Often referred to as ‘rock hounds’ they are at home on the shore of the biggest fresh water lake on the planet. Superior. Walking among the big and medium rocks and peering down to see what treasures the fresh wash reveals. The pros have a flashlight to shine through the crystalline formations and see what is in there.
Julie and I visit the ‘North Shore’ once or twice a year and wander several beaches that are known to have agates hidden among the clutter and clatter of stones. The waves wash up and that’s a good place to look too.
Very old stories of rocks and water wash through our minds. How long has that incredible Agate been polished and tumbled about? Where did it originate from? Grasped with thumb and forefinger and turned around a bit in the light. Plunk. Into the handy bucket you are carrying or, if it is reasonably flat, and not an agate, it is skipped out across the water. Skip, skip. Skip, Skip plunk. “nice one, four! A little curl on the forefinger, spin and whip flat to the surface.
Tedious work and it can lead to forward bending that lasts a bit longer than the expedition. Bring the treasures home and then put them in a larger container. Everyone around here has one. Some polish them in tumblers and even cut them and make them into jewelry. Usually though, they wind up in a glass canning jar and the lid gets a bit dusty. Treasure, it’s like that. Acquisition is the thrill and the exchange of worth is one man’s treasure is another man’s..rocks.
This is why when I haul the garbage container up the driveway (empty) I look down at the gravel and every now and then, stop and pick up a likely candidate of Stone treasure. Nope. Maybe! Nope. It was raining today so I didn’t have to spit on one to see if it was what I hoped it was.
That’s’ my life. Treasure hunting. Books are the best place for me to hunt. Suddenly words catch my minds eye and I look a bit closer and see treasure. Stop and look. Can I see or hear without getting in the way? Centuries of beauty in plain sight and there is no purchase involved. Just look and gaze into eternity flowing into you. Don t’ forget to breathe. Tears are OK. They wash our stony hearts and the glow is seen that was always there. Once again Adonis is mine, and I am His. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator
It’s usually very early in the morning that the howling of the pack of coyotes comes through the small open window in our bedroom. Just a little fresh air is nice, even in the winter, but the hoot of the owls and those pesky coyotes wake us up now and then.
Tempting to get out the big flashlight and the flat trajectory rifle that shoots tiny bullets very, very fast (4,000 fpm) a .220 Swift. It’s too early in the day and we all are asleep. There are no sheep to protect and we tire a bit of the old chickens that are down on production anyway. However, they are in the coop and the pets are in the house so we roll over and pull up the quilt.
Those coyotes remind me of Facebook and my postings of these columns in a way. How many hits have I got from yesterday? We eagerly howl and prance around with success of the hunt for fame and perhaps even a meal or two. “Lets have lunch sometime, I really liked your latest”
It’s a relatively new addiction for everyone. Not too long ago with 56K modems and twisted pair phone lines, the concept of watching movies and world wide communication with almost instantaneous speed was reserved for the military.
Back in the sixties, I would be in the top secret communications room. Locked in. And with teletype hooked into a pretty fast network at sea, we did pretty good. When I was a teenager, it was with CW ham radio (continuous wave, Morse code) I was able to communicate with other ham operators overseas sometimes. It was fast but no audio and certainly no video streaming! After all, light speed is pretty fast but the technical description would be, Not much bandwidth.
So now, I sit at my desk with fiber optic internet hooked up to my computer and look at my stats for my face book and my Word Press web site at the same time. How many ‘likes’ and even comments on my latest posts! Even a heart emoji takes the thrill to a new level.
The internet coyote howls arise as some of my blogging pals have a huge fan club and mine is just starting to grow with only 400 columns so far. Encouragement isn’t bad of course, but the bragging and howl in my spirit is taken as more than encouragement. Come to the feeding trough of fame! You are important and we will trade the meals as you chow down on my blog and I on yours. Wait till my book comes out!
As I write about my best friend, Jesus, I realize the coyote howl is a world’s weak way of expressing worth. Power and fame and sometimes even fortune to those that can get the pack to howl the loudest. When I am gone, those coyote howls will be gone too. There is treasure in the Lords still, small voice of eternity speaking of real worth to me. It is the greatest treasure. And it is forever indescribable love. It’s pretty good.
