On thinking things through or true

I had four conversations in the last two days.  They taught me something(s).  They are all four teaching me something(s) — still.  

I can put some of their wisdom into words, and the rest sits there in the shadows, just out of reach, just out of range for formulating anything from it.  

I have office hours, and I have no office: less to decorate, one less place to hide.  I have office hours in the Student Union, and oddly enough, I see far more students than when I had an office.  You might need to sit down for this shocker: the students are already in the Student Union.  Finding me is easier. 

Yesterday a student from a Bible study from five to six years ago was back in town recruiting for his company.  Tall, handsome, married to beautiful Jamie and successful.  He charted a dark time that followed their marriage five years ago.  

I was so humbled by his quiet, succinct, matter of fact (okay, he is an engineer) way of walking through the darkness and what he learned.  He learned that he absolutely needs close friends who believe what he believes and trusts in Christ.  He learned that he needed not just a place to give back to, but people to give back to — and if he gave back to youth that they kept him humble.  I laughed out loud.  Seventh graders are danged hard to impress.  Try that Bill Gates. 

He told me one other thing from the pit.  He realized that he had settled for what a lot of people told him that the Bible said, and he had to learn to feed himself from scripture.  

He had served on staff in a church, and loves God a lot.  Much more than an emotion, his Love is his check book, time, and their investments.  

We had to quit after two hours, and she was waiting, so she sat down to talk me through the last three weeks.  She is an online student, carrying 30 hours (who wants to stay in college forever); taking the LSAT; and finding her mom has a relapse of cancer.  She lost her dad to cancer in 2007.  I watched as this woman made her apologies, asked what she needed to do, and figured her way through to getting it all done.  I pity the fool who comes up to me after her to whine about anything.  Yes, she is a believer and could not make it without Christ, but she was my second twenty-something in three hours to bowl me over.  

I took a break during my night class to take a call from Zaq.  He sold a car at a loss to a Cuban for whom the car began producing white smoke a few days later who is threatening Zaq and his wife with suits, and worse.  I listened to Zaq tell me that he reached a pretty clever impasse with the hot head and he would not let the guy threaten him any more. I laughed at how little I had contributed to any of the three conversations.  

Then this morning, I drove four students from Stillwater to Enid OK to talk over crowd funding with Mark Marshall for the Limitless project he and Dale began.  One Pakistani, one Nepali, one Persian by way of Oklahoma and a red head.  I listened to how oxygen privation is the cause of all cancer, how positive thinking will lengthen your life, how to achieve a count of (-1) if your are counting hawks in the wild, and other forms of flatus.  I laughed out loud a couple of times.  Did I mention they are all male?  

And I thought on many days, I am most wise when I listen deepest and say the least.  Many of us need someone to “bounce ideas off of” and hearing our ideas out loud we reform some, discard many, and realize that the best thoughts are true because they work, and work well for us.  And some thoughts refuse final form, because they will simply grow as answers with us for all of our lives.  Then I realized I am not all that wise — at all.  

But I have these rare moments of humility when I can put down my assumptions and just listen and be amazed at the strength and wisdom in others.  Then I usually have to prove to them how amazing they are, and having done that, I go on with my day.  

It’s only funny because God said He would give Wisdom to anyone who asked.  

Anyone can ask, right?  

 

Love. They were deeply in love. Are.

Love. They were deeply in love. Are..

Love. They were deeply in love. Are.

I have watched two people terribly in love negotiate “till death us do part”.   Just a few months ago they had defeated the first round of a very rare cancer in Jon. 

Almost.

Jon had returned to teaching, and he has always been handsome, tan, fit.  They lit a room when they walked in together. 

The meds to hold the cancer at bay were losing ground.  More aggressive meds were needed and then it looked as if he would need surgery for kinks and obstructions in his small intestine. 

Suzanne, cheerleader for life, outlined the three possibilities.  Homerun was where they resected the bowels and took out both obstructions in one fell swoop.  A double would be bypassing the obstructions and Jon would wear a bag.  The third option was not worth mentioning.

The third option was the reality to which Jon awoke.  His digestive system no longer was at his disposal. 

Brave and loving are two words that weave together in some couples.  It is a dance that they can do with great abandon when the times are jubliant, and a dance which they can wordlessly move to, together, when the night is long and the end is near. 

