New Adventures

I suppose I have always loved a good adventure, and have had an adventurous spirit by nature. It must be the newness or the freshness of it. And then there is the inherent challenge that lay at the heart of it. What lies ahead, around the bend. When I am off on a new trail which I have never trod, it's what is around that next turn in the path that spurs me on. And if someone started off with me, but whose interest waned before mine, it's when I can no longer hear their call behind me, bidding me to come back, that causes me to realize that there is something deeper in my breast, than in their's, that keeps urging me onward. It's this spirit that causes me to climb all the way to the top of an old lighthouse, no matter how many steps, or how arduous the task may be, or how many times I may have to pause to catch my breath.

And there is the burning desire to see the view from the top of a high hill, or a mountain. There is a sense that I might miss some grander gaze, some distant aspect from that elevated stance.

Well into the latter part of my life, I was challenged by a new adventure, one unlike many others which I had taken on. It was the learning to play a different musical instrument than I had become accustomed to playing, even if ever so inefficiently. This instrument and the playing of it, and the unusual intonations of it, had always fascinated me. My desire finally got the best of me, so I proceeded to borrow an old violin from a friend, just to see how it would feel, how it would sound, and just how challenging it would be in my hands. Having always played every other instrument I have tried to learn "by ear", I used this same metheod with this instrument. Lo and behold, a melody came out, and another, and then another. My goal from the beginning had been just to play for my own enjoyment. I have found that to become the reality of what occured. The richness of my enjoyment of playing this very complicated instrument has far surpassed the quality of my actual playing of it. And there are more bends in the path of this adventure which lay ahead for me to follow. I may not take those turns in the way or keep striving to reach greater heights, but I have truly and am still enjoying the musical scenery along the way.

JEFF'S PAINTING

When we moved into our new condo in November 1995, the man who lived across the hall came over to introduce himself. "Hi, I'm Jeff", he said in the friendliest tone one could imagine. He was a man who always had a twinkle of impishness in his eye. He had a genuine love for people and was always ready to praise those he knew and stood ready to lend a helping hand to everyone. We came to love him as a dearest friend and to enjoy spending time with him and his wife, Ann, even though he was fifteen years our senior. They were both such genuine Christians who loved the Lord. Jeff was what is commonly know as a lay person in a local church but he was a leader in service and evangelism and was very involved in the establishing and growth of many new church fellowships wherever he lived.

Jeff loved music, and had a rich baritone voice. We spent many hours in their condo across the hall talking about the Lord and everything else with much enthusiasm. Jeff bought an electric organ for Ann to play and for him to enjoy hearing her play. But when it came to Mary Lee and I, he most of all wanted to hear us play his organ, which was one of those that can produce many different sounds., organ, piano, jazz. etc. There were certain hymns which he would want me to play. Sometimes he would record on the organ so he could play them back later.

One day Jeff brought an antique picture of a country scene which his grandmother displayed in her home when he was a child which evoked many pleasant memories for him. But the picture was old and faded. He asked if he could commission me to do a painting of the picture for him. I agreed and subsequently showed it to him. He seemed overwhelmed and, to say the least, was quite pleased with the result. He hung the painting in his bedroom. Almost every time I would see him thereafter, Jeff would brag on the painting, saying it was the best one I had ever painted.

A couple years after I did the painting for Jeff, he contracted macular degeneration, and before long

he became legally blind and finally could not really see the painting with any real clarity. But this never deterred him from bragging about how beautiful the painting was. He continued to say it was the best one I had ever painted. Subsequently, Jeff and Ann moved out of our condominium, and then out of state to Maryland, and finally back to Salem . We visited them at every subsequent location where they resided. Jeff never failed to tell me how proud he was of his painting, assuring me that it was the best I had ever done.

In 2008, Jeff became very ill and was hospitalized. He requested to be taken home to die. The last time we visited Jeff, he was in and out of consciousness and more than likely did not know we were present with him. I held his hand and prayed with him and Ann and their two daughters. It was the last time we saw alive. The images I have of Jeff's painting will be a constant reminder of what a wonderful person he was and how great was our friendship with him and his dear wife. But even without the painting or images of it on my computer, we will never forget Jeff, his gentle ways, his humble spirit and his deep appreciation of the ones he knew and loved. As his obituary so aptly stated, he has gone "home to be with his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

Jeff's Painting

Art is the visual expression of what the soul sees and feels. It is a personal response to what the artist experiences through the medium of his eyes, and does not necessarily represent the actual likeness of what is observed by them. It has been said with some degree of accuracy that if one wants to create a picture of the exact image of what one sees then he should simply use a camera. There is some truth in this statement. I formerly felt the thrust of this statement and grasped it with a sense of responsive agreement. However, one must be careful, when they are agreeing with the thought expressed in that statement, that they are not betraying the fact that they are unknowingly revealing a somewhat less than an artistic spirit. It may also reveal a remarkable lack of real appreciation of the originality which comes into play by the photographer, not to mention that of the artist who paints in the realistic style. No two photographers will see the subject of their shot at the same angle, nor take the picture in the same light, and so forth. And the artist, seeking to portray the same subject, even though very realistically, will not use the same color scheme as another, nor the exact amount of light, or place the same emphases on any aspect of his work as someone else would. Every person, be they photographer or artist, will express what and how they see an object in just such a way as they are governed by their own unique originality. In this inexplicable sense, every human being is an artist in some degree of meaning of the word.

A person can be enslaved by the reality of what his eye sees while not allowing his soul to feel the wonder and intricate beauty of what he is observing. "Beauty is only skin deep", and some people never see more of any thing than what is on the surface.

