Photo of a Father and Son teaching at Wood Lake Bible Camp, five miles north of us. [Bjorn and myself}
And they work together. Father and Son, as it has always been throughout time. Agrarian towns scattered over the countryside. Dad on the old A and his son right behind him on the big levers and adjusters for the plow or side mower.
Teamwork with the ages that is still among us. Young Harley, Davids son manufacturing motorcycles and many such business throughout the world. There are good odds that you are one of those Father and Son enterprises.
There is a business that my Son and I work at now. He has the training to be a full time director of media production and I am in training to be his assistant. It’s fast paced and like many jobs I have had, it’s a dance. Whether you are assembling something together, playing ensemble or flying, it’s satisfying and joyful to be working together. It’s perhaps akin to a ballet.
There is a Father and Son who work together that is a perfect example for all of us. They confer together and in every instance of their work, there is always consensus. The Son listens to the wisdom of his father and the work they do is nothing short of a miracle. They also have a third person of the family that is a communicator between them and us. You can use His name too if you like.
You know them, you talk a lot to them and sometimes we get confused as which one we are talking to. Thanks OK, they don’t mind. They have many names and all of them work pretty well. The names most often used are in our instruction manuals we keep near us. I loose the ones for appliances and such but I always have a manual for those three. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Have a nice talk with them and be sure to pay close attention to the wisdom and guidance they will give you. Listening really helps.
It’s complex but it makes sense if you look at the end result. Everyone has seen those controls where music or vocal amplification is used. In small rooms or huge auditoriums there is a place where a technician operates the sound and sets it so that it can be heard well. It is a learning curve to get it right so everyone can hear well. On stage included. In big rooms there is a booth that is called front of house. Many control panels for the lights and screens and video as well.
Mistakes are made seldom but one of the worst ones is called feedback. You may have heard that screeching sound that in the sound controllers humor is called a sound engineers solo. People in the audience swivel their heads and look back instinctively to the sound booth. Oops. Turn a knob or push down the volume or even mute the microphone that could be causing that. It is technically called a sound loop where the speakers are feeding their output into the mikes.
There are two controls that can be set wrongly to cause this. Gain and output. Makes sense. What is coming in or what is going out. This is what happens when in a conversation between two or more people goes awry. We don’t really notice it except when feedback occurs and two people are talking at the same time. Confusing and a mess to comprehend. This is usually caused by us thinking of something to say about what is being said and just blurting it out. Very rude and mostly not thought of as such by the speakers involved. Mostly, not always.
I have noticed the same mistake when I am alone with my thoughts! I interfere with what I am observing or hearing and put my own spin into the experience. When I ask our Lord a question and He gives me His response, I get impatient and say to myself what I anticipate he will say. Staying silent and listening can be developed but it takes a bit of awareness about my anxiety. I am learning to listen to people who speak to me and listen alone. You know how to do this. The facial expressions, nodding and smiling result from communication. A brief flash of your car lights when a tractor-trailer is passing is sometimes returned with a brief flash of his rear running lights. Thank you for paying attention is the message. Now it’s your turn to travel along the road knowing that others are listening to you and your acknowledgment of them. Gain is good for clarity. It’s output that needs attention. Watch, listen and pray. Turn down your output and turn up the gain. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator
Wind chimes, the delight of the flutter of blown leaves or the sway of a tall tree from a breeze that can be heard. These simple things generate a delight that can be explained that have never been explored in the emotion we feel.
The sudden pleasure and smile within our spirit is not even noticed in some ways. It’s just there. We are mostly unaware of the two forces within and without of us. There is a sudden flash of lighting and the instant thunder that shakes the house as the imprint on our retina starts to fade from the sun hot blaze strike. Nicoli Tesla would stand up clap and cheer every time he heard a bolt of lightning. A miracle all of us have heard of the connection between negative and positive EMF. From clouds that can weigh up to a million pounds!
We can then tremble at the power and fear felt or immediately be amazed in delight at the impossible power in a cloud of water. A thought that brings us to our spirit connection and the calm presence of our familiar lover of our soul.
