Travelin' by Faith - Which Way To Jesus?

Travelin’ by Faith

We had a job delivering into Montreal, Canada and we knew as soon as we dropped the freight we were heading to our next pickup which was in Saint Laurent, Quebec.  There are two Saint Laurent’s in Quebec.  One is a suburb of Montreal and one is a suburb of Quebec City.  We were told the miles to our pickup were 175 which would indicate it was the one closest to Quebec City.  We asked dispatch if they were sure the pickup was the “Saint Laurent” closest to Quebec City.  They assured us it was.  When I entered the pickup address in our GPS it didn’t find the address so we had to follow the routing information sent to us from our dispatchers.  I started driving and noticed we had not been given local directions.  We were only given the directions that would get us to the city itself but not the company.  I sent a message asking for local directions.  When we received them I noticed the street name we were given originally for the address was a little different than what showed on the local directions.  I entered that street name in with the city name AND zip code and GPS directions showed the pickup was the “Saint Laurent” near Montreal, not Quebec City.  I still kept driving towards Quebec City.  I kept trying to convince myself that we were heading in the right direction.  I couldn’t do it I couldn’t convince myself.  After driving 114 miles I stopped (yes, it took me this long to convince myself) and called dispatch and tried to explain the situation.  I asked if they would please call the customer and specifically ask them if they were closest to Montreal or Quebec City.  Dispatch was happy to do so and found out they were in fact closest to Montreal.   So…………we turned around and headed back.  It turns out the pickup location was 17 miles from the place we had just delivered.  All total we had gone 219 miles out of the way. 

The reason I’m writing this down is because I thought about us going the wrong way and if we hadn’t questioned it we would have ended up at the wrong location.  I thought about us as Christians and how awful it would be to find out we had followed the wrong directions and ended up in the wrong location.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13 – “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  Also in Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  On that day many will say to me “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?  Then I will declare to them, I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”  These people would have thought they were on the right path only to find out they weren’t.  This example tells us it is possible for us to take the wrong path while thinking, believing or being told we’re on the right one.  How do we know for sure we are entering through the narrow gate and not the wide one?  How do we know we are one of the few who found the narrow gate?  Is our road easy or is it hard?

Based on God’s truth, what are the signs to look for along the path that say “this is the way; walk in it.”?  OR, sometimes is it necessary to look for the signs along the path that tell us we’re going the wrong way?

 
Isaiah chapter one comes to my mind.  God told Isaiah “…I have reared children and brought them up, but they have…”

·         “…rebelled against me…”

       Am I rebelling against God just like many Jews did?  Have I refused to obey Him, refused to follow Him or refused to recognize Him?

·         “…forsaken the LORD…”

       Have I forsaken our LORD?  Have I quit or left Him entirely, withdrawn from Him without the intent to come back?

·         “…despised the Holy One of Israel…”

       Have I despised the Holy One of Israel?  Has He become unworthy of my notice or consideration?

·         “…who are utterly estranged…”

       Am I utterly estranged from GOD?  Have I lost my affection or interest in God where there was once love, affection and friendliness?

·         “…no soundness in it…”

       Is there any soundness in me?   Am I showing good judgment or sense in my life, in my decision making?

·         “…your country lies desolate…”

       Have I become desolate?  Am I joyless, sorrowful as if separated from a loved one?  Am I showing the effects of abandonment and neglect?  Am I lifeless?  Am I devoid of warmth, comfort and hope?  Am I alone?

Jesus tells the church in Ephesus “…you have abandoned the love you had at first…”  He then goes on to say “…let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying…”  Revelation 2:4-7

Earlier I had written we had directions to get to the city but needed local directions to get to the company itself.  The local directions are what let us know we were heading in the wrong direction.  As Christians we have received the directions to heaven but have we paid attention to the local directions that lead us to Jesus?  Jesus tells us in John 14:6 “He is the way…”  Have we made it to “His way” or are we heading in the wrong direction?  I don’t know about you but I don’t want to hear “…I never knew you…”

I pray none of us spends too much time, if any, trying to convince ourselves we’re on the right path if we sense deep down we may not be.

Travelin' by Faith - It IS All About Forgiveness

Think about it.  How many walls are put up between us and friends, between us and family members, between us and co-workers or WORSE between us and God because WE can’t or just plain won’t forgive?  Someone has hurt us in some way, little or big and our hearts cry out for justice.  There are man’s laws which deal with injustice in the world but what about the injustice we have to deal with on our own for which there is no law?   Is it possible we have decided un-forgiveness is that law?

 Does the fact that someone paying for an injustice, whether it is from man’s law or our own law of un-forgiveness, really put our hearts at rest or does it simply satisfy our need for revenge?  Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.  Our hearts are still left with the pain, the hurt, the emptiness that comes from wrongs against us or wrongs we’ve done to others.  The story that prompted this blog was the execution of Troy Davis for the murder of Mark MacPhail.  On one side you have people who support the death penalty and on the other side you have those who are opposed.  I see both sides and understand where they are coming from.  What I wonder though is what is in the heart of someone crying out, for lack of a better word and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, “crucify him!”  Is that a cry for justice or a cry for revenge?  Or is it really a cry for someone to heal their pain and fill the hole in their hearts from a terrible loss?  And is someone else being killed going to heal their pain?  If it does, what does that say about the condition of their heart?  This blog isn’t about whether the death penalty is just or not.  This blog is about the power of forgiveness in everyday life.  Does justice really satisfy by itself or is there something else that must come along?  Sometimes justice alone can’t satisfy the deeper need.  And, just what is the deeper need?

When Jesus denied Himself and gave up His life for God’s cause, it wasn’t only for justice to be satisfied in God’s “court of law.”  Jesus provided a way for God to forgive us.  Justice came not by itself but with forgiveness.  In Micah 6:8 God tells us what is good.  He tells US to act justly and love mercy which is exactly what He did for us through Jesus Christ.  Forgiveness is what we needed the most.  Forgiveness is the deeper need. 

Think about if from a personal perspective.  Is there a wall between us and a friend, family member, co-worker or worse, God?  Is the wall still there because of the act of injustice OR because we haven’t forgiven?  This question can be quite offensive.  It means we have to look at our own individual circumstances as well as our own hearts and ask ourselves this question.  There’s a lot of “yeah, but…” and finger pointing that will come from a question like this.  I believe what is most important about facing this question in our lives is discovering the condition of our own hearts AND realizing the magnitude of what Jesus did for us on the cross.  The first battle comes with facing the question.

I’m not sure there is any greater burden we can carry than the burden of un-forgiveness.  If you have ever carried the burden of not forgiving someone, not being forgiven or not forgiving yourself you know what I mean.  The tragedy is we can carry these burdens without realizing it and if we’re not careful we end up carrying them for a lifetime.  If we’re not careful they can kill us and not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. 

Like the song says, there is power in the blood and I believe its greatest power is that of forgiveness.  If it weren’t for God’s forgiveness, there would still be a wall up between us and Him.

Travelin' By Faith - Whose GOD is the LORD?

August 2011

I began this month re-reading the chronological bible. I am in Exodus right now and was reading in chapter 6 when God spoke to Moses and told him “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.” This is just before God begins showing His power to Pharaoh before he sets the Israelites free. As I continued reading I realized there was a transition from “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” to “I am the LORD your God.” I wondered about this and asked God “why the distinction?” Why is it important for them to know you as LORD? I sat and pondered this for a minute and then looked up the word lord in the dictionary. I find it very helpful to look up words even though I know the basic meaning because sometimes I find a little something extra that helps me understand what God is trying to teach me. It means many different things but the one that jumped out at me was “one having power and authority over others, a ruler by hereditary right or preeminence to whom service and obedience are due.”

You see, the Israelites in bondage grew up in the Egyptian culture where many gods were worshipped. When God made the distinction between “God Almighty” and “I am the LORD,” He was setting up His sovereignty, His supreme power over not only them but all people and all gods. He wanted to make sure everyone understood then and now, HE alone is the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. This helped me to understand the transition God was making with Moses at this time. It was very necessary. The LORD God told Moses He had raised the Egyptians up for just this very purpose, to show His power and, that His name might be proclaimed throughout all the earth.

