Durable Goods store got me a nice new Josnereds 80 chainsaw that really helped me with the firewood production. I can’t run it now but can still lift it up. My gandy dancer muscles had no problem back in those days. It’s all right, It will break your wrist to start it, when it will start. My son, Soren, recently restored the old 80 and it is an amazing saw for it’s era. Determination to start is still the key. 80 cc’s of engine is enough for a small motorcycle.

Fifty years later, we still heat with firewood in our parlor stove and Soren does most of the acquiring and splitting the wood. I stack and split kindling. I do remember how to swing wood hand mauls and have a good time doing so. Keeping my oar in as the saying goes.

Our property has increased in value after paying off the GI loan. Paradise in it’s own rolling hills valley with a private beaver lake and a prayer cabin overlooking it. 30 acres of peaceful country life. It was twenty six thousand five hundred dollars when I bought it. I now have a beautiful wife, two boys and indeed, blessings that just came. I found Jesus was right beside me my whole life and eventually surrendered my being and soul to Him. It took a while, I can be pretty dull and unobservant sometimes.

As I quote Monty Python at times: “Well, I got better” It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

Pontiac Woody and the Minerva Chain

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I and my dad came up north (way north of 8) to build a cabin in the middle of the last century. Dad had a really neat station wagon that had a tail light that swiveled when you opened the tailgate. It always pointed straight back. It was a mechanical marvel to me. A usual car to start driving lessons on when you are around 10 or so. Three on the tree and the high/low switch was pushed with the toe of your left foot. Dad had wise advice when to dim the headlights: “Just when the oncoming car’s lights can be seen as two lights, then switch em’ to low”

The cabin was east of Danbury on Gull Lake. I handed tools up to dad as the roof rafters formed up. The end of the ridge pole was cut off and the chunk fell right on my head. I yelled up “I’m OK” and the work continued. It was a pretty small piece and surprising too when it arrived. It was exciting to be right there when the dream cabin was actually forming up. Dad was a city fireman and used to ladders. He built cabinets on his off times in our basement. Grandpa was a fireman too but he was too old and cranky to come up and help. Besides, Gramp’s didn’t like to fish like his son and grandson did.

There was one other family on the lake and they owned a small resort next door. Since it was my first time ‘up north’, this seemed a good place to be. At that time, a small flat bottom boat was at the dock and it was mine to use morning and night. I was not allowed to row out beyond sight of the resort where the lily pads were waiting for me. A fly rod with floating line and a small popper was my choice of tools to entrance the fish just under the pads.

It was easy pickings and the sound of the swirl and the tug are still vivid in my memory. A dozen bluegills and paper mouths in the bottom of the boat and it was time to row back in to the dock. Sometimes I put them on a stringer but those pesky and poky fins were a challenge when the fish were several pounds and my hands not quite big enough to pull the fins back.

Dad would scale and gut and lunch was served with the resort owners sharing in the bounty. Every decent day, morning and night was my job to row out and harvest those white fleshed and fried in butter morsels. There was a camper that myself and my sister stayed in while the two men went into town at night and they stayed pretty late. Sis told me much later in life that she seduced me when we were alone. I am pretty foggy about that but it would explain my sisters reticence for friendship when we were both older and with our own children.

We were still in bed when the time to row out and fish so we waited until someone awoke. I was a good swimmer, but the rule was, don’t go out where I can’t see you. Dad’s eyes were closed for a while on those mornings. The fishing was still very good in spite of the late start. After all, the two families were the only residents on Gull lake then. The lake shore is filled with cabins now. The fish population was diminished in an equal ratio.

It was grand and now and then, just me and Dad would get the motor running and troll for bass on the link between Gull and Minerva. We thought they tasted pretty good too but it seemed a lot of effort to get them.

They had to get the ‘big’ V hull boat loaded up and then start the motor. Dad always used artificial jigs and spoons, so no bait was needed. It was always exciting to motor up the channel between Gull and Minerva. That old Evinrude just putting along . There was no one around there. No other cabins, no other boats seen. After trolling for a while(with dad at the helm) the motor was shut off and the waves it made were heard on the banks. Ten years later, it was big Navy fleet ships that made splashing noises too. Waves slapping the hull from the battle fleet but the sounds were similar. I would be back in that small channel just like that. Sounds do that for me. They are music and that’s pretty OK. Music will moves me as a masterpiece of any art can.

I liked the sound of the small motor at the transom too and especially the smell of mix gas. There were dad’s smiles to remember when things got tough later on. In those early years, I thought a lot about those things, wondered where the fish came from and why it was so good to catch and eat them. I wondered why Dad smiled when they were together. Dad didn’t smile much back in the cities. Over five decades later I got some answers to my questions from Jesus, my friend who created all things. We do not think about the thoughts of young children and their questions of what and why. We are very complex and our thoughts on life itself are formed and dreamed about early in our lives.

It became clear why Dad wanted his ashes put in a trout stream, way up north. It was fishing that bonded me and my Father, and it was thoughts of fishing at the very end. After all, Jesus had a lot to say to his close friends about fishing. He still does. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

A Fool’s Highway to Redemption

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Chapter One

Frederic Wisconsin, is a small town with almost a thousand people, and several deer. A small red fox runs across the state highway by the gas station around 4:30 every morning. The town has a restored railway station which is very authentic. There’s a caboose on a siding, a semaphore signal, a metal-wheeled cart with wood barrels and a bright yellow track-section car. A chain-saw carved wooden bear, stands near the roadbed where the metal tracks once ran.

The station anchors Main Street, which is about a block and a half long with diagonal parking. Frederic has a smattering of small shops: a hardware store, two bars, a library, and the usual shops that sell ‘antiques’ and knickknacks to tourists and used furniture to the locals.

Leaving town on the state highway you will find a gas station with well made waist-expanding doughnuts a car dealership and a tidy golf course with another bar. It is a cute town with a nice cafe and a second rate self-service car wash. The people in the town are fairly reserved but will speak with you if you speak first to them. A few of the people will wax nostalgic about the glory days of the railroad and the daily passenger train.

When first told of the twice-a-day train schedule, I knew I had missed something by being born 20 or 30 years too late. Of course, the tracks are gone except the siding with the caboose but the roadbed is now a merged bicycle/snowmobile trail. The bicyclists park by the bakery and the snowmobile folks park at the bar on the corner. Much to the towns confusion, the bakery has been closed for several years from a fire. Now they only sell wholesale and the main street side windows are covered up. There has also been a fire next door above one the bars. A fire no-sale. Two for the price of 4. Soon next year, the two buildings, which were destroyed, will rise from the ashes become one. A patio for patrons of the bar and bakery will finish the project. As I write this there is still windows and doors to install and the insides finished. The town is excited about the project.

There are five churches of the usual preferences, and even a small Amish community on the edge of town. Their carriages and the clip-clop of the horses add charm and fertilizer to the main street. The small town chugged along pretty well and the years brought the expected changes. A late night two dollar store and an old department store now selling secondhand furniture and dishes. There are treasures worth searching for: top line toasters and old hard-bound books. The two dollar store has a red box for last years latest movies. I always wonder why everything anyone buys from those quick two dollar stores smells like laundry detergent.

The early-morning men gather every morning, parking in the same parking spots and sitting at the same table. sipping passable coffee and eating good sourdough toast. The restaurant on the corner was named ‘Beans’ and now is known as ‘The Tin Shed.’ It is an early morning place of connections and warmth on winter days.

On those snowy winter days the village sweeps while its people sleep, the snow and drift removal goes on with the metallic rasp of shovels and the diesel snort of the plows. Some merchants shovel other store-front sidewalks because they have hearts for it. There is camaraderie in the winter, a hunkering and shared misery too: dead car batteries, ice on the roofs and leaking roofs in downtown with all the flat roofs common in row-house shops.

The down-town sometimes appeared like an old man with teeth missing. There were too many empty store-fronts. The draw of the big box stores about 25 miles south takes a toll on local merchants. A small town can only support one antique store or one that has used books, Jackets and couches. Frederic had a burned out bar, a bakery with no public access, an empty appliance store and an excellent hardware store. One old one with everything you need a new pharmacy and clinic. There is a friendly grocery store with a deli and things the big box does not handle. My favorite is Lingonberry jam. There is an exit power door that sticks open slightly and that is a reminder that the wholesale grocery business operates on a rather slim margin. It still works but keeps the entryway nicely cool in the winter.

There is a food truck that shows up in the summer by the old railroad depot with great gyro sandwhiches. A tow behind coffee business is faithful a block up the main street parked at the laundromat lot. Great coffee.

A curious thing in small towns is an almost precognition of most things happening that are interesting and tasty to the tongue. An event gossiped about at the corner cafe would instantly be the new topic at the library’s world- problem solving group of men gathered in a circle of comfortable chairs, or at the local bar next door over cups of morning coffee. The hand cut Jo-joes come later. Worth the wait. Real burgers as well.

Then one of the closed store-fronts was suddenly transformed from an appliance business into a prayer room. No one in town knew what a prayer room was; it sounded beneficial but odd. A few speculations were made, but no one went in when the lights were on and music was heard. It was often quite loud, with drums and piano and even a violin and people singing.

There was beautiful hand-carved lettering visible from the sidewalk claiming prayer for the town’s county and even the county to the west which encompasses the river named Holy Cross. (St. Croix Falls) my family were the musical staff with myself on the fiddle. It was pretty good. The last ‘set’ was beautiful. It started at 7:20 and ended at 7:20 The clock had stopped. It was definitely a good sign.

“It’s some kind of new church!” was a popular speculation. Simply put, the songs also had scripture being sung along in various music styles. We were mostly hidden behind a partial wall. We were in there quite a lot and we were known as friendly and there was prayer now and then in the stores for people in town. One of the bakers down the street was healed of a lifetime of headaches; this was news. “When does your free clinic open?” “What denomination are you?“ A few sidewalk questions came over the years. Once in a while I would put a chair out on the sidewalk while live music and prayer was visible on a computer screen through the window. It was a simulcast of a prayer room in Missouri.

Indeed there was a mystery with this small-town House of Prayer. How did it get there? And after four years, where did it go to? And of course, the town’s biggest question: what was it? No one really had the answer to all these puzzles except for us, a handful of people who built it and staffed it. For after all, there was no pulpit and no preaching. To quote Leonard Ravenhill, “Preaching affects time, Praying affects eternity.” There was a call from eternity and to most people, it didn’t make sense. At best, it seemed to folks like a Salvation Army storefront. They wondered,”why here?”Why not? The presence of the Living God Jesus, was strong and joyful. We miss it and some locals do too.

Small town America, the heartbeat of faith and freedom for everyone. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

The Beginning, The end, And all the Important stuff in between.

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Everyone, I mean everyone had to learn the basics when we were children. It’s obvious even to an old man like me. Riding a bicycle for example. Did anyone climb on to a 10 speed racing bike and right away began strongly climbing hills with it? Of course not. So how did we get to that point of an understanding and skill to pull it off (starting with a smaller bike with training wheels of course) There had to be a teacher, an adult with knowledge and strength coaching, encouraging and helping us do so.

Another example: Writing and understanding language that is written. No one, not even Einstein, can do so right out of the gate of childhood. First huge flash cards, gentle words and skill as a teacher-parent to help us. The the writing part (my handwriting can use some improvement) but as sloppy and ill formed the letters are, imitating the adults writing words to teach us. Maybe even holding our child’s hand to help. It works, it’s the way things are done for every child ever born.

As adults, we still need this training. Some call it school or primary, secondary, college an upward learning which still needs an adult with knowledge and skill to ‘hold our hands’ to continue learning. As an example: I can now play stringed instruments, my son plays a full drum kit. He learned from movies and instruction from books and a few other drummers. Not me perse. A side note; the piano is considered a percussion instrument! How did I and they learn how to do this? Another Adult who knows these things. In my case, even bowing the violin while I attempted to finger the notes. Such off key and bumbled sounds caused my kind friend an excellent fiddle player, Bill Hinkley, to wince but so did my learning bicycle riding cause some laughter and kind advice. At least I did not fall off the violin.

‘So easy when you know how’, is said. These are simple thoughts that I am just reminding us of reality, so obvious, we do not even have it cross our minds. Even potty training. Teaching is a skill not all of us have but potty training is a skill that all parents realize they must do. It’s one of the first classes along with eating spinach.

When we are all grown up adults (except me who took longer to want to grow up), we seek a purpose and a reason we are alive. It’s the big question which opinions abound to answer. Often as we are getting older, we get serious.

Some of us do not want a complex answer. We look to an older adult that has some answers. Why are we here? How are we here? There even is a book which starts with those very words! Here is the the name of that book which many dismiss as ludicrous. The Bible.

As I have stated before: It is a book that is written by adults and if you don’t want to read it, please don’t dismiss or talk poorly about it. Wait until you become an adult and can think clearly. Read it, ask questions and understand what it says. It’s the only clear and rational explanation for why we are here.

There are also many other books which address the reason we are here and what to do about it and I have read a few of them. Many of them say we are here because of a random event that occurred long ago and we are also a result of randomness.