The wind chimes again come to mind. That storm with the wind and thunder may have played a fast tune on them before they became tangled and perhaps so tangled that they could Knot easily be put right. [pun] Are we then to look about the strings and tubes and give up and toss the whole assembly? Or, take hold of the calm and rightness of beauty in the storm and take it apart lovingly, and bring the chimes back to life.
I have begun to see the connection between emotional storms and the music of the Aeolian harp that responds to the storm and gives us the steady center of our being. Full of sound and fury is the world and ourselves if we don’t listen for the calm and clearing skies within us.
“What if all animated nature be but animated harps diversely framed that tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, at once the soul of each, and God of all?” A.
Prayer seemed unnecessary. As I heard the breath of God tell me, once again the old saying of no one really knows where the wind comes from and wither it goes. He was telling me that His breath indeed is the breath inside my lungs I can now use this inward gift to praise Him and live in His presence. An Aeolian harp sings and it’s pretty good. Jack Gator
We must be sensitive to nature’s voice if we are to be truly human. This is the whisper of God’s voice to us. I was at a prayer meeting where we were told to find a place where we could, in isolation, pray. I chose to go outside and sit on a porch. I began to hear wind and watched a very tall tree swaying it’s top.
1. Colerigdge Many thanks to the writing of Carl R. Trueman
Photo of Schmidt Music building in Downtown Minneapolis
It was supposed to be shipped to Naples, Italy. A complex money deal that went through the mail and that precious Martin D-28 I longed for, was put on a ship or airplane and shipped to me at my APO. It went somewhere else, no one ever found it.
Every time we went into Naples, our home port, I inquired at the local post office and of course, through the Navy postal service for that much wanted Brazilain rosewood, dreadnaught guitar. That one was a D-12-28, which guitar players know is a 12 string instrument, now of high value, In the five figure range.
I really wanted it as I was just beginning to learn guitar and had obtained an Italian Echo model which was OK, but I knew from my limited knowledge and observing vinyl record album covers, that Martin instruments predominated the guitars I saw. I wanted what they played, I wanted to play their songs and I really didn’t know what I wanted but I wanted something beautiful and perfect.
It never came. No one had any idea what became of it. The Echo was quickly sold when I went AWOL in Naples. Along with most of my fancy brooks brothers clothing and Rolex watch. My landlord sold them all as I need the money to escape from a man that had bad intentions for me. He too, was a sailor and I gave him up to the CID as the drug dealer on board ship. Those idiot agents put us both in general population in a marine brig up the hill.
A long story ensued, Escape and Capture (on this web site) After being discharged a year later in Newport beach, I returned to my home town and Schmidt Music store in Minneapolis. I inquired about my Martin 12 string Guitar and they also had no idea where it went. They offered to replace it and pointed to the guitars hanging on the wall. There was no 12 stringed ones but there was a six string D28 and it was the same price, $400 (that was 1967) with case. I took it as they had record of my payment. I Still have it. Brazilian Rosewood back and sides. Worth five figures or so now.
It’s been around the block (Motorcycle diary I) {also found in this web page}I have carried it all over the country. I have played it in a lot of clubs and later as a worship leader in a lot of church’s. I Don’t play it much now, usual excuses. It’s been repaired a few times for free due to me being the original owner.
I own and sometimes play other various precious wood instruments. A French Viola made by C.F. Minel from the late 1800’s, A Gibson A model mandolin made in the 20’s during the Lloyd Loahr era. A violin built by my dentist, Oliver Olaffson, when I was a child. That violin is so loud that most of the bands I played it with that all I heard in my left ear was my playing. (In ear monitors had not been invented when I was doing country western music)
Precious musical instruments that I do not get to take with me when it is my time to cross the bar, [old sailing term for coming to port]
I have begun to realize that property, possessions and riches mean nothing compared to my love of Christ and His love for me and His promises of joy and fulfillment in my life. Wanting something beautiful and perfect is the wish of everyone. That perfection above all things is only found by Crossing the bar indeed. The Cross is the gate to our home port. The bar is removed for us and it isn’t a sand bar. The old sailors knew things like that. It’s pretty good, Jack Gator. Scribe
It’s a real easy thing to do with music, if you play that is. If you play in front of people. A hushed room, listening to every key change, every high tempo from the kick drum. Listening when the whole outfit stops playing and just sings Capella. Most everyone in the band knows their parts and if the sound engineer knows their stuff, the band knows what everyone else is doing at any one time. Applause if you do it right and stay in key. Play off key, just surround it with friendly melody and no one will ever know the mistake. 1,.