Calvin and I had a job picking up in St. Charles, MO. One of the roads we were on to get to the interstate was “Kings Highway.” I thought “Oh wow! Kings Highway!” It brought to mind an old childhood song “Highway to Heaven” which of course I began singing to myself. The words of the song that struck me were “happy are the people whose God is the LORD…” I stopped singing all of a sudden and thought deeply about those words “whose God is the LORD.” Think about that for a minute. “whose God, is the LORD.” What other god is there? Many! Even in that little childhood song there was a distinction. The psalmist sings these exact words in Psalms 144:15.

As I continued reflecting, God brought to my mind a little more of what I had been reading. At one point, Pharaoh had told Moses that he did not know the LORD and he was not going to let the Israelites leave Egypt. I thought this was interesting that he did not know the LORD. The Egyptians are descendants of Ham (Noah’s youngest son - GEN 9:18, GEN 10:6) who should have known God because He saved their ancestors from the flood waters. For some reason the Egyptians moved on with their lives leaving God behind. Unfortunately, I can relate to this. Interesting though how they desired something or someone to worship because they made for themselves so many other gods. Maybe up to this point they did not know God was real. When the Israelites packed up and left Egypt there’s one verse that tells us “many other people went up with them.” (EXO 12:38) I find that so interesting. I can’t help but think those were the Egyptians who saw the power of the LORD God and realized He is real, unlike the gods they had made up, and wanted Him to be their God too. How many of us at some point in our lives thought we knew God only to find out later we didn’t really know Him at all, but only knew of Him? Now I understand why the distinction. I thank God for sharing His wisdom.

The psalmists says it so beautifully in Psalms 119:130

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”

And to this I say “AMEN!”

And yes, I am keeping this simple. As Calvin pointed out after reading this for the first time, there is more to “LORD” in all caps in the bible which I’m sure one day will bring me to an even deeper meaning. But for now, I am satisfied with the way God unfolded His message to me in the simplest way so I could understand.

Just like with the Egyptians and the Israelites, God will find a way to let us know He is real and not some abstract thought.

Travelin' By Faith - Denying the cross, all those years...

Travelin’ by Faith – 2011

As I am driving through Canada one early March morning in the province of Alberta, reflecting on all that I have experienced with God while out here on the road, He reminds me of something.

I remembered a story from several years ago when I was sad and depressed about my past life, my present life and where I was going in the future. I had not been walking with God for very long but He had sure been walking with me. I told Calvin I had so much going on in my head that I just had to find a way to deal with it, to be free from it so I could get on with my life. I went for a drive. This was before we started driving for FedEx. I took off on I-20 heading west and said to myself “I’m just going to drive until I am free from all of this “stuff” that burdens me so.” By the time I got to Birmingham I realized I could drive all the way to California and back and still not get rid of it all, and besides, where was I going to dump it? I laughed at how funny this was. I turned around and went back home. Little did I know, God had a plan for helping me find my way to a place where I could get rid of it all, a place where I could “dump it.” How prophetic this scene becomes! Maybe not one trip to California and back would do it, but perhaps many trips would do it. God knows FedEx is in my future.

Back to driving in Canada…As I am driving and having a conversation with God I look down at the GPS map to see where we are and for my next move. At this point we are heading north but we are about to exit onto another highway and head west to our delivery. I see that on our current course we are heading to Calgary, except in my mind’s eye I see it reads Calvary. This sure gets my attention. I start to wonder and God starts to speak.

I learned that when I accepted Jesus as Lord of my life and was baptized, I had not yet made my personal journey to Calvary. I was only twelve for goodness sakes. At the point of baptism, I had let God know I believed Jesus was His Son and I accepted Jesus as Lord of my life but I didn’t allow Him to BE Lord of my life. I was. God revealed to me that I may have believed that Jesus is His Son and that He died for my sins but I wasn’t following Him. Accepting Jesus as my Savior and being baptized was the beginning of my journey. Unfortunately, I took a detour. From the time I was baptized until I began seeking Him eleven years ago I had been denying the cross. I hadn’t followed Jesus at all. All along He wanted to be Lord of my life so He could show me the way to calvary. He wanted me to follow Him to the cross, my cross. He had a personal message to give me.

Still driving in Canada I veer off to head west away from Calgary, but I’m still thinking Calvary. I wonder to God, “WOW, how many of us veer off and never make it to Calvary.” I keep driving and see two billboards within minutes of each other advertising “visitcalgary.com.” Again in my mind’s eye I see “visitcalvary.com.” Well, then I begin to wonder again to God “how many people only visit Calvary, you know – drive by for a quick look, grab a brochure or in my case walk up to the altar acknowledge what Jesus did, say I believe, say thanks and then keep on going their own way? What does it mean to come to Calvary? AND stay? What is Calvary suppose to look like to me?

After we make our delivery and we are heading to Spokane, WA, Calvin and I both see a sign on the side of the road that reads “Disciples Way.” We both look at each other but don’t say a word. I think the look in our eyes said it all. I begin to think to myself and ask God “what is the disciple’s way?” God reminds me of His scripture in Luke 9:23. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. “ Deny self, hum…what exactly does it mean to deny ourselves? We certainly have Jesus’ life as the perfect example of what it means to deny self. But how many of us really do this? I knew I hadn't. How many of us are inadvertently denying the cross instead of denying ourselves? How can we pick up our cross if we haven’t made it to where our cross is - Calvary? Luke 9:24 tell us “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” How many of us can say we have lost our lives to follow Jesus? I think it’s a serious question to ask.

By God’s amazing grace through His Son Jesus Christ I have made it to Calvary, to the cross, my own personal journey. It was a painful journey. It has taken me eleven years to get here. Truth be told I guess I’ve been on the journey all my life. I had to come to the end of myself (deny myself) before I could finally see the signs showing me the way to Calvary, or more accurately before I even wanted to see the signs showing me the way to Calvary. I mean who wants to face themselves let alone face Jesus?

I always knew God had forgiven me for my sins yet my heart was still in prison because I held onto the guilt of my sins. I thought hanging onto the guilt was my due punishment. God gently reminded me Jesus took the punishment not only for my sins but also for the guilt of my sins. He let me know hanging onto the guilt meant denying the cross/denying all that Jesus did for me. It meant I had not yet made it all the way to Calvary or that I came for a visit but didn’t stay. (didn’t stay long enough to pick up my cross) I had not yet found complete freedom in Jesus Christ.

We all hear throughout our lives that Jesus died for our sins and to me it always seemed such a generalized, corporate statement – “we’re all sinners in need of a Savior.” It was as if we were all one big group of sinners with no individual accountability. By being part of a group “we’re all sinners” I had, even though inadvertently, avoided facing Jesus as an individual. It was in my personal journey in seeking to know Jesus that I came to the end of myself (denying myself) and found Jesus hanging on the cross, my cross. His arms were spread wide to show me “THIS” is how much God loves me! The message He had for me was “Donna, I forgive you.”

Earlier I had written some questions I had asked God about Calvary. What does it mean to come to Calvary? For me, it meant I finally found my way to Jesus. It meant I came face to face with Him all alone just me and Him. Coming face to face with Him as an individual and not part of a group was the only way He could show me MY sins. It was the only way He could show me what He had done for me. It was the only way I could fully grasp what happened the day Jesus died on the cross. It was the only way I could make my relationship with Him personal. It was the only way He could express to me how much God loves me. It was the only way I could be free. It was a long, painful journey. At times it was very humbling, humiliating, embarrassing and shameful. It was hard work but oh so worth it. It was the only way.

I haven’t been here at Calvary long enough to answer what it will mean to stay. Jesus tells me it will mean denying self and picking up my cross daily and abiding in Him but what that will look like in my life is yet to be told. The full meaning of abide is to wait for, to endure without yielding, to bear patiently, to accept without objection and remain stable. This is exactly what I will do – abide. What does Calvary look like? Not sure I can answer that in detail that would do it justice just yet, but I can tell you from where I’m standing right now, looking back is no longer an option. I’m here to stay until He moves me.

Deuteronomy 4:29 tells us we will find God if we search for Him with all our heart and soul. I read the bible, God’s written word, for the sole purpose of getting to know this person that everyone kept telling me had died for me. I wanted to know Him for myself. I didn’t want to know the Jesus anyone else knew. I wanted to know Him personally. I met Him face to face on the cross at Calvary, my cross. How could I not love Him and not give my life to Him?

As I finish typing the first draft of this blog, Japan has been hit with an 8.9 earthquake which spawned a deadly tsunami. All I can think about is how many people never made it to Calvary or just dropped by for a visit and didn’t stay? How many thought they made it to Calvary but never did?