These too are books made by and for adults to read. Most of them are made up stories that are fun to read. Akin most really intriguing fiction that engages our imagination. All of those fiction books, tell us there is no purpose to life except to enjoy it and die. What’s the point of that? We hunger for meaning to our lives, not oblivion. I asked a friend that I swim with what he thought happens when he dies and he replied, “worm food” When he gets older, I can speak to him again about hope and faith. I pray this will occur. God knows these things.

The Bible tells us our God of all, created us just to give us the choice of loving Him or not. After all, Love can’t exist without a choice to love. Why do you think there is the Father and the Son? Both God and both in love. We question the Bible, some dismiss it, some read and understand it. It is a book that shows us why we are here, and how we got here.

At first reading it can be challenging. That’s the best part! You will be intrigued and read it over and over again. You can start anywhere in it. A good place to start is the book of John. It’s in the New Testament in the last half. This book tells us the real meaning of life and why we are living. It is an older book,written by many authors, and they all have the same subject, and the same Hero.

Darwin and Dawkins and other writers and philosophers, desperately write fiction to assuage their fear of there actually being a God that knows more and than they do. Most intelligent people do not believe a big firecracker from nowhere created us. None of them say where that fireworks came from. It’s God that created us to love Him and one another.

No one knows where God came from, ask Him when you see Him. It’s easy to say that, Its the hardest and most fascinating thing I have ever tried to understand, and realize what I am to do about it.

When that love overcomes us, It’s pretty good. Jack Gator, scribe

1. Thanks to Gregory Koukl for his writing to help me understand a few things.

The Streetcar The Dentist and a Violin

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It was in the middle of the last century that as a preteen I was given the task of taking streetcars to the family dentist. I know, it’s sounds like a long time ago. It was. Streetcars were the way to get around town. Everyone knew where they went. As the buses that replaced them, there were placards in front telling destination and the routes were memorized by all. There were transfer tickets, if you asked for one, that enabled the ride to go further in a different direction.

I was five or six years old when I went by himself downtown and further. The only street gangs were young kids that would roll a big snowball onto the tracks. The same thing as throwing a penny off the top of the Foshay tower downtown. It was the tallest building in town and is still there. Now it’s the smallest tall building in town. Word was if the penny hit someone it would go right through them! Terminal velocity of a coin that weighs the same as a hummingbird. The elevator was free but you had to use a coin to use the telescopes. Or just throw one. It was a Nickle which is much heavier but could buy candy as well. A conundrum to a young anti-social Asperger genius. Three Musketeers or a Butterfinger. Tough choice.

So, onto the trolley (which had to switch the electric pickup mast when a change of tracks had to be done) the conductors had neat uniforms and a coin box with a little chrome handle that he would constantly twirl to sort out the coins dropped in. I Still remember the sound. Right hand, kachinka, clatter, kaching, etc. I would Get off on Hennepin avenue and walk down about six blocks to Washington avenue. There was a news stand on the corner and they always had the latest science fiction magazines. Later they hawked Mad magazines along with newspapers from all over the country. The next trolley would take me to the family dentist. Great, fun trip.

The streetcars are long gone, along with their tangle of electric power wires overhead. The tracks are gone and recently, tracks got put back in for fast and quiet streetcars. Metro transit. Every one misses the ding ding bell and the rattle of the glass and chrome change hopper. At least people my age do.

It was much later in the end of the century that I was shopping for my first fiddle and a friend in the string instrument world steered me to that dentist! It seemed the delicate skill sets were just the thing for success. Oliver G. Olafson was the dentist/violin maker. He made 26 of them in the 1950’s The auction houses of today know of him and list his violin work as ‘inconsistent’ mine must be a consistent one.

I bought one and my friend bought one too! We called them by special names and they aged well. Since the dentists name was Olafson, mine became Olie.

My dentist was known in Mineapolis’ instrument players circles and the choice was good and neither of us needed dental care at that time. There was no Novocain for their wallets either. The bow cost was even higher. It’s advice from fiddle pros to spend more on your bow than on the fiddle itself. A local shop had a one star N.R. Pfretzschner bow for a few hundred dollars. The bow is now worth 3 to 6 thousand! It’s a nice bow. Musical instruments get better when they get older. Just like us.

That fiddle of mine is so loud that a microphone is usually not needed in small rooms. It’s a beauty. I am not aware of what it is worth. With age comes wisdom..sometimes. So far I have not been listed as an antique writer but who knows. I can imagine the antique road show now. “We’ve got an 80 year old Swedish model that is a little careworn. Still has hair of sorts and speaks pretty good.” A lot of miles left on this one!”

Actually I have already been bought and the price was impossible to imagine. You know the buyer, at least I pray that is so. He was a master carpenter and worked with wood . He is known throughout the world. Ask me if we meet, I can introduce you to Him. Jack Gator Scribe

Story Teller

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It’s our entire existence, a magnificent story that only you can experience and only you can tell well. First person. Truth heard or read. Autobiographical and, if written well and told with skill, captivating. We enter in and become one, fascinated with the passion that reflects all life.

We are the story, everyone is. Nothing has changed since creation. Danger and romance. Power and loss. Intrigue and betrayal. Movies and books abound for us and most of them are stories. Technical and how-to instructions can be stories of sorts too. I draw the line at the periodic table books. Analysis is wonderful if you want the study to understand but it is not the genre of human interest stories.

A good story teller can capture you and hold your attention. I re-read books like that, I watch revelatory movies over and over. Music tells stories in several engaging dimensions.

Audiophiles have vinyl records with tube amplifiers and incredible turntables. They have ‘sharp ears’ and need to tickle them without anything getting in the way. Of course, reminders are OK but Duke Ellington on a micro speaker in a cell phone is somewhat inadequate to the task.

Live music, especially worship, is a story and a lot of time requires invisible people to make the story come alive. My self, I have recently become involved with media production and the amount of technical complexity is incredible. The people I am working and learning from all wear black clothing. Invisible in many ways to camera apertures, they move through the worship platform. Their job is to tell the story of God and his glory. The musicians in front of them do their very best to help listeners to enter an area of our lives, an area where we can be overcome with the joy of uniting with the presence of God. Joining with the sea of worshipers through eternity that sing Holy, Holy, Holy…forever. That story.

My personal story is pretty exciting and I have chosen Matt Damon or Tom Cruise perhaps to be the actors in the upcoming movies. Story telling. Look deeper into your life and you will see the handiwork of God through the sorrows and joy. Your stories we all ache to hear and understand. I want to listen to those stories. Even though they are not be as thrilling as you think they should be, they are. I love to hear people’s stories as they come out of the wilderness, leaning on their beloved. The best stories, It’s pretty good. Jack Gator, Scribe

Sky Palace Part II

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As mentioned in Sky Palace 1,there is nothing in the Bible that tells us what eternal life is like except for the ‘room’ prepared and the presence of Jesus. As a people with imagination and a hope of continuing some version of our earthly life, we create heaven to suit us. No one has the full picture, for obvious reasons. The price of admission is death and only once I was given a small review by my dear friend at the moment of his death. He appeared for a few seconds and said; “It’s better than you said!” A message from his wife confirmed the time.

Why was I given this very rare gift of seeing and hearing a friend entering paradise?

What did I tell him? Whatever it was, it fell short of what happened and I am excited about that for me. Not my first choice right now, but a reality for my future which is very soon according to scripture. Our life here is just a vapor. There is usually enough time to make some decisions about our eternity.

One of my favorite authors wrote a short story about his vision of that decision and the veil lifted when entering in to forever life, better than we can imagine. The story is called “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. I recommend this short read.

Why would anyone prefer the Christian viewpoint of life, the universe and everything (Douglas Adams) We all have ‘the question’ of what’s the point? [another recommended book, “What’s the point?” by Misty Edwards.]

What indeed is the reason for our existence? Evolution can’t give us any answer, It’s the impossible religion of life’s meaning. . Embrace it and indeed it will be ‘dust to dust’. As I mentioned before in part I, none of the other religions offer anything but a child’s imagination to that deepest question of our heart. I am aware of the mention of an answer to that question and it is found in the most popular and well read book on the planet: The Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, all the words in it tell us over and over again about a savior who has many beautiful names, the most recognized is Jesus. No chapter and verse need be mentioned because scripture is rich with names and descriptions of this Man who is, impossibly, God as well.

The revelation that this man knows everything in my heart is almost too intimate and shameful to bear. The realization that at my deepest, I am not nice, not pleasant beneath my public face is universal truth. Look in your heart and be truthful to yourself. There are thoughts and actions and desires hidden, even from ourselves! The evil and wickedness of the world is not ‘them’. In the wise words of a cartoon character, Pogo: “I have met the enemy and it’s us”

The miracles that happened when Jesus asked for them are stunning and impossible. Does anyone know somebody that raised a man dead three days to life? He Turned the world upside down with more incredible acts and words than are possible for only a ‘good teacher’ or as some say, ‘just a man’. At His execution by torture, a Roman officer suddenly stated; “Surely this man was the son of God” Why was this statement made and recorded? Jesus being baptized by John with the audible words as Jesus came up from the water; ‘This is my Son in whom I am well pleased’

Or ,how about the thief on the next cross asking for remembrance when Jesus came into HIS Kingdom? That thief was granted forgiveness on the spot for his simple heart statement. I am stating recorded words from many authors before and after the life of Jesus of Galilee.

My favorite quote is when King David was given the vision of his future great great… grandchild Jesus. 14 generations away. It’s Psalm 110 “Yahweh said to Adoni, sit at my right hand and I will make your enemies your footstool”. Take it and embrace it or argue it away. Life or death, your choice. Always is, always will be. Track me down if you want and I will tell you the the truth, I don’t create truth, it just is.

It’s pretty good. Jack Gator, Scribe

Burdens

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

A very old story from the Desert Fathers describes a priest from Armenia , Ethymius the Great who lived to be 95 and died in 373 A.D. He was known to make baskets and supported the poor.

As he went to the market to sell some small articles (perhaps baskets he wove) he met a crippled man on the roadside. He was asked a favor by this man to carry him to town and he proceeded to sell his baskets after he set the man down. He sold everything and each time he returned to the crippled man, the man asked him how much money he had acquired and then asked him to buy him a cake and other things each time. He then asked this priest for another favor, “carry me back to where you found me” He did so and then the man told him “You are filled with Divine blessings, in Heaven and Earth” Lifting his eyes, Ethyminus did not see the man but an Angel of the Lord.

This story stuns me with the truth of carrying one another’s burdens. Instead of just saying “gosh, that’s too bad” and ending a conversation, there is much more to this carrying. How many times I have ignored what immediately fills my spirit and mind and moved on. Once in a while, I am reminded by that still, small voice we all know to stay or return and listen. Listening is the key to it all. After all, if a man in his late 80’s can carry a man to market, I can at the very least listen!

I must overcome my eagerness to get to the next assignment I have in my mind. Get those hose clamps and then stop to purchase orange juice, a small pie and some English cucumbers for supper along with other ingredients. “Gosh, that sounds bad for you, I gotta run, I’ll see you later” Or usually never again if that person is a stranger to you. Sound familiar?

Think carefully on the book of Galatians where it says “carry one another’s burdens” How is this done? Just like crossing a set of railroad tracks! Stop, look and listen. Stop and look at them, Listen to their stories. See what immediately comes to mind to help carry their burden, even if it isn’t convenient to your time, thought or wallet. They are just as valuable as you are. Precious created people just as you are. They are right were they are supposed to be as are you. The train rushes by and you are stopped. It’s as though the train suddenly stopped and the conductor stepped down and waved you over to park your car and climb aboard.

“There is someone on board you need to meet” the conductor says to you.

Maybe the suddenness would prompt you to do so. Maybe. I have been asked three times sometimes by that conductor to come and see and often reluctantly did so.

It’s not immediate to me but it’s good and I’m learning to listen more often and pause for that quiet voice to say something back. Whatever it is. The key is bearing with the life’s troubles that you are faced with every day an whether it is your troubles or anthers, to listen to our creator and follow Him. He knows these things and He knows you, personally. Listen and the decision you make is the freedom you are given to choose the path before you. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.

Vocare’

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And there I was, with a dual citizenship of a prayer volunteer and a media volunteer. I thought I was going to do something else and moved my ‘vocation’ or calling to another location so I could pray for musicians that pray with their music. Vocation comes from the the word Vocare which means To Call. It’s not a career. A doctor who has a career has first been called.

If we have found the peace that passes all understanding and can wait patiently, we will indeed be called. In the waiting room in hospitals, we wait to be called. That is somewhat similar, although we do not sit and wait for 30 years or so in that room, reading magazines that are not to our liking. I have been ‘called’ many times in my life and often it was after waiting a while. More than 30 years actually. I moved about a bit however and did do a lot of reading. I was waiting for Vocare and I did not know that.

Student, laborer, Naval radioman, movie projectionist, musician, auto mechanic and other ‘random’ occupations, traipsing through life and falling into various professions. Random it seemed and some of those jobs are better left unwritten about. Why this drifting about with a precious life to enjoy? Dependent on a breeze to detach me from the branch of my life and float down to yet another location, a wandering sign. It seemed so random but here I am, my odometer has spun around and my body is rusty and noisy but it still works.

One night, I was called and that Vocare has led me places that have utilized skills that I acquired along the snow drifts traveled. Lately, that calling has led me to a place that I would not have guessed but the life and training has equipped me to do so. Ears trained to hear beauty and eyes to see it. There is more to come, always is for us all. Singing prayer with others for years, often just us facing a room filled with empty chairs. This led to a Vocare to pray for other people as I knew prayer was a connection to eternity and it’s creator.