The problem begins when you have a ‘gig’ (music world for job to play) and are really not in the mood, tired and just beating yourself up about the gestalt of performance. It’s a huge step to exclusively change from playing every two bit bar within driving range, and change to playing for a worship group or band. After a short while, the change to Holy music from Holly music seems to be harder, much harder. Holy means touching eternity and it’s pretty good!
There is a fallback when you have to play and would rather not. You put your musical skills on the line and play in Georgia Overdrive. Put everything in neutral and just coast. It sounds good but you know it doesn’t sound like anything. Just making the moves. Waiting for a touch from the numinous Lord, waiting to hear ‘those’ notes.
As the joke goes, “it’s OK if you like music” It’s a subtle and yet extremely powerful touch or kiss that thrills musicians. Sometimes you can tell with an ensemble when someone transcends all the sharts and flaps and begins to really play or sing. Rhythm surprises were a favorite fallback for me. I was nicknamed ‘the rhythm monster’ by a square dance group I played with for years. The changed notes or rhythm,they catch attention and start an interest. It can be compared to a flicker of light at sunset in the clouds.
Focus on an unknown algorithm that begins the solving of the connection to the conductor of the music. You can feel Him listening and watching what the Holy music is saying to Him. His delight in the formula found to draw near is palpable.
It’s more than just performing for the Holy one, Jesus. It starts with performance at the outset. Akin to handling a blueprint and ‘playing’ with it. A musical intonation that isn’t too complicated but intriguing. A few fumbled chord changes and the groove is coming into focus. Do your part you hear, it’s just made for you to play.
Use the blueprint to get to the right foundation of the music building and ‘look around’ at the other musical carpenters. They are waiting for the moment too. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a harmonic sounds and two instruments play it together. Improvisation rather than notes on a page. Primitive and not very professional but fun. It’s easier to play jazz if you don’t worry about it. Just play what shows up in your spirit and be delighted when it gets picked up.
Noted gypsy guitar player a generation or so ago, Django Rheinhart was asked what key he wanted to play in. He responded. “Key? What is Key?” Gifted beyond comprehension when he played with Stephan Grapelli on violin. If you can get a vinyl recording of these sessions, hang on to it. It’s worth a bundle. Vinyl, it’s the closest thing to actually being there.
Play well and play with heart and spirit giving you the rhythm and scale of things., It’s pretty good.
We have all been there, done that and almost given up on it. I know I had a ten year warranty on that leaf-blower! Oh dear, I will look in my pile over on the desk, OK? Otherwise we can look on line. Could you get me the serial number? When did we get it and is there a model number on it?
Paperwork, endless claims sent to claims department where the phones are manned by well meaning people who don’t speak your language very well. An insurance claim has the same rigmarole with hidden clauses of abuse of product or subparagraph B. which states you have no claim if you are living in one of the following states: A state of exhaustion, bewilderment or confusion. Of course the warranty is a lifetime one, but whose lifetime is tit?
There is one warranty query that comes up often, throughout the world and the forms are quite direct and to the point. I wanted to check and make sure the warranty was OK so I inquired the maker. Name and model number. Norman Peterson, Human. Serial number, XY. Date warranty was issued, December 1970. Regular maintenance performed? Yes.
Amazingly, the warranty contract forms were issued about 1960 years ago and are still solid and in effect for anyone that ‘fills out the form’! You can find the warranty in books, on line or in small pamphlets often found in nightstands in hotel rooms. Your contract can start at any time. Payment for this all inclusive contract is to completely follow the maker’s instructions. Give up all thoughts and actions and give those things up to the manufacturer. He will gently give you directions on how to do so. This is not the fine print at the bottom, it has to be read over and over and there are supplemental readings that can help and assist you. There are also offices throughout the land where you can get encouragement and help.