I believe it is important for us all to ask ourselves or better yet ask God, have I really made it all the way to Calvary or did I veer off to soon? Or ask God, did I just go for a visit? Did I walk up to the altar, “grab a brochure” and say thanks and keep heading my own way, down my own path? Am I carrying my cross? These are questions worth exploring. It is time well spent. It’s our own personal journey. A journey to freedom.

“I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today. I know that He is living whatever men may say. I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer, and just the time I need Him, He’s always near.
He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today! He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!”

Travelin' By Faith by Donna Quinn

I think it's probably dangerous to think out loud but I just couldn't help myself.

I had a conversation awhile back that I can’t get off my mind. Someone shared with me that a friend of hers told her she was gay. Actually she said she wasn’t gay she liked both men and women but right now her “partner” is a woman. She mentioned how hard it was to talk to her/listen to her and not tell her that her lifestyle isn’t right in the eyes of God. I wonder if she struggles with the same thing many people struggle with, how to love and befriend a gay person without judging, condemning and ultimately rejecting them. It looks to me like the “majority” of Christians have taken a stand to reject them. As Christians we claim it is the sin we hate not the sinner. Is it really? I saw a book entitled “I’m Fine with God…It’s Christians I Can’t Stand.” Are we doing something wrong?

I was reading a book the other day that told how the Jews didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah. They had expected Him to come as royalty and be king over Israel in their day and time. The author of the book had mentioned that their prejudices had blocked their perception. Did they have the things of men in mind rather than the things of God? I wonder if that happens to us as God’s children. Are our own prejudices blocking our ability to be Christ-like? Are our own prejudices causing us to be bitter, to hate, to be angry towards others, to judge, condemn and reject them? Have you ever noticed how easy it is to condemn others for sins you haven’t committed and how hard it is to condemn them for sins you have committed? (at least those we willingly admit or are even aware of) What will happen to the person if we can’t condemn the sin in them that we don’t see? If we are truly doing this for salvation sake then shouldn’t we be more concerned about the sins we can’t see? Are we standing up for God’s righteousness or are we standing up for our prejudices? Is it our own prejudices that are giving us permission to judge, condemn and reject or do we really believe we are speaking on God’s behalf?

I had a friend a while back who said the reason being gay was worse than other sins is because it is a choice. Is it? IF it is a choice, does that mean that those of us who are with the opposite sex are with them because we have made a conscience decision to choose the opposite sex? In other words, do all women have a desire to be with another woman but they decide to be with a man for righteousness sake? Do all men have a desire to be with another man but decide not to for righteousness sake? I’m guessing the answer is NO. I’m guessing for some people the answer is OH HECK NO! What if it is a genetic disposition? Isn’t sin itself a genetic disposition according to God’s written word? Why would we think the sin of homosexuality is any different? And who are we to decide which sins are more acceptable than others? Didn’t Jesus die for ALL sins?

The group “Casting Crowns” has a song titled “What This World Needs” and there is a speaking part by a few young adults that states “…people aren’t confused by the gospel, they’re confused by us. Jesus is the only way to God but we are not the only way to Jesus. This world doesn’t need my tie, my hoodie, my denomination or my translation of the bible, they just need Jesus. We can be passionate about what we believe but we can’t strap ourselves to the gospel, we’re slowing it down. Jesus is going to save the world but maybe the best thing we can do is just get out of the way.” I like this!

Mercy: implies compassion that holds back from punishing even when justice demands it. Jesus is God’s compassion to the world.

God has asked us to love others as He has loved us. “As” in the dictionary means: to the same extent or degree; equally. Do we?

I’m just wondering…

"Done Too Soon"

We had gotten back out on the road again having cared for mom after her stroke for four months. Life was returning to its usual road routine, and the world was spinning in greased grooves once more. Then we were in Johnstown, Ohio one monday morning and the cell phone rang. I could see from the caller ID it was an old high school buddy of mine, Tom Furr, and I knew it was unusual for him to be calling and, thus, I knew something was up. But I wasn't even remotely prepared for what. Donny Lindsey was dead. He was 51 years old.

Donny Lindsey was my best friend in high school. We met through school and church, and he and I and Larry Gore became known around our church as the Three Musketeers, because if one of us was there, the other two were not far away. Tom Furr would become the fourth musketeer later in high school. We all played softball together, chased girls together, did all the things that teenaged boys do. Donny and I spent an entire summer together both bemoaning the losses of girlfriends, and we wore out a copy of Elton John's "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy." (See: We All Fall in Love Sometimes/Curtains) We were a pretty pathetic pair of musketeers! Donny and I were the male leads of our high school musical, Bye Bye Birdie, him playing the rock star and me playing his manager. It was perfect casting. Neither of us had to act, we just had to memorize our lines and cues. Donny was the one of us that the girls fought over to get. Me, Larry and Tom just hung around and waited for the fallout. And he had a quick wit about him too. He had the personality that caused people to naturally gravitate to him. After high school, I stayed at home and commuted to Georgia State University, as did Larry. Donny and Tom went to work. But we still hung out together and played ball for another couple of years. Then Larry left to follow a dream of becoming a pilot. Donny and I began to drift apart as we went in different directions in life. I went years without seeing or hearing from him, but every now and then our paths would cross. Donny had never attended one of our high school reunions until our thirtieth, in 2006. Donna had met Donny just twice, when his mother passed away and when my father died, and thus had not seen the funny side of Donny. We laughed all night long, mainly because of Donny. When we were leaving, she complained of her face hurting from laughing so much. That was Donny. It wasn't the last time I would talk to him, but it was the last time I saw him alive.

I have been reflecting on the past. I remembered my cousin Ralph. Ralph (along with practically all my relatives)lived in south Georgia and was three years older than me but he was the youngest of 5 brothers. I think he and I were close because with me he wasn't the youngest and he could be the big brother. Our birthday were both in July; his the sixth and mine the ninth. In fact, one year he was nine on the sixth and I was six on the ninth. When I was growing up, our house was a revolving door of cousins coming to the big city and living with us for a while. Ralph was no exception and he lived with us one summer after we had moved to Lithia Springs. But we too lost contact, the current of our lives moving us in different directions. About the time Donna and I got together word came that Ralph was having problems. Recurring headaches, balance and memory issues. He had had some skin cancers removed from his back about four years earlier and they had metastisized into brain cancer. He had surgery and it had left him with a left arm that was basically useless and weakness in his left leg. One of his brothers had hit it pretty big in Nashville and his daughter was getting married in the fall, shortly after the surgery. Ron made arrangements for everyone to come and stay in Nashville for the wedding and I kind of took care of Ralph (seeing how I had been a therapist), helping him get dressed and walking around. My best memory of this was once we were getting into the limo and he began getting into the car like anyone else would. I grabbed him and said, "Whoa, I know thats not how they taught you to do that in rehab!" He turned and grinned the Ralph grin. "Oh yeah!" he replied. I saw him again at his house in south Georgia a couple of weeks later. I had been down with family and was coming by to tell him bye. He was asleep in a recliner. I didn't want to wake him up so I left. It was the last time I saw him alive. He passed away a week or two later. He was 44 years old.

Ramona was my first serious girlfriend in high school; the one who, as the late great Lewis Grizzard would say, "tore my heart out and stomped that sucker flat", the one who I wore out "Captain Fantastic" over. She and I had a tumultuous, on again off again three years. The first breakup was the one that almost did me in. She broke up with me in the spring of my junior year. She was a senior (rare in high school for that to happen). I was devastated to the point of having what I guess was a minibreakdown, coming down with shingles and spending a couple of days in bed at one point. During this, I had won a couple of speaking tournaments through the Georgia Baptist Convention, and I had another competition shortly after the breakdown. My dad was an old school dad, not a lot of babying and most physical contact was discipline or horsing around. But this time, waiting my turn to speak, he was sitting beside me and he put his around me as we sat there. I was 15 or 16 years old. I never will forget it. Anyway, Mona and I finally broke up for good in the fall of my freshman year in college. I went many years without seeing her; I heard she got married and had a child. One day in church I was walking down a hall, someone passed me and I heard from behind me, "Calvin???" It took me a second or two. "Mona???" We spoke for just a moment or two and then went our separate ways. It was the last time I would see her. In the middle of dad's fight with Alzheimers I got word that she had cancer. I debated trying to go and see her but I didn't. Donna and I were on the road at this point but we happened to be home when the phone rang in the middle of the night. Mom called to say that dad had fallen out of bed and she couldn't get him back in. Now when I was a child I would sometimes fall out of bed onto the floor and not wake up. Dad would pick me up and put me back in bed. The circle had come around and now I was picking him up. Two days later a friend of mine calls me and lets me know Mona had passed away. I couldn't bring myself to go to the funeral. Instead I sat in my recliner at home and stared at the fireplace. Between her death and what was going on with Dad I was feeling a furious whirlwind of emotions and memories and couldn't make much sense of them. Donna came in the room and asked if I wanted to talk. At first I said no, but when I started, I couldn't stop. I began bawling like I have never bawled in my adult life. But in talking it out I connected the event I wrote of earlier with the present and made some sense of it all. Mona's breakup with me caused me to have what was probably my most precious memory of my father when I was a teenager. And at the time of her death, I had my most sad and precious memory of him towards the end of his life. Mona was in her mid forties when she died.