A good friend introduced me to a large church to help him pray. I was immediately struck by the hunger I felt there because it was the same hunger I feel. Now those chairs were filled with people that felt the way I do. I knew what to tell them. He is with them and He is for them. It was the connection with my calling to feel the presence of our Lord.

I was gently reminded by the team leader not to reveal details or struggles of my life, just to listen to people and reassure them and pray with them for their fears and sometimes with tears between us. It was good and right and I felt fulfilled and called to this. Compassion.

It often takes a wounded one to extend healing to another. 1

An opportunity to join my son at another campus came up. He is the director of the media team there and I could ride with him as well. (it’s quite a commute of 60 miles)

I immediately requested a transfer to the prayer team to that campus. It was hard as I had made friends of volunteers and with team leaders. The transfer came through and I began at the new location. When I arrived, the prayer team leader informed me that his team was adequately staffed and I would be put in reserve. I began praying for staff and volunteers as the opportunity arose. It was my main desire at the first location actually. My son and I get to the new location early and it is easy to connect with staff and volunteers.

It works well and I am also able to visit and pray with the band. My son invited me to join his media team. There were vacancies most of the time and some of the positions were advantageous to good production. I began training in various consoles As I write this, I am in the position of assistant director. Very rewarding. I have access to the rehearsals and just listening to them I visualize where the story is being told with the musicians. This enhances the visual and auditory structure of the story we are responsible for presenting.

Now I enjoy that dual role of prayer and media volunteer! Another combination of vocations. My background in radio production was a great help. Communication headsets and lots of dials and switches were familiar. I was called to communication at the age of 13 after all. Amateur radio and attendant electronics and Morse code skills. The initial contacting of other radio operators begins with the letters CQ or Seek You. It seems to be a similar calling to Seek and connect. Perhaps that was the training I needed to enter into these two worlds of prayer and production of an environment that embraces it.

People on the production teams are successful if they are never noticed. All the lights, sound and video screens enhance the story, the greatest story. We even wear black clothing that does not reflect light so we are not seen by the cameras which need reflected light.

What gifts I have been given by our Lord! A Vocare to listen and to see and then help others hear and feel the presence of the eternal God. Random it is not. You too have been prepared for a vocation to serve the world and reflect the love of Christ. Even if you wear black clothing you reflect that light. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

1. H

Inward

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It seemed to have started back in the fifties, An uneasiness, the knowledge that there was no future, for anyone. There was a war and it wasn’t the usual war for a child in grade school. Suddenly the sirens became active and it sounded like the battle for Britain in the old grade school classroom. Becoming a musician playing piano, I liked the low bass notes as the siren dropped octaves and finished akin to a huge motor coming to a stop. You know the sound, every small town in America has one.

It’s a horn and it rotates just like a Leslie B3 organ. Whooping and penetrating with incredible sound pressure from high on the highest building in town. The tornado warning horn. It means extreme danger and take cover. Right away. ‘Duck and cover’ under your desk, the one with metal and wood and then you will be safe from imploding windows. Waiting for the brilliant flash and having seen the Nevada test sites from WWII, the houses blown to bits by a wave of impossible destruction, obliteration. The desk and you would be vapor and the world, as you know it, would disappear along with your Hopalong Cassidy lunch box with a delicious Skippy peanut butter sandwich inside and a tasteless ‘delicious’ apple included. Maybe a thermos of chocolate milk too.

The bomb did not show up, but my belief in a world of wonder and beauty would disappear into the vapor of a lost reason to live. Many times I have had similar excuses for my behaviors.

Those things made me who I am but now, I can glimpse what I am becoming because of Divine providence. This side of eternity, we do not understand many things. I don’t.

It was so easy to look inward for my purpose and my strength. To believe I was the captain of my life and as I stated in one of my columns, inconvenient, every one and every thing was in the way of my fulfillment. Fatherless and basically homeless while living at home gave me the opportunity to create my own world. The church I was taken to every Sunday, all the special clothing and titles and programs was organized by what seemed to be a circus director. Keeping the show going and making certain everyone knew their place. The stained glass ceilings were pretty high up there. Even a scaffold wouldn’t take you high enough to break through. Corporate.

I went inwards and created a world I could control. All the pitfalls were mine to enjoy and even embrace counter culture that embraced me as one of their own. Timothy Leary’s famous quote, [Smash your brains, crack em] Communes that promised freedom became another church with rules and behaviors. Give us your truck, we need it for the farm project. Living in a house that had 30 people with only one bathroom. There was no such thing as privacy. It became surreal and everyone had a path they couldn’t wait to share.

I was in several communes for awhile, a long while. I grokked the ‘youth no future’ crowd. Again, we were masters of our universe that was a spinning cluster of stars within our bellies. Wisdom abounded and it was rubbish. More circus acts. I got older and eternity knocked so gently on my spirit and bid me come. “Leave that life behind and follow Me” Jesus said, a real life, real moral values not special robes and adoration. Just be who you were meant to be and embrace real life.

When asked what his goal was in life a man responded “ Get to college and get a good degree. Then go on to increasing positions in the work place to gather wealth. Then I will have enough money to send my kids to college.”

There is a song by Blood, Sweat and Tears , spinning wheel and it ends with a verse that says:
“ Some one is waiting, just for you” Who is waiting just for me and for you? Special us and all our wheeling around is just on training wheels.

I’m going to hop on that Norton Commando 650 and catch up to Elijah and his flamed out chariot. We can ride, side by side, and park on the sea of glass and shout and sing. Creation and created in awe and wonder with eternity to wonder and see Him turn his face towards us and give us peace. It’s pretty good, Jack Gator, Scribe

With much thanks to Henri Nouwen‘s The Wounded Healer

Acronyms and Uniforms

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It starts out simple enough. Mama and Papa. Our first acronyms of our world. Mamma E Papa in Italian (of course if you live in southern Italy you drop the last vowel. Mamm E Pap.

It’s easier to communicate in ‘shorthand’ it saves time and everyone knows it anyway.

We all use them and sometimes, it distinguishes us as belonging. For example: ER for emergency room, scrubs for clothes therein. DX or WX for radio lingo which translates to Distance and Weather. If you use those you are either a radio guy or an officer of the law.

Uniforms usually pocket protectors or turn outs and vests.

Lately, I have been accepted into an invisible society that wears all black and uses some neat acronyms. Bogo, Shader, Switcher and ME’s. There are a LOT of them in every subset of our world. I like ‘worlds’ describing command structures. They either confuse and you respond with “Hmm or that sounds interesting” instead of another acronym that shows they are also a member. AD or lyrics would work. At least there is no secret handshake.

I became aware of different societies at an early age when I became an amateur radio operator, or ‘Ham’ we communicated with Q signals showing we belonged and because it made long sentences into an acronym. Police have the same thing going for them. I can always tell if someone has a background in communication when they use A as in Alpha, B as in Bravo and so forth. Q is Quebec by the way.

Hams had uniforms too. Quick draw slide rules and pocket protectors were De Rigueur. Flannel shirts were optional. All the jocks had special words too. Not worth the ink to repeat.

We all do it, we all belong to a segment of society that has special words and language. Deacon, Bishop and repentance along with special clothing at times. Nothing wrong with those things either. All this is how we deal with the world and try to understand it. It’s tribal. If you believe in evolution, the concept of a trousered ape. Authur C. Clarke comes to mind with the movie featuring a thrown bone by a ‘caveman’ turning into a space station.

We use everything to make distinction between us. I belong. We do so wish to belong don’t we? Family is sweet and feels reassuring. There is certainly a family that we can join together and there are no uniforms and very few acronyms involved. The one uniform that seems to be recognized is a light in the eyes and a demeanor that draws you. There is desire to share lives and the excitement of encouraging one another. Jesus and His spirit and belonging to Him. You don’t even have to dress the same. Just draw a fish in the sand and you are bonded. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Inconvenience Store

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They seem to be popping up everywhere. In the garden even, inconvenient plants with pretty blue flowers that creep along the ground and invade your strawberry beds and choke out those tender flowers that are usually in the middle of the garden.

You know them, we all do and it’s very inconvenient to remove them and all their offshoots.The dandelions that are relatives and show up at the same time. Akin to the neighbors that come over a lot and want to borrow your chainsaw so they can break it for you.

You are supposed to love those people, really, it’s the actual words of our leader and the man who was God on this planet. A very difficult thing to do. To love these people. Well, he did tell us about the weeds and the good crops but People are not weeds, but often they feel like them unless I am one on the highway. Causing other hurrying ones to point their long leaves at me they grow faster on by me.

I began to wonder about a store that sold all inconvenient things. They too are everywhere and are popping up like dandelions in your neighborhood.

Outside of town and very prominent, lots of them now. They sell many things you really don’t need but it is inexpensive (another word with the prefix of ‘In’) Before you even enter, there is a machine that dispenses movies you won’t enjoy. Monsters destroying things like cities or the world. Heroic men that survive danger to kill the inconvenient people in their lives.

Inside the store (which has an odor of soap you would never buy or use) are things to buy that are not easily obtained without driving a great distance from your small town. Left handed chewing gum and cross threaded light bulbs. A plethora of baked goods that have labels not quite big enough to list poison ingredients and taste bad. Bread that squashes when you grab it.

Clothing that will not fit and as mentioned before a whole aisle of soaps that you would not even want to put in your car for the drive home. The list goes on, but it is convenient to get these things because those stores are close by, Everywhere. They all look the same and are lit like airport runways as another convenient light source for their neighboring homes.

The list is long. Alarm clocks that always slow down ten minutes so your job becomes inconvenient for human resource departments. The help all have respiratory problems, as to be expected. Most of them do know where everything is by aisle and within them. I try to imagine myself, just out of high school in a small town and working the cash register nights. I remember my first job when I was in high school and it was a breeze compared to this work.

Our world is filled with inconvenient things, troublesome things but as an old friend sang, “old and in the way, they will never care about you because your old and in the way” We are not dandelions and we are precious, every one of us. I know this now because my Savior tells me so. He made me and you and loves us all and our creator bought us at a very great price. Not Very convenient to everyone and valued no matter where we are on the shelf of life. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator.

A Moment of Silence

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It was one of those wonderful, stunning, and even a personal world changer kind of movie. Perhaps you can bring one to mind right away. For a while, we just watch the film and enjoy and laugh at the times that laughter is perfectly appropriate. It’s a good film I thought. I like it and it describes a bit of real life that speaks to me.

Unexpectedly, those films grab a hold of your past. So clear and so relevant a grabbing that with an astonished response, I became the emotion brought out in the film. It was a well done film and it was expected that the main character would be changed somehow. Brought out of brokenness and somehow, restored to the way that he should be.

There was a scene in the movie that this wounded man was given a simple task by another man, sitting with him in a crowded restaurant. Asked to just think of the people in his life that made him the unique man he was. The only one like him ever made as are the rest of us. Unique and loved and nurtured in ways we do not understand often. One minute of silence. I watched and was silent too. The actors were silent and it was a perfect time for me to do the same thing. Thinking of the people that grew me up and made what I now am .

There were sudden tears as I remembered a long remembered wound. My precious cat that slept with me every night, a real life teddy bear that purred and loved to be with me. It was the most precious thing in my life. The cat loved me and I loved the cat. Grade School onward. A solid thing that a lot of us have or have had that is really special. Some of my friends and family know the story, especially my recent counselor, who at the time knew right away what the cat meant to me.

I came home from junior high school and did not find the cat in my room. Puzzled, I asked my mother when she came home if she knew where the cat was. “Grandpa had him killed because when my new husband and I go on our honeymoon, it would be inconvenient when you stay with Grandpa when we are gone” Speechless and wounded beyond repair, I disappeared into myself for decades of my life. No one ever again be trusted with my precious emotions and loves.

The man in the movie was crying and so was I. The people who grew us up and made us who we are. One of a kind. Special. Loved. Some that I never forgave. Interesting word, forgive. It seems it means to give something special, a before giving leading to freedom. And yet, Grandpa was kit and kin and had a lot to give in some way to make me who I am. The man in the movie forgave and at the same time, watching and listening, I forgave Grandpa and realized what had just happened.

I am forgiven too. For betrayal, for hurting others, and a list of embarrassing and painful things I have done. Now I realized what was learned. To forgive as I have been forgiven by my eternal best friend. The friend who talks to me and can actually forgive all the bad things and the thoughts that I have kept within. The only man in my life who can do that. When I cry out for freedom from the pain I have embraced so long, Jesus embraces me.

“In the morning and the evening, in the darkness and the daylight, he is with you, He is for you. He is before you, and behind you, and beside you and within you, He is with you. He is for you, He is for you. Amen!” 1.

It’s pretty good. Jack Gator 1. thanks to Steph Mcleod for the inspiration in ‘The Blessing’

Random Life or Free Choice

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

The brilliant Irish Physicist, Erwin Schrodinger put out some philosophical and even Religious thoughts and writings. Nobel prize winner, friend of Albert Einstein and a fellow at Magdelen College. I speculate he possibly met C.S. Lewis who was a Don there (near Oxford) Both of them brilliant. Erwin, the discoverer of the double helix, wrote about Quantum Orbits and illustrated it in a unique way.