He was drained but listened to her, I mean looked at her to talk to her. 

She had gone beyond any strength she knew, and still she tried to get his smoothie right when every taste bud had betrayed him and he didn’t know what to tell her.  Nothing she could put in a blender would bring him back. 

She doubted that she could go on with out Jon, and then she realized that everything he had ever given her, every moment, every kindness, every admiring glance — she still held every one of them.

In fact, no one can take them from her.

The tears, the last embraces, last words, and last breath.  She keeps them all for the both of them on this side of death.   Brave lovers get to keep everything. 

Jon keeps them on the other side, for they share Christ, share resurrection, and will be friends again.

Here is the craziest hope for Heaven.  All that Jon and Suzanne held here they have in Heaven with each other, and the children, and their moms and their dads from whom they learned how to give each other a life long love.   Jon is living in it all now.  In a heartbeat or two, Suzanne will join Jon in that great joy. 

Oh, and they have Christ, and they knew one deep secret.  Loving Christ, and loving your soul mate strengthens each love, tempers each, learns from each.   For a while, they will learn without sensing the presence of the other, only sharing the Presence of their Beloved Lord. 

Which is why I think they are still in Love. 

Another Traveler

I teach Creativity at Oklahoma State University.  

I am amazingly uncreative on many days.  Fortunately (Providentially) I married a horse wrangler on a guest ranch some time ago, and she is creative in places that matter.

In our home, our sons, our life together.

So last August, she showed me the money set aside, told me she had already committed miles on a hotel in Carbondale, CO — to try and catch the aspen turning.  We would leave while I was teaching, launching businesses, and consulting and drive long and — you know, it wasn’t hard.  It was wondrous.  

 

And we saw the aspen turning, but not before Doug told us he had seen them the week before and “They will all be gone when you get there.”

Dear Doug, they have many, many more aspen than your census guessed.  Dear everyone else, go anyway.  

We…

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On That Street in Aspen

I teach Creativity at Oklahoma State University.  

I am amazingly uncreative on many days.  Fortunately (Providentially) I married a horse wrangler on a guest ranch some time ago, and she is creative in places that matter.

In our home, our sons, our life together.

So last August, she showed me the money set aside, told me she had already committed miles on a hotel in Carbondale, CO — to try and catch the aspen turning.  We would leave while I was teaching, launching businesses, and consulting and drive long and — you know, it wasn’t hard.  It was wondrous.  

 

And we saw the aspen turning, but not before Doug told us he had seen them the week before and “They will all be gone when you get there.”

Dear Doug, they have many, many more aspen than your census guessed.  Dear everyone else, go anyway.  

We walked through golden groves where the cobalt blue of the sky straight up hurt, it was that breath taking.  Some times I just sighed.  Sometimes I actually held my breath.  

My wife created those moments.  She is braver, smarter, and more open than I am.  She should probably teach a class on Creativity.  And she got me to this street in Aspen, CO out front of this gallery.  (See the photo On a Street in Aspen).  I slowed and I stopped.  Jill did so for a second, and trooped inside the rough brick and ample glass wall.  I was mesmerized by the sculpture, and said so to the tall, leaning or languishing against the street lamp, staring at it as well.  

I commented how stunningly the artist put each person’s hands in the anatomically correct “space” in the trio of the woman singing, flanked by the sax player and pianist.  He started telling me a story of how people have tried to guess who the men were, playing with Billie Hollday (I think).  They played without credits on her record, so as not to violate their own recording contracts with other labels — because they loved the music.  They loved her.  

As my wife, an artist, absorbed everything inside, I lingered to talk to this man, leaning against the lamp post on this street outside the gallery.  His gallery.

He loved owning the gallery so much, and knew that not everyone would stop and go in to appreciate his artists’ amazing work(s), but passersby would slow down, stop, and stare from outside, that he could then talk to them, ensnare them in stories of how the art was birthed.  Beautiful stories.

That guy leaning against the lamp post outside that expensive piece of real estate set under a full moon shining down on golden groves on the flanks of those imposing mountains — he is the true genius of marketing.  Someone who loves bringing what he brings to us all so much, that he would stand in the crisp night air and talk about the beautiful things that had found their ways to his gallery — hoping to find another home.  

On a Street in Aspen

This stunning set of works were on display as we walked by on a crisp September night.