People are often heard to say, with absolute veracity, "I know what I like." And this is the prerogative of every indiviual. But the one who says this should be careful not to fall into the narrowness of thinking that expects others to like the same thing when it comes to an object of art. It is one thing to know what one likes, but it is quite another to expect everyone else to like the same things. How true this is in regard to life in general. We are prone to judge others simply on the basis of "surface" information about them, such as the way they dress, the color of their skin, or their nationality, or the beliefs they hold dear, or even by such things as the accent of their speech.

The true artist is an observer, by far above all else. He sees what most other people never see until it is, at least, pointed out to them by someone else. And this is another thing that a true artist is good at doing, causing others to look at something in a different way than they would normally see it, or by getting others to look at something which they have never "seen" before. In other words, things they have, indeed, seen, but which they have never, indeed, seen before. Of course this happens on a greater or less scale, depending upon the artist and what he was trying to accomplish and, on the other hand, by the one who is observing his work. Good art sets up a line of communication between the artist and the observer of his art work.

There seems to be a great deal of unwarranted concern these days that the inhabitants of the earth are going to run out of those things it needs to sustain themselves and that the changing boundaries of the deep seas are something to be feard like a plague! Wow, it seems to me that the alarmists we are constantly and increasingly hearing from are, if you will, the chicken littles of our day. They are so mistakenly alarmed that they are causing alarm in others to increase by leaps and bounds. Methinks the whole world is going mad, being dominated by fears which are overtaking their hearts, fears which we should be fearing themselves, rather than the supposed coming of the end of all things ahead of their time. True Christian believers, with a rock solid faith in their sovereign God and His clearly stated purposes, seem to be the only ones who have any stabililty and peace in their inner most being, most commonly referred to as our hearts. This sovereign One is He Who brought all things into existence out of nothing (Genesis1:1, in the Hebrew), and subsequently formed the earth out of a watery mass(Gen. 1:2) and then created the first man and woman and placed them over everything else with which He had furnished the earth(Gen, 1:28). He is the same One who set the boundaries of the seas, raised the mountains, and brought into existence the origins of the nations, and finally provided a way of redemption for His crowning creature, man, who had so terribly fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:23) Can He not be trusted, indeed, to control the whole universe, much less the speck of earth in it, or even less, the needs of His creatures upon the earth? After all, He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7)

"You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed of You, becasue he trusts in You." ISAIAH 26:3

Wow! what wonderful weather has descended upon us where I live. As the sun has come up each morning this week, the temperatures have been in the low fifties and ,with the absence of those miserable high humidity readings, it has been very, very cool for our early walks. So we have had to don long sleeves and, in Mary Lee's case, a hooded jacket. This is a blessing, especially when we head back up the long steep hill near the end of our walk, before the last stretch back to our condo. Along the way, I've noticed that some of the persimmons are beginning to fall to the ground as they have rippened to a soft pumpkin colored skin. However, I have refrained from eating any of them, though they are unusually sweet and delicious at this stage. If only I could find enough of them, I would like to try my hand at making a persimmon pie!

I even noticed this morning that some of the maple trees are already beginning to show a tinge of orange and yellow on the outer perimeter of the foliage. Squirrels continue to show up crossing the road in front of us with chestnuts in the clutches of their extremely sharp teeth, and there are evidences under the tree itself of cracked and discarded shells following snacks which they simply could not resist during their gathering and storing process. I have even seen the crows hopping around in the grass jumping mercilessly at unwary insects and worms. This seems rather strange for the bird which usually relishes the flesh of animals. Someone told us they had observed one crow trying to attack a baby rabbit. However, the rabbit's mother fearlessly launched a counter attack, and a very unusal battle ensued with fur and feathers flying everywhere.

These are just some of the evidences of what seem to be rather early signs of fall.

It is a great time to be alive and to be able to witness both what God is doing and what God allows.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul" And why are you disquieted within me? HOPE IN GOD; For I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God."

Psalm 42: 11

Speaking of marriage and friendship, I just came across this church bulletin blooper which read, "Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days."

Sadly, this is all too true of many marriages. But not so with ours. Since early on in our courtship and continuing till the present day, Mary Lee and I have been the best of friends in the true sense of the word. We have always loved spending our time together and facing our problems together, and making our decisions together. We have a practice of never speaking an ill word about the other behind each other's backs to others. We have so much fun together and often laugh about how much we laugh together, not only about things that amuse us both, but also about silly mistakes that we make. We think so much alike thatwe often make the same remarks about things in tandum

We laugh at ourselves, and at each other, and find it to be one of the best of medicines. There is much healing found in a joyful spirit.

And we pray together, worship together, and serve the Lord and others together. Sure, we "get in each other's hair" sometimes. But we resolve our differences during the same day, and never go to bed angry at each other. We attempt to not take ourselves so seriously that we can learn from each others example and acquired wisdom.

Do I need to apologize for being so personal and talking so much about the friendship we enjoy. Then, I would have to apologize for the intense degree of our love for each other!

"There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

Proverbs 18:24

"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."

Song of Solomon 6:3

You

Ever so often God brings into existence a flower of exceptional beauty and fragrance. Everyone wants to be close enough to it to have their life enriched by its unique qualities.

But only one person is given the privilege of picking that flower and taking it to themselves as their very own precious possession; though that one, out of great appreciation for what they have been given, finds immense pleasure in sharing its loveliness with others.

You are just such a flower and I am the one to whom God allowed to take you as my very own, and my life has been so very deeply enhanced by the wonder of who you are!

(To Mary Lee on her 69th birthday)