Schrodinger’s cat is a famous piece that speculates on a cat in a box that could be affected by a random quantum event. That event would kill the cat BUT the only way to find out if the cat is alive or dead is to open the box. Some speculations of the unified field theory speculate that the cat be both alive and dead!

What does all this high calculation lead us to? There is more to it than meets the mind. In fact, in the year I was born, Erwin wrote a paper titled, “What is Life” It was 1944 if you must know.

Many speculations from recent time, Greece in old times from philosophers abound. Aristotle and his pupil, Plato is a good place to start on logic. Perhaps Douglas Adams and his classic “Life the Universe and Everything” or even my treatise: The beginning and the end and all the important stuff in between. There are a few others at the website.

It all seems pretty heady and things left to those smarter than we are. Are they? Or are they much to same as us. Filled with wonder and trying to find meaning to their lives. As you have discerned, I am having a lot of fun writing about these things. It helps me look deep and find myself in the fabric of life. I have made some very bad choices and also some pretty good ones.

There is a great gift from our creator that enables us to make choices. We can love other people or hate them. We can choose to embrace our lives or live in fear that we are the cat in the box. Waiting for some random event to do something to or for us. Random things like car crashes or winning a lottery. An early death or prolonged life (figure it out, 1944 for me means pretty old).

We want to live forever, all of us and we have a free choice to do so. It’s a promise from our Lord and Savior.

A friend thinks he is just “worm food” when he dies, his choice really. I have been given a very rare gift in choice. Free choice. What a blessing when I heard five words in a locked room: “Life or death, choose now” Addicted to heroin at the time, I chose life. The quantum particle headed for me was gone. Life has it’s weeping and it’s joy and those are with all of us. We can choose life and trust that Jesus is for us, not against us, and he is good no matter what our circumstances. Let Him be your guide, no matter what, and choose him. He will even show you what choices you have if you listen to Him. It’s pretty good, Jack Gator, scribe

Three Shades of Purple

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The death sentence was hovering over all the graduates in the early sixties. The draft. Norm’s classmate, Vern Norton, came home in a box draped with an American flag. I always liked his last name, Norton. It reminds me of a bike I have always wanted, the Norton Commando. It did not seem pleasant to be shipped of to Viet Nam and die in the jungles for a war most of us did not comprehend.

Most of my classmates were still in college or married and had draft deferments. I was 1A and before being drafted, volunteered for the submarine service and was quickly sent off to Camp Nimitz, San Diego. Upon arrival, the laughing Marine DI told me me my draft notice had just been forwarded.

However, some enjoyment ensued as I was recruited into the Blue Jacket’s choir. Singing at graduations and church services for the officers on the base. Three sung notes was enough to either get thumbs up or down to join the choir. The director was a retired Mormon tabernacle choir director and knew music pretty well.

We got to wear dress blues right away and had ‘crows’ sewed on our sleeves so It appeared we were experienced sailors and a little older. Mine was an E6 and the other boots in our basic training were puzzled. I was designated as education petty officer, first class.

Upon graduation I was excited to go on to New London for Sub school and was interviewed with a few more tests. The high school straight A’s in advanced math and a general class amateur radio license at age 12 were the recruiters logical path to the nuclear technician promised. The new interview caught a color vision issue as I could not discern several shades of purple wiring. No tech job for me. No subs. (they are called Boats in the Navy)

A natural move was ‘A’ school as a radio operator and I was immediately put into a teaching position for Morse code and elementary electronics. Weekends off with liberty to visit old friends up the coast was a bonus. I really wanted those dolphins on my uniform though.

Later, serving on the surface Navy in top secret communications, I learned of the accidental sinking of the submarine SkipJack near the Azores. All 99 men lost, the nuclear boat still deep at crush depth. 1965. It might have been me on that boat and I would not be writing these columns nor be the father and husband I am now. The dates are possible, Nukes were new and the Thresher had sunk shortly before.

Saved from my dreams? How and why was I born with a slight color vision problem? It seems there was a plan for my life that has brought me to this place of writing about the one who saved me from an early death.

I am Telling you, the reader, about the plan the creator had for me that does not make sense very often to us. Time and again, I began to see a path that has put me right here. If you examine your life, you can see life changing episodes or decisions that have changed your life as well.

Myself, I was told I would be fired from being published by a newspapers new owner for including Jesus in my columns too many times . I didn’t like that after four years of being published every week (hundreds of columns) It seemed odd to be admonished for being a successful columnist. My readers that I met or knew were encouraged and often entertained by what I write. I assumed the new owner is not a fan of Jesus. I was not allowed to meet with him either. It would have been an interesting conversation.

I quit before I was fired, I was allowed to write a peaceful good by column. That newspapers editor said that he envied my faith. We are still friends. So many things happen in our lives that become path openings to more revealed beauty of the Lord. You know them when you look for them. The good and the bad times, the sorrow and rejoicing. He is with you, He is for you.

Hallelujah! It’s pretty good, Jack Gator

Memory

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 2 Comments

The majority of our brain functions is memory. As we age, we rely on a different section of the interconnections, and become fully integrated with past and present reality. Having conversations with spouses or other very close ones can be confusing with this transition.

“ We had the experience but missed the meaning., and approach to the meaning restores the experience” 1. When young, perhaps in grade school, there isn’t much memory to go on. Recent events dominate behavior. A fellow student trips us on purpose and many decades later gets translated into anger at unknown people that bring us right back to that moment. A driver tail gates and roars past, or there are too many children running around us in a crowd. Those things can be amusing and simply dismissed, or we can turn Descartes “I think, therefore I am” into “I am irritated therefore I am”

Memories, warehouses of experience can give us reason and purpose for trauma and the old mistake of saying bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to all people. If we can see the meaning and growth from the ‘bad things’ the memory becomes a light and the anger and resentment against our lives fades. True living opens within us and reality is seen as growth and substantive building blocks of the sculpture we become.

Almost all the old allegories of much older times recognized this and had names for our behaviors. We are shocked at stories of rage from Hera, Poseidon and Zeus.

The anger of Yahweh visiting plagues, floods and slaughters. That last one is the truth from Scriptures. Anger, made in God’s image indeed. Anger at unrighteous behavior of us. All of us. We imagine ourselves as ‘good’ but we know we are not.

The invention of the Lie Detector, Haller, knew that anger in lying was detectable as irritation.

So what can be done for our human condition of the two edged sword of beauty and anger? How can we be healed from becoming grumpy old men and gossipy old women? We abound, look around. Truthfully, look at yourself. Great aged saints knew these things and left us with sage advice to guide us in our getting ready to leave and getting ready to join. Jesus told us the be still and listen to him. He has told us, He will mold us and He will uphold us with His peace, that indeed passes all of our understanding. Going with the flow works for dead fish but going with the glow brings us alive. May His face shine upon you and give you peace. Jack Gator

It’s pretty good.

1. James Hillman

Put Out the Sails

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A process from the beginning of Norm’s life to the present. A purpose to communicate and to give information, sometimes critical information for survival and meaning to life. To himself at first and then soon afterwards, to others.

As a very young teenager, I passed the General class radio license and began this calling to others to talk and listen to other seekers. A beginning of a calling those two letters on the radio waves: CQ. I seek you. Training me throughout my life to seek. The only way to call someone in the world that you don’t know and will probably never meet. Texting without a cell phone. Protocall was essential and strict. You could loose your license if you used ‘bad’ language or manipulated with advertsing. It was great training to be a radio operator in the Navy and to have a top secret job, communicating with the CNO ( chief of Naval operations) to convey his instructions to us and our ship. To give specific instructions to our battle fleet. That fleet would be an oiler, a few destroyers and escorts and an aircraft carrier. Our carrier was the Enterprise, one of the first nuclear ones. Boy, was she fast!

Now, I am on a different ship. A warship of sorts actually. Called to another electrical job, helping a church communicate music and the Word from the Chief of Life to the ones who are drawn to seek Him. I felt it was a good path and it always has been so. I work at another desk with all sorts of knobs and switches to ensure communication is flawless and seamless to tell people drawn to where they can come and open their ‘sails’ to be filled with the breath of God.

He breathes over us with His Spirit and then, with our hands lifted high to the rigging, we rejoice once again to that movement and sway and even dance with Him.

The reason I have been called to this calm sea of people is to pray for that breath to be felt and even seen when they come to the calm waters. Sometimes I pray for the musicians as they are in the ready room (It’s called the ‘green room’ from old entertainment venues.) Also it is essetial to pray for staff to hoist the sails, knowing that His life giving Breath is coming to once again give the bread and water that lasts for all who come to eat and drink.

A hunger fills the sanctuary as the doors open and the ‘sailors’ that feel the wind of Jesus’ life, begin to worship. The people hear the navigator and then feel that Breath and rise as their sails billow and move them with delight and they raise their hands to the sky and worship the giver of life that moves them.

We man the boat, up in the rigging and drop the main sails off the main mast. Crank them tight and secure the lines. We Put out the jib and the top gallant too. There are uniforms that make us, the sailors hard to see. Getting out of the way as the room experieces beauty and the message carried of it. It is the reason people gather there. We together ride the waves of life as they splash and wet our hungry souls. We rejoice and know the voyage is true and right. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator, scribe

The Thin Yellow Line

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There are a few sayings that mention ‘ lines’ Drawing a line in the sand, You just crossed a line. A story line and what’s your line? A reference to a thin line has been used in describing one thing that stands between lawless behaviors and citizens. The thin blue line. Protectors in blue.

There is another odd line, lots of them actually, all over the country. We see and respond to them as we would to a movement hazard. Railroad crossings. Roundabouts, sometimes.

These lines of paint separate us every day from death and other unpleasant circumstances. Respect the paint! Don’t cross over it unless it has another line next to it that is dashes rather than solidity. Road paint, double yellow. Drivers ED 101. How do we do it, day after day just staying away from death by avoiding painted lines? On freeways there are barriers between Going faster but no barriers between passing and being passed.

It’s a stampede, follow the leader and it’s best to be the leader. Perhaps, this is a reason a person will pass you on the road and then a mile or so later, turn off. Sometimes making you slow down, even stop to stay on the right side of the yellow line. I used to think it was just selfishness but now, it seems to be instinctive to lead the pack. Clear road ahead. I am the powerful leader and it causes one to think, ‘what was that all about?’

At least the yellow line is honored and respected. Sometimes. Of course, crossing the double yellow is illegal and if a patrol car sees it, there is a loss of the 20 to 30 seconds gained and then some. Sometimes the loss of life and which is unpleasantness if you are involved in a crash.

Same thing in the grocery store with our carts, I have been ‘rear ended’ several times when the cart behind me could not pass because of oncoming carts. Running the invisible stop or yield sign at the end of the aisle can result in the inevitable “Ope” word. Even a ‘scuse me’ Slow velocities, no danger. I try to just nose out to check cross traffic and stay to the right!

We are in a hurry, always to get somewhere else. Yield signs can be ignored if you have a bigger engine and are in a hurry. Everyone does the ‘California stop’ just keep the vehicle rolling a little bit as though you can catch up in a relay race. The old pickup that was behind you floors it and if you are going a bit slower, the result can be a hand gesture that causes ‘road rage’ No one would be foolish enough to do that to a squad car however. That yellow line will draw that thin blue line in a heartbeat. I drove the chiefs squad on a windy country road and the the chief said “ slow down to 40. They will never pass”. No one did. There is a bit of respect still remaining. I’ll bet the shopping carts would yield with Open carry, It could result in the shootout at the OK chips aisle. Civilization deterioration. Frustration and anger linger just below our civil surfaces.

No one rode past the Roman Centurions either. They had open carry and respect was the rule of the times. You never know what a cloak conceals and a center console either. Take it easy, that’s what the thin yellow line stands for. Tailgating to acquire 40 seconds isn’t worth it. Be safe, Jack

Kindling

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They move through the earth, walking among the hungry ones that can be seen as glowing, waiting for their fires to grow. The burning one is seeking those that are looking to grow, they are just waiting to be on fire and then loop and twist with a solar flare that touches the flames of all creation. All of it.

It is the honor to supply small pieces of kindling to be gently placed upon those coals that have been waiting for a bit of fuel to bring into flame, the passion that smolders within them. A small amount of the spirit is enough to bring the banked coals into heat that can be seen. Then warmth begins to radiate out and is the glory of the risen King. “Light of the world, you came down into darkness. Opened my eyes and let me see.”

It is a treasured gift to give that desired amount of spirit, to be a carrier, akin to a small donkey of older times that has the pieces of kindling to lay upon the beginning fires. To gently walk among them in the night and encourage them to radiate Christ’s light in the darkness of the world.

There is joy within the servant that brings that small amount of encouragement. To bring a handful of truthful fuel that whispers the beauty of Spirit. To tell them that it is good and right to embrace God and speak to him of our hunger to burn with love.

The larger and larger flames begin to grow until the fires radiate love. Laughter and smiles among us all grow and blaze. We are drawn to the place we know that this can occur once more. The hunger is satisfied with tears of joy. This is the reason we are together. “Don’t do what you know to be wrong and love God and your neighbor with this love and you’ll be all right” A.