The forms are more specific in the last chapters of the book which spell out the terms and conditions. They seem rather difficult the first time you read or hear about them. Complete and utter surrender of all assets, life holdings and your life itself! No other payment required.
You have probably guessed by now who honors the warranty. It’s pretty good actually, your make and model are warranted forever. Eternity. Actually your old model gets a complete overhaul and is made perfect when you die. It will be good, feels right and the warranty is now eternal. If you understand what eternity is. The best I have read is a parable about pinwheels!
Spin one with all the colors and it will look white. Spin one with past, present and future and they will all look the same too. It’s a package deal. You also get to read a book that no one on earth has ever read! Every chapter is better than the one before.
I haven’t a clue. I’ve tried to understand a place with no time and filled with incredible beauty. And us. Would you care to view the warranty and guarantee? Let me know, I’ll help as best that I can.
Upon reading the title of this column, it can be confusing. The description of despair is more or less easy to understand. When confronted with the world we are now in, it seems rather hopeless and we lament there is really nothing we can do about it.
Optimism counters that hopeless feeling that there is a relief on the horizon. Believing perhaps in a coming regime change there will be change that is beneficial to us. The banner of someone that promises what we long for, whatever our personal belief is in a better world. For us.
The despair of course knowing that this will not happen and that things will not go as we expect. Optimism takes a hold and we feel that if we just sit tight, everything will work out OK.
Much akin to Pollyanna thoughts. Don’t worry, be happy as a popular song we have heard.
Nothing to be done, or it will be alright in the end. I find it an odd conundrum as both attitudes are in conflict with the faith I embrace. Most certainly, my life and the life of my family is pretty good as my scribe, the gator always says. It is. We have a lovely place to live and many good friends and the ability to move about and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Literally as the garden and labor provides food and repair of things that do break down.
We know, all the way back to the Diache and the Westminister confession, that there is a real solution and a way to deal with our world. A fallen world and one with joy and sorrow. Oppression and helpfulness. A world that has been promised by our Creator that is not our home but a place of formation and life. Not prosperity nor futility experienced with either optimism nor despair but with the answer for everything. Hope.
Hope indeed that can be expressed by us with belief that there is indeed a home for us that will be fulfilling and joyful. All life ends in death and yet the promise we sing in our faith filled rooms with our brothers and sisters is the one answer. Faith.
Through the ages before us, our shinning light has been the incarnation of faith itself. The impossible visit by the Creator of everything that was and will be. He told us centuries ago that our world would indeed be filled with both sorrow and joy. He experienced both things when, hard to believe, impossible for some, He walked among us and taught again and again those things. Do not despair and wallow in fear, do not sit tight and think it will all work out.
Walk as I walk He said, follow me to true life and become children of God. This is the answer to all things. Hope which is Grace which leads to Faith, the very gift of God. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator scribe.
At the outset of these two words, there isn’t all that much difference between the two. Jumping for joy or have a happy birthday. There is a vast difference however.
I was not happy when I was in Boot camp but oddly enough, there was a bit of joy that lingers many decades later. I look upon a photo in our gallery which is on a wall next to the staircase going up to the spare room (not the one in Narnia) We are all smiling for the camera, holding our class flags and in our dress blues. We sang for graduations of all the recruits and every Sunday for the church services for the officers and their families. It was pretty good duty. Our choir director was from the Mormon choir and he was very strict and knew his stuff.
I remember most of the names, their voices and where some of them wound up after we moved on to our new duty stations. I wound up in teaching electronics and Morse code at the A school in San Diego. It was pretty good duty and then I got stationed overseas with Comservron Six in the Med. We had formed what was permanent and this is Joy. It is the result of knowing someone beside you is willing as you are to go the limit to death. Love for your neighbor, you know the chapter and verse, it’s in the book of John.
That’s me, third from the left, front row. Fifth class Education Petty officer
It has been written about many times, movies made and statues dedicated to that bond. It is the reason for heroism experienced. It is the essential instruction given us by our Creator. Love one another as I have loved you.