There is a song on Neil Diamond's first greatest hits album; "Done Too Soon". Its starts with a peppy rock/pop sound and the verses are just names of famous people who are no longer with us strung together and rhymed("Jesus Christ, Fanny Brice. Wolfgang Mozart and Humphrey Bogart" etc.). But the chorus changes gears and goes quiet and solemn...

"Each one there,
has one thing to share;
They have sweated beneath the same sun,
looked up in wonder at the same moon.
And wept when it was all done.
For bein' done too soon.
For bein' done
too soon."

I have been thinking about this song since November. I haven't been able to bring myself to blog, but I wouldn't write about anything else until I got this down. In the last ten years I have lost the cousin I was closest to as a kid, my first love from high school, and my best friend from high school. All were "done too soon." Now my mother is facing a long downhill spiral following a stroke and is just a shell of her former self with no idea how much longer this is going to last. My father died three years ago after a horrific seven years of Alzhiemer's. And I'm left pondering an awful question:

Is is better to be "done too soon" than "done too LATE"?

Donny was creamated and at his funeral his daughters carried his ashes down the aisle to the front of the chapel. Because he wouldn't be there to walk them at their weddings. Ralph was just beginning to start a blueberry farming venture in Baxley. Mona won't be around to help her son grow into a man. And yet, they are spared from the inexorable ravages of time. So: would you trade ten GOOD years off your life if you knew it would save you from ten BAD years? I don't know. At this point, I believe I would.

But on a final, less grim note, one of my favorite memories with Donny: We saw the Eagles in concert for the Hotel California tour some thirty four years ago and their last encore in that concert was "James Dean". So its chorus is my final tribute to Donny Lindsey, the king of cool in high school;

"You were too fast to live,
too young to die,
bye-bye."

Travelin' By Faith

Calvin is usually the one posting but I had something I wanted to share.

I know from time to time God reveals Himself to us but this one was too powerful not to share. I first have to give you a little background so you’ll understand why this God moment was so powerful.

As most of you know, Calvin and I drive for FedEx Custom Critical and we drive all over the country. We have many opportunities for God moments and this is one of them. About a year ago I was reading in my bible in Luke, chapter 14. In verses 25 through 35 Jesus teaches about the cost of being a disciple and this is where God spoke to me. No, not audibly but just placed a question in my heart. He asked me, “Have you considered the cost of following me?” I remember looking up and thinking, “What does it matter, If we love you don’t we have to follow you no matter what?” I didn’t receive an answer. Later I would find out why. A few months after this I was driving my 11 hour shift. I have tons of time to talk to God and sometimes I even listen.  This particular time He placed a question in my heart, “Do you believe me?” “Of course I believe you.” I replied. He said, “I know you believe in me, but do you believe me?” Hmm, I didn’t really think there was, but I guess there is a difference. I didn’t answer Him right away because I felt like I had come to a crossroad moment in my faith and I had to think seriously about my answer. I thought for a few days and told Him, “Yes, I not only believe in you but I believe you.” I knew His words to be true.

Now, fast forward to March 2010, my birthday is coming up and my youngest daughter, Terri, flies home to celebrate with the rest of us. As Terri and I are driving around town, I share with her these things that God and I have been discussing. We stopped to shop in Lifeway bookstore. Terri came across a bible study by Beth Moore and brought it to me. She asked if I had done the study “Believing God.” At first I told her I was sure I had because I’ve done all of them except her new one about Esther. Terri asked, “Are you SURE you’ve done this one?” Beth Moore had had the same conversation I was having with God. I was stunned!

Then, on my birthday, Terri and I went to hear President Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school in his church in Plains. His lesson was from Luke 13 about Jesus healing the crippled woman on the Sabbath and how, as usual, the synagogue rulers were upset with the people for coming to be healed on the Sabbath. It amazes me how they weren’t blown away by the fact that there was someone present who could actually HEAL this woman, they were just concerned about their rules being broken. Jesus had already taught that it was lawful to do “good” on the Sabbath. The point, I think, President Carter was making is Jesus went ahead and did things that were good even if it went against the rules. Then the visiting pastor preached from Luke 14. YEP -verses 25 through 35, the cost!

Okay, so you’re probably asking yourselves, “Where is she going with this?” Glad you asked.

March 11th we got a job picking up in Bath, New York going to McAlester, Oklahoma. The next day, March 12th, we were 238 miles away from McAlester when I saw an elderly gentlemen on the side of the road hitchhiking. He was holding his little cardboard sign that read “Need ride to McAlester, OK” WHAT? NO WAY! God wants me to pick this man up and give him a ride? I can’t! It’s against the rules!
I began to pray, “Oh, God, PLEASE send someone to pick this poor old man up, he needs a ride.”

God said, “I sent you.”

“But God, we can’t pick him up. We’re not allowed to, it’s against FedEx rules. We could lose our jobs.”

God said, “Some people lose their lives doing my will.”

As I continue to drive down the road debating this with God I cross a bridge over a creek named “TURNBACK CREEK!” I KID YOU NOT!!! Another mile down the road (yes, I’m still driving) there is a billboard on the left hand side of the road that is old and partially torn. All that I could read was “…word of God… and death...” I’m still driving down the road and mile after mile, driving further and further away from this elderly gentleman when God’s words came back to me – THE COST! I guess I really didn’t understand the cost as it pertained to me. I was not willing to lose my job or explain what was going on to Calvin so I kept driving.
No, I never did turn around. At first I felt as though God was wagging His finger at me saying “I gave you a test and you failed, MISERABLY! I asked you for a cup of water; you didn’t give it to me. When I was hungry; you didn’t feed me. When I ‘NEEDED A RIDE’ you didn’t give me one.” But it was satan beating me up, not God. God gently told me I didn’t fail. It was a lesson to teach me His ways, to learn that sometimes I may have to go completely against what is right to me and do what is right to Him.

I learned that I was NOT prepared for the cost. I just wasn’t. The song “I Surrender All” came to my mind and I had to ask myself, do I? Have I? Will I? This time it was just a man needing a ride. One day it may be someone’s eternal life at stake.

By the way, the state we were in when we saw the elderly gentleman hitchhiking was Missouri – the “SHOW ME” state. Ironic, huh?

Thank you for the privilege of sharing the powerful message God shared with me.