That donkey carrier, moves along with it’s kindling. Quietly looking for those that the small bundles of fuel will transform fires of life into a galaxie’s swirling arms shouting joy.

It’s pretty good. Jack

A. Mother Teresa Song lyric from Micheal W. Smith

Study or Lecture?

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A usual intriguing invitation to attend a study of one of our favorite books. With a relaxed and anticipatory attitude the date is set and marked on the erasable calendar. It’s a big one that is pined to the wall every month with new dates and exciting and often obligatorily appointments.

The day arrives and a drive ensues to the study site along with an appropriate container of coffee. These paper containers can be had and filled at many convenient locations. Settling down at a table, the leather ‘coach’ briefcase is set (in plain view for class distinction) and a notebook and ‘The’ book set beside it. Pen extracted and extended. Ready for scholarship as there are duplicate scholars around the large collection of tables nearby.

The usual chatter and greetings are somewhat abated by the leader of the study. There are several students that feel their conversations must go on for a short while longer while the leader waits patiently at his seat. Perhaps a loud cough or even a whistle is needed to quiet the room. One of those really loud ones that I wish I could do. The one with your thumb and forefinger type. Those who were still socially chattering act as though a glass fell and are silent. Good. It worked.

This is indeed a scholarly study with one of the scholars reading a half dozen or so sentences of the focused page(s) of the book. The leader asks the group for a summary of the last meeting and comments are givenand the new passage is dug into. More polite comments and references to other books and sources of the material are noted and quoted. The main dish has been served and the coffee begins to flow, pens and pencils scritch and scratch and the delightful sound of thin, almost parchment pages turned fills the room. Images of paneled rooms, lined with tall shelves of books are felt.

A lecture can be enjoyable. A good one is exciting, an average one is endured and a poor one can result in yawns and glances at timepieces. These lectures are often called sermons. The exciting ones are a delight. The room comes alive, the ones in the room listening lean a little forward and that rustle of thin pages begins in earnest. At times the journals and pens start their work, Images, words and scholarship for further study with others or alone near a good table lamp.

So, a good lecture or sermon can be dicey as to we attention deficit disordered ones. The best ones are as an excellent drive in the countryside which reveals beauty seen for the first time on the same roads driven as before but never seen. A flare of a sunbeam sparkling millions of rain drops frozen till they melt a minute later. You know how it goes. Surprise! It’s an owl that just flew across the road or a cloud rumbling and flashing overhead.

Music concerts or worship sets can do that too. Words and notes together make a good study and revelation of emotion that accompanies them. Standing, driving, sitting quietly or even jumping around. It doesn’t matter much when experiencing sudden beauty.

Conversations engaged with truth spoken and heard can engender the feeling of being in the presence of the wisdom of the ages. Old books opening and fluttering around you that you have wanted to read for decades are revealed with a single sentence.

I am dull and don’t pay attention many times to treasures all around me. These few sentences will perhaps open your iris’ and minds as well as mine. Beauty abounds and the wisdom of the ages will be whispered into my heart if I look for it. A child of a wise man said six words that have helped me pay attention to the wonderful world that surrounds me. Studies and lectures indeed. Focus. The young child said: “Talk to me with your eyes” The eyes of our spirit. Our maker of all things that have been made, turns His face upon us and talks to us with His eyes. Open my eyes Lord and I will talk to you too. Watch and pray. Then silently listen It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

LONLINESS

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Nothing can remove the loneliness that we all have. All of us. It is the human condition.

No one can alter that, A wife or husband, an affair, a community or commune.

No thing either. Money, power, position and status. Those actually accentuate the lonely.

I have used many excuses for my ways of isolation, never realizing it is universal and excuses are what we think we need for our behaviors. It makes us feel justified to blame others for it.

I felt such lonliness when I was playing fiddle for a well known country western band. We did a lot of Bob Wills songs and my favorite one was “Faded Love” the line of ‘I still miss someone’ wept off my D string and hung in the air. Sometimes I wondered why it was so tender to me and others.

Loneliness, It’s not a bad thing at all. If we would only stop blaming ourselves and others for it.

Henri Nouwn states this condition in a startling and almost unbelievable way. The deep chasm within all of us is actually a blessing.

As adults, young or old, we ache to go back to the womb, where a soothing presence coming upon us satisfies. From birth we cry and as a baby we cry. We are lonely, no longer totally embraced by love. It never ceases.

“Such a baby!” “Stop crying or I’ll make it worse” “What’s the matter with you?” Those things really helped a lot, didn’t they.

I was amazed to feel hunger when I first came into the very large room of my current church. I had entered with a good friend, high up on a landing above the room to be surreptitious and wait to pray way down below after service. Stepping onto that platform I started to weep. Instantly. I was overcome, astonished with the knowledge it was hunger that I felt. I asked our Lord. “What is this! Is this hunger, from me, or is it them?” His answer was “Yes”

It was the combined spirit longing of almost two thousand people that overwhelmed me with resonance in my own heart. That was the beginning of my quest for answers to His answer of Yes.

It was indeed, a blessing to be lonely and then realize my drugs, affairs, gang involvements, military comrades and even jail time in Spain with other sympathetic prisoners and guards was not enough to sooth my hunger. Even the beautiful love of my wife and children was not enough. I was lonely, always was. Just like you and everyone else.

Truth of the only love and embrace that would satisfy me came when I heard and saw the lover of me. All of me. Past wounding and wounding others. The only cure. Jesus. The best. Jack Gator

The Music of the Spheres

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

There is one thing for Norm, only one thing that he has embraced within since he was ten years old. It is seven musical notes that urge him on to seek more notes like that. A musical pathway that opens up into a canyon of music, ringing to him with the release of beauty sung or played.

The seven notes are the beginning notes of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. When Norm could play the piano, he would play that piece after lunch at home by himself. It calmed and washed all the grade school confusion away. He would walk back to school and often, the neighborhood bully with the odd Croatian name would push him around a bit. Like most bullies, he was afraid of Norm and probably would have made a good friend if Norm had known how to do that. A learned skill for life later for him.

The music that stuns when he hears it or plays it suddenly makes him shiver with delight. “Oh, it’s You!” It draws the inventor of music to share the wavelengths of love with Norm. Feels good.

His favorite author, C.S. Lewis describes ‘the heavens’ filled with planets and stars continuously singing to us. It’s in his classic ‘Out of the Silent Planet’ series. We don’t listen because it’s always there.

It happens unexpectedly which makes it even more enjoyable. Music is the transcendent language. Anyone or anything that has hearing can understand the language. But here isn’t really a series of books or classes that can teach us how to do so. Norm likes the way the music can catch him by surprise. A bird of impossible clarity singing the sun up. A two bit country band starting up a Bob Wills waltz in some forgotten venue. Norm hit the first three notes with double stops and cannot stop hearing them some half a century later. A worship set that ended with a guitar playing harmonics along with soft brushes on the trap drum. There are so many delightful surprises in music that go far beyond any expectation. A lot of them are totally for that moment, mostly teamwork unrehearsed. A ‘band’ sort of wading through a piece they have worked out. Suddenly Someone else sings and plays and the music swirls like a surprise wind. It catches the top gallant of your joyful sail and heels you over with a shout and speed.

‘Music, it calms the savage breast’ when nothing else can. Sunsets, shooting stars, an eclipse or two can be seen or painted and captured. The rush of breath of the stunning scene usually doesn’t come with a photo of these things. The immediacy of music, fading as soon as it’s played. Our minds caught off guard like an unexpected camera flash can do. What a language! Speaking in the tongues of sound.

It is the voice of our creator whispering those notes. He is worshiped for eternity with singing and instruments only found in the mind of a dying musician being presented with his score sheet. “If I could write down those notes! A man just reading that music would never grow ill nor die”1.

So, that’s Norm’s fascination and he suspects there are many others that experience the same thing. Satellite radio? Music of the Sphere’s indeed! It’s pretty good. “Every planet in his proper sphere is moving mankind in harmony and sound” 2.

Jack Gator

1. C.S. Lewis “The great divorce” 2. Henryson {Fables 1659)

The Watchmaker in Paradise

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I have always wondered what we say about ‘going to heaven’ for ourselves or others. I have been told by people that I was with during their last days or hours, that if possible and permitted, that they meet him when he ‘crosses the bar’. (old Navy term) Seems reasonable. As though we can figure out what eternity is like and can make requests to arrange things. First class comes with perks after all. We all know who is in that club along with our dear friends. We really think we know who is on the list, like Santa Claus with his naughty or nice.

Eternity is not just a long, long time. “If you cried one tear every year in paradise, you eventually have enough water to cover the earth. In no time at all” 1. How about walking to the crab nebula at a really fast pace? Just to take a look and wander about. Billions of years which of course, is a time measurement and is meaningless.

I once asked our Lord when flying over the east coast, how can you count all the hair on everyone’s head? I saw for several hundred miles in each direction. A lot of lights, millions of people. The answer was swift and humbling. “Easy , it’s a finite number” Oh yes, forgot about that little detail.

So if we are going to live forever if we have been saved from the Father’s wrath, what are we going to be doing eternally? Sort of the same thing we spent our lives doing so far? I get interested when think about worshiping with music. There are times when worshiping that are transcendent and stunning. Music then seems a reasonable eternal life style. My back aches at times when I stand and play. Ensemble worship teams that really only last a short ‘time’ are tolerable. With a new body and an incredible vision before me, I figure it will be the best gig ever. After all, the hours are good (forever), the pay is decent (deliverance from eternal suffering and hell), and the flaming sea of glass with the elders sounds like a happening place.

Eternally gazing upon the face of God and His Son would be the picture in a dictionary describing ‘Ecstasy’

What about writers, cab drivers, laborers and medical people? What are they anticipating with this Eternity promise? I, of course, don’t even have a clue. I have had visions as above. Exploring creation. Macro and micro. Living forever? Are there restaurants in Heaven? Perhaps asparagus with butter and salt on the menu along with German Chocolate cake. Are there bathrooms in heaven? Saunas and shampoo with eternal odor?

All these pleasures of our life now are like weak images for eternity. We have nothing to compare our lives with the thought of eternity. C.S. Lewis has written a few stories that describe hell and escape. The endings leave you hanging a bit, of course. Riding a powerful white stallion into the mountains of eternal beauty sounds good. I assume saddle sores are not included and the tack never gets worn. Is there such a thing as boredom there? That is a clue. I get bored easily. What if eternal fascination is completely encompassing. Forever?

The watchmaker be would assigned orbital mechanics and timing for the world he just left. Asking The Lord, Why me? “I thought you would enjoy it” is perhaps the answer. So, Joined with Copernicus and Kepler and others keeping the whole show on track. Making certain that the interiors of the suns are at the correct stage of nuclear fusion. No office cooler needed. Being a useful servant feels really good. Jesus knows all these things. He loves us.

It’s impossible to know Holiness from our position. It’s a Nice thing to contemplate though. We sing about the Holy Father and Jesus and give Them praise as we can. The Holy Spirit gives us the words. It feels right, it feels eternal. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

1. Gregory Koukl

The Chain saw and the Trout stream

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 2 Comments

It was an average late spring day and I was up in the birch trees in the middle of my land. The fairly new big Jonsered chain saw was running good. I had recently purchased the saw at a friends hardware store in the 40 acre musician neighborhood down in the cities.

I had washed dishes with him and we listened to incredible folk, jazz and bluegrass music with our hands in the sinks.

So, with the new saw, I was cutting light firewood for the new wood stove to go with the old farmhouse. City boy, railroad gandy dancer swinging that big saw around with muscles from the railroad track gangs.

Spotting the mail get delivered about a quarter mile away, I set the saw down and walked the hypotenuse of the field and got the mail. There was an official death notice of my father in California in the mail. I hadn’t heard from Dad since he and his third wife went to her home town in Tanzania.

Dad had sent me a a postcard when he remarried. That postcard had a picture of his “new family”. Most of them were working for Jacques Custou exploring the ocean or were involved with climbing Everest and getting their PHD’s in research of some kind. I felt a little out of it with Dad’s new family. Railroad Track worker on 30 acres seemed of at the other end of the success spectrum. I had no idea what had happened and did not get an invite to the funeral or the reading of the will for that matter. I went back and picked up the chain saw, walked or staggered back to the house and dialed the old black wall phone in the kitchen, I knew only one number in California, Dad’s,and got my uncle on the line!

The will had already been taken care of and my uncle now lived in Dad’s ritzy home in Rancho Bernardo, near San Diego. “He told me I was to be the executor of his will!”I shouted into the old Bakelite wall phone. I was puzzled until I realized my uncle has the exact same name as I do. “What did he leave me?” Was the somewhat broken question.”Nothing but we will send you some pictures he took and his camera too.”

Staggered by the theft, I could only say one thing, “I want his ashes, I know what he wanted me to do with them” Uncle and Cousin sent the ashes of my father and photos/camera and as a bonus, a metal box with fly fishing hand made flies. It was a small box in the mail box at the end of my driveway. Dad wanted his ashes put into a trout stream. They fished together back in the days before the family imploded when I was in high school

At a folk music gig way up the coast of Lake Superior, I noticed a small stream next to the lodge and in the morning, took Dad’s ashes down to the stream and tossed them in a hand full at a time. There was a surprising swirl of man sized ‘smoke’ over the waters each time! I took the identifying metal dog tag and skipped it out in the lake at the mouth of the river. Just like a flat stone would skip. I got a triple splash before the metal tag plunged into the water. It was a tough goodbye without knowing the story of the death and not even knowing he was ill. The tears fell into the small stream at the loss and shock of a ruined family coming home in yet another surprising way. Coming back to be burned down again.