Jack Gator ( with a poetical thank you to Allen Ginsberg for his Howl.)
Immediately after the illuminating and inspired message from a man before us is an invitation for those in the room to come to the front if they wish for prayer. It was my first assignment to assist, to help those who would know their hunger enough to be bold and come forward.
My first experience at this large church gathering as I came out to a landing high above the room I began to weep, immediately. I was overcome with the hunger I felt from a thousand souls facing forward. Was it my hunger I asked. “Yes it is also their hunger that is now overwhelming you with all men’s hunger.” Like all of us as children when we need bread for our body, we run towards our parents for food but it is first of all we need their love.
I went down the long side stairway to the main floor and did not trip with my worn shoes and soul. I went forward to stand before the huge bass bins (speakers) and faced the room with my friend who knew what to do and knew I was in the right place with him. Still stunned by the voice that told me it was hunger that all of us have. What can I say to them that ask me for prayer? Those words are suddenly given.
A handful of a thousand felt that hunger and came to us to tell them once again, that He loves them, in that moment. They needed to know that He would never leave them when their world grows dark and holds them in His arms and loves them the He way he always does.
The real needs we have for healing and assurance are always known by our eternal Father. His desire is first for us to reach towards His heart and loving presence. The giver of life wants to give us Himself and indeed tell us once again of His love. His Spirit in our hearts is kindled to flame and His tender voice is heard.
The tears flow among them as the hunger for Him brings forth His presence once again, in that moment, He holds us close and fills us with the bread of life. The one thing that we needed, the only thing. It is the wonder of the words, audible at times when we are alone, that indeed say, “It’s OK, I am with you right here, right now.”
Most of us are a bit shy about asking for prayer and just the moving forward to ask another to join in with you is brave surrender. In the past, prayer with others was done by a handful of us behind doors. It started in our pastors office, then we moved to a small room that had a sign on it. Prayer. It’s a declaration of hunger for God to others and the others are most likely just as hungry to join you. After all, Jesus said when two or more of us join together this way, He is among us.
It’s pretty good, Jack Gator
Thanks once again for George MacDonald and Jon Thurlow for truth written and often sung.
How can this be? A quilt of life that is surprisingly delightful and just as easily not comprehended. Everyone has this road of travel and when trying to explain our lives. For me, it seems like I am bragging about adventure and failure, fear and success and a thorough drifting about life as a blown about maple leaf in the street. Just there by some random wind. Wrinkled by the forces that put me there, run over a few times and still seen as it once was. Life that hangs onto creation, fluttering in the blown wind of God’s breath and now, seemingly bound for …somewhere.
To that leaf, it seems an exciting life, watching growth and seeing other maples growing nearby. Weathering snapping lightning and severe winds. Basking in life giving light and warmth and envying the oak leaves that are better at hanging on through the winters.
Being reborn every year and feeling the contribution of energy given in enough amount to give again the impossible sap that nourishes the created tree and the people that know the sap is also to nourish them with sweetness that always delights.
What is my purpose in life? To grow and feel my life unfold with reward and danger. Then be gifted and surprised by hearing it’s OK to be what I am and to move with the wind of the presence of God’s breath and guidance. It wasn’t always obvious I was being prepared to a purpose of serving when it seemed that survival and pleasure was my given life. Subjective or Objective reality. The Tau and the famous Greek philosophy or our own versions of truth which are subject to us and our emotions. Instead of listening to the perfect truth of Christ. ‘The abolition of Man’ by C.S. Lewis explains these things better than I can.
The trauma of violence of childhood, and then wandering throughout the land and being blown about by seemingly random events that formed me. Having my own secretary at 16 years old in a mansion in Minneapolis, working with the Boy Scouts communicating via Ham Radio to a far flung camp without a telephone. Then failing my calculus in engineering at MIT, joining the military and being caught up in a war at sea. More wandering and evading death in California many times, once with the audible voice of God I did not know, eventually I started an impossible auto repair business in rural Wisconsin. It was Successful and then I was blessed with marriage and two children and a beautiful and faithful wife. Hearing again those words that can’t be believed by many people. Gifts of God.
I saw my best friend, speak five words to me and enter heaven from 2000 miles away. Many things that eventually lead to leading worship in a tiny rural church that gave me and my wife documents saying we were now pastors. We put them in a drawer. My whole family built a house of prayer in a small empty main street shop if Frederic, Wisconsin and staffed it for almost 4 years. Singing and playing and praying. We were overcome with God’s beauty and love. We also traveled a little around the country worshiping with other lovers of Jesus. Our sons with us in DC and other places.
Now the maple leaf is indeed withered and quieter, still blessed with sustenance and beauty. And now joined with other people that have similar blessings and and need for sustenance and encouragement.
I tap into that flow of life once again that I am given by my creator, that gift of light and love that was always there. I am beginning to watch and stop and listen for the voice that is the best book and the words given to me. What’s next for the weathered one? Excited and puzzled and weary at times, I keep looking ahead to another chapter and move with that breath of life. Often I still look up at that tree of life and know the very atoms I am made from still spin within me. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson and written by Jack Gator
The carriers of hope move through the earth, walking among the hungry ones. Those that hunger and thirst can be seen as glowing coals waiting for the fire to grown within. The burning one is walking and seeking those that are looking for their fire to grow.
They are waiting to be overcome with light and then flare the fuel in them that waits eagerly for the kindling.
It is the job of small pieces of kindling to be gently placed upon those coals that have been waiting for a bit of fuel to once again, bring into flame the passion for the remembered fire that blazed within them. A small amount of the spirit is enough to once again, bring the banked fire once again into the heat of fire that can be seen. The warmth begins to radiate out and be a place to rest and bask at.
It is the gift to be the giver of that small amount of spirit, to be the donkey that has the small pieces of kindling fire starters to lay upon the banked fires. To gently walk among the glowing coals in the darkness’ and encourage them, once again to be blazing light that illuminates and radiates to the hungry ones to be the lights in the darkness of the world.
There is joy within the donkey servant that brings that small amount of encouragement to help, once again to a seen flicker of fire. To bring a handful of fuel to create the heat of spirit. To tell the ones that within them that it is good and right to become a carrier of kindling too.
The larger and larger flames begin to grow until the small fires radiate the heat of love and laughter of smiles among the people as it grows. Drawn to the place they know that this can occur once more. The hunger is beginning to be satisfied within with tears of joy. Knowing this is the reason they are together.
The donkey moves along with it’s kindling. Quietly looking for that glow that shows hunger for those thin and light burdens of fuel that once more will fan the fire into a blaze of satisfying joy. The yoke of the wood is easy and well placed to carry. It is early morning as the night fades and eagerness of gathering begins again.
The small donkey knows it’s mission continues and the smile within him grows and becomes visible as the tears flow once again. The shepherd opens the gate and the he moves again, eager to obey.
The view from our front porch on an early winter morning is quiet. There are no homes around in view but we know who lives in the ones just over the hills. Quite a few of those homes are lake homes and they are quiet now too. No one home. Gates on the driveways and no tire tracks either. Up the road about a quarter mile there is a township road that leads to a few homes, one of which we can barely see. Just a window glow when the trees are bare. It’s over a half mile away. The picture is of the sunrise over the barn and the maples. Nice clear and cold morning. No yard light on the single power pole, not needed here. Besides, the power company charges five bucks a month to keep you awake at night.
The dog barks and runs to the long windows to the east when a vehicle is heard coming up the long driveway. Such incredible hearing with those long floppy ears. If it is one of the family, she knows that too and turns away and greats her favorite one in the hallway. As for me, she takes a peek, gives a wag and goes back in the kitchen. Oh, it’s only you. Hi. Maybe hanging around for a pat and scratch or two.
The flag is waving off the porch and we wave next to the flag at family and guests there as they drive away. Early or late. That too is a great ritual of rural life. Seems good and right and most an old tradition going way back to old sepia tone photos. “Y’all come back and we’ll fix you a plate!” Southern hospitality.
Obviously, it’s quiet and except for an occasional half ton ford with a rusted exhaust out on the road. Coyotes at night wake us all up and we get out a rifle but they are gone as soon as the door opens quietly. Maybe is the chambering of a round. Not welcome here and chickens out by the barn are protected. The chickens crow and the coyotes howl. Wake up and grab a rifle.
I think about the folks in the city as they start their day. No Orion in the clear moonless mornings, just street lights and traffic as the city wakes up. I grew up there. No clink of the milk bottles coming up from the alley, just many vehicles and an occasional gun shot. Not coyotes this time. Here it’s wood smoke and the glow of the kitchen light on the snow, you and the stars saying hello. I live in the country now and it’s pretty good. Jack Gator
It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.” ~Fyodor Dostoyevski
It is indeed, Doubt that is essential to the path of faith in Christianity. At first, it seems that doubt is gone, once faith is embraced. But is it? I must confess that I doubt at times in the seemingly impossible promises of eternal life and all that precedes it.
Protection, provision, guidance and comfort. At times it seems my life is not protected nor provided for and the comfort I desire seems as though it is the carot out of my grasp. The guidance is forgotten for a bit and I lapse into some sort of swampy thoughts. It takes the silence to look back on my life when I have been blessed by all the excellent things that I have not even asked for.
Simple things that have been the foundation of the questioning expression on my face. You know that move of your own face. A slight tilt of your head, a slight frown and the wrinkle of the forehead. Looking down a bit and your eyes pulled in along with the frown. Sort of a sad look combined with the look of puzzlement. Trying to understand a missing thing. A lost tool or something said that you didn’t quite hear. Doubt of your ability to understand or grasp reality. Doubt and confusion coupled. That can’t be right. I just saw that object. What did she say? Things akin to doubting your own understanding and not quite trusting your memory of touch, sound, sight and proprioceptive sense of balance. Off kilter in puzzlement.
Perhaps tripping over your own feet and falling to the ground or falling to the depth of your being. Doubt.
In isolation it can be devastating. With the help of someone who loves you, there is a helping hand. Reaching in to pull you up out of your fear. Love abounding to once again, reassure and rescue us from our own self doubt. A rescue that can give faith. “You’ve got this, your OK and I am here beside you, always.
Faith in another one’s words and showing you your own worth. Faith in the words of your rescuer.
This is the path to remove the doubt, the doubt that diminishes and eliminates faith. This path is well known and written about in scripture. Everyone has doubts. I look back when I feel the doubt sleeting into me. I look back on the miracles and to others, impossible communications I have been blessed with. Indeed, the helping hand of our rescuer. Jesus. He has been with me when I did not know who He was. He has whispered words to warn and guide my life to love rather than follow my indifference or even hatred of other people and really, myself.
The only way for me is to silence my mind and listen. A very old desert father in the third century put it perfectly. “Where is your savior? Why don’t you ask Him yourself? He said listen” He doesn’t lie to me and if I really am quiet and listen, He will talk to me and tell me truth about the path of Holiness. That narrow path that anyone can walk. Neither looking left nor right but walking true. Listen and walk true to the spirit of God.
It began in the Navy when the Russian guided missile frigate came after Norm’s ship at midnight. The missiles were aimed right at him as he was walking aft for midrats. A Tomcat fighter came down from above at mach1 and the Russians veered off , That was a miracle and death was averted. (Six day war, a proxy war between Russia and us.)
Next time, Norm was in lockup for a drug crime he did not commit and the man he pointed out as the culprit was in the same bullpen as he was. He came after him at night and a best friend fought the man off. The next night, Norm and his friend escaped by climbing down a three story drain pipe and went on the run. Eventually, the charges were dropped and the record expunged. Military stuff. Brig time for the escape and an honorable discharge followed.
A motorcycle adventure with another good friend went sideways down in Kansas. They had foolishly given small town girls rides on their motorcycles. Attracted to these ‘romantic’ motorcycle men, by their bold appearance perhaps. They camped outside of the town and after the pleasant riding, the small town cop asked them if they would like to spend the night in his jail. Startled them and then the cop told them “their boyfriends are coming after you tonight at your campsite” We declined as jail was unappealing. We thought about the warning and what we would do if those townies came. Bruce ( a vet fresh back from ‘Nam”) put forth the idea that we could take the tent poles and hold them under our arms with only the metal ferrules exposed and they would appear to be shotguns. “Is that the best idea you’ve got?” It was, and sure enough the slam of pickup doors resonated close by and it was time for the walk to the parking lot. Side by side they walked in the moonlight with those tent poles pointed at the sidewalk and Bruce spoke, “Don’t shoot till they get close” The pickup doors slammed shut and the big block truck roared off.