Detours

On January 31, 2007, my father passed away after a long fight with Alzheimer's. My mother was doggedly determined to keep him at home as long as possible and did so until the day before Dad died in a hospice care facility. While we had a person who came several times a day to help Mom with grooming Dad and some other issues, Mom bore the brunt of duty, and it took a noticeable toll on her. She had some major adjustment issues after his passing, as it was the first time in her entire seventy four years she had lived alone. But she persevered.
It was maybe a year later that we all began to notice changes in Mom's behavior, mainly that she was becoming less able to mantain a conversation. But in all other things it appeared that she was functioning fine alone. But the downhill slide in her ability to interact with everyone continued.
Then in June of this year, while we were in the New England area, my sister Cynthia called. She is a teacher in north Georgia and not able to get down to see Mom on a frequent basis. My niece Kimberly and her husband Tim live near Mom and she had called her mom (Cynthia) to tell her that they had taken Mom to the ER because she had been trying to cut the grass with the riding lawnmower (something she wasn't supposed to be doing any more)and had rolled it. She wasn't hurt other than bruises, but it came out that also that same week she had a fall in the yard and had a minor car accident and hadn't told any of us.
Cynthia was out of school and was able to go to stay with Mom immediately. Mom was scheduled for an appointment with a neurologist already but not for a couple of months, so we made some calls and got it bumped up to that week. Cynthia took her to the appointment, the doctor diagnosed mild Parkinson's Disease and dementia, put her on Aricept immediately and scheduled a MRI for the following Monday. We drove home that Friday evening/all day Saturday from Buffalo NY and relieved Cynthia so she could go home and take care of some issues. Donna and I took Mom to the MRI appointment on Monday, Donna went to spend Monday night at our house to straighten things up there and I got up Tuesday morning with Mom. I got her breakfast and gave her her meds and sat down in the recliner next to her and asked her a question. What came out of her mouth was a garbled collection of disconnected words that made no sense.
Now I had worked for four years as a therapist at a rehab facility and three years in the assisted living business and knew full well the symptoms of Cerebral Vascular Accident, or stroke. But the only symptom she was presenting was aphasic speech. There were no swallow issues that I could detect, no paralysis of the arms or legs. But I knew of course that SOMETHING was wrong so I told her I would take her to the ER. I started calling Donna to tell her what was going on, and Mom got herself up and got fully dressed on her own, which furthered my belief that she wasn't having a stroke. And the ER doctor, after performing his assessment, said he didn't think so either, but they would do a CT scan anyway. Long story short, Mom HAD had a stroke, and according to the doctor, it was still "evolving."
It's a scary thing as a "child" to be unexpectedly holding your mother's hand in the ER wondering if this is about to be it. With Dad, the entire family was at his bedside when he passed away, and his passing was inevitable, indeed even a blessing. But this was different. Here I was, alone except for Donna, who was in and out taking care of phone calls and all other manner of details. I was remembering what was in Mom's Living Will, and considering the possibility that I might have to make "the" decision in the event of a furthering of the stroke and a crash. But what I remember most about that was looking into my mother's eyes, and seeing the fear in them and knowing that the fact that she couldn't communicate was making it all the more fearful for her. But I know that I was thankful that I was there and able to hold onto her hand and comfort her as she had done for me all through my accident-prone childhood.
The stay at the hospital lasted from Tuesday a.m. and ended Friday afternoon. (The stay itself is a blog in and of its own!) Cynthia and I began to make arrangements as we knew Mom would be unable to live alone anymore and she wanted to stay at her house, if at all possible. Which I really wanted to do after all she sacrificed to keep Dad at home. We located a local woman who did 24 hour in-home care and who knew Mom already. She had been the caregiver for two of Mom's closest friends at church and came highly recommended. She agreed to stay and it looked like Donna and I would be back out on the road in a week or two, tops. Then the woman called and said she had a family crisis she had to attend to and would be unable to work for us. So, not knowing anyone else that was doing 24 hour care, we contacted an agency. But, not surprisingly, the rate was double what we were going to pay the other lady. And Donna and I came to the realization that we could stay with her, she would pay our bills and it would be less expensive than the agency. Plus, the freight business had gotten so bad that all we were doing was little more than just paying our bills anyway. It was a win-win scenario. So we decided to stay with Mom and our trucking career had run into a detour.

Cliches become cliches because there is a nugget of truth in them. The cliche I am thinking of now is "Life turns on a dime." Because it does. Any slight variations in time, space and circumstance, and life careens off in another direction that was not expected. Sci-fi movies and books often use the time-travel plot device, so much so that when you are in a group and say something about the "time-space continuum" people actually know what you are talking about. In the stories, one has to be careful when traveling into the past not to change or alter anything or the future you return to could be completely different. Indeed, in "Back to the Future" our hero Marty would have no future in which to return. This is also sometimes referred to as the "Butterfly Effect."
Of course, the same applies to the present. Slightest variations in any and all details of our daily lives send shock waves through the future and alter our lives in ways that often we are not even aware. This occurs even at the celular level of our bodies. A jarring blow to the body dislodges a few small cells of plaque in our blood vessels which travel to our brains, causing a clot which can bring about life-changing complication, yes, even the end of life itself. Or in my last post, if the doe had entered the roadway a second or two later than she did, how could that have changed everything? And God only knows how many of these events occur and we have no idea we just dodged or encountered a life event by a second, even a milli-second, that could have, or even did, alter our life path without us even realizing.

So, it appears Donna and I have returned to the main road after our "detour." After nearly five months at home, we are back on course. A lady who had been staying with Mom for a few hours at a time when Donna and I needed a break decided she could stay 24/7 with her. And I am pondering what it all has meant, and will continue to mean, as I know this has sent shock waves through our future. I know that I am thankful for the time we had with her. I will remember the few comments she was able to make and the times I was able to make her laugh. When the Falcons played the Bears on Monday Night Football this year, she and I watched it together. Towards the end of the game it got really tight and I would jump up out of my chair yelling at the TV and Mom was laughing at me. Finally the Falcons pulled it out at the end and I flopped back in my chair and told her I thought I would be the one needing a sleeping pill tonight (she had some insomnia issues and wanted a sleep aid every night) and she laughed heartily. I will remember forever our daily walks around the neighborhood. I would always say something before we left to go walking about making sure I had my cell phone with me, and one day during the walk she asked if I had my phone. I said, "Yeah, you need me to call a cab?" She smiled and chuckled a little and kept going.

So we are back, awaiting the next new course, or detour, and life keeps going.

Oh, deer!

Two nights ago I was cruising down I80 east in Ohio in the "granny lane" which is, of course, the far right slow lane. (The far left lane is the "hammer lane" as in "put the hammer down" by the way.) The interstate here is 3 lanes wide in both directions with a concrete wall separating them. A fully loaded car hauler semi passes me in the center lane and about the time my front bumper is at the back of his trailer, I see a doe in my lane, trotting quickly across the interstate right to left headed straight into the car haulers path.

Now this is a fairly commonplace event on interstates across America. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration there are 1.5 million accidents a year involving deer and motor vehicles, resulting in over 1 BILLION dollars in damage and 150 FATALITIES. I knew of a woman at our church who hit a deer that flew over the top of her car on impact and and went through the windshield of the car behind her, killing two people. If you want to see some amazing/grusome photos, google car/deer accidents and have at it.

As far as trucking goes, deer are a major nuisence. We don't have the agility of an automobile, so avoidance is difficult. A direct impact will usually take out the radiator of a truck, which can run several thousand dollars, not including body work, and if you are an independent contractor/owner-operator, will knock you out of work several days and cost you even more money. You may have noticed some trucks have add-on equipment to their front ends; large tubular grills that look particularly menacing. They are, in fact, deer catchers, and come in a wide variety of designs and pricing. I have considered getting one for our truck, but keep hesitating, due to the cost, added weight and subsequent increase in wind resistance which leads to declining fuel economy. Plus in over four years of doing this job, we had not even had a close encounter with a deer. A couple of times I have seen deer coming out of the woods toward the interstate at a trot and have hit the air horn before they reach the highway, and they have bolted back into the woods. Most of the time they just stand there, non-plussed, and continue grazing.

But the evidence of collisions are everywhere on the interstates, usually butchered carcasses and bloody smears sometimes stretching tens of yards down the road. I once counted 15 such sites along a 20 mile stretch of interstate in Wisconsin. And almost always both the live sightings and the corpses are does. Bucks are generally too savvy to be hanging around heavily travelled roads, but during the mating season, well, you know where they'll be! Which leads to another occasionally sighting I have noticed: headless deer roadkill. At first I thought that maybe the collision decapitated some deer. Then one day I saw a man stopped on the side of the road carrying a buck's head and tossing it into the back of his pickup, and it dawned on me. It sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy joke: If you stop on the interstate and decapitate a roadkill buck for a trophy rack, you might be a redneck!

Other animals than deer find themselves victims of motorized mayhem as well, of course. It seems to me, completely anecdotely, that raccoons have replaced the oppossum as the number one victims of the interstates. Recently I was driving late at night on a particularly deserted stretch of interstate when I saw a raccoon waddling into my path, cutting across the roadway, from my right to left. He stopped in the middle of my lane, turned to face me, and raised up on his rear legs with his front legs stretching to the sky, as if to say, "AAAAAHHHHHH!" (You really have to stop and get a mental picture of this, it looked like something out of "Over The Hedge".) Because I was aware the interstate was empty, I was able to swerve left and the raccoon recovered enough to cut back to my right and avoid an unpleasant demise.

