24601: That is the number the prison gives to identify the man known as Jean Valjean, the protagonist in the book and musical, LES MISERABLES. 24601.  The number is not only given for identification, but also is thrown in the face of a man who carries a name, a family, a history…so that the penal system can remind him that he is “less than a man”…he is only a number.

That is what is what the world does best…it reduces humanity.  The world takes the fullness of life and reminds all of us that we are only a statistic, just a number in a vast sea of like numbers.

Depending on which circle one walks in, they are either one voice-type in a choir, a checking account number, an address, a blonde, a catholic, a poor person, a wacko.  The world will constantly reduce us to the least common denominator.  The world will do what is easiest, most efficient and most degrading.

I remember the day I flew to Washington State with a medium-sized wooden box containing the ashes of my father.  Those ashes were all that was left of his body, after the world had its way…that, and a series of forms, two bags of odds and ends, and a few clothes.  This is what the world thought of him.  That is what the world thinks of you and me.  We may bask in greatness and popularity, or sulk in our inability to gain what we think we are worth…but either way, the world doesn’t care.  Don’t kid yourself, the world, as God Himself has said, is a prostitute who may flatter and tempt…but in the end you’re nothing more to her than a loaf of bread…if even that.

That’s what the world, with its popularity contests, worship of youthful beauty, and elevation of wealth and power above all things does to us.  The world does not define what LIFE is.  God defines LIFE.  And HE does the opposite of what the world does; instead of reducing humanity, God elevates, enhances, and fills humanity.

The scriptures remind us that God has elevated us, crowned us, claims us as children, and pronounces us heirs to the universe.  “Life” is not defined by the things that are left when our breath takes flight.  “Life” IS that breath, the very breath that was given us the day we first cried.  “Life” as God sees it, is something that not only lives forever, but is MORE real after we rid ourselves of these bodies and this world.  God does not see my father or mother as “ashes in a box”, but as individual, golden, perennial diamonds.  He knows them as Marge & Tom, the children for whom He would do anything, reach any depth, and fly across the universe to rescue.

We who Believe & Follow The Way are the bearers of THIS torch: that the world will flatter us, tempt us, beat us and try to kill us…but God is “not of this world”  and this Age will be cleaned to make way for the next; an Age with homes for each of His children.  An Age ruled by the King who put on our skin so that we might trust Him, believe Him and follow Him…from the manger to the cross and through the tomb back to the Garden.

The only things from this Age that we will see in the next are each other.  Don’t let the world reduce you and define you…and more importantly, don’t be a part of the world’s conspiracy by reducing another person to something less than they are.

Our relationship to one another is the only true currency we take with us to The-Age-To-Come.  How we love them here and now, in this age, defines our love for God.

“To love another person is to see the face of God.” VICTOR HUGO, author of LES MISERABLES

Before the jet even landed, a rich green and blue  light came to my eyes and into the deep part of me.  We were flying over each of the islands of our 50^th State, Hawai’i, soon to land in the northern-most island (the “Garden Island”) of Kaua’i.

I’d been there before, a few times.  Each time however, for some strange reason, it feels like coming home.  I’m not the only one who feels that way, I know.  I’m still trying to figure out how a Welsh-Scottish-Jewish-Cherokee man like me settles and exhales in a place that is so totally unlike anything I grew up in, nor have ancestors from.  A “past life”…lost “DNA Memory”? Maybe, after all, we can’t always explain everything. 

Whatever it is, walking out of the airport into the warm tradewinds, catching the scent of flowers we don’t have in Indiana, my shoes making footprints in the red dirt, hearing the waves, looking up to the emerald-green-velvet mountains topped with the ever-present mist – all work on my soul.  It is medicine.  It renews me.  It inspires me.

It is “paradise”…or IS it?

 When we arrived at the condo, we unpacked (made sure the air conditioning was working) and checked out the place.  Outside the waves were breaking at two to three feet on a rocky shore, the palms were blowing in the tradewind breeze, and the ever present sound of birds (some chickens as well) were in the air.  Then I saw an “official-looking” letter sitting on the coffee table.  I picked it up and read words that jarred me into memories of being a child in the 60s, in a government town on the “first strike” target map of Russia; words I hadn’t really experienced as a part of my life since then.