The town cop showed up soon after to view the carnage and we stood there, unarmed, and told him it was all peaceful.
We decided to beak camp and head for Oklahoma quickly. Night riding and the traffic was light in rural Kansas.
As we motored into a very small town in Oklahoma the next day, Bruce’s bike came to a halt and with throttled twisted would not move. We quickly dissembled a few parts and found a woodruff key had sheared off to the driveshaft. Great. A young man appeared behind us and asked about our trouble and as he jingled his key ring. he proclaimed, “it’s Sunday but my dad owns the hardware store, let’s go take a look!” Inside the back door he pointed out a Graymill’s cabinet and the top drawer had woodruff keys in compartments. “Eight millimeter right? Better take a few” Very few people have experience with a shaft driven motorcycle and know the size of that key by glancing at the empty half moon slot. Especially in a rural town with about 600 people. A miracle for certain. ‘His dad owned the hardware store’, it took quite a few decades to understand that truth. his Dad owns everything. Everywhere.
Back at the bike the key fit perfectly with a satisfying ‘snick’ and we turned to thank the young man and he was gone. “What a conicedence!” people say sometimes about this story. Providence is a better word.
At our destination in Berkeley, I began to work for a group of men that smuggled heroin in airplanes. Good money. I really liked the drug. As I was getting ready to take another hit, I heard a voice in my room say: “Life or death, Choose now” I hesitated a bit, and then chose life. No withdrawal nor desire and I was quickly out of work. Bruce rode back to Minneapolis. He had been on painkillers when he was blown up overseas in battle and he knew the struggle with them. He left before I got hired by the ex-Luftwaffe pilot. Not warning just, “watch your six” The fed’s were very interested in the pilot from previous ‘business’ experiences and found me at my new job. I knew nothing and they also knew that. I went back to where I was living at that time. Enjoying Maclure’s beach in San Francisco while relaxing at my new home, the back of a Chevy pickup with a wood camper I had built. It had french doors and I would sit with the doors open and heat up a can of Dinty Moore beef stew. Next day I would go back to work in Oakland.
I lived in that truck that I traded for the worn out Enfield bike and made my living on a limited salary playing guitar in front of Safeway supermarkets. A big young man came up to me and stated. “what you goin’ to do if I take that guitar?” Immediately I told him, “I’ll just fight you for it till one of us dies” We stared at one another for a while, unblinking, and he turned away and said “that’s cool” Soon after I drove off to a commune in Eugene and stayed for a bit as the bread baker and part time mechanic. The bay area had lost it’s romantic appeal. The summer of love had faded. Saved again. Providence.
Back in Minneapolis I had a girlfriend I met on a folk music tour out east and we had a comfy little house on the west bank. I worked hard on a railroad track gang and it was OK. The truck was traded for a 1941 Ford coupe with a new flathead V8. One night, while I was out at the 400 bar, the neighborhood rapist victimized my girlfriend in our bed. The next night, I walked the streets of the westbank neighborhood with a German 9mm military luger tucked in my back, looking for that man. A half block away, a cop walked across the street and I quickly placed the gun behind a bush. I ‘lost interest’ in revenge and later came back and retrieved the side arm and gave it back to a gangster that gave it to me. Saved again by providence it seemed. The girl and I parted company. The usual consequence of trauma for her.
Five decades later, I had moved to rural Wisconsin right after the West bank experiences, got married and have two wonderful sons and a beautiful wife. Minneapolis had lost it’s charm and Bruce lived a half mile away from my new run down farm. The house got fixed up gradually and a new friend told me to remodel the kitchen because that is the way to find a good woman. It worked and I eventually met my wife. (That story is in ‘Bicycle built for two’ at this website) more providence.
Now, as a man that embraced his Lord Jesus (finally!) I realize who had my six, my back. Saved me again and again from myself and danger. I am Now on a media and prayer team at a large church, back in Minneapolis working with my oldest son, the team director. I know without a doubt that I have been set in a place I was meant to be. Almost 80 now and in love with my rescuer from sin. I Thank God’s Mercy and Providence again and again . It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.
