On Becoming a Young Man: Truths to Be Kept in Mind

For my grandsons, at age 12, from your Nana

Live a clean life. Be honest and full of integrity. Do what you know is right even when others around you are not – especially when no one is looking.

Be joyful and happy. Take pleasure in just being alive. Don’t get high on anything but life and the one who created it. Don’t weigh yourself down with the worries and conflicts of the adults in your life. Let their troubles be their troubles. You’ll have enough to do to keep yourself out of trouble.

Try new things. Learn who you are and what you are meant to do and be. Follow your heart, but use your head. You know what is good for you and what is not. If you don’t know, you can figure it out from what you have seen, heard, read, and experienced. Know that you know that for all the choices you make, good or not so good, there are life-long consequences far beyond being disciplined – and even if those you love don’t have a clue what you are doing.

Show restraint. Don’t be like a wild donkey – don’t get caught up in the rumpus just because everyone else is, or because it seems like fun at the moment.

Be self-controlled. Do not allow yourself to be peer pressured.

Think before you act. Don’t get so caught up in the moment that you act only on impulse. No auto-pilot for you!

Weigh your choices. How you dress, how you act, who you hang with, who you want to be like, and who you don’t. You have a powerful influence over others, young and old.

Set the example. While life is fun, it is also serious, and there is no rehearsal. Be conscious in all you do: in your speech, in life, in love, in action, in inaction, in faith, and in purity.

Be strong. Be active, build your body by eating well and plan for lots of exercise. Involve yourself in sports or band, something that will you outside, moving and growing physically. But it is even more important to be morally strong. Don’t be afraid to ask the adults who love you to be “the bad guy,” to allow you to say “I’m sorry my mom won’t let me.” Just be sure you are working toward being able to say “No” under your own steam.

Remember all you know. You know how to recognize God and how to recognize Satan in things you and others do and say. When the pressure builds up, depend on God. He does answer prayer, as you well know.

Depend on God. His Word is in you. His grace goes before you. He’s been there and done that. Look around at all the tee shirts!

Follow Jesus. He knows where you are going. If you slip up (and we all do) don’t continue down the slippery slope. Don’t take the easy way. Pick yourself up. Turn around and look for Jesus. Find someone to help give you the strength and will to regain the high ground. When you get there, take off your shoes and create something that will help you remember not to slip up in the same place again.

Forgive yourself. You know that Jesus stands between your sin and God. God has not only forgiven you, but has forgotten your sin. The least you can do is to not keep reminding Him. Remember to forgive others, forgive your self, and don’t keep beating yourself up, jut move on. Read the stories of other young men to had to keep trying over and over again: Joseph, Samuel, David, Joash, Josiah, David, Peter, Paul, Timothy….

Know that you are loved – unconditionally. While those of us who love you may sometimes be disappointed in what you do, where you go, who you are with, choice or decisions you make, just remember that we love you no less. And God, who watches over you and protects you says nothing can separate you from His love either.

Be brave. Go places no one has gone before. Use all that you are to become all that you were meant to be.

Be industrious and responsible. Find things to do that are creative, constructive and helpful to others. Do anything you do (studying, learning, helping, playing, worshiping, creating) vigorously to increase your strength for the tasks that lie ahead of you.

Do all as unto the Lord. No matter if you taking out the trash, cleaning your room, doing a project, spending time with your family or your friends, live fully in the presence of God.

Be God’s salt and light. Don’t work at having lots of friends or being popular. Instead, BE a friend to all. Help those who need help. Search out random acts of kindness that you can do in secret so that only you and God know what you have done. If people suspect, shrug your shoulders or give the credit to Jesus.

Acknowledge Jesus as your Savior. Be his hands and feet among others, serving him with joy, and making Him the Lord of your life, seated on the throne of your heart.

Give as much of yourself as you can to love as much of God as you can understand. This will help to you grow, not only taller, but more full of wisdom and grace, and in favor with God and man.

Keep your Bible busy. If is worthless unless you use it as more than a dust collector. Don’t worry that what you read has been read before, or that it doesn’t seem to make much sense. God just tell us to to hide His Word in our hearts. You can trust the Holy Spirit to use what you have read in your life, your actions, your thoughts and your words.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. 

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in your living and in Christ Jesus through those who came before you, those who surround you and those generations who follow you, so that those who come behind you will find you faithful. I pray that you will trust the Lord with all your heart that you will lean on Him for understanding, and in everything you think, say and do you will acknowledge whose you are.

The Long Way Around

In  Exodus God didn't take the Israelites by the near road - instead He took them the long way around. To get a piece of fruit, you plant a seed --the long way around. Jesus was offered short cuts , but chose -- the long way around -- to provide for our salvation. Should I expect less of a long suffering and very patient God? My goodness, but the road seems never-ending and I feