Contemplations and Theology

Decisions in the Morning

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Another early morning with sub=Zero temperatures and the house is a bit cold, down to 64 in the kitchen. The radiators are on and the big wood stove in the parlor has good coals but needs refreshing of some dry wood. A chore for the earliest to arise. Put away yesterdays dishes in the drainer, make the coffee and some toast. Then light up my computer screen and take the usual pills with some juice.(Always taking the anti-seizure pill as the first one, It tastes awful . Wash down the distasteful pills with orange juice. Every day. Always good and this winter especially. It’s comforting to have a schedule. And be warm.

Now, for a reading choice. David Hume’s ‘The standard of Taste’ or Suess’ ‘The birthday bird’ (perhaps Snetches) as a continuation of Hume’s opinion of the Koran. Maybe I’ll just check email and watch a movie about a Japanese bullet train intrigue. Or perhaps complete editing for the umpteenth time of my book with compilations of these columns at the end. Maybe all ot those things, the day is dawning and In the parlor it is warm and comforting.

It is a good clear morning as I extinguish the lights and watch the American flag and flying in the wind. Then I step out on the porch for a few pieces of dry wood and try not to wake anyone up with the clack of the living room door. Snow is piled up feet high this year. I Carefully grab a few logs and check to see if the cats have snuck out to persue the mouse family beneath the pine bush, next to the porch.

These rituals are stabilizing and and easy to do when I am half awake.. Get the keurig going and make a somewhat decent cup with the added ½ and ½. I Put the coffee on the left side of the desk and the warm toast with cinnamon on the right. Keyboard and mouse in front of me and monitor up about 8 inches on it’s shelf with a accumulated pens, paper clips, jump drives, pocket knives, small speakers and headphones. A rather clumpy mess but familiar. A junk drawer right in front of me.

Are you getting the picture? I am an Asberger survivor. My favorite movie, ‘The accountant’ featuring another ritualistic man with a gifting of oddity. Especially the part of sniffing his fingers just before he does his work. Autism spectrum’s are similar. I did have a problem relating in childhood and still use fabric to stimulate calmness and concentration. It’s complicated, an old friend called it ‘pointing’ and that’s pretty accurate. Ask me if you are interested. My wife Julie, is completely at home with it as is my youngest son.

Perhaps now I will start on a column based on Hume’s razor sharp analysis of Plato/Aristotle but that seems a bit foggy until the second cup of java has been drunk. My readers will either enjoy the writing or get confused a bit as I can be until I had read some of those books for the third or fourth time.

I have been called an obsessive intellectual with nearsightedness in several ways. I like to refer to these things as entertainment and stimulated analysis. My family just rolls their eyes verbally and are used to that too. If you find this particular column a bit familiar, perhaps you are as odd as I am?

Psychiatric pigeon holes have to include the roost for the pigeon and the newspaper on the bottom of the cage. If you understand that analogy you are more akin to me than you think. Ritual is stabilizing and necessary to this world’s ways. Grounding might be another way to describe it. It works. It has been a part of my life since childhood and there is no ‘cure’. There are some side effects which can be dealt with. Through good and acurate advice from professional counseling I found I was subconciously driven by fear and rejection. Perceived threats is one of my reactive situations.

My counselor taught me how to read the triggers and the road signs. I have six tenths of a second to make a decision of fight or flight and part of that time to realize there is no threat at all. It’s a good thing for me to know. I usually would choose flight. Suddenly running out, slaming the door and often driving off fast and muttering to myself about something said that was not meant to hurt me at all. Rather awkward to say the least. Scary sometimes too.

I pray that this column is illuminating someone’s behavior and at least, illuminating their friendship with me. My family is very gracious with me and this is indeed, a gift from the Lord to give me a family that will understand and put up with me. I have gotten better at sitting still and listening, talking. There is a humerous line in Monty Pyton’s movie about getting better. I can hear you laughing right now, but if it doesn’t register, I can fill you in. Fiddlingnorm@gmail will get you in touch with me.

Life is good and my best friend Jesus understands everything. He always answers my call for help, and I always need lot’s of it! I do need reminding at times to rely on Him instead of my own understanding. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.

The Importance of a Face

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There was a photo on the cover of a DVD that Gator picked up from the local library. The photo showed all the characters in the movie and it was the first one made of a comedy series with those actors. Startlingly, one of the actors face had intelligence, warmness and composure. The actor’s role was just the opposite, and in other comedy movies and series’, was portrayed as a low IQ goofball. A comedic shortstop that set the tone in various scenes. It was Bob Denver that played Gilligan on the island and Maynard J. Krebs in Dobie Gillies series.

With the recent public persona of wearing masks, Gator resented the lack of personality seen. A lack of smiles given and even compassion and knowledge shown forth. Akin to the actor’s photo, hidden in portrayal of the real person. The folks that have totally bought into the extreme danger of public life, not being told by authority that germs and aerosol microbes are fought with our immune systems. But with the mask, you can see the fear and isolation. Condemnation perhaps on other shoppers for not masking up. Jack smiles a lot and seeks faces that smile. Jack has a good immune system. Comorbidity play a big role in death from the vaccine and infections.

Jack and his family have all had ‘the disease’ and Jack’s short term memory has gotten worse. Is that one of the byproducts of the bad virus? Of course not. Jack is aging and the memory issue is his past duel with seizures that wiped out a portion of his Rolodex for a few things. Some names, some old events that usually allow the family to tell the stories. Not bad actually, Jack can then pull the memories up from a different approach in his mind. He calls it his goggle search engine and works in the background when Jack surrenders for a short while. what he wanted to remember. “Ahah! His name was Edwin! Maybe this is common with aging. Memory has always been depicted in the elderly as clearly remembering the distant past and not the more recent ones. “ Excuse me: what was your name again?” He knows this is more common with everyone. Still, it is irritating.

Jack creates mnemonics to remember names. A story that triggers the name for good. ‘He looks like an Englishman, Mike, a pilot in the big war and his wife, Vickie is a derivative of Vickers, an engine is some of those fighter planes. Things akin to that. Try it sometime! It works to places, names and other memories. Some folks really like it when explained to them. Everyone has trouble with names that are given for the first time. Faces are triggers for all of us and when you can only see the eyes, the mouth and smile are gone and makes it harder to recollect them at all. Some memories such as Quadratic equations or solid geometry are pretty faded but Jack remembers his phone number and city address from seventy years ago. Jackson 9-6604 and 4208 Russell avenue North. His ham radio call sign and the ones of his friends that he tested for novice licensing. That too is in a different location inside and a lot of aged people have that ability too. If Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses could be resurrected, most likely he would remember his adopted son, Moses. Of course, the Smithsonian would really rally around that miracle. “What do you recollect about the Red Sea?”

Jack wonders about what it must have been like for family around Lazarus when at the dinner table he remembered dying and wondered about those three days of inactivity. One of histories stories that has not been clarified. Since it was Jesus that resurrected Lazarus, there is no doubt it was complete. “Lazarus, come forth” was necessary for if Jesus had said “Come forth” there would have been a lot of formerly dead showing up. Maybe all of them. Jack has heard that voice. seen his best friend when that man had been dead for a few minutes or hours perhaps. Jesus giving Jack a small glimpse of eternity and for Jack’s witness. and delight. “ It’s better than you said!” Jack always wonders about that. What did he say to him and what was Jesus doing, revealing eternity to him? As is written in Ephesians, “it’s through faith..the very gift of God” Jack likes gifts from God. As Jack always says, “it’s pretty good” Jack Gator.

The photo of myself that I used at the top was my official Census Badge face. Serious with the hint of who I really am.

I Was Made Alive when I was Dead

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 2 Comments

Photo by Julie P.Peterson

It was the aftermath of below zero nights but with sunny days. For a week it had snowed, steady and it began to pile up a bit. Mounds not seen for a decade and the blinding glisten was welcome. Visions of sledding and skiing were replaced with roof raking and blowing snow with two machines. Cleaning up at the mailbox far down the driveway after the plow truck came through..again. Shoveling to the wood shed for wheelbarrows filled with wood for the porch to be fed into the parlor stove. Shoveling the dog kennel and clearing a long path to the chicken coop for the daily harvest of brown and green eggs. Cars disappeared along with other objects of worth and need. The good alcohol free fuel began to disappear as well. It never seemed to end, Waving our son off to work with his all wheel drive station wagon and then do it all over again after the night’s snowfall.

