Anticipation.

I walk across the ramp to the row of broken-down hangars. The wind whips past me, cutting through even my thick winter coat and scarf, and sending chills down my spine.

The snow piles left by the plow trucks have frozen, thawed, and refrozen into mountain ranges of ice, that still stand as tall as a man where they were hastily pushed aside last week.

I step, and nearly slip and fall, on a puddle, frozen solid by the brutal cold sweeping down from the arctic. The cold I can contend with, it's the stiff breeze that makes this Michigan winter day intolerable.

The shining sun in the cloudless sky is merely enhancing the freezing temperatures, casting it's harsh light without the familiar warmth of summer. I open the door to the unlit hangar and step inside, removing my sunglasses as I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

She comes into view, a regal silhouette of years past. She deserves better than a dusty, run-down hangar. She has only been here a few months, yet I can see even in the dim light the layer of dust covering her bright paint. She has not been flown in a good long while, not even moved, her engine sitting silently waiting for her magnetos to be turned on, for her starter to be turned.

Yet even in this state of disuse and dusty neglect, she sits proudly, her stout nose pointed skyward, her smooth, classic lines defying the passing of years.

As I open the hangar doors for her, I remember when she first came to us. All of us at the airport came by to see her, to spend time staring and touching and dreaming. We walked around her, imagining the sound of the spinning propeller, the throaty rumble of the engines, the scent of exhaust and burnt oil. I stood there long after everyone else had moved on, and then sat in the cockpit for a while, just looking.

I looked out over the wing, and imagined seeing my home field, Riverview Airport, gliding beneath me. I look to the front of the airplane, and imagine the massive wood propeller pulling the airframe effortlessly through the West Michigan summer. But summer is a long way away from today.

The hangar is open now, the first sunlight she has seen in probably three months. The brightness of it seems to awaken her, her paint now gleaming even under the dust, the varnish on her propeller blinding with it's reflection. She seems, in my mind, to stir a bit, then stretch, as if her landing gear is stiff from disuse, like a limb fallen asleep.

There are buyers coming. Perhaps they will provide her with the home she deserves. The fact that they expressed enough interest to drive to the airport on this excessively cold day holds at least a small promise for her.

She was built for the air, not the ground. Every inch of her strives to be rid of gravity. I walk toward her, and reach out my hand to gently touch her wing. I lightly tap my fingers on the wing's surface, listening to the hollow, drum-like sound of the stretched fabric. Much of her is merely a wooden skeleton, covered in fabric that is stretched tight and then painted. Craftsmen, perhaps as many as ten or twenty, have slaved over every inch of this airplane, shaving and planing wooden ribs into shape, covering and stretching the fabric. There is some sheet metal on the airframe as well, no doubt bent and riveted and welded with the same craftsman's care as the fabric and wood.

She was built for the air, and every inch of her displays craftsmanship and artistry fit for any museum wall. It saddens me that a piece of art such as this can be reduced to a commodity, bought, sold, and traded on a whim of those who would merely collect it.

No, she was built for the air, and deserves to be flown. She deserves to be flown, to be guided by a caring pilot, and herself guide her pilot towards many unknown horizons.

Perhaps this may be the day she has anticipated! Perhaps these owners will bring her someplace warm, someplace with blue skies not filled with threatening clouds or freezing wind!

Perhaps she will finally be able to dance with the birds, to feel the breeze once again against her windscreen!

Her anticipation spills over into me, as I look toward the warmer days when I will be finally able to once again mingle with the clouds.

For we are both wintering now in a dusty, unused hangar. The dust covering her beautiful paint is the dust that is covering my flight bag.

The oil on the floor beneath her telling of long days spent in the same spot is the brand new sectional map that sits pristine and unopened in my kneeboard.

I am covered with dust. I am rusty, in need of a good, strong scrubbing.

But yet, like the beautiful aircraft I stand next to, I hold my head high, knowing that someday, soon, I will be able to frolic once more with the birds. I, like her, will return to the sky.


wingnut

Happy Birthday!

From this:




To this, in only 365 days!

Yesterday we celebrated the year anniversary of one of the most tiring, excruciating, nerve-wracking days we have ever experienced as a family.

It was also, hands down, the most joyful day we have ever known.

Three years ago, we were not sure if we would ever experience a day like it.

All the heartache, the pain, the doctor visits, the exotic-sounding medications that may actually harm you, but might help you as well...

...and then the last visit, when the doctor says, "It doesn't look like it's going to happen this month, I'm sorry."

And then it happened.

And then we spent the better part of a year in a constant state of near-panic, thinking that just over every hill, around every corner, lurked some sinister event that would strip away all of our joy, and once again leave us with nothing but broken dreams and an empty cradle.

And then the day. The day that actually started at 8:00 PM the previous evening.