I tried to explain this to the people I know and love in an informal and pleasant Bible study. Very erudite and educated men and all very respectful and delightfully so. We have laughs and we have the stunning moments when truth comes forth from words read and spoken. Our leader reminds me of one of the men in that photograph. We nicknamed him “Father Flanagan” he went on to the Pensacola air station to be a carrier pilot. I remember his voice as we all sang together in the Naval Bluejackets Choir. I still tear up when I hear for those in peril on the Sea
Something happened to all of us and hopefully, has happened to you as well. It was easier for us as it was the 1960’s and the draft caught all young men. It was my first lesson in the joy that lasts…forever. Happiness is self centered mostly and joy expands out from us as radiant beams of smiles and real truth. Truth centered within and will never be destroyed by anything. Life nor death nor angels and powers, present things or things in the future can separate us from His strong love.
You know who He is, everyone does. The giver of truth and creator of true Joy. Eternal Joy that is written on our heart. I don’t go to church for happiness, I go for the beauty of Joy and the confidence of being embraced by the one who made me. Just for now, just for this time to write it down and tell someone that it is not easy and many times hard to embrace this world.
No guarantees of happiness but guarantees of the revelation and reason we are here. To love one another as He has loved us. Before time began He knew me and treasures me. And you. This is Joy whatever may come. Happiness can be found in all the usual places, but Joy can only be found in the romance of God. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator scribe extraordinaire.
There it is, right in the basic and truthful words of the most truthful man that ever lived and walked among us. Seems like a good idea. At least peace would reign and I would not be so concerned about our mutual fence line, or the other one a bit further away. After all, I don’t want all the land there is! I just desire the land next to mine.
It is easy to circumvent in my mind, after all the words are not ‘Love your next door neighbor’ The second part seems pretty simple, ….As you love yourself. Or it’s companion we use a lot; Hate the sin, but love the sinner.
After all, it is the modus operandi of my life. (That phrase usually refers to a pattern or method suggesting the work of a criminal.) After all, when I do something foolish or worse, that which is called sin, I usually hate that behavior. But, I still go on doing that sort of thing and go on loving myself! Sometimes we hate ourselves, I have said that more than once but eventually come around and realize what a really lovable person I am. I just slip up now and then. Forgive the sin but love the sinner. Does that apply to us? Of course!
How to do this thing, extending my self love outward to another? Recognizing suddenly, over and over again that the people in front of me, behind me, all around me are to be loved as they are by our creator. It can be done, I have done it more often than I thought possible. Sometimes several times a day! I need a storehouse of that sort of love to call upon to do this. Always.
The only way to do this is to fix my eyes and mind and spirit upon everything that is beautiful, right and true. The only way for me to do this is worship the living God Jesus who tells me again how to do this. The way he loves me, the way I love myself. More often now, when I find my mind and my eyes and ears fixed on His words, actions, and His incredible life, then I feel Him near. He is always there, of course. When I feel Him, I feel His breath upon me.
Worship music can help do this for me. Sometimes I forget the many times I worshiped with my beloved team. There were times that were overwhelming with God’s presence shining His face upon us. Suddenly the only response was tears on my instruments. The stains of salt water are still there. Colors of remembrance of timeless love given and felt. The whole team felt it when it happened. That is the reason we see enraptured listeners gesturing, raising hands and weeping. I love it when I see them but know the reasons and intensity that are sweeping through their very being.
Over the internet, in person, even helping produce a visual and audio ‘performance’ of a worship team. When I am awake, then I know when I see things and I hear things in that room. It’s glory and beauty inexplicable and eternal. Astonishingly, things that exist forever. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe
A glorious summer day, with my entire family and early in the morning we headed to a nearby town for gravy and biscuits for breakfast. What a good way to start my birthday! I was driven past town, confused until it was announce I was being kidnapped and we were heading to the freeway and to Duluth. It was dreamlike to be on the way to visit that city again with it’s delights and crumbled history. It has been years since we were able to do this, and now all five of us were on the way to a day trip. What a surprise and honor to have a birthday present such as this.