This must be what Sigurd Olsen was writing about. Our quest for being in a place that the desert fathers wrote about was given free reign. Another quote to augment those thoughts from Vincent Van Gogh: “ There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passerby only see a wisp of smoke coming through the chimney, and go along their way”

I find it difficult to silence my voice within. So many things ‘come to mind’ The latest disappointment or betrayal by those who have power over him. Frustrations, failures, puzzles and a perceived loss of some sort.

Pastors and ministers know this well. They have pursued passion and found some, but cannot express it to inspire with yet another sermon. The inner voices of the parishioners demand attention. The loss of listening occurs quickly when the minds voice flows out of our mouth. The only feature of our head that puts forth rather than takes in.

An amusing but accurate situation is when a speaker of wisdom asks for the hearer(s) be silent and contemplative. “How long is this going to go on?” “I wonder what’s for lunch” “is scratching my head a break of silence?” We cannot do this for long, we need to talk or at least think about how much gas for our truck is going to cost just down the street. Often we think what is needed is for our thoughts to come forth.

Rare but remembered with longing is a room filled with silence and dazed countenances that hint at eternity.

When I find myself, at last before my creator, what can I say or even think? A word that falls way short of that would just be ‘thank you’ Is it even possible to ask, “Great! What’s next on your agenda?”

Silence is golden it is said. Why do I have so much trouble with that? It is not silence of speech, it is silence of thought. There is something someone said about taking every thought captive. Try it sometime. Just look out of your favorite window, wrapped in a nice quilt. Perhaps in ‘your chair’ Everyone knows which one it is.

Don’t even think about what you see, just look and perhaps listen to the silence overwhelming.

I love to talk. I am a raconteur. One who loves to tell stories, mostly about myself. A much better way that I am discovering is to write about them. Listening well to the quiet voice of God is so much more fulfilling that seeing how my stories fall upon listeners who hardly believe them. Fascinated by our own excuses of life, success and failure. All of it meaningless says the Psalmist. We wax and wane in and out of season, but the intensity of silence and solitude generate stunning reality that transcends our ego.

Again, I know the wisdom of his track laying days. STOP LOOK LISTEN. Perhaps we didn’t know that early railroad builders knew a few things about silence leading to wisdom. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Christmas Feast

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First published 2011 when there was deep snow on the ground

There it was, indeed a table set for family and a few friends as well. The exquisite food, paid for by a relative in advance. A wise and generous relative, gone on a Christmas day past. Loved and missed at the table now.

The family, gathered in our home, every Christmas Eve to eat well and satisfy the gathering with exotic things. Brie, Lingonberry jam, Home baked bread out of the farm’s wheat. Tasty nuggets of chocolate treats and cookies made once a year. Treats, some pulled from the larder that are saved for this time. Some from Julie’s work at Valley Sweets in St.Croix Falls.

There is a Christmas ham in the crock pot that simmered all day and filled the house with it’s savory smells. Appetites were honed and sharpened as the winter of winters was preparing another snow storm. Already the new sidewalk was drifted half over from the bitter sleething of fine snow. The wind had not abated much from the night and the drive home from a delightful worship service was fraught with drifts on the rural highway. Narrow triangles of show, now created by the dry snow the county plows had just cleared that day.

It is perhaps the only time that snow is seen as beautiful and appropriate. The old images of sleighs to visit. Pulled by a team of Percheron horses. The blankets and even a few hot bricks tucked in to be heated up again for the ride home. Wood cook stoves and wood or coal parlor stoves that worked pretty well at heating a home. No worry about the pipes freezing because there were none. We have a painting of a sleigh heading for a church but the horse looks fake somehow in mid stride. Tough to convey motion in a painting. I think maybe a slight brush stroke of snow behind an upraised hoof would have done the job. Art critic.

Candle light services with luminaries out in the snow to entice and welcome. Classic songs to be sung, you know the ones. Everyone has them memorized. The big round wood stove in the corner (should be in the middle of the aisle thinks the same art critic) We all have these memories of times past before we were born. Stories passed down by past generations that had to walk miles uphill in heavy snow. To school as well as church.

Another image that I have is the short peace in the midst trench warfare in France. Soldiers apprehensive and then hearing the opposing army singing Silent Night in German. Slowly rising up from the trenches and walking towards one another, perhaps with a bit of whiskey or brandy to share. Impossible to contemplate with the guns and cannons silent the enemies meeting on no man’s land. Men’s vision to be truthful. The Man full of grace and truth who someday will come for you. This is the reason the fear was pushed aside. We have all been afraid a long long time, but Papa is here and He will take the fear away.

There is impossible joy in the midst of the world’s battle for many things. Power, possessions, and dominance.

We all know the story, even those of us who think the story of Christmas is only about being rewarded because we have not been naughty. We think we are on the ‘better be good’ part of the perceived equation. It’s not any of those things. The reason that Christmas has the impact year after year is because the story is true and the good news is impossible to explain with only words. It is indeed a feast. It is felt and it is known by all men. It is joy and the present of good news that cannot be earned. It is indeed a Christmas present that must be opened by everyone that sees it and know what it is. The only present that still surprises with astonishment. Every time. It’s pretty good. The feast of life with Jesus Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Open Doors

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

there is an excess of words in Jack’s life. Reminded by a slightly older wise man of that situation. A rabbit trap is meant to snare the rabbit and once it is caught the trap is forgotten. There are fish traps that once filled with fish are forgotten. There are words that lead to the vision of the Lord’s heart and once we touch that real world, the words are forgotten. The wise man wishes to meet the man who has forgotten words. “He is the one I would like to talk to”. a.

We are surrounded by words in this loud world. It is worth our thoughts to put ourselves back a hundred and a half years or so. Travel on ‘roads’ with horse and buggy or wagon headed into a town a short fifty miles away. How many words would it take? Possibly a dozen or so would be seen, perhaps none. Silence of vision with the steady horse sounds and the creaking of wood spokes tuning on metal spindles. Sitting on the bench with reigns held loosely and the large brimmed hat to stave off sunlight. Silence with thoughts abounding with the oneness of life and it’s wonders and work. Talking to God.

Not Buy this, eat this, gamble here, listen to this or come hither and enjoy. Jack’s favorite is a company that buys ugly houses. That one has moved on and replaced the cave man image with a man ready for crucifixion. His arms wide out stating they too, buy houses. Smiling lawyers who are hungry for an injury lawsuit. Next exit Vanity Fair.

We use words to fill in the potholes of our empty thoughts that do not need filling. We talk, learn and teach with so many words that after a bit we wonder about the whole thing. “It’s not important, it’s just words” A lecture in a school of any grade, a presentation at the local library featuring a ‘well known author’ who has many words on their credit account. Just waiting for those words to be redeemed. Jack has had many an internal chuckle as he is asked; “how many books have you written?” A wordsmith indeed. Fresh words, created new words hammered out on the old Smith Corona and dipped with steam into the cooling trough to give them a patina or strength of quenched steel. Hopefully words that turn into visions of the real world that usually is painted, sonnets and concertos performed and sculpture created. Jack had no words when he looked up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s sculpture of David was seen and Jack was glad there were places to sit and gaze upon what was before for him just words in a textbook.

Education in monasteries or seminaries for ministers or pastors used to be the way it was done. Quite a bit of silence and contemplating one’s heart movement being exposed to the palpable presence of the Great I Am. Words can lead a hungry student of faith only so far with the highest ones. The Word itself which is beyond awesome has lost it’s meanings in our world of words. Many discussions, many languages and interpretations of words can lead to …more words. After all, Jesus was called The Word in scripture. Jesus creator of everything that was created was the ultimate Word which needed no additional words.

The best words Jack has found that lead him into silence in the presence of God. ‘Help me’ or ‘heal my heart’ ‘I love you’ nothing fancy or made up complex and awesome sounding words. Jesus’ sermons were mostly short and usually filled with action instructions. Go and do the same. Many times in Jack’s life with five words: “Life or death, choose now” or “Walk, keep your eyes open” “It’s better than you said” Not wordy is the Lord Jesus in Jack’s life so far.

Jack gives the stories behind those words if asked. Those short sentences were all the words Jack has needed to seek the Kingdom of God. They weren’t needing translation or long wordy discussions. Sermons from those words somehow have more impact then a half an hour of pleading with pleasurable and comforting words.

We are weak and overwhelmed with words in our times. We don’t get it when the spoken word leads us to silence. If a minister of the Word asks for a moment of silence we get antsy and cannot wait to talk and think ‘ how long is this going to go on!’ Solitude spoken of as we are pilgrims. One of the desert fathers, Abba Tithoes once said, “to be on a pilgrimage is to be silent” The apostle James stated “Every one of us does something wrong, over and over again; the only man who could reach perfection would be someone who never said anything wrong—he would be able to control every part of himself” Solitude and silence is a gentle and sure path and the safest way to stay away from sin. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator a. Chuang Tzu

Prairie Life Near the Twin Cities

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It was subtle and it was a destroyer of families. Work for the men in tall buildings, not within walking distance.

The new city age of commuting, milk men down the alleys and trolley cars. The fifties, when I was single digits old. It was subtle and the beginning of an ending. The most important thing of all disappeared. Intimacy.

The way things used to be, such a common phrase indicating nostalgia for the ‘good old days’. It is much more than that. my father worked as a fireman and Mom eventually worked downtown as a secretary for the public schools. Gone was grandpa’s little farm and both families living close by to one another. A neighbor near the farm complained that Dad was supposed to live in the city to be a fireman. The move to the city was inevitable and plans were made to buy a nice house in the north side of Minneapolis. The country life was comfortable for me. The creek down the hill offered fishing and adventure. Life was the smell of good earth.

“Hey kids, tomorrow we get out the rock boat and get the rocks out of the main field.” Groans from both me and my sister but with memories of Grandma’s supper with the fresh doughnut holes with chicken dumplings and real mashed potatoes. The ‘boat’ moved slowly and Freddie, my friend nearby, joined the ‘party.’ There was always a bit of humor that came forth too. “Hey, that rock looks just like Mr. Mosher!” Grandpa laughing from the old International also saying that’s not the way to speak of him! Guilty as charged, but still snickering when we looked at each other. Working the land together as Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about in her newspaper columns.

Not long after those halcyon days of laughter and sharing in the good times and difficult or even sad times, it ended. Gone,the best days of my life. The fire department was a good job for Dad. Secure income.

They moved into the city as Dad continued working for the fire department, and to afford the nice city house, Mom had to work and leave us alone at the new home. A lot. The one room school house a mile away was not the way things were done in the city. There weren’t any potato fields or big vegetable gardens either. The biggest loss was the absence of parents when they were needed. Not being available at home when bad things happened. I was lost in the waves of change. Waking up at Bunyan’s Vanity Fair. The cute girl next door was a forbidden friend for Jack. She went to the ‘wrong’ church.

Make your own lunch and wait after school for Mom or Dad. Alone in the house. No more family games and no neighbors or relatives coming by. The big church downtown and bullies at the neighborhood school were incomprehensible. No one seemed to care about children at home or at the next door neighbors. Gone were the sights of a broken piece of equipment on a neighbors field. “I going to go over to Rick’s place and see what we can do” sorts of things. Day cares started up and everything had a price. From workers of the soil to wage earners surviving in toil. Children did not understand this. In a child’s eye it was abandonment and loss.

And so it goes as progress turns into regress for the new price of hearth and home. Our home now had a fireplace in the living room but it was never lit. The big coal furnace in the basement provided the heat but the hearth never provided a family room’s comfort. Now the gathering of family was the flicker of the black and white television set and intimacy was knowing the names of the characters on the screen. Big life became substitute life and families losses were significant. Children became actors in the play of city life. Do well at school and play with the strangers and you make friends if you don’t cry. First grade in the big city.

Gone the instantaneous comfort of a mother’s loving touch, the guiding hand of a Grandfather as the soil turned rich under the plow and disk. Love for neighbors seen and demonstrating love for everyone. Gone was “It’s been a good day, let’s read that book! Who knows where we left off?” Instead, lonely days. Akin to a room of the house suddenly disappearing. But dad and Grandpa were good carpenters and rebuilt some of the loss.

But Dad and Grandpa were not seen during the day and Grandpa and Grandma still lived in Golden Valley. I withdrew into myself and began to embrace short wave radio after a few years in grade school. I got my ham radio license just before going into 7th grade. I then had communications with total strangers around the country that were as lonely as I was. But dad and Grandpa were good carpenters and rebuilt some of the loss with me observing the new wood shop in our basement and Grandpa teaching dad and later, dad teaching me. I still have some of the old tools and a wood tool carrier from them. Now my youngest son has some of those tools on a special shelf in his wood shop here on the farm.

There is another carpenter that will restore all our loss’. He is the best restoration worker in the world. Jesus, He will make all things new. A perfect man with wood in the shop and wood on the cross. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

The Continuation of the Golden Calf

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An old story that still rings as true as in the days that it was written. There was a lot of people that had a leader. Millions of people with one, highly respected leader. He went away and those people went astray. He wasn’t gone for long, a month and a third roughly. Five weeks it is said. Not long in our day either. You could walk to Kansas City IF you walked 25 MPD. That’s pretty good walking. Non stop all day, munching at the Two Dollar stores on the way.

So, that leader went walking up a mountain to talk to God. By himself. God reiterated what he had told this leader about life and he wrote it all down by hand so the leader could walk back to his people and have a solid and readable ‘book’ of instructions to a good life. After all, it was the least God could do to help those people live as they ought to. As they were made to. An owners manual in the Holy Glove box to look at and get some quick answers to complex life situations. Things like hatred, greed, anger, lust and fear. Look at the index, it’s all there.

Not long after their leader left to get that manual of life, the people got antsy and full of themselves (just like we do when we think we have been left alone) They decided to look to that leader’s brother and get some answers as to what to do. The brother, second in command, offered a solution. After all, any problem we have can be addressed and fixed by the Government.

That man came up with a solution to the peoples anxiety. He made an idol. It’s what all of us do when things don’t go as we wish. “Give me some peace! Show me Something substantial that I can grab onto!”

We do exactly the same things. Nothing has really changed at all. Our leader tells us he has the cure for what ails us. We turn to entertainment to sooth our troubles and pretty soon, that gold album gets on the American idol show and even turns into Platinum! Ahh. Lets have a party with dancing and put that old gold album on and rock out! The idol of ourselves as usual. This feels good!

It happens over and over and when our leaders are not friends of God, it goes south pretty fast. Remember a few years ago when we were all going to die if we didn’t do exactly what we were told to do? Not to turn to God and talk to him and look for guidance. Turn to the leadership and worship their solution. Did it work? Of course not. Idols are intoxicating with comfort and self importance. Get angry if your neighbors don’t do what we are told to. “We are here from the government and we are here to help you!” Ronald Reagan said those were the worst words you could hear. For an actor of heroes, he knew a few things about rescue and courage.

Close your business’ Hide in your homes and shake with fear. Put a piece of cloth over your face and trust us, it’s for your own good. Monty Python couldn’t do it better. We worship our gods (small g there) The ‘experts’ on our media, Doctors from the government and band aid companies that assure us all will be well….maybe someday.

Meanwhile in the ensuing years when the meteor doesn’t strike or the dead are not clogging the streets, a new threat is discovered and the fear is supposed to begin again. A ‘vaccine’ is touted to protect us and it doesn’t. Time to get that Navy hospital ship back to port and recall the Morgues on wheels. Get some pictures on the front page and ramp it up. Conspiracy theories are the prize in every Cracker Jack box and they are all different.

What are we to do? A savior has come and he has the truth with him, and on him. There is a cure for everything and everyone and he doesn’t get money from the government to distribute it.

He has taken the ‘cure’ for the fear. Amazingly, unbelievably, He died from taking the rebellion and fear of all men and after three days, destroyed it and walked the earth again and told us he did this for us. He also wants us to live with Him. Forever. Just ask Him. Make sure to talk to Him, (right now!) its OK. It’s the best thing for me and you. It’s not another favor from the government. It’s real truth. You may not like the truth as it shows us clearly we worship ourselves and our comfort. Jesus will show us who we are meant to be. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Save big Money on Vanities!

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I Just finished reading Ecclesiastes and checked my in box. Really. I did not know that a Big box store was into the Prophet of extensional thought. It caught my attention for certain. An advertisement as wisdom? There is no money involved in being vain. A homonym pun for my mind.