I went back home after telling that pleasant man that owned the lodge the story. It was a nice place to stay and the owner was an acquaintance of my Berkeley house mate, Charley, who played with me the night before at the lodge. Good music to get lost in. Old country blues with a 12 string and my 6 string D28.

About a week later, got a call on the old black wall phone from the lodge owner. “Hey, just wanted to tell you I caught a really nice Rainbow just up stream from the lodge” The owner knew the story. It felt right, It was a trout stream, a good one and I still remember those man size swirls of ash from the ceremony beside that stream. I tossed the box, but not into the stream. It was a perfectly done task for my Father.

So, there was no inheritance from Dad’s money but my cousin did get to send his kids to college with the estate. I asked him when my boys were grown, decades later, if now he could help sponsor their expenses for college. “Nah, I’ll pass” was his response. My other cousin refers to him as ‘Rotten Rodney” Seems to fit.

The memory of that funeral by the river still lingers long afterwards.. It was the perfect and right thing to do. The stream’s name is the Cross River, way up shore of Superior, and later in my life, Jesus became the center of my life. I found the eternal truth about the Cross and the money I lost means nothing now. The honor that the Lord set forth for me is on that steam is the real treasure.

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson

I

Escape and Capture II

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

July 27th 2024 revised

ESCAPE AND CAPTURE II

There was nothing to be done about getting discharged after 2 years at sea. A big disappointment for me and my division Chief. He cried when I was led away in cuffs. After all, the next step for me was the same one he took. Brown shoe navy, separate mess decks. Promotion with perks.

My discharge said ‘Undesirable’ Bad paper it is called and loosing that Top Secret clearance came with it. It was years that I lived with the tag of that paper and it certainly lurked in my spirit as true. I felt I was indeed undesirable. I joined a big commune in Minneapolis when I returned from California. The New Riverside Cafe. (motorcycle diaries 5 )

I worked with old and new hippies and I fit right in. The only veteran, and after a time, I told the story to a co-worker and she told it to her father. He was ‘connected’ and he wrote a letter to the Judge Advocate General in D.C. (His last name was Kennedy.) The revised discharge arrived and it now says Honorable. I would never have the small beautiful rural farm, my unbelievable wife and two great sons if I had not been able to get the GI loan to buy the place in NW Wisconsin. Another ‘coincidence’ In my motorcycle diary series.

Years went by and then there was a phone call from Maryland. It was Chuck’s wife telling me that Chuck was in hospice with cancer and would like a visit. Long way, expensive flights and rental car. There wasn’t any money to do so when a good Navy friend showed up at our home with an envelope with 10 hundred dollar bills.. “Go visit him Norm” and the ex Navy chief turned and walked away.

I flew to D.C., and during the approach to landing I saw all the lights up and down the coast and thought, it says in the Bible that God knows every hair on every head, impossible, that’s a lot of hair! Immediately I heard the Lord say immediately, “That’s no problem, it’s a finite number” Oh, I forgot that detail.

Chuck did not want to talk about my refreshing new faith, just watch movies together and talk old times. I talked about Jesus anyway and when the week was up, it was time to go. Chuck could still walk and we went outside when I was leaving. I said: “When it’s my time to ‘cross the bar’ (seaman’s term) I want to see you there” Big splashes of water were on Chucks jacket and it wasn’t raining. I don’t know those things work, but I believe that he will indeed be there to embrace me and I will see that smile on my saviors face I have been longing for. Face to face.

About a month later, I got a call from Chuck and he asked “What are the words?” There are no ‘words’ Chuck, I answered. Let’s just talk to Jesus about it and ask Him to forgive all of the things we did together and apart. The young men talked a long time and then Chuck asked “is that it?” ‘Pretty much’ was my answer and they closed their talk well. (I also forgave Chuck for all that I had been led into as well.) Cathartic for both men. A month later Chuck’s wife called and said that Chuck wanted to be baptized. That was also very good news.

Less than a month later, I was deep into listening to a sermon at a Baptist church nearby. Eyes closed and quiet as a good Deacon should be in the front row. Suddenly, there was Chuck before him, walking away towards the drum set on the platform, pointing over his shoulder saying, “It’s better than you said!”

My eyes flew open and I began weeping and and saying “It’s Chuck…I just saw him..leave.” Julie began asking what was happening and so forth. Upon returning home, the answering machine had a message and it was from Chuck’s wife. She simply said; “Chuck passed away this morning” We called her back and thanked her for the call and then told her about the brief visit Chuck made before leaving at that same time. It seemed to be very reassuring for her for everyone that knows me and my stories. A gift from our Lord.. Why?

Therefore, another experience for me to use when explaining why I feel the presence of Jesus so strongly. It’s called having a convincing witness, It’s a perfect way to relate to others and it takes a bit of trust to accept that story. It’s OK, its real, I was there. I didn’t believe in Pompeii until I had been there. There is so much detail as there is in real stories. Read the Gospel of John that’s a real story too.

There are many such stories akin to this. Perhaps folks attribute these things to ‘good luck’ or ‘good Karma’, ‘The luck of the draw’ or my favorite “’it was an amazing coincidence!”

That’s OK. Seeds are planted and the sower goes on to do it many, many times. all. Stay alert readers, God is presenting Himself to you more than you can perceive. Listen as He is for you and the path can be hard to understand. Most of the time I am still amazed. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

I don’t have time for You

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It occurred to Norm one afternoon while he was cruising about in the family sedan. It’s the V6 model and when pressed, shifts down a few gears and moves along. Sometimes it is useful to accelerate strongly. Usually the time comes when a merge occurs, often during ‘stop and go hour’ on the freeway. Suddenly, a tractor trailer is coming down the ramp and there is no room for it in the slow lane (slow meaning under 75) and down it comes towards you and your road companions. Norm used to drive a Yellow cab and he knows what to do. Flash brakes and make a hole for the big rig. It makes it and often gives a little blink of the tail-lights to give a luminous thanks. Courtesy that costs nothing and is a flash of civilization that even surprises him. “Why would I do that?” It was inconvenient for me and it added at least a minute or more onto my ETA at the chiropractor!

Back to the Yellow cab: There seemed to be two types of people that Norm ferried about. People that cared about him and people that didn’t. Why would someone be interested in a 20 something cab driver? Why would the driver be interested in his fare? Maybe to generate camaraderie and get good scale? (cab lingo for tips). Perhaps a desire to get a new insight into life? Perhaps because Norm was sort of a ‘good person’ that liked to put people at ease? Who can tell, It’s known that it’s a bad thing to judge people and there are some we can tell that do that! (Putting aside that joke) there is awareness.

It is pretty easy for us to discern if someone, perhaps a very new someone is on board with us and they are easy to be with because they ask you questions and then listen to your answers. (Usually I can’t wait to talk about my favorite subject, me.) Sometimes though, there is a patience in another that is refreshing and calming to our jangled nerve endings. Too often our lives are filled with sparks of disconnect, as though we are on the subway platform seeing the power from the third rail come and go.

The endless chatter from the crowd, the drone of “how are you?’ “I’m good” It leaves Norm again famished for reality. How pleasant it is to even have someone say anything that shows the Light, a time of real interest. As though you both were sitting on Mars hill in Athens centuries ago, hungry for new ideas and connection with another persons life. The hunger for connections with another.

Calming our own chatter and constant glances in any mirror to see if our face showed the isolation and fear within. It takes a new heart, a resurrection of our internal gyroscope to stand steady and willing to look, see and listen to that fast moving thought train. People are crossing our path for a reason, always the unknown reason to be there and we can wait for it to go by or really look and listen. When we can see and be seen, that’s when things happen. The world stands still and two lives are then never the same. We can actually remember a name and a story. Brief and timeless as it was always meant to be. Always if we desire it.

Walking in the garden, taking in the beauty of the flowers nearby and hearing another book unfolding as the petals do in the dawn. Maybe even a field of sunflowers all facing you and drinking in what we all need. Light and warmth from outside of ourselves. The giver and the listener, dancing together with the incredible and irresistible but gentle power of the Son. A Monarch flits by and lands nearby,fluttering and flapping and dancing aboutl. Beauty given and when asked about it, He usually says: “I thought you would like it” It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Harley 1937 Flathead Chopper

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Norm was obsessed with motorcycles early in life. He would gaze at the ads in National Geographic for the Harley’s with clean cut drivers rolling down the road, the open road with the wind right there in their face. He could almost smell the hot exhaust and the sound of power. Up to this time, He had driven an older friends Sears Moped. It was a heavy bicycle frame with a small lawn-mower engine that was kinda neat and He would wonder why this slightly older man would allow him to drive it.

No problems really with the hunger that man had for friendship. He was a loner and not deviant as you already may be thinking. He was a bit odd like Norm and had no friends to speak of. The Moped was the man’s path to friendship but Norm did not respond to that so well. He had three friends that were troublesome as was Norm. The usual. ‘broken home’ was the whisper around the neighborhood and as a puzzled and angst driven boy, Norm joined his friends in trying ropes around burning barrels that people had near their garages and anticipating the flaming collisions as the barrels would swing back on the car.

He got caught by his father on that one and as per usual, was beaten in the basement with a wooden dowel rod. “Don’t cry, I’ll make it worse!” Stalag 17 in a North Minneapolis stucco house. His father had to take the heat from the neighborhood but Norm didn’t give up his accomplice. Besides, the other guy lost an eye when a .22 cartridge in one of the barrels went off. Enough pain for him for a bit.

So one day, another older guy drove into his alley and rolled up with an old Harley flathead 74 and asked Norm if he would buy it? Hundred bucks. By this time Norm’s father had been tossed out by the court and immediately Norm sold all his ham radio gear and bought the old bike. Investing the rest of the money in Ape hanger handle bars, Chrome plating the spring style suspension and putting on up-swept megaphone mufflers along side the chopped rear fender,it was ready for his version of Marlon Brando’s ‘Wild one’ and it was just in time for his senior year in High School.

It was loud and showy and the suicide clutch and the kick starter completed the image. Norm was despised by the staff and student body at his high school. Straight A record in Quadratic equations, solid geometry, physics and so forth completed the image. He may as well worn hair shirts and sandals and no one would have noticed. After all, he had a hook-his mother was attendance clerk down stairs next to the assistant principles office. She was a blond looker, single and ample insulation for Norm to be a bit outrageous. Grace was given. His mom had the principle wound around with her typewriter ribbon and a reduced sentence was given now and then. Mom knew the score.

He drove the chopper to the graduation party way up north and on the way thought there was pursut by a flying saucer. It had a yellow light that lit up the highway and it made no noise whatever. Parked on the side of the highway, all he could hear was the tink tink of the cooling exhaust pipes. The old Harley had a top speed of about 80 and gas was cheap back then. Usual party. Keg of beer and lots of odd behavior and now they all were ready for the world. Right. The chopper got sold for the gas to get out to San Diego where Norm and a classmate, Harry Rood, tried to sell encyclopedias, dressed in their graduation suits. They drove an old Nash till they got to the Seligman Arizona and it blew a head gasket on it’s last gasp of mountain climbing. A white Packard that used a lot of oil was traded for and they made it to San Diego.( More on that story in the column ‘Santa Fe Super Chief’)

They ate stolen oranges and grapefruit from the neighbors trees and never sold anything. The old briefcase from a brief stint at Minnesota Institute of Technology was handy to put the purloined fruit in for the trip back to the apartment. Preparation for life. Stumble around old Dago town and spend all you money on peanut butter and bread. The Lord was watching the comedy and already preparing Norm for his destiny. They boys improvised life as most of us do, thinking we are in control of..something.

God is patient. It’s pretty good.

Jack Gator

Memory Flip

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / 2 Comments

There was a time when Norm felt his whole world was justified to be the sum of trauma and loss. It was in a way but the way he used that world was unknown to him. He never wanted to be reminded of his failures with Julie or his kids for that matter. An adamant speech repeated over many times when he was in a conversation with his family. “Don’t remind me of that!” would come from him and finally, after a particularly intense conversation with Julie and Soren, Norm said it again.

His denial of his failures to be a good man to Julie because of his past, were the driving force behind his bullying of conversations. He did not want to be reminded of failures because he thought he was powerless to prevent them. It was someone else driving the boat. So he would blame Julie for reminding him of his failures, thus pushing against the only thing she could say. Things that hurt her inside. Things an insensitive man would blame on his old world. Not growing but living in limbo thinking nothing would change him. There was a way, a way to freedom from himself. It was desired and it was coming.

It, perhaps is well described in Latin: “Incurvatus et se.” A fancy way of saying a way of living that always curves in on itself. Seeing everything in life as affirming ourselves or not. Usually affirming our poor behavior as a product of our reacting to past ‘unpleasantness” and powerlessness to prevent the unpleasant things. Using that memory behavior to tell someone who cares about us to stop telling us about our behaviors. A convenient scapegoat, really not upfront on the memory radar. Just on top of the charts and navigation aids within.