New business’ and yet, there is a building just a block up from bustling main street, an empty Plumbing and Heating building, now apartments with good views of lake Superior. The rich mercantile shipping headquarters of the upper Midwest, empty. The busy city is now filled with people like us, romantically enticed by the oceanic lake and it’s history. Those warehouses were filled with tons of trade goods from everywhere and also from far north at York Factory on Hudson bay, furs and hides by the bundle to trundle to Europe on ocean going ships. This is Duluth history. Mansions nearby built from the fortunes of lumbering and shipping are now tourist attractions.
The iron ore docks are keeping the shipping going , but the warehouses are empty and the only big ships on Superior are ‘lakers’ with the big holds and hatches for iron ore or coal.
We parked up the hill a block and could smell the coffee roasting from our destination downhill. The street we parked on had it’s charm a bit tarnished by rain eroded old building sites with cracked brick sidewalks. A lone street person half way down, ducked into a narrow hidden alley with her purloined shopping cart and completed the contrast. She was muttering a bit to herself and on her way to …somewhere.
We continued down to the main street. Church bells began to ring from a cathedral visible. It had windows replaced with wood and the building next to it was careworn brick and the windows had no sign of life behind them. Duluth, a fascinating city. Old and new, tightly bound together and bursting forth yet again and again because of it’s beauty.
The streets are steep, bringing memories of San Fransisco and it’s trolly cars. None of those trolly cars exist in Duluth now but the car repair shops do a brisk trade in brake linings. Bicycles abound and a close look at the back gear cluster reveals chain rings about a foot in diameter. They call them ‘granny gears’ and there are limits to them too.
We enjoyed the perfect coffee and then drove down to Canal Park to join the multitude of people also seeking adventure. The bay touring helicopters buzzed about above as we explored the new stores selling remembrances of the boundary waters north of the lake. Beautiful leather handbags and camp gear ready for a portage but they were twice the price anticipated. Forty dollar hats and Kromer caps for half a days wages.
There is a glass blowing shop, open to the sidewalk as incredible things are made and shaped in the small foundry furnace with long rods. Rolled and cut and skillfully made into useful and beautiful creations. There is a skilled teacher there too and we watched as he showed a student how to make a vase with the northern lights colors twisted into it.
We ate smoked whitefish and the best and perfect onion rings. Those rings did not release the onions when you bit into them as others do. Upstairs I went alone into the violin shop and got an estimate on adjusting the sound post of my viola while a pleasant man conversed with me as his wife was trying out a violin among the many hanging above the cellos. The shop is a treasure on the third floor of the Dewitt Sykes building. Made of brick of course. The building not the fiddles.
The rest of the morning I sat on a bench near a sculptured water fountain. Steel fish with water streams coming from their mouths were delighting children as they carefully walked across the pond on flat stones while their parents walked behind them. I watched the people again and this time, alone on the shaded bench, began to pray single word prayers over the ones walking nearby. Peace, strength, connection. Fulfillment as directed by Jesus who was whispering them beside me.
I was delighted to be directed to an older man when my family was lined up inside a very busy, high quality ice cream shop. I did not want to wait in line and sat outside and until I was shown that man. Perhaps my age? I came to him and asked him if I could pray for him. Somewhat surprised when he was standing there he said ‘OK’ and touching his shoulder prayed for him.
Our last stop was at a distillery where we drank bourbon, scotch and brandy that was as good as I have ever tasted. It was as good as the 14 year old stuff that comes from Scotland. A bit more affordable and we could see the distilling piping and tanks where we sat. It was a perfect end to our day up north as the birthday bird flew me back from the birthday palace with it’s forty rooms, just for storing the cleaning up brooms. 1.
Back to the freeway and home while my oldest son and I joked about the billboards we see on our way on Sundays down by the cities. We saw the same ones with ‘Fear the flannel’ whatever that means. Also the man with outstretched arms telling us he will buy our homes instantly. Three of the flannel and 1 of the realtor. (The count on Sunday drives is 4 and six)
What a present, what a delight to be kidnapped on my transition day to being an octogenarian! I am home alone now as my family is off to work. They sacrificed a work day to be with me and it still is precious to me this morning. Life is pretty good. Jack Gator, Scribe
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