I have a new friend in our neighborhood. We swim together a few times a week at the pool about 20 miles away. He has been taking lessons on swimming and has a whole kit bag of cool accessories for serious swimmers..Special flippers, hand paddles, snorkel. Stuff like that.

I asked him once in the locker room what he thinks will happen when we die. “Worm Food” was his answer. The answer of Camus, Sartre or Nietzsche. The sum of the reviewers in a book, ‘The Terror of Existence’ was “every endeavor, be it good bad or indifferent, will one day become undone, as death ends at the grave.”

I can’t fathom why this intelligent and caring man would exercise so well and diligently, only to believe it all comes to naught. All is Vanity says the preacher.. To enjoy the response of his body and to prolong the inevitable death? {The usual unpleasant experience that we all must do).

There is nothing new under the sun and we whirl about our little solar system in the unfashionable western spiral arm of the Milky Way, It will all wind down to dust, stardust as it is said. Nothing new under the sun as the rivers flow into the ocean and it never gets full. A beauty of a planet that weights 6 sextillion tons ( that[s a six with 21 zeros) Spinning at 1000 mph on an invisible axis at 23 degrees tilt. Who built this perfect place for us to live? An excellent mathematician as Copernicus and others have said

I walk in the graveyard with all the old weathered gravestones that once were placed there by a grieving family. Now forgotten as the once fancy pillar of stone becomes covered with patches of moss. The so called eternal stone deteriorating and indeed, becoming building materiel for the ambitious small creatures with a much shorter life spans than ours are. Vanity, all is vanity.

No standards of life, no real solid instructions on what to focus on and how to actually live as we all know we should. A moral life is some how attractive to some of us and why does this happen? Who beyond our small view of life can we rely on to show us a way out and a way to live that has meaning, eternal meaning? Only one man ever claimed and demonstrated that there is life beyond the grave. You can’t weigh or measure love, beauty or devotion. There is no end to something you can’t measure. How can this be?

He can do those things and bring them to us when we die. There is only one who can and does create eternal beauty. A man that conquered death and offers eternity with him. It is the only thing that is not vain. Chase and look for Him. He is everywhere and also with You as you read this short column. True life that is not vanity. It has and will belong to of the giver of life. As the wonderful song says it so well: “I can only imagine what it will be like. Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine” a. All life, all of us, all that will be and every thing that was. It’s Jesus. It’s pretty good.

Jack Gator

a. Mercy me

The Salesmen’s Chuckle

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

We notice it without knowing what has just happened. The chuckle. Or, as Jack sometimes refers to it as a cackle. What is it? The contrived sound, practiced for decades to be as smooth as a well known radio announcers voice. A deep voice in some ways, captured by seven hundred dollar microphones. The ones with all the rubber bands, suspended. High end dynamic mics. Smooth, easy on the ears and in the case of the chuckle, made to put you at ease.

Unfortunately, this vocal response is a fear reaction to uncomfortable conversations. Just mention a serious concern you have to an insurance salesman. Within a split second the chuckle rings out to disarm the conversation. It’s nothing like laughter, don’t misunderstand this. Laughter and gaiety are good for us. Even rolling on the floor with laughing sobs. A joke or a pun that just explodes in the room with merriment. That’s good! It’s good humor and the relaxation is very good.

What Jack is pointing out is obnoxious and frustrating at the least. We don’t notice that we have been conned out of intelligent conversation. Try it sometime. Select a person that you know and ask them in an inquiring way about a serious topic. Something you state you are having difficulty understanding.

An illustration will do: “Hey John, I’m glad I ran into you! I have a real problem with an old friend that just won’t talk to me about our friendship” (slight laugh) Well it’s not me that’s for sure! “No it’s not like that. We used to be really close! (another chuckle) Ha, maybe you forgot you owed him some money! No John, this is serious. I need your help in understanding it. (more light laughter) You know me , I’m an idiot when it comes to women! Getting the picture? It goes on and on and it is a technique really good salesmen use to put people at ease. Nothing happens then, but somehow, this laughing salesman convinces you he is your friend and you sign on the line. They have classes that teach you how to disarm people with the friendly laugh.