A weak child making a decision for the rest of his life to not show compassion or weakness to anyone. Alone inside the orphanage of his own making and in charge of it. “If you tell me that my room needs painting in the orphanage, you are wrong!” “Don’t remind me of those times there, you were not there and never will be!”

As though Norm always had the last word and has an excuse for being a bully of conversations. Tromping on the feelings of his wife, Julie, because he, once again, does not want to be reminded of that long ago decision to be unable to help anyone. Let alone, himself.

Now,the reality of his young son’s courage and truth speaking in that moment, it stunned Norm. Change was afoot, change as obvious as change rattling around and around in the clothes dryer. Revealed truth, painful truth beyond this writing. Trying to remember every precious, angry word from a son. Desperate to heal his father from yet another curving around to short circuit tenderness and understanding. Anger at his father as Norm’s fear and anger from so many years ago watching his father beat his mother. Powerless then and now… truth dawning finally within. Not powerless, not leaning on his own limited understanding. He knew out of this confrontation things would never be the same again. The fear, the blaming of others, the violent emotion of facing failure and using it to disconnect from his loved ones.

It was leaving, there were footprints behind, oh yes. The footprints of disguise and confusion were leaving their life and soon, the thing would be out of sight. Only memory and yet another hidden path to a new bond and yet another strength that we all desperately need to be cleansed. Wanting that white robe, washed in the blood of the lamb. It’s pretty good.. Jack Gator

Featured

Falling in Love

Featured / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

This column appeared in the Paper around March of 2020. I snipped out the column and did not snip out the date. Often, I will look at a column with a fresh revelation about it’s subject and do a little bit of rewriting. Just a little. This one reflects a thought I had on December 7th as I was playing my viola with my family worship team in a city named after an Indian Chief, an hour south of the our ranch. Osceola. It seemed appropriate to share, after all the first motorcycle I owned was an Indian Chief. It’s pretty good.

FALLING IN LOVE Rewritten on December 8th, 2020, Edited on October 14th 2025

There is an emptiness in everyone that longs to be filled. That longing is in all of us, all. You can choose to ignore it at a fairly young age or put it aside for a season of decades. But, it’s still there and must be satisfied. It isn’t wishful thinking or a romance of sorts. It’s closest description is holding your breath for as long as you live. That emptiness is just as painful and destructive as not breathing. It’s akin to a hole inside of you that never is filled by you.

When in the womb, we have the answer for that longing. The connection with that emptiness is fulfilled by the presence of the lover surrounding you. That is, until you leave that warm swimming pool inside. An immediate cry comes forth. You cried, we all do as soon as we take that first breath. Disconnect, absence of the surrounding oneness, the lover of your soul and the supplier of all you need. Food, air and communication. It was offered with tenderness and awe of your life.

That longing now again needs to be filled. The food and comfort are given now in our vulnerable existence and that works. It’s not as intimate as it was, but now we can cry out if we are lonely or hungry or hurt. The child knows much more than we realize and there is one time in history that two unborn children knew they were near one another and moved as best they could in the womb towards each other. I’ll tell you in a bit if you don’t know who they were.

So a child grows into adulthood, and finds the world their mollusk that is never quite good enough to fill that eternal longing for that security and romance. The one we all long for. There is only one thing that can satisfy. Not money or power. Not sex or children. None of those things can. There is love from people or pets that seems to satisfy but they have an unpleasant habit at times of dying or betraying us. Realizing that the emptiness wasn’t really filled after all, the search begins anew. Spoiler alert: There is one thing that fills without a doubt and it lasts forever. It is the Lord Himself! Yes, I know. Another preacher. But this preacher knows the truth from experience.

We were created for this romance from the beginning of time. “In the beginning..” That’s when time started and throughout mankind’s existence the longing for the Lord has never ceased. When Mary and Elizabeth (her cousin) met in their pregnancy, Jesus in Mary and John in Elizabeth leaped for joy within the womb. John knew it was his Lord and Jesus knew it was His beloved.

As is our basic training for eternity here, we sort of know what love is and you don’t read a book about your future spouse to know them. You talk to them, look upon them and know them throughout the hunger for that longing. It’s almost enough but the real romance requires reading the love letters and talking a lot with the lover of your innermost being. We were created in His image. What does that mean? Making a decision to love someone is the image. We must choose to love anyone, and He chose to love us. We are identical in that way. We must choose. No one, not even God can make us love. He will not cross the threshold of our heart unless we ask Him. Ask Him about everything. He will fill that longing and love you as you decide to love Him. He always loves us, we must choose to love him. Let the romance begin. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson /aka Jack Gator

In Who or What do We Trust? Part 1

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There is a common saying around the world that means much more than the two words it says. It is about acceptance and it can be very misleading to some of us. Accepting a gift is pleasant as it also is getting a package from the brown truck. They could be one in the same as well! You must, of course open the door and let the package into your home. If you are not at home, the gift will be left on your doorstep. Maybe.

The thing I am referring to is the common phrase, Accepting Christ. It is usually a cause for celebration by both the recipient and family. But what does the phrase imply? Is it just like opening your door to have a package of renown given to you? It would seem the phrase would indicate that someone finally made up their mind to indeed open their door and receive a Man. It seems so simple, but what does it really mean to us?

I like the phrase, ‘Accepting the Word’ It means so much more and it doesn’t mean an instantaneous change and a new person that almost glows. Of course, there is an immediate change often, but at times nothing really changes. It can be world shaking as it was for me. I had been seeking some answers to questions. The big ones. “Who made the universe and why? Why do I look a bit different and why am I a bit happier than I was? Why do I think and do things that even I know are wrong?”

Answers that we all ponder and pontificate on. We all have ideas to answer those queries as well. As was said by one of the wisest men known: “Those who are given over to preconceived ideas are forced to defend what they cannot prove” Cicero 36 BC.

We cannot prove those big answers but some try with science and theory. Evolution is one of the greatest children’s stories ever expounded upon. It has entertaining value, much akin to science fiction classics. We evolved a brain with more synapses than there are stars in the Milky Way? Ben Carson pointed to that absurdity.

We have all heard them from some pretty smart guys. They are brilliant scientists and tell us that a big firecracker exploded a few millennia ago (the big bang) and all we know and see came of it. The new question which has not been answered is where did the firecracker come from and who lit the fuse?

All those questions can be answered within the pages of one very old book. You most likely have heard of it and probably have one. It starts “In the beginning” which indicates that time started then which is incomprehensible to us but we read on, and it starts to make sense. A lot of sense. It states that at that exact time, God created the building blocks of the universe. Then He made us to enjoy Him and His incredible creation Further into the book it states: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and Word was God. All the scholars and teachers that Jack has met agree on the description of Jesus as ‘the Word’ That makes sense after a while of study. A lot of reading starts with the above questions.

The Triune God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All of the three God and separate as well. I know what you are thinking. If you are anything else than a Christian, then it doesn’t make sense. If you are a Christian it doesn’t make sense at times either. Ask someone in your circle of believers to talk about it with you. Dig and keep asking questions. Be unrelenting in your pursuit of God and knowledge of Him.

Read and then study in ‘the word’ (Bible) coupled with some pretty savvy authors. My all time favorite for the tough questions is C.S.Lewis and his seminal magnum opus, ‘Mere Christianity’ You might have read or seen the movie, Chronicles of Narnia. (That work is a wonderful primer for Mere Christianity.)

Read Mere Christianity a few times and then put it down for a while and then read it again. And later, when looking for some light reading, read it again anyway. There was a group of scholars from Berea (modern day Greece) that studied like I am asking you to do. So perhaps another way of saying the tremendous realization of ‘accepting Christ’, would be following Him or studying Him.

The best way is to talk to Christ. Right now. He is delighted to talk with you. He is eternal and can be your intimate best friend for life. The description I like is ‘Became best friends with Jesus’ It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Appliance Wars

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Most of these things could be programmed audibly to fine tune their assigned tasks. The inevitable outcome was a version of “Open the pod door Hal” from Space Odyssey. The Lawnba mowed over the peonies and a pair of forgotten gloves nearby. Audible commands corrected that sort of thing but it proceeded to make mistakes. We returned it and the store told us it just needed a little tweaking of it’s software and it was OK…for a while. The toe of Norm’s boot was the last straw and we returned it for a refund.

It refused to clean up confusing commands. It was so handy and irresistible when it was demonstrated when we handed over the down payment for it. The perfect solution for a

family on the go. The lawnba. It was promised to mow, mulch, rake and take the clippings to our compost pile in the garden. When it’s tasks where complete, it would dock itself to the charging station mounted. Anywhere it was conveniently placed!

For an extra five Benjamins, it would go into the shop and sharpen it’s blades when needed. Amazing appliance that would astonish that we had a gardener. There were other similar appliances that were similar to Wallace and Grommets Auto chef and alarm clock. We both needed to up our salaries to get hold of such labor saving things. Time, of course, is golden and the extra work would make us perfect to enjoy the better things of life.

The Auto Chef also had a few quirks. Frying avocados and throwing them across the kitchen and accurately landing them on our plates but it was surprising. When the Lift Easy garage door opener squashed our cat, we gave up on those modern labor saving advances and began living as we were promised by the Lord. Plowing, harvesting and sweating the lives of real life. We began to slow down, ditched the overtime and side incomes went and worked.

The reality of my early days of working on railroad tracks and crossings made sense when I remembered the signs near the crossings. Stop Look Listen. A summing up of most of the well researched books and articles I have read. The Genesse Abby, C.S. Lewis, Mark Batterson and Nenri Knowen and the Bible all said the same thing. Stop trying to figure it all out, Look to Him who has the answers, and listen to that still, small voice that tells you that love is the basis of all things and what to do to engender that in all ways and continue the path of truth and joy promised to us. Promised by the Creator of all things and the miracle of life itself.

May he turn His face towards you, and give you peace. It’s pretty Good.

Norm Peterson/ Jack Gator.

Flannel Graph Jesus

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

We are made in his image. We breath in every breath Twenty five Sextillion molecules which get fed into sixty thousand miles of veins, arteries and capillaries. And the 1+1+1 = 1 made it all within us. As far as we can see into the universe. It is now seen as at least 93 billion light Years long or wide, whatever you want to try and imagine as impossible to comprehend.

God spoke it to existence by the way. How big or small is the Lord of creation?

I read a lot and some things stick a bit longer in me such as I have mentioned, meditating on simple things such as “who are you Lord and who am I praying to?” 1. I have also read about a church that Frederic Buechner searched for. He visited them all nearby. Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, New age, Old age and all the rest. He finally settled on one called Smokey Mary’s.

It was a large cathedral type with constant incense burning and smelled like Christmas. At the stage or platform as it is called, were the leaders and priests/clergy dressed in elaborate ways that seemed as the Micado was in production. There was chanting in Latin or perhaps Russian. It seems to me Frederic was seeking Holiness, mystery and something incomprehensible to him. It worked and the mystery was there. I would like to visit there too. “Never loose a Holy curiosity” 2.

No flannel graph Bibles to be seen. Otherworldly approaches to everything of religion and faith in an incomprehensible worship of the God of creation. A good start. There was no preaching with words that we have grown used to and even doze a bit thinking about Sunday dinner. Sin, Transfiguration, repentance and such. We just breeze by listening sometimes and once again, try to imagine what God meant when he stated we were made in their image.

I wear flannel shirts sometimes. I could be stuck to a graph in two dimensional purgatory for all I know. I heard His voice once, saved my life but I did not see Him or a burning bush either. I know I have been blessed beyond my comprehension many times and the only answer to that is my purpose is to tell everyone I can about the love of God.

What does He look like we all wonder. I stood and stared at the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and the finger of God reaching towards Adam. It worked as an image for a while. The best that Michelangelo could come up with. Anthropomorphic, to keep us all a little calmer when thinking of a million galaxies and it’s creation. By one word. A planet in the unfashionable spiral arm of the Milky Way. Orbiting a yellow dwarf star at 161,000 miles per hour. Every second our star burns 4 million tons of matter into fusion energy (E=MC2) Oh yes, we spin at 1,000 mph. What a creation. Just for us, perfect except for the north and south poles. Hard to live there.

1. Frederic Beuchner Also with many thanks to Henri Nouwen, Mark Batterson, and Tycho Brahe

2. Albert Einstein

It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

Contemplating Eternity

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

“In the beginning” Three words that describe the entry into the creation of time and the impossible comprehension of what time really is and how time and eternity exist together. Heady stuff. Once
in 10th grade physics, I was asked to do a presentation on Einstein’s theory of relativity. It was
impossible and the best that I could do was try to describe the bending of light by suns and massive
Gas giants. Light that would cause the known universe to actually be a sphere. It made our solar system feel like an indoor affair. I theorized that with a strong enough telescope you could see the back of your head.

The impossible times mentioned by astronomers which try to describe distance by the speed of light itself. A traffic sign out in the Crab Nebula: Speed limit 669,600,000 miles per hour. Light years
used to make it a bit simpler. A few miles a year. A bit faster than the fastest cars on the Autostrada in Europe. After all, the closest stars to our own are only 4 light years away, next door neighbors. So far, the closest exploration of space has been our moon, and recently, Mars. Not much to show for that effort except a couple of reasonably priced ATV’s left behind which are really neat.
The price for them is very reasonable, delivery is an issue and expensive. Really nice though, great on sand!