After much pain and discomfort, and little sleep or food, at 2:01 the next afternoon, little Elijah Jason made his entrance.

To say what we've done, or what he has done, or what our accomplishments have been in the past year would take up entirely too much space.

We just want to say Happy Birthday, Elijah.

We love you very much.



Mom and Dad.

Free Stuff!!

In true Internet tradition, I stumbled upon a blog through a blog. The blog in question is flowerdust, authored by Anne Jackson.

It seems that Anne has a book about to be released, as well as a flippin' sweet giveaway contest going on right now through Saturday.

The giveaway is for Logos Scholar's Library, a collection of study resources, including Greek and Hebrew resources, different Bible translations, as well as certain commentaries, articles, and reference material.

So do yourself a favor and go comment here to enter. You have to chose your favorite Bible verse, and then maybe tell a story about said verse. The winner will be chosen randomly. If you win, that'd be awesome! If you don't, then you still get to read others talk about their favorite Bible verse, and why it is meaningful to them. So you get to enter an awesome contest, and read stories about how God is alive and active and speaking to us through His Book! Win-win-win, I say!

And since I mentioned my favorite Bible verse over there, I would be doing a disservice to not talk about it here, so read along!

Once upon a time, I had foolishly and very quickly decided that a certain girl might just very well be That Girl. At probably about the same time, she had decided that she was not that girl, and told me as much over the phone one night.

It sucked.

I moped around for a good long while after that, and one day found myself on the other end of town, just driving around. At one point I stopped, got out of my car, and walked for a bit. It was a park that I had come to a few times before, on the Thornapple River near the Cascade Dam.

I walked out towards the dam on the seawall (riverwall?), and just stood for a while. I was praying that God would tell me what to do, because what I was doing obviously had not worked out so well for me. I was broken, beaten, lost.

I asked for something, anything that would show me what to do, where to do, anything. I wasn't really looking for a specific path, I think now that I was just looking for God to show me that He did still have a plan, and that I was in it somewhere.

As I turned to return to my car, I kicked something at my feet. It wasn't very big, but it made a metallic clicking noise, so I knew it wasn't just a pebble. I looked down, and then reached down to pick up a small crucifix pendant.

As I picked it up and looked at it, a verse exploded into my mind: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Matthew 28:20.

Jesus had just been crucified, and his religious movement had seemingly failed. The disciples, who had given everything to follow him for the last three years, had absolutely nothing to show for it, except a fear that they were going to be next when the wrath of Rome and the Pharisees finally caught them.

But then they get a message to meet Jesus in Galilee, and so they go. They meet their risen LORD, and he sends them out to all the nations. He tells them to go and make disciples.

Not later, when you finally get all my parables figured out.

Not in a year or two, when Paul gets converted and stops chasing you around.

Not tomorrow, or next week, or next month.

Now.

And then He tells them that He will always be with them, until the end of the age.

Jesus says, "Go tell everyone you know about the way to Heaven. Go now, and don't worry about messing up. Don't put all your energy into getting the message technically correct. Just go show my love to the world. My spirit, my power and authority are with you. This is not about you, this is about me."

How encouraging that was and is for me still.

And, it was shortly after this that God brought my Bride and I together. And I'm telling you, it's better that it ever could have been with anyone else.

wingnut

Motives.

Well, On a Wing and a Prayer recently celebrated it's 100th post. I had a "massive" celebration planned, I had a special post all written, and had researched all these ridiculous facts about the past year or so, things that have happened on the site, visitors, comments, and so on...It was meant to be a lighthearted look back at the past 100 entries, and a hopeful look into the future, and the next however many entries there will be.

But the magical number 100 passed my by, and so I was going to delay it for two, and poke further fun at the random and completely unusual things that sometimes happen like that. So it was turned into 100 (plus 2) celebration, with even more of the ridiculous facts and corny trivia about OWP. I don't think I'm going to anymore. But this is post number 103, for those of you counting.

Earlier this week I came upon a conversation happening over at Steve Carter's blog, and it caught me short. Steve used to be in charge of the student ministry at Mars Hill, but he is in the middle of moving to another faith community in California. On his blog, he has been doing a series on "stolen teachings", exploring copyright issues concerning religious teachings. The post I stumbled upon was a guest post by Matt Laidlaw, another youth pastor at Mars Hill.

Matt talked about how he thinks this whole discussion is missing the point a bit. It is not our teaching in the first place, so who are we to complain and bicker and argue about who said what first? When we do that, we are treating these teachings not as the life-giving thing that they in fact are, but rather as mere commodities, to be traded, bought, and sold. Obviously there needs to be mechanisms in place to protect against outright theft of ideas, but when considering intellectual property, we must, must, must remember that all this has been given to us by God, and is therefore not ours to begin with.