OK, now go to the next level. You have just finished listening to a very moving sermon that so affects you that you journal: “I was having such a great time thinking about my sins!” You were moved. The power of conviction overcame you and you knew it was true. You knew the man spoken of is most like you. In this case, a man that enjoys his comfort and the knowledge that God has a special Lazy Boy chair waiting for him in Heaven. Serious reflection and thought. The room is silent. The man speaking asks if anyone has any questions. Jack thinks about the explosion in his heart. The deepness of the sin still running around in him that he thought was normal.

Suddenly, an experienced ‘salesman’ makes a joke with a chuckle! “hey pastor, did your wife write those slides for you? Chuckle chuckle.”Every one is familiar with this, including the pastor and his wife. It’s over. The intimacy with everyone in the room. The held breath of believers that just heard conviction and truth. It’s over. Time for lunch. The salesman has done his work and he doesn’t have to think about what was said either. Am I ready to die? Nah, chuckle chuckle. There’s a lot of time left in this old carcass..chuckle chuckle. It’s disarming and it’s deadly and it’s a total waste of time.

Jack can only imagine what it will be like to meet Jesus face to face when his turn comes to face eternity that he knows so little about. Smiles and the laughter of dancing with his Savior. No chuckles, just love. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

What is the Difference?

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It has been proposed that some things, some people actually, are so similar that no difference can be seen between them. For example: ‘what is the difference between Karl Marx and Charles Darwin?’

None. Neither of them believed in anything but what they could figure out on their own and they are both dead. Forever. Since neither of them took any time wondering about all creation and why they were included in it, they wasted the differences between them and everyone else. It was all speculation with a little bit of science and what could be manipulated such as objects of study or people. Same thing happened to them really. Dead end. Anything to deny creation.

A choice we all make when confronted with the obvious raw beauty of creation. We either bow down at the point where we see beauty can only be created by beauty. It’s not really in the eye of the beholder, it’s in the eye of the creator. Another moment of enlightenment, truth.

I have my favorite summer spot right in the middle of the garden. It’s a round area and has dozens of Gladiolas and Zinnias with some Marigolds. There are other Perennials that I forget the names of. Long stemmed beauties. The Glads take a bit of work which I enjoy. Staking and tying them to the stakes. Pulling off the dead flowers bottom up.

The tricky part is cranking down the umbrella and tucking the Glads under or outside of it as it comes down. I ‘lost’ the previous umbrella to wind. It snapped at the pivot halfway up the post at night during a wind storm. Lesson learned. Grasp the wind and give it the bill for the umbrella.

So under the shade of the umbrella is a garden bench, a little worn from the weather which I have my water thermos, a few tools and on rare occasions, a book. It’s a good place to shelter from the sun when the summer gardening gets sweaty. Most often a place that I come to immediately upon opening the garden gate. Actually, the main reason I hang out at the center with it’s bench and flowers is for the gaze upon the fingerprints of the Lord. It feels good and I listen well and conversations begin.

Now when it was labor day weekend and the tomato plants needed aggressive trimming and harvesting, I needed a respite and suddenly I heard a hummingbird about. The birds usually are seen from another bench on the front porch. Two hummingbird feeders with bird mix of sugar and water. A pop stand for the birds.

However, this time it was in the Gladiolas and a delightful surpise delighted me when it was a hummingbird moth. Buzzing and hovering over a flower in front of my delighted gaze. Usually seen or heard in the spring. Amazing creature with a similar beak and tongue outfit.

The thoughts of why was it there and where does it hang out at night? Why me, given the gift of seeing it a foot away in front of me? It’s impossible that this beautiful insect evolved at the same time as it’s food of flowers with their sweet nectar came into being. Similar to the bird and the honey bee. None of which could survive without the flowers. Especially the bees. Pollination and all that sort of thing besides food for the birds and moths and bees.

I read a lot and laugh at what I read, often. Dr. Suess and the National Geographic are must reads. The latest from Scientific American was the speculation of the usual billions of years of evolution for all sorts of things that must be that some scientist who was there took notes on.

Nothing in that magazine I have yet read , explains about the birds and the bees and the stunning beauty of the impossible coincidences. I know how it happened and I do not have a degree in scientific pontification to explain my opinions. I have a book, that incredible as it may seem, gives the explanation in a few sentences of words at the very beginning of the book. I will loan you one if you wish to read it yourself! It’s pretty good. Jack Gator