Take Time to Smell the Sap.

My father in law once said that a summer's duration is directly proportional to the length of time we have spent on the planet. You know... when you were a small child summer lasted forever... because it was a small percentage of the whole, but as time passed the percentage decreased and with it our perceived length of the  summer months.

Well no better example of that is demonstrated to me then this photograph. 

This is a shot taken of my home in Edmonton, Looking out the front window of that home at a very special place. Except that that place no longer exists. Now don't get me wrong, the home still stands complete with its new exterior, straight walk and fresh coat of paint, but this place...does not. To the untrained eye it simply looks like a poorly kept front yard, with a poorly built bench and badly laid brickwork, but that my friend would be to the untrained eye, for this place was much more.

This place was a special hidden sanctuary built by my father, to take him back to the mountains. Back to the place where God speaks clearly, and the world is at peace. 

You see here, my dad had carved out the inside of four large pine trees, removing their lower branches in order to build a place to just rest and think. Here he would sit and listen to the wind whistle through the pine needles and remember tall stands of Douglas firs on the west side of the continental divide. 

Here he would smell the sweet aroma of the pine sap as it slowly, ever so slowly dripped from the cut marks on the side of the trunk and remember being the first to blaze trails into lakes that were not even named on the map. 

Here, his friends, the squirrels and bunnies would visit and take him back to the grizzlies and cougars that would have visited his camp years earlier. 

Here my father could be at peace. 

That was nine years ago that I last sat in his sanctuary under the pines... nine years ago that we shared hiking stories while enjoying a iced tea in among those pillars. 

Now the summers that used to crawl by, flies. My children who only a moment ago were with Grampa under the trees, listening to the moment that the bear ran away with his camera, are now beginning to graduate from University and start their own adventures. And the place of peace and rest is no more.

Life is like that you know. Like the song says, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. Well now it's gone and with it memories are fading along with the smell of pine and the sound of the wind. 

But for a moment this summer let me encourage you to stop and smell the Pine, touch the bark, stick your fingers together with the sap, and look under the logs for the squirrel. It is then and only then that you will bring back those things that are most dear, even if only for a moment.

Have a great summer.

Waves. 

Waves. Small waves roll forward and then swiftly back. They roll on an ever changing bed of sand. The wind slowly gives up on pushing the clouds away and soon the waves are joined by droplets of rain. It's a beach. Just a beach. Just an ordinary, wet, cold, beach that looked perfectly safe. Then again, no beach is safe in 1944. 

The calm waters soon reflect the hue of grey steel. A landing craft. Then two. Then three. Then dozens. Waves. The ships are packed full with men, guns, equipment and desperation. The landing craft chugs along at an unwavering speed determined to carry the men in green to their adversaries in grey. The steel boats look like coffins and when the guns start firing, they are. 

The beach is hell. The onrushing soldiers trying to avoid the death stroke of a bullet to the chest. Most succeed, others fail. None of these attacking men feel like the "Great Arsenal of Democracy". None of the men in the blockhouses feel like "The Great Evil of our Time" either. They just feel either the need to survive, or the yearning to die. 

As the bullets whizz past the on rushers, slowly and steadily they gain ground. The defenders who had taken the lives of the men on the beach just seconds ago are now the object used for the bloody satisfaction of payback. And then the beach falls silent again, only interrupted by the faint cries of the dying and the wailing. 

4,200 lives. 4,200 families that have to be crushed. All of this for five miles of beach. five miles of beach that is covered with the dead. 

But that was 70 years ago. Why are we remembering that battle? We remember because of their bravery. We remember because of their immense sacrifice. We remember not to glorify their fight or to somehow endorse the death inflicted that day. We remember our fathers and grandfathers so that we do not send our sons to a similar conflict.

A Blog written by my son...David Andrew Vincent Wood (IX)

a grandson of a WWII Veteran, my dad...David Vincent Britten Wood.

 

We're all Vagabonds!

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater...

He sendth more strength when the labours increase...

to added affliction he added his mercy...

to multiplied trials his multiplied peace...

How often we see ourselves as not fitting in...
We wander aimlessly, as a Vagabond. By definition: a person who wanders from place to place without a home or job.  Oh I'm sure that does not describe your actual life but rather your spirit... are you restless?

Are you aware that God's love for you is not some disconnected passion that has nothing to do with your day to day living but is rather a practical love that is built around the person and character that God made...when he made you.

Often in this life we perceive God's love as something that happens right after, "Once Upon a Time..." and right before, "And they lived happily ever after..." 

But the truth is quite different. 

God's grace and love is more like... "it was during the big fight..." and "while they were noticing the bottom falling out."

God's grace is found in... "God wants me...not anything that I can do."

"You only hurt as much as you love, which to God is why he hurt so deeply."

"God's grace is poured out like Niagara. How can we now measure out our love"

How often we measure ourselves and find our lives measuring short of the requirements of the Word of God, short of the expectations of God's love, or the qualifications that would provide us some vain justification for claiming a living active relationship with a Holy God. Instead, we measure and find ourselves...wanting. Weak. 

And yet it is in this very state of weakness where we find the greatness of our Lord.

There is nothing on earth like the fellowship of losers found in the christian church. 
There is nothing like the poor, broken that have been called by name by a grace dispensing God.
There is nothing like the vagabonds and the human refuge that are rescued by the spirit of the Lord through his grace.

For each of us are losers (all have sinned and fallen short Romans 3:23) each of us are poor and broken ( "Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners." Mark 2:17) each of us are the vagabonds and human refuge that God loves. ("Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"--and I am the worst of them all." 1 Tim 1:17)

We all have carried the weight of sin into and onto our lives...enough to condemn us to death and yet we have been given grace by our loving father. It's time to remember just what he has done....and who are are!

... and still loved!