Spotting live wildlife on the roadside is usually a perk of the job, however, and we have seen a wide variety. Earlier this year on a trip out west we spotted several bald eagles, which we had never seen in the wild before. On our last trip out west we spotted wild turkeys, a fox, a coyote, antelope, and the grand finale, a couple of bighorn sheep rams in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver, all in the same day. And a day later at a truck stop in Denver, I watched a family of foxes playing in a field next to the lot. (I got pictures of that, I will post on Facebook soon. All our pictures are available to look at via a connection at the bottom of the blog.) At another stop in southwestern Pennsylvania I was taking Buffett for a walk off the leash when I saw a skunk stroll out of the woods. Fortunately, I saw him before Buffett did and I was able to get him back on the leash before the olfactory disaster befell us. Buffett has a grand time chasing rabbits at various places around the country, especially the large jackrabbits of southern Texas. My all time Marlin Perkins moment, however, was a couple of years ago in eastern Pennsylvania when early one morning I spotted a young black bear grubbing in a rotted fallen tree.

So, back to a couple of nights ago. I started popping the brakes as soon as I spotted the doe, as did the car hauler. She disappeared from my view as she crossed in front of the semi and he was helpless to employ evasive manuevers. (An eighty thousand pound, eighty foot long vehicle moving at sixtyfive miles per hour is not very nimble, nor can it stop on a football field, much less a dime.) I was not able to ascertain the outcome for the doe. The semi did not stop, which would at least seem to indicate it was not a direct hit. I didn't see her come out the bottom of the semi, but I was too close to see if she cleared the other side. But she would have had another eastbound lane to go, then a four foot concrete wall and three lanes of westbound I80 traffic to negotiate. Not good odds for her. But I didn't actually witness any collision, therefore I will think positive thoughts for her.

But I am rethinking the grill now.

Attack of the Lot Lizards! Parts 1 and 2

PROLOGUE:
When people find out what it is we do, invariably a guy asks(women NEVER ask) about truck stop prostitution. Or in the vernacular of the truckers, "lot lizards." (In fact, there are stickers for sale in truck stops that have a caricature of a female lizard dressed sleazily with a circle/slash over her that says "No Lot Lizards." I see these on trucks quite frequently.) I have always answered that it isn't that prevalent. We rarely see or hear anything except in a couple of areas of the country. Of course, we don't go looking for action either, and as I have previously blogged, I don't get on the CB much at all and never in the truck stops, so its possible more is going on than we know. But South Dallas is one of those areas and was where we first really witnessed it. It was late at night and we were looking for a place to park and sleep. We were waiting to pull into the lot due to a backup at the fuel pumps, and I watched a young woman get out of one truck and go immediately to the next truck and knock on the door. As we were looking for a place to park on the lot we saw a Dallas police car cruising the lot and we knew we were not in a very reputable area of town. Another time at a different truck stop in South Dallas I watched as a woman drove her car around the lot, stopping at trucks and getting out to knock on the door. But I had never directly encountered a "lot lizard" until.....

PART 1

We were in Memphis last summer (the other area of the country where we've seen this alot) in the middle of the day. Donna was in the sleeper working on something on the computer and I was up front in the driver's seat, just looking around. And I saw a woman walking around the lot, approaching trucks and knocking on doors. The interesting thing about her was that she wasn't dressed provocatively at all. Black slacks, a colorful but non-revealing blouse, no wild make-up or hair or shoes. She would have not looked out of place at church. In fact, I wasn't sure up to this point that she was, indeed, a lot lizard. Well, she wasn't getting any takers when she looked over and saw me sitting up front and headed my way. "Oh, crap!" I thought and jumped back into the sleeper. This did not deter her and she knocked on the door. I went up front and asked, "Can I help you?" She didn't speak at all. She kind of tilted her head down, raised her eyebrows and patted her chest while looking at me with questioning eyes as if to say, "You want this?" I STILL wasn't exactly sure what was going on, so I repeated my question. Again, she didn't speak but repeated her pantomime. I finally said, "No, no thank you." and stepped back into the sleeper. She KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AGAIN!!! I looked at Donna. "You want to handle this?" She went up front. The "LL" saw her and "found" her voice; "Oh I was looking for someone else!" Yeah, I bet you were, I thought, and the woman went away.

Part 2

Well, a couple of weeks ago, we wound up in Memphis and parked at the same truck stop. We had driven all night, my shift resulted in my getting just a few hours sleep before the delivery, so I crawled into bed and went to sleep. Donna was next to me reading. I was awakened by the roaring barking of Buffett our Road Dog Golden Retriever and to an astonished expression on Donna's face. "It's that SAME WOMAN!" she exclaimed. She had approached our truck, knocked on the door, and then actually opened the door, which set off Buffett. "Oh, s***!" she exclaimed and slammed the door shut. But she continued to knock on the door, calling "Jonathan?!? Jonathan!?!" Donna never went up front and shushed me when I started to ask what in the world was going on. Eventually, she went away. And soon after, so did we.

Epilogue

In the face of this economy, it seems we are seeing more of this than we have in the past. I guess desperate times result in desperate measures for some people. I read a news report recently that noted an uptick in the number of first time criminals, notably a youth minister in south Georgia who robbed a bank due to dire financial straights. But if a woman chooses prostitution to make money, why in the world would any woman choose TRUCK STOP prostitution? I mean, as a group, these are probably the dirtiest, smelliest, foulest group of men in America! (I can say this, because, as Jeff Foxworthy says, I are one. A trucker, that is.) Of all the possible clientele a woman could target, why truckers? I guess its because they are an easy sell, due to the above reasons and the fact that they are usually very lonely. I am sad for any woman who feels so desperate as to be compelled to sell her body, but the life of a Lot Lizard is beyond my comprehension. God help them.

"Man, it pours...."

"Seems it never rains in Southern California,
seems I've often heard that kind of talk before.
It never rains in California,
But girl, don't they warn ya,
it pours.
Man, it pours"

A couple of months ago Donna and I made it out to Los Angeles for the weekend after making a delivery there on a Friday. This made us very happy because we would be able to spend the weekend with Terri, my step-daughter who lives there. We got to go to the beach, had lunch on the Santa Monica Pier, and generally observe the bowl of granola (nuts, fruits and flakes) that is life in SoCal. (Photographic evidence is on our Facebook page) It was a little cool with high thin clouds but all in all a lovely day at the beach.

We had parked the truck where Terri works and had to get up early Monday morning to get it out of there before the employees arrived. Well, it was a steady hard cold rain falling, not pleasant at all, and when we got to the truck, the batteries had died and we had to jump it off. Not a great start to the week! We got it to crank, after I had gotten soaking wet, and were off to the truck stop out around Ontario to hang out and wait for the next job. But we missed an exit to I-10 east and had to go up an exit to turn around. Arrgh! Rainy days and mondays, and all that.

We started down the exit ramp and had to stop four or five vehicles short of the intersection due to a traffic light. I looked ahead and saw a figure huddled under what looked like a garbage bag with holes cut out for the head and arms. The person was holding one of those signs that we all have seen; the "will work for food" or "homeless, hungry, please help" variety (Funniest one of those I've seen is "why lie, I need a beer.") Except this sign had been rendered unreadable by the cold hard rain that was pounding the area; the running ink made the sign look like a Rorchach Test. Donna and I were out of cash save for the coins we throw in the ash tray to use for doing laundry. Donna started digging out all the quarters, I was studying the person closer as we waited on the light and said to Donna, "Is that a girl?" The light changed, we started rolling up to the intersection. I let the window down, Donna handed me the large fistful of change, had to be three or four bucks, I slowed as we approached the figure, and I reached out to quickly hand off the money so we wouldn't slow traffic behind us, and I made eye contact with a young woman who would probably be attractive when not looking like a drowned rat.

Now this is a scene that we all face, at least anyone who ever gets out of the house at all anymore. Especially in these economic hard times. And we all have to come to some decision as to how we are going to handle it. I worked with a woman at South Fulton Medical Center who saw the same people with little variation every day at the exit ramp of Cleveland Avenue at I-75. She decided to fix little bags of food with a bible tract and give them to the people on the corner every day. After several days of the same person being there to receive the food, the guy on the corner looked in the bag and groaned, "Tuna AGAIN?" Obviously he hadn't heard the one about the gift horse.