Driving home after dark settled in and the lighted billboards line the freeway. Bigger than our driveway markers but somehow, looking similar. Runway lights. Closer in to the ‘cities’, the billboard money flows free and the led panels change several times a minute.
We don’t really look at them, they just do that subliminal thing and linger …somewhere in our minds. I want to change them to tell the truth. The casino ones that promise gaiety and a pocket of Franklin’s should have a stealth vacuum hose sucking the money out of the smiling couples pockets as they watch the roulette wheel.
The lawyers, all with four letter last names, smiling as they exude joy at your auto accidents injuries. Perfect Teeth grins, smiling morticians of misfortune. Bjorn and I count the ones with the man with outstreached arms selling cash for homes ( seven so far from Forest Lake to Blaine) A bit of humor as we drive to the Blaine campus of Eagle Brook to get the media production set up and running.
And there I am, my face exuding the billboard of my past. Selfish, confident in my past victories meaning nothing to anyone but me. Looking in the mirror of my behavior and seeing the same old anger and unwilling spirit to listen or look upon a face that shows compassion and encouragement. Another billboard seen as others pass by as unpleasant and perhaps, known.
Agony as I realize a piece of my past that I hold onto is not who I am now. It gets in my way and tells me lies about everyone that loves me. I am not worthy, I am at fault again and reminded of my failures. Hearing condemnation from within and also hearing love breaking in again and telling me of what I am becoming. Be at peace, quiet my spirit and listen to Him.
I begin the agony once more of realizing these things and suddenly, the beauty I have been blessed with for 40 years unfolds and begins to burn away the false images that I have embraced for most of my life. Tears and a quiet voice tell me a destiny that becomes clear and clean.
Called to be a warrior for Jesus and embracing more and more his gentle and firm voice. The new path, the astonishing and breathtaking path that has been laid before me. Paving that road on the narrow highway of holiness. Not looking right or left or in my life, not looking behind at the pain and struggle for fame, fortune to replace the pain I have endured and embraced.
As a well known song says, I am no longer a slave to sin. It is true and it is not an instantaneous process for me. My past beginning now being seen as straying off that path I have been set upon for decades. Saved from death many times and lovingly, steadily helped to become what I have been created for. Strength, true and right seen as the lighted path to the love of Christ.
Sad but true. What do our enemies abroad think of us? What sorts of images come to their and our minds? Big box stores where all of us overweight people park our overweight vehicles and waddle up to the automatic BIG doors and grasp a hold of the ubiquitous shopping cart. Testing it’s alignment and pushing it through to where we need to go to fill it up.
I find gazing at things and parking the cart out of the way to to allow room to fellow shoppers. It feels right and is grace to them. (I do like the early morning empty car lot pleasant and park at row 7. close in.)
The freeway isles of the Big Box are tricky and heads up when you swing around the corners! Speed is of the essence and yielding has to be done way ahead of time. I like to take my time, just like I drive my car. Observant and switching lanes when it seems prudent for traffic flow.
Watch out for the speeders! The parking lot can be dangerous as anxiety takes a hold and a 15 mile and hour speed is pretty fast. On or off the road, speed limits are to be interpreted in our favor and the cops are far and few. Again, this goes for any vehicle. Car, truck or cart. The staff move even faster as they know where to go, sometimes and they have huge carts. They shop for drive through lazy boys and park their huge carts in aisles that you need to navigate. Oh, and watch out for the fruit squeezers, they take their time with alacrity and park right where you need to be. Park next to the keto display and you will be out of their way.
Looking with disdain upon the box food in the baking aisle, I search for my list elsewhere. The unsweetened and organic chocolate require patience but again, the shelves are full. I try to escape from the on sale bakery goods that are usually sold out or down to the boxes with a dozen or more within them. That will not do as I cannot eat them all before coming home. The evidence of my clothing and the mess would give me away.
I would also be fat and running with my treasures. A plain cake doughnut and some yogurt will suffice for a snack I can easily eat in the parking lot as I wait for the rush to park to subside somewhat.
To be disgusted or empathetic is my decision and these emotive responses are my hearts response. I can decide to call employees by the name tags I surreptitiously see. My choice of seeing all of creation as fascinating and wonderful or to be the judge of people by my selfish heart. Life or death, Choose now. Jack Gator With thanks to C.S. lewis’ ‘Men without Chests’