There is no logic that affirms bigger is more important. Saturn or Jupiter are not more important than
earth. The Andromeda Galaxy is not more important and worthy than our solar system. It’s just a lot bigger, Is a child less valued than a grown man? Logic dictates the answers to this question.
I am assured that I am just a valuable as a President and the opposite. So it begs the question: What is
more worthy than anything we can see or touch or hear?

The dialogue between Lucretius and Posidonius in Voltair’s writings is another, older dialogue between the atheist and a spiritual man. Never grows old, these conversations. Both imaginary men were written into existence by Voltaire and are brilliant and their arguments well versed. I leave it up to
you dear reader to read and enjoy the dialogue. Same one between Steven Hawking and Ravi Zacharias. Many acknowledge Steven’s genius as I, but in matters of creation he was a bit off.

The debate continues throughout history. As for me whom has been spoken to by the living God, it is a moot point. What a privilege to have your life saved to write and speak about Jesus and His gentle ways.

Time and time again He reveals himself to us. Paying attention to that still, small voice
from the Word of creation is key. Impossible it is said. I must be delusional and a fool. Such talk is
humorous and disappointing to me. Seeds of beauty and inquiry are planted at such conversations. Denial is useless. I know my beautiful and incomprehensible Savior chose a drug addicted young man for salvation. Me. No reason other than to be a witness in the dock telling such truths.

Look into my eyes as I tell you story after story that excites me. You can tell. I am not delusional nor insane. Look into my eyes again. The steady gaze I have seen from my King with an unbelievable privilege Is in there. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

The Perfect Picture and Frame

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There I was, running Camera 1, mounted high at Front of House control booth. Trying to ‘shoot’ what my director had told me to point to on the stage below. It’s a big room with often close to 2000 people seated. A dynamic presentation of the worship music is the goal and the camera shots of the electric guitar both far and near with energy, the drummer building a crescendo of many strikes on the tom toms, snare and cymbals visible to camera 5, a hand held camera.

Cross shots of engaged singers and a little energetic dance from the bass player also convey worship with energy. Somehow, the keys players are sort of hidden in the shadows. I would like the cameras to get close enough a shot to show the keys and the hands of music. It doesn’t happen very often but makes a clean and beautiful statement if it can be done. Lighting is an issue back there in the semi-shadows.

A constant stream of instructions comes over our ‘coms’ which just have one earpiece on the right side. “Look here, move there, pull back wide and get several singers”. You get the idea.

The room is dark except for the lights which can surprise you with a lens flare. I like them, most camera people do. We had five cameras to work with, the bigger ‘campus’ has 9 or 10.

I remember vividly the best shot I found. Near the close of the music, one of the singers stepped forward to her mic and as scheduled, prayed for what was on her heart for the room and anyone watching the screens in other parts of the church. In this case, there are two screens above the main stage too. We were ending the shoot and I swung my camera to the left and there, in the shadows was the worship leader, head bowed and hands clasped as we could hear the prayer. Almost invisible. I pushed my lens as much as it could go and just watched.

I saw a renaissance painting. A Rembrandt of shadow and fabric, capturing a moment of life that was perfect, stunning and humble. My director did not see it nor order the shade control to open my iris. It was just for me to see. A fiery sunset with all the pathos and humanity visible.

I never will forget that picture and it lingers with all the others. Orion as I walk out to our car on a winter morning. A sudden meteor streak through my windshield. You have them stored away too. A high splash of storm surf suspended in an oriental impressionist painting.

What a gift to see these things and realize they are timeless paintings for our miracle eyes. Ours alone to gasp and smile at. It’s pretty good,

Norman Peterson / Jack Gator with thanks to Sony for the camera photo

Working in the Cold

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Up here in the north, working outside without gloves, can be unpleasant. Not often, but it also can lead to frostbite. A handful of times, I had to work on cars and trucks outside our shop in the winter because the shop was already full of work. Emergency operations. Misfires, leaks and such leading to inability to get to work or school. Not much fun to replace sensors or wiring when it is below zero.

After the work was done, blowing on my cupped hands helped a little while I got back into the warm shop. I began thinking about why I got angry about such things. Why my spirit was feeling low. I was cold in my mind and not very kind in thought, even about myself. I recently have been training my immediate language responses to distressing situations. Using Latin and Greek.

Styx and Hades for example. Chronos. And others. I am making some progress. You know the drill. Easy to resort to old habits that are unpleasant to hear. Get away from me Athena and Eros.

Having something going immediately into me that would calm my mind and spirit. Calm, almost humorous come forth. Pleasing and disabling anger completely. A wind warming my spirit, blowing through. Pleasantly and completely felt. The new song and breath of God, as He cups me in His hands that I welcome with relief and joy. It worked! I did not curse you Lord, I dismissed the anger by just using the useless names of shelf gods that do not care if they are praised or cursed. Just words of humor really.

I am not saying anger is humorous but relief from it quickly is. Memory can be very useful and assisted by the third person of the Holy Trinity, is downright pleasant. I always wondered why Jesus prayed to the Father. Jesus the begotten Son who was with God and is God (at the start of time as John, the one Jesus Loved wrote). Who is God and who do I pray to when I pray? 1.

Good thoughts from an Abbot of Genesee to meditate on. How do I pray and how do they answer me? The holy spirit is the voice and guide in me. Welcome Him in and you get all three of them on an eternal party line. Meditate on that if you and I will and the advice from that wise Monk that tells me if I get confused about this, “just read Newsweek to relax”

It works. Just listen or read the latest news about riots, dissent and violence and then get back to chatting with the Lord (what do I mean when I say ‘Lord’?) and get that breath and wind that calms and warms our heart and spirit. Amazed once again by His gift of joy. “May He turn His face towards you and give you peace”. Shalom Shalom.

Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

  1. Henri Knouwen

A Dance and a Kiss

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was a real scorcher of an August day. The usual formula, 80 to 90 with humidity to match. The heat index was high and I always wanted to learn the calculations but plowed my calculus exam at the institute of technology. It was sweaty and work of that sort was on the menu.

Not the garden today, the weeds on the south side of the big automotive shop I ran for almost 5 decades. Metal siding and roof and a big commercial sign over one of the bay doors.

Everyone knew what needed to be done and everyone but me was already working today. Volunteer locust trees, accompanied by the usual weeds. Gravel on a slope all around and some of the small trees very close to the greenhouse and the cement foundation for the old pump house.

I began to work and the locust bushes (some over 7 feet tall) doing their best to turn into trees were on the A list. Main trunks well over an inch thick needed the long handled lopper. Thick gloves, good jeans with only one diagonal slash from a small chainsaw accident and excellent boots. It was hot and short sleeves prevented overheating. Then I had to put on a thick canvas jacket at the time of picking up the trimmings. It started to get a little hotter.

Several small puncture wounds and the forty foot row of trap rocks against the building was once again visible. The blood had dried on my left arm. It was getting pretty sweaty after pilling up the branches, weeds and such. Time for a break. I was amazed at how wet I was with sweat.

I found the small clippers that I had covered up with weed debris, grabbed everything else including my thermos of ice water. I walked down the three steps from the shop, turned left off the new sidewalk and went over to cool off under the shade of our gigantic Chinese elm. I sat on my birthday gift wooden swing and settled in with my water jug horizontally stabilized on the slats of the swing. There was a delightful breeze and the view is always pleasant. The white lap sided farmhouse with six gables and a treasure of small trees and plants set in the trap rock around the perimeter.

A swallow tail butterfly was fluttering near the pots of zinnias by the shop and it caught my attention. I asked to see a butterfly dance with an imagination and a wish. The butterfly soon came over the top of the zinnia bush flowers and it began its dance. Just over the grass on the other side of the walk. Back and forth, up to the top of the lilac bush by the house corner. Then gliding back down to the grass up to the zinnias. Dancing in the sunlight. Back and forth several times and then went out to the driveway and sat down. “How was that?” It seemed to say.

Why not ask it to come over and give me another dance and then a kiss? I closed my eyes and there coming close to me was the butterflies creator. Smiling with an embrace and a brothers kiss of greeting. He looked like I imagine Him to look. His description is found in Isaiah 53 by the way. If you are with a friend, the confrontations and weariness of your world are soothed over and sometimes, are forgotten completely. There is great comfort in intimacy with another’s spirit and the love of Christ shared between each other. Starting sometimes with a drawn fish in the sand. New and old. Transformation takes place again and smiles in our heart began to show.

Meanwhile, Julie was concerned as she hadn’t seen me in hours and was in contact with Jesus asking Him if I was OK. Quickly she was assured that I was ‘with Him!’ Her first thought was she would find me lying in the sun smiling and gone. At the exact time I was still entranced with the kiss of brotherly love and satisfied to the whole of me. I was indeed, with Him. “I could go right now” Not my first choice I thought but about as good as it gets nonetheless. A perfect ending to a love affair that grows stronger every day. I too knew I would have a smile if I was lying there.

I finally grabbed my ice to water thermos and left the swing and swallow tail and went in the back door to the kitchen. Julie was processing sweet potatoes for the drying racks and we shared this kismet of the butterfly and Jesus’ gift of faith with one another. Astonished by Him stopping by and then our shared joy. It was now toward the end of the afternoon. Julie was reassured as to what was meant by ‘I was with Him’. Not my time yet to “go rest high on that mountain.”

Julie mentioned that a few days ago she had been asking our Lord if she was hearing Him correctly that He would answer her earnest prayers. He told her to go to the raspberry bushes and pick four of them. Late August and the berry season is over. She found them and as in her usual way, wanted to share them with me. “They are just for you was warmly said by the Lord”. Very sugary and brilliant red. Four of them, all that was there. She shares a lot of things.

As I write now, I can see from my desk our flag waving on the long pole just to my left. The garden and the gladiolas and the heavy laden bean poles are also visible through the front door windows. I am still stunned. Indeed, I have a smile. Limitless delight and faith abounds once again. My work clothes are stuck to me and my shirt is hard to remove. A light supper awaits.

My mentor that I delight in wrote this about prayer: “And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another? I can only answer with the return question, “Why should my love be powerless to help another?” George MacDonald

Jack Gator With thanks to Henri Nouwen on the Lectio Devinia on Mount Tabor and Vince Gill for the song

Forty Years of Touring

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

A musical career that started around 1962 when I hung around with a four piece right out of high school. The Fables. We lived right down the block from The Trash Men and it seemed like a good path to follow. I just played bongos at that time even though keys were my strength.

In basic training, San Diego, I joined the Blue jackets Choir and marched and sang with them all through basic.

Next I was fresh out of the service and played at the Minneapolis YMCA for a youth gathering a few times a week. That time with my brand new Martin D-28 doing folk music. Peter Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez songs. Got engaged for a brief time too!

Soon afterwards met another two 12 string guitar players and toured to the west coast and back. We were calling ourselves “Actual Mexicans” and I wound up living in my truck out in the bay area and playing on the street. Mostly in front of my favorite Safeway grocery store.

Back in Minneapolis I did a few folk gigs on the West Bank at the Riverside Cafe and then toured with Hinkley and Larsen and Mike Cass through the upper Midwest and up the east coast to NY state. We played obscure tunes, some of them a bit risque. Bob Frank, Fraser and DeBolt, and homemade ones. Mostly blues and folk style.

Back in Minneapolis I played on the West Bank again and in famous jams with Peter Ostrushko, Stephan Grapelli and the Grateful Dead. I was offered a guitar job by Jerry Garcia. He liked my odd rhythm chops. The bay area summer of love bands are all dead, heroin. I declined his surprising and tempting offer. Read Motorcycle Pilgrimage 4 and 5 for more details

Off to live in Wisconsin on 30 acres and began playing with a country Western band, Dandelion Wine. Singing classics and playing guitar and fiddle. Bars, clubs, dances and weddings.

Years afterwards with that little farm and a delightful family I toured with Duck for the Oyster, a square dance band for years and even played in my own wedding with Bill Hinkley, Kevin McMullin, and Mary Dushane with our four fiddles for the wedding march. Fantastic wedding in Lewis.

I was on our families worship team, Well Spring and we went and played on the National Mall, sang at Times Square church, Madison, Milwaukee, Superior, and local church events as well as in our own created house of prayer in Frederic for four years every Thursday.

There was a terrific guitar player, Jeff Warren, I played with at a local church, New life, for several years. Fiddle, Viola and Mandolin with him. And that was about it. I play a little at home and try to keep my ears and fingers working and adding our Cabinet grand to worship in our living room. That’s it for now as I am aging a bit after Otto Uno times around the sun.

I sing along with songs from my PC right next the piano and am satisfied with 40 years of touring. I now work for Eagle Brook Church in Video production and it is very satisfying. Often I wonder why I do not get asked to play with some of the groups that I still come in contact with, impromptu gigs as well as posted ones in local coffee houses and the small town newspaper nearby.

I believe it is the Lord and his Holy paint caravan showing me once again, A fool on the road to redemption (title of my upcoming book)1stprinting 1stbook for sale for $25,000

As usual, It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

Photo of Bill and Judy with thanks to The Prairie Home Companion

Photo below of Bruce Berglund, founder of Actual Mexicans band and my best friend