The Title at the top shocked me out of paradise:

“THREATS OF TERRORISTS NUCLEAR ATTACK (CBRNE) TERRORISM PROCEDURES – Dear Guests, Advance notice of a nuclear attack is unlikely.  When sirens sound and EAS advisories are broadcast, residents and visitors will have less than 12 to 15 minutes before missile impact…” and it went on…for two pages.

Yes, this was our welcome letter.  I blinked my eyes.  I suddenly wasn’t sequestered in my safe, comfortable home in the Midwest…I was close to, and in direct line from, some of America’s foreign bullies.  It wasn’t a “distant” threat any longer, it was right here.  Here…in “paradise”. 

I asked myself, as I set the letter back down, “Is there any place on earth, any time of life, any person who breathes, that is immune from trouble and TRULY enfolded in “paradise”?  The answer is obviously, “No.”

No matter how beautiful, comfortable a place, no matter how magical the moment, no matter how healthy and/or wealthy the person…nothing is perfect.  There will always be “something” wrong.  Trouble is around the corner. 

I’m not trying to be a killjoy or pessimistic.  I’m being realistic.  Everyone who breathes, including Believers and Followers of Jesus, will face “trouble in paradise AND outside paradise”.  How then do we live?

Shall we deny trouble?  I could have set the letter down and never though of it again, ignoring it’s existence and the existence of a very real threat.  Is that what my King teaches?  I don’t think so.  Jesus is a realist in the truest form.  He never taught a “butterfly & roses” lesson to anyone.  He faced everything, and taught a reality of life on earth and not “pie in the sky” doctrine.

Shall we worry?  Ha!  Of ALL the things Jesus speaks to us, one of the loudest is, “Don’t worry.”  He goes on to say that “each day has trouble enough of its own.”, letting us know that simple “worry” cannot add days to our lives or growth to our bodies.  I could have chosen to walk through each day in Kaua’i with the worry of impending nuclear attack spicing every meal, poisoning every drink, interrupting  every conversation…and then kicked myself on the way home from vacation, knowing that I wasted all my time by NOT LIVING in each and every moment. 

I always like to say, “One of the first things we will say to each other, as we meet up in the New Earth, will be ‘Didn’t we waste a lot of time worrying about things that never happened?’”

So how then, DO we live in this world, this time, this place?  Some people live every day in a purgatory I will never have; filled with desperate hunger, danger, and death…living for that one brief moment of “paradise” in their days.  Others live in another world I also don’t live in; filled with pleasure, comfort, ease, riches…all at their fingertips. I’m somewhere in-between.  But in ALL cases, what I hear the Spirit say (on the Page, and through my own eyes, ears, and heart) is “LIVE the full life Jesus has given you”.

Live a prepared life, (Ephesians 6:10-18) for trouble that WILL surely come.

Live a grateful life (Philippians 4:6 / I Thessalonians 5:18) during the time there IS NO trouble, as well as when THERE IS trouble.

Live a “present” life (enjoying every moment) in this place and time, understanding that this place and time do not define your “real life”. (John 14:1-3 / John 17:3) 

Is it in my nature to see the rose before thinking of the thorn, or the other way around?  Whatever my nature is at present, my created nature is to experience the rose’s color, feel, and scent…with full knowledge of, and appreciating, the thorn.  Jesus doesn’t teach us, nor does He want us, to pass over ANYTHING in this present life.  He doesn’t teach us to ignore the people around,  nor the moments and circumstances of life HERE, only to race on toward the gates of Heaven.  He leads us to a FULL (overflowing, more than measurable) life that STARTS NOW, IN THIS PLACE AND TIME, while even acknowledging “the thorn” on the rose.

Last week, every beach had a sharp stone, every wave carried the threat of jellyfish sting, every day had rain, every smile belonged to someone who also cried tears.  THIS present age is not perfect, but inside the imperfection of time and place there are glimpses of The Age-To-Come.  If we ignore those moments of paradise, or “see the thorn first”, we will not recognize THE Paradise when we actually step into it.

I hope you find your paradise in this age; an imperfect, troubled, beautiful, rich, temporary, fading, scented, musical, hard, difficult, peaceful, messy, and FULL life.

