ahh, remember summer?

meet Ada

Winter's Bone

Yes, it is true. We are now the owner's of an eight-month-old English Mastiff. We, the family that wears petite and small and toddler, have taken on the responsibility of a dog once owned by men with names like Maximus and Brutus and Caesar.

Not that we adopted Ada from hulking Roman gladiators or imperial soldiers. We got her from a family down south of Greencastle, and they told us they got her from a tattoo artist over in Avon ... and that he got her in exchange for a tattoo. But, it is true that Ada's long-ago ancestors were quite fashionable back in the days of the birth of Jesus Christ. Rumor has it that in Caesar's attempt to spread his Pax Romana outside the European continent he sent his warring men across the small straight to the land of the Gauls. There the Roman soldiers discovered dogs as big as horses fighting against them, the same dogs they would then bring back to Rome to parade in front of Caesar as trophies of victory and the same dogs they would use for sport on the field of the great Coliseum.

Thankfully, Ada does not seem to have inherited all of her ancestor's girth or tenacity. She is currently sitting at my feet gnawing on a bone while Elise bounces on a ball in front of her.

Although, I must say that our morning walks have provided sufficient muscle-straining. I have been trying to teach her to walk beside me as we tour the property, but I am finding it difficult to keep her from bull-rushing ahead of me in search of deer or other neighbor dogs.

The kids have been sick. Anna had taken them down to French Lick, Indiana this past Sunday in hopes of breaking away from our country home that feels more and more like a cabin. Unfortunately, even though she left the cabin, the fever went with her, and by Monday morning Elise's body was doing its best to expunge the virus. Wyatt succumbed not long after.

I went out to dinner on Tuesday night with two friends and told them about Anna's trip and how it was meant to be a break for her. They looked at me incredulously. How was it that Anna was forced to take the kids and to take care of the sick kids while I was able to stay at home and enjoy some peace and quiet. Truly, not fair.

And this was after I had the opportunity last week to be up at Wabash University for three days in what amounted to a stay at a pretty nice hotel. I was up there for the start of a new program I am going to be involved in throughout 2011 and 2012: the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program. This is but one of the many great programs supported by the Eli Lilly Foundation to support ministers and churches. The further emphasis of the Wabash program is to gather some of the more promising Christian ministers (from all denominations and non-denominations) across the state to think, talk, and plan about ways we can tackle some of the challenges facing the state of Indiana. That's rather ambitious, but what it boiled down to in our first three days together was talking about leading our churches into the truly important conversations ... the harder conversations.

The luxurious part of the program came from the fact that Wabash housed all eighteen of us "paid Christians" in Trippet Hall - the very building where they house the university's trustees and board members whenever they come to town. This building was built specifically for this purpose, so the northern half of the building includes twenty rooms, each amounting to something very close to a Sheraton hotel room. On top of that, there was a small lounge on the second floor where they kindly provided both a full fridge of quality beer, Kashi treats, and some pretty good wine. I was most pleased and surprised to discover that one of the beers on hand included a local brew from Indianapolis called Sun King. I thoroughly enjoyed chill-laxing in the lounge with a pint in hand on Monday evening.

I must say this is one of the true blessings of serving as a minister in Indiana. The work of the Lilly Endowment is probably doing more than any other body or organization to train and encourage ministers. It has certainly been that way for me. Programs resulting from the Lilly Endowment have allowed me to meet some other great young ministers; it has allowed me to see parts of the West Coast that are amazingly beautiful; it has allowed me to pay off all of my remaining seminary debt, and it has matched my own contributions to my 403(b) fund. All in all, I guess I did end up getting employed by Eli Lilly, even if I never did become a freshman sales associate for Prozac and Cialis.

It is a wonderfully beautiful and chilly wintry day out here. It's so nice to be home again and to have everyone back to health ... I hope for good.

Wes

Once Again

I was turning to leave the small room of an elderly woman - waiting for her daughter and son-in-law to finish tying up some family business - when my eye began to wander. The woman had just pointed out to me a series of paintings she had done herself. She took me through them one by one, noting how she had matured and progressed in her understanding and practice of the art. I was particularly drawn to the painting that hung just over her window: a rather whimsical portrayal of daisies blowing in the wind. I could not get past the stark contrast between this endless summer scene in her painting and the stark reality of winter outside of her window.

As my eyes descended from that painting, I turned my face towards the door. And as I did so, my gaze came across a short poem that was housed in a frame right before my face. It was simple in its adornment, and without reading it I read it. I did not need to read it. I scanned the title of the poem, "Footprints," and immediately my mind called up the memory of its message.

It is a poem with which I am sure you are familiar. It recounts the tale of an individual who is caught up in a dream, and in this dream the person is able to see two sets of footprints walking a sandy shore - the footprints representing both God's and the individual's as together they walk the path of life. Yet, upon further reflection, the person realizes that during the hardest times there were not two sets of prints, but only one. This only seems to validate the experience of life: that there are seasons when it seems we must go it alone and that even our Maker stands apart and alone in silence. However, it to this sense of abandonment that the poem's final lines resound: "The Lord replied, 'The years you see only one set of footprints, my child, are those time when I carried you."

The first time I read "Footprints" was on another wall. I was a teenage boy at at a small Presbyterian summer camp called Campy Pyoca. There in the old cottage it hung, and since it was one of the few things of any visual interest in the rather spartan building I found myself drawn to it. It held a comforting and encouraging message for me as I thought myself - like most teenagers - beset by several problems.

Well, in the last twenty years, I have run across this poem a thousand times - many times as adornments hung in offices and in homes. And as happens with frequent exposure, my attention to the poem waned and the significance of the words and the meaning of its message began to be lost upon me. Indeed, so it was this last Sunday when I encountered it again in that woman's room. It held just a fraction of its former power and I paid it little mind.

But, now it comes back to me in a new way, a fresh and living way.

I know why, of course, this long-dormant poem has been at play in my mind tonight. I've been traveling down a path for a while that seems rather solitary, something I've been hesitant to admit to myself or to anyone else. I've been walking down a path that has been rather lonely and hard at times - not always and not overwhelmingly so, but difficult nonetheless. Lonely because anytime a person moves to a new place (even if that place is an old familiar place) there is strangeness and a learning how to be comfortable in ones own skin again; hard because that seems to be the times we live in - people out of work and uncertain about their future. I know - in fact - because of my interactions with others that my own experiences of loneliness and struggle are not solitary. I can see it written on the lives of the people I serve and love.

And for all those reasons "Footprints" - like a good leaven - has been working in my mind and heart tonight. It has begun to invite me to remember the type of Lord I have bound myself to; it has called me to take comfort in a God who has promised to be with me every step of the way and who will carry me when I can go no further.

This reemergence of "Footprints" in my heart and mind - by the way - is the other possibility with over exposure, the positive effect: that repetition will eventually wear something into our soul that we cannot lose or forget. It can be that way with most anything - a beloved verse, a painting we've come to admire, a picture of a loved one. We get so used to it that it runs the risk of becoming common and unnoticed. But, then one day - before we are prepared for it or aware of why or how - that verse comes back fresh into our mind and comes alive with meaning and significance, that painting has colors and shadows we never saw, that picture has details we missed.

So it is with "Footprints." That oft-seen, oft-neglected lesson has once again spoken to this man's heart. The poem I cherished as a teenager has been resurrected to give me fresh hope in mid life.

You are with me, Lord, and for that I am ever grateful.

Wes

first snow