Most people these days turn away. They fall mainly into three camps. One group believes they are all con men and they should go get jobs, another believes that even if they are truly needy, its their own fault it happened so they need to go fix it themselves. Another group sympathizes with them but decides to give money to charities that can better discern between the truly needy and the lazy cons. I have seen both sides of this, having gone to Georgia State University in the late 70's in downtown Atlanta. Yes there are drunks, drug addicts and/or con men out there. And they prey off the sympathy of others, just like there are people who cheat the welfare system and live off the government. And few things rile me more than people who arrogantly believe and act like they are entitled. But I entered into a discussion of this with a friend of mine who was railing over the welfare state in this country and I asked him, "What percentage of the people on welfare are frauds, by your estimate?" I think he said about 40 percent. "So you want to punish the 60 percent who are truly needy and deserving in order to eliminate the frauds?" He didn't have an answer.

Probably my most memorable encounter up to the time of this story came at GSU one night as I was leaving the gym after an activity. A man approached me, one hand was bandaged and the other was holding some papers. The papers were used in the approach, they were from Grady Hospital and were about an injury to his hand, or at least that's what he told me, I didn't look too closely at them. After a brief conversation, it boiled down to that he needed a place to spend the night; it was winter and it was cold. I suggested the mission right around the corner but he said it was full and plus people would rob you there. He knew of a place over by Spring Street that was safe but they charged eight bucks a night and he didn't have it. I was watching and listening to him closely; his eyes were clear and he was fairly well spoken, not slurring. I took a leap of faith and offered him a ride over to the shelter. He told me he owed them for a night and they wouldn't let him in until he paid up his bill, so when we got there I gave him a twenty. After I gave him the money he turned to me and asked, "Do you read the Bible?" I was caught off guard. I was raised in a Baptist church and was currently teaching Sunday School. I stammered, "Uh, yeah!" He looked dead into my eyes and said, "Matthew 25:40..." and proceeded to quote the verse, in full and perfectly, to the stunned Sunday School teacher. He shook my hand, got out of the car and literally bounded up the stairs and into the shelter.....

Sometimes things happen in mere seconds with total strangers that haunt you for a lifetime. In the City of Angels, in that young woman's eyes, in just a flash of time, I saw desperation, embarrassment, humiliation and gratitude. I reached out with the fistful of coins and her hands were trembling so badly from the cold and rain that she dropped probably a third of them, but she still gave an embarrassed smile and said through chattering teeth, "Oh, THANK you!" As we were rolling I called out good luck to her.

"Out of work, out of my head,
out of self-respect, I'm outta bread,
I'm under-loved, I'm under-fed,
I wanna go home...."

I wish we had done more. I wish we had stopped, traffic be damned, and taken the time to try and help her out of her mess. But we didn't. No, I was driving. I didn't. And I have the image of her trembling hands dropping the coins burned into my brain forever.

I hope if she had LA dreams they finally came true. If not, I hope she made it home safely without having to compromise herself. I hope she got to the people who love her and they took her in and didn't judge. I hope for all of us that we don't punish the truly needy because of the frauds. I hope that we all will remember that when we give a cup of water it is in the Master's Name.

Matthew 25:35-39
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"


Then came the verse the man quoted me, Matthew 25:40;

"The King will reply,'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.'"

C.B., or not C.B.? That Is The Question!

I recently re-established contact with an old friend after a six or seven year absence. She was unaware of our new profession, and in the process of catching up, she asked, "Do truckers still have CB's?"

My experience with CB radio started, like most people, in the 1970's. I got one around 1975, and since I was driving a VW Rabbit, my handle was "Bugs Bunny." Of course, the song "Convoy" and the movie "Smokey and the Bandit" reflected the explosion of popularity of the things, and I enjoyed having it in the car for a couple of years, learning the lingo and such.

But then, along with the rest of the country, my infatuation died, and it went back to be mainly the domain of the trucking industry. And a major shift occured when the government deregulated the airwaves. Which meant you didn't have to have a license to operate a radio and there was carte blanche on what you could say on the air.

Donna and I got into trucking in March of 2005. We did without a CB for nearly two years. I kept thinking it would be good to have one, but kept putting it off. Then we got our new truck in December of 2006, and a little later I took the plunge. So I hooked up the radio while at home and we took off across the top end perimeter of Atlanta to go to a pickup, and I flipped the switch for the first time in thiry years. Immediately a highly irritated southern voice came screetching over the air. "That G.D M.F.'n Gordon cut off Junior yesterday and cost Junior the G.D.M.F.'n race!" Whoa! This language was illegal thirty years ago. Gotta love deregulation! This rampage lasted several more minutes and I turned it off. I came to find out that no one used the old "10" codes anymore, and if anyone used "good buddy" it was to refer to a man of, shall we say, an alternative lifestyle. And thats pretty much how it was for the next two years. It was helpful when there were weather and traffic issues, but the polite friendly voices that I heard in my teenaged years were replaced by racist, misogynistic, ignorant, right wing, gun lovin' nut jobs with giant amps that could, and did, blast anyone with dissenting opinions off the air.

And the guys who do stay on the air continually resent those who pop in when there are traffic problems. We got caught in a bumper to bumper jam in Virginia once and pulled off to get fuel. I left the radio on and listened to one guy roar at every driver who came on the air asking what the problem was, "Go back to yer XM and let IT tell you what the problem is you #$#%%^^$#@^***!!!! And this went on for at least half an hour, at least fifteen or twenty times.

I went about three weeks once without turning it on at all. I decided to see what was going on out there, and was greeted immediately, the very second I turned on the radio, by someone announcing this jewel: "Yeah, I even sucked my own d*** one time!" Well, nothing had changed, I thought, as I reached up and flipped it off again.

So when my friend asked the question, "do truckers still have CB's?", the above was the story I related to her. And I immediately began to think about blogging the story about the death of civility on CB radio, indeed the demise of civilization itself,

and then....

A couple of weeks ago Donna and I were on a run where we had to drive 75 miles of twisting, turning, Pennsylvania two lane blacktop through a National Forest in a snowstorm in the middle of the night to get to a delivery. Our GPS instructed us that we had arrived at our location, but it wasn't there (another blog about technology for another day). What WAS there was a PA DOT station where they were loading salt and sand into trucks, one of which had its headlights on, facing into the roadway. We went creeping slowly by, looking for anything close to a factory, and I heard a voice, "Whatcha doin' big truck?" I had left the CB on, squelched low, and had forgotten about it. Donna and I looked at each other. "Is he talking to us?" Donna asked. "Whatcha lookin' for, big truck?" came over the air again. I grabbed the mic and told him the name of the company we were trying to find. "You got about five or six more miles to go, it'll be up on the left next to the railroad tracks, just pull into the first dock you see. You carryin' powder?" Obviously a local. Well we chatted a couple of more minutes and he wished us well and we thanked him and we continued on our way.

And so then I had to re-think this blog entry. Where I was poised to bury CB radio, I must now praise. Like nearly everything in life, it is a mixture of good and evil. And all groups have that mixture: Black and white, rich and poor, republican and democrat. The problem is that the evil tends to be the loud ones, the ones with "giant amps" blowing everyone else away, the ones that get all the attention (usually thanks to the media) and who we point to when condemning that group. The truth, however, is that no one group or person is all good or all evil, and our eyes must remain open to the possibility of good in any and all situations and peoples, no matter what our predjudices and prior learning experiences lead us to believe.

January 20th, 2009: The End of an Error

The title is from a bumper sticker I saw many times last year leading up to the election. Another is "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing an idiot." We saw a clever one once: "A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z"

Get it? No W.

I have never been a fan of W's. I didn't vote in 2000, mainly because I wasn't enthused about either candidate, plus Georgia is such a solidly republican state I knew my vote wasn't going to make a difference. Georgia went for Bush at a 60 percent rate. 2004 was different. I wasn't a big fan of John Kerry's either but I was pissed and I wanted to do SOMETHING. If the president is the CEO of the country, then I felt like he needed to be fired. Then the perfect ca-ca financial storm hits in the second term, and, well....

I'm not going to pile on W any more. I have always held that it was possible, however slight the odds, that his vision of democracy taking root in the Middle East might happen. But 5000 years of history say otherwise. Never has western man gone into the Middle East and anything good happened. When Reagan pulled the troops out of Beirut after the Embassy bombing and all those Marines died, he said in his memoirs that he hadn't counted on the irrationality of the people of the region. But time will tell. And his efforts to fund the war on AIDS in Africa was, and still is, a noble cause. And I never had a problem with the regime change in Afghanistan either. Their leaders publicly lined themselves up with Al Queda and Bin Laden after they attacked us. But history will have the final say.

Now we start a new era. I voted for Barack Obama. I believe he is going to be a much more centrist president than his voting record in Congress would indicate. I believe he is going to try to be a uniter, a bipartisan leader of the country. All his moves up to now point to that being the case.