One of Matt's points concerned the blogging community, and deserves to be quoted at length:

"Some of us like to hear the sound of our own voice. Some people like to see the look of our own typed words. Deep down we all want to think and feel as if our insight and ideas are worth hearing. For some of us in our darkest moments, this is why we’re energized by teaching. For others of us, this is why we blog. As innocent and helpful as blogging might seem on the surface, isn’t it also a dangerous venture?

In Blog World, our experiences define reality. Research, resources, and the consultation of others hold little to no value in the eyes of the average Internet surfer or blog reader. Wisdom and truth are in the eyes of the blogger and the reader, and external verification holds no weight. Meaning: we really have no idea what truth lies behind the written words, what the real story is, or if the thoughts presented could legitimately hold any water.

The nature of blogging allows us to be irresponsible with our ideas and the ideas of others. We can say anything we want, any time we want, about anything or anybody we want. There is no authority—not really—holding us accountable if our ideas are ill-conceived, misinformed, or unoriginal. Blogs run the risk of being nothing more than pooled ignorance, stolen ideas, and vain attempts to prove our talents important and our lives valuable.

Blogging allows everyone to become a “writer”. Not only does this self-proclaimed title carry with it a false sense of worth from a false giver of value; it fuels a destructive and universal self-centeredness. Now that I am a “writer”, and my “work” is out there for the world to see, I have to keep “writing”. Now that I’ve created a false audience for my life to be lived in front of, people “need” to know what I’m doing, how I’m feeling, and what I’m thinking all the time. This behavior, whether I find it in myself or in others, must be called what it is: immature, disgusting, and sinful."

Ouch. Serious, bone-jarring, gut-wrenching ouch.

If I am being honest with myself, I can see me in that quote, as clearly as if I'm looking at a mirror.

So many times I have convinced myself that I am super-insightful, that I am finding a new way to enlighten the world, that the world needs to read my blog. And sitting alone at a laptop is perfect for convincing yourself that you have an army of voracious readers, hungry for every single tidbit you toss through cyberspace in their general direction.

I try not to be careless in my writing, I try to research everything before I post, I try to express the truth as I see it in an honest and forthright way.

But behind all that, deeper and darker and way past that in the depths of my very being, I blog because I am still chasing cool.

So I wonder: is this blog about me? Or is it about something bigger? Is it about my words? Or is it about the Word that has been around since Creation? Do I have the right motivation? Or am I merely a clanging gong?

And if it is about the Word, then why should I care about the number of posts? Why should I care about the number of visitors, or the number of comments, or the farthest-away-from-me-on-the-globe visitor I've had?

So I'm going to delete my "party" post.

Instead, I will offer this prayer:

That God's Word may shine through my broken, sometimes rambling, mostly sincere, always human attempts at expressing His Truth.


wingnut

Nike, Dobson, and One-Year-Old Boys

Recently, local pastor (and frequent favorite guest at Mars Hill) Ed Dobson was featured on Good Morning America. I tried to embed the video here, but I guess a link will have to do. So if you want to watch the video and read the accompanying article, here ya go!

My first thought was, "I want to read that book!"

My second thought was, "Holy crap, I don't think I could do that!"

As I listened to the interview and read the article, it struck me how difficult it would be. Keeping kosher would be extremely difficult, the traditional beard would be a nuisance. The fasts, feasts and holidays would be hard for me to keep track of.

The hardest part, though, would be what every Christian finds difficult, if not much of the time, then honestly at least a good part of the time: Living up to the loving standard that Jesus set in his teachings.

I wondered again if I could do it, and voiced my apprehension to my wife.

"Do you think Elijah could do it?" She asked.

Do I wonder if my soon-to-be one year old son could obey Torah as Jesus did?

"Do you think he even thinks about it?" she continued.

"I mean, look at him. What has he done this year? He's learned to feed himself. He's learned to crawl, and to pull himself up on things. He's learned to walk. He's figuring out how to make sounds with his mouth. He has learned where we keep all his toys. He's learned no. He's learned that we take care of him, that he comes to us when he needs something."

"That's a lot to learn."

I nodded, and she continued. "Do you think he's stopped to consider whether he can do those things, or should do those things? He just does them."

She's right, of course.

Eli doesn't stop to consider how difficult it will be to learn to walk. He doesn't wonder how long it might take before he figures out how to feed himself.

He knows that if he slides off the couch on his belly, feet first, that the floor will be there. Ditto for our bed, which stands even with his forehead. He doesn't stop to wonder if this will hurt or not. He knows that the floor is down there, and if he slides on his belly and puts his feet over the edge first, he'll find the floor.

He doesn't stop to consider if he is able or not. He takes Nike's advice, and just does it.

He doesn't stop to think about how difficult something might be, he just does it.

In Matthew, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God belongs to children.

I wonder if this "Nike" attitude is why?


wingnut