Do not brush away any moment or person.  Every moment has its time, every person has their place.  Enjoy the agenda God gives.  Don’t miss the opportunity to experience a miracle.  Don’t pass up the opportunity to be the miracle for someone else. 

I wish you, “aloha”.

A few years ago I saw a post: “The 38 Most Haunting, Abandoned Places On Earth” and decided to scroll through these beautiful (and yes, haunting) photos of everything from abandoned asylums (creepy), to old subway stations, churches (one with the chairs still standing in rows and an infant’s coffin still in its place next to the altar).  All in all, each photo begged for a story.  Then I came to Photo number 22…an old ocean liner, wrecked, beached and rusted…but still somehow beautiful with the waves crashing near it.

Then I read the caption: “Wreck of the SS AMERICA – Fuerteventura, Canary Islands”.  Christened by then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (the day before Hitler invaded Europe) the SS AMERICA was the most glamorous American ocean-liner at that time.  In the 50’s (after the war, when it was secured by the military for troop transport), it sailed from New York to Europe and back, as part of the old “United States Lines”.

And just the other day HISTORY MAGAZINE had an interesting article about the same ship (see link below the blog). And I, once again, found myself looking at the old photos and mementos from the time my mother and I sailed on that ship.

A few months after I was born (1958) my father returned to Frankfurt Germany where he was a part of the Army Band.  My mother and I stayed in Richland, Washington until the end of July 1959 when we boarded a train from Washington State to New York City…Pier 86 on West 46th Street, to be exact.  And there we boarded the SS AMERICA and sailed to Bremerhaven.  We sailed Tourist Class, sharing a stateroom with another mother and her young daughter.  My Mom kept a bit of the memorabilia and so I’ve always known about this ship, and our time aboard.  We sailed (as opposed to flying) because of my Mom’s fear of flying (she only flew once, that I know of, and that was our return trip to the States…because there was no room on the liner when we were to depart…they drugged her up).

It was on board this ship that I learned to walk…with the aid of the Cabin Steward and some of the crew.  This ship holds a special place in my life and my heart…now a shipwreck at the Canary Islands, home to fish and a beautiful photographer’s model of “haunted abandonment”.

What should we remember, and what should be forget?

What is the good of “remembering”, when the things of the past even those things that mean something to each of us, are nothing but skeletons or memories?  There IS some good to looking back, and like everything, there is some bad as well.  I’m a bit sad to see the hull of what had been a “majestic lady of the seas”, and one that had a place in MY history, abandoned and decaying.  But on the other hand, God speaks of “memories” in terms of strengthening the present day.  And in those terms I can look on this photo and remember that Mom had a great time aboard, and I learned how to walk (undoubtedly the reason I love cruises today).  I can thank God that we traveled alone across the country on train and then across the Atlantic without trouble, and in fact MADE new friends along the way.  I can thank God that the SS AMERICA gave 54 years of splendid service to families like mine.  There should be nothing bitter about those kinds of memories.

AND God understands that some things are best forgotten…that is why He promises, when we ask, to forget the times we hurt Him, abandoned Him, made stupid, stupid mistakes and turned our backs on Him and our birthrights. 

God REMEMBERS His promises/covenants even when we forget, and asks us to remember the times when He rescued, saved, healed, fought…for us. (EX 13:3…example)  When we remember THOSE times, we can feel the power of faith surging back through our needy limbs.  God will never forget us or our His love for us (IS 49:14-16).

How then should WE live?  The answer is obvious and simple.  (PHIL 4:8) Don’t expect to be happy if you constantly think of the “sad”…don’t expect to be at peace if you dwell on discontent.  “Think on…” and remember the things that give you strength TODAY.  Life moves on, the universe is expanding daily, people change…God, in His own way, has “changed already” so that He can meet us where those things that are new to us exist.  This is a new day, and yet ANOTHER CHANCE to turn and walk in a different direction…let the good things of the past empower you to walk forward. 

The flip side, and the difficult side, is to do with ourselves what God does by forgiving our imperfections and sin (PS 103:12).  God forgives and forgets…sometimes we don’t.  We don’t forgive others and more often, we don’t forgive ourselves.  Remembering all the wrong things one did, all of the mistakes one made makes one depressed, cynical and angry…often filled and motivated by regret.