But I am also a realist. He may succede and be a good president or he may not. I also know there are a lot of crazies out there and I fear for his and his family's safety. And I know the story of the Zen Master and the Little Boy, as told by Gust Avrokatos in "Charlie Wilson's War."

We'll see.

We made our delivery saturday in Wilmington OH, rested all day sunday and immediately got a load on monday picking up in Lexington KY and delivering into Washington DC monday night. Which we did and now it is tuesday and we accepted a job picking up in New Jersey going to two stops in western New York state. The ball keeps on bouncing.....

Oh! Canada?

We were sitting in Burlington VT and we got a load offer picking up in Montreal, delivering to Wilmington, OH. Now the pay per mile was low but this is an area that not much freight moves out of, the temperature that morning hit eightteen below zero, it was the middle of the afternoon on a friday and the clock was ticking. The last thing we wanted was to get stuck in this icebox for the weekend, and Ohio would be a good place to start on monday. So we took it.

Well the first problem we noted was when we got the info, there was a note about not sending tractor-trailors to this address, which meant it was going to be a tight fit for our truck, even though it is just a straight truck. Then we saw it was in downtown Montreal. Then the directions were off and we had trouble locating the address. Long story short, we had to squeeze the truck down an alley to get near the dock, and it was too tight to back up to the dock, so we had to load 43 boxes at 50 pounds each in subzero temps. We finally got on our way but missed a turn and had to work to get back on track. But we did, which led up to the border crossing, which we always are nervous about because, well, a lot of the border guards are assholes. And that leads me to the topic of this blog.

Our first crossing into Canada occured when we were still newbies. Donna was driving, I was in the sleeper. The agent took our paperwork (which we send in to a broker when we make the pickup and the broker clears the freight through customs for us), asked questions like where she was from, how long would we be staying in Canada, do we have any weapons on board, etc, and then asked if there was anyone else in the truck. Donna said, "Just my husband who is asleep in the back.) The guard snapped, "Get him up here!" So I got into the front and he barked, "You're supposed to be up front! You could have been a terrorist!" I just kind of gave an apologetic smile. He glared at me and snarled, "You see I'm not laughing!" Well, we had heard these guys don't have a sense of humor. I remember a story from Sports Illustrated about a ballplayer who when asked by a Canadian customs agent if he had anything to declare stated, "I'm proud to be an American!" He was promptly detained for questioning. Anyway, we made it through and made our delivery.

Early on, we applied for and recieved something called FAST cards, which is another type of ID cards that have our pictures on them and says we have been approved by both the US and Canadian government for delivering freight across the border. We always give those cards as ID with our shipping paperwork and that has never been a problem....except once. We were crossing into Canada and I was driving. I usually have Donna drive in, because most guards are male, and Donna is pretty and, well...you get the picture. (Yeah, its sexist. Sue me.) Anyway, this guard is a matronly heavy set woman who looks at our FAST cards and says something about needing photo ID. I made the mistake of questioning her, saying we always have used the FAST cards with no problems. She said something about this not being a FAST approved load and then stated very matter-of-factly, "I am making my SECOND request for photo ID." Well, I didn't think there was going to be a third request that didn't involve multiple guards and physical violence so we dug out our passports and she let us on through.

The US Customs agents are the worst however. The best of them usually are just robotic, and the others have attitudes that make you think they are sitting there all day with a raging case of hemmorhoids, just waiting for someone to give them an excuse to go off. Which I did once. Border crossing policy and procedures change quite often since 9/11 and one of the changes was something called an ACE Manifest. Which all it was, and still is, is a piece of paper with the FedEx Custom Critical load number, driver's name and truck license plate number on it. Thats it. Nothing else. Originally we able to just hand write this info down on any piece of paper and give that to the US Customs guard. Until.....I was driving (first mistake) and gave the paper to a guard crossing into the US at Buffalo. He looked at it like I had given him used toilet paper, practically threw it back at me and starting giving me attitude. I stated our dispatchers told us that a handwritten ACE form was OK. He snapped some more and then ordered me to go to the Xray machine and then go inside the customs building. I was flabbergasted by this point, and pulled forward, then realized I didn't see where the Xray machine was. So I pulled over to the customs building, and started to open the door to get out of the truck to go into customs. (This is starting to sound like Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" draft induction story) I got the truck door open about an inch when there stood another customs guard pushing my door closed with his Official US Customs Flashlight with one hand with his other placed on his US Customs Official 9mm Pistol and snarling, "YOU WERE TOLD TO GO TO XRAY!" I explained I didn't see the Xray. Turns out I had already passed it, so the customs guard jumped into his Offficial US Customs Minivan and led us in making a U-turn to lead us to the now infamous Official US Customs Xray Area, where we had to all exit the truck while it was scanned for nuclear and biological or any weapons of mass distruction. We then were told we didn't have any nuclear or biological weapons or any contraband of any type on our truck, so now we had to go into the Customs office where they would tell us when we could cross with our EMPTY truck. Yes, our truck had no freight in it at all. We were crossing empty to get back to the land of our birth, and we still had to have a piece of paper saying our name, load number (when empty you use the number you crossed in with) and truck license plate number. And this is only when crossing from Canada into the US. Empty or loaded. I guess thats what galls me the most, being treated like a criminal by my own country. At border crossings, The US Constitution is ignored. You are guilty until proven innocent.

We have had positive experiences in Canada however. The people there are generally very friendly. We had a delivery 250 miles north of Toronto going to a town called Timmons, Ontario. It is famous for being the hometown of Shania Twain, as the billboard going into town proudly proclaimed. I stopped to get a picture of it. Donna just rolled her eyes. Obviously on that trip we were deep into Canada. We stopped at a remote rest area that had a large sign in it that one side stated "All water on this side of the sign flows into the Atlantic Ocean" I was shocked when I went around to the other side which proclaimed, "All water on this side of the sign flows into the ARCTIC Ocean" (Caps mine). We also had a great day on a beach in Toronto on Lake Ontario. We have wondered about living next to water that is too cold to swim in, even in July. Seems frustrating to a Southerner.

Early on, all our pick ups and deliveries in Canada were in Ontario, which, aside from the border crossings and the currency, is not much different from being in
the US. However, then we had to go into Quebec. THEN you know you are in a foriegn country. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is in French. And often you get to a pick up or delivery and no one there speaks any functional english at all. Which then you get to do a primitive version of sign language and piecing together my extremely limited french vocabulary with their similarly limited english. It has always worked, eventually. I did enjoy a rare occasion when I had to go into the main office of a business instead of the docks. A pretty woman behind the receptionists desk looked up at me and said liltingly, "Bon Jour!" Ahh, the French. I am remembering two vastly different movies. In "My Fair Lady" Professor Higgins is berating all countries for not teaching their children their own languages. About the French he states "the french don't care what you say, just as long as you pronounce it properly". In the second Matrix movie, the french bad guy soliliquies on the beauty of cursing in french. Quebec is doggedly determined to remain French; back in the sixties or seventies there was a secessionist movement, some bombings occurred and some people actually were jailed. One person told us that in Quebec the schools are highly restrictive about teaching english.

Another thing we have noticed is that Canadians don't shut their blinds at night. We were driving through rural Canada one night and I noted it to Donna. At first, she thought I was crazy. Then we both got to looking, and it was true. Large windows, with no blinds pulled and we could see whatever they were doing in the house. Shortly after noticing this, we watched "Bowling for Columbine" in which Micheal Moore is noting that while Canadians have guns like us, they don't shoot each other nearly as often as we do. (He opined that he thought that it was that our media, with its "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality has generated a fear culture among Americans. Which I thought was unusual; a liberal blaming the media for something.) Anyway, it came out also that Canandians don't lock their doors. And he went door to door just opening doors to people's houses without knocking and then interviewing them. So I wonder if the blinds thing is related to the unlocked doors. No secrets, no fear.

Anyway, thats my take on Canada. We will be posting pix on Facebook of our Canadian adventures soon.

This past week, we started in Atlanta, delivered a load of Guitar Hero III to Brownsville, TX, moved up to Houston and caught a load going to eastern Indiana, jumped to western Ohio to pick up a load going to Vermont, from there a load of videos in Montreal going back to Ohio, and here we are just south of Cincinnati in Kentucky, ready for the next week to start.

"The road goes on forever, and the party never ends....."
Robert Earl Keen