This is where the new day raises her head again…turn around, walk forward…you are not who you were, and you can define how your past dictates your future…God won’t force the issue.  Don’t expect your sins and indiscretions to be forgiven if you don’t ask Him, and don’t expect God to take care of any “repair work” that you need to make in your relationships with others, just because HE’s forgiven you.  But you CAN move forward.

No one sails on the SS AMERICA any more…but it is amazing to me how many people go nowhere because they’ve “stayed aboard the shipwreck”…thinking their past defines their future.

Whatever you need to do today…do it.  God has promised His power, through the “Breath of God” to strengthen you in any Godly purpose…and His people are standing beside you almost every week, at least.  And in case you need a little reminder of exactly what CAN be done…remember the good things, the true things, the beautiful things that God has already done.

JUN 24, 2019 | The 1970s Cruise Ship Nightmare That Ended in a Mutiny | In the summer of 1978, the S.S. America sent passengers over the edge. By ROBERT KLARA

https://www.history.com/news/cruise-ship-nightmare-ss-america-mutiny

Our home is sometimes like a beautiful “storage room”, we have a lot of stuff.  The thing is, I can point to each item of mine and tell you the story behind it, and why I hang on to it.  I suppose that’s how hoarding starts.

Yesterday, as I was looking for a book on a part of the shelf I don’t always get to, I spotted a forgotten bowl that reminded me of a time in my life I would like to forget but also need to celebrate.

We all have periods, I suppose, where circumstances have broken us.  I’m not going to get into that specific period in my life except to say it was years ago and during that time I received a gift from a good, older, wiser, friend from my theatre world.  Knowing that life (through my own choices, other people’s choices and some other circumstances) was handing me a platter of pain and garbage,  she asked to meet for coffee.  We met, we hugged, and she handed me a silk-wrapped gift.  I opened it and found a beautiful Asian-crafted bowl (see photo).  Not a bowl to fill things with, but a beautiful blue-glazed bowl to sit on a shelf…perhaps someday in Anderson, Indiana…to serve as a remembrance for me.

“I’m not going to tell you why I’m giving this, or why it is designed the way it is.  Part of your journey should be to search its meaning out…and it has one” she said.
“I will tell you this.  The form of this bowl is also a form of Japanese philosophy…it’s called ‘kintsugi’.” 

And with that, she changed the subject, sipped her chai latte, and spoke no more of it.  We chattered about other things.

I took the beautiful blue bowl with gold veins home, and looked the word up.

The art (and philosophy) of “kintsugi” is to take cracked and broken pottery…even if it is pottery which had been used in a practical way (in fact, that’s even better) and instead of throwing away the pieces, they are glued back together with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold. 

Why?  So that when seen or used again one would be reminded that breakage in our most vulnerable times leads to repairs that ARE not, and SHOULD not be, disguised as something ugly but signify something that is fully healed and stronger.  Kintsugi is a philosophy which has been around for over 600 years, and…

…this TRUTH in Japanese philosophy is TRUTH from God. 

The Spirit reminds us that God does not cause disaster or difficulties.  And although one could argue that God may test us, even Jesus urges us to pray that His Father doesn’t test us.  Yet, difficult times come…to everyone (the BELIEVER & FOLLOWER and to the non-Believer) sometimes it’s a test, sometimes it’s just “life”.

What God DOES with those moments and seasons is “kintsugi”. 

I’ve almost always referred to God as “the metaphysical Rumpelstiltskin” : He turns “straw” into “gold”, in partnership WITH us and FOR us (see ROMANS 8:28). 

When I saw that bowl yesterday, my mind travelled back to the time when both the bowl, and I, were broken.  Then I saw and touched the strength (and beauty) of the gold veining today.  I would not wish much of my own journey on anyone, but I would hope that everyone could end up where I am now. 

My beautiful scars are now as much a part of me as anything and everything else, in fact they have come to define me.

The irony is not lost on me that in the Age-to-Come my new body will probably be without scars.  And the only person we meet in that New Heaven and New Earth bearing scars…

…will be Jesus.  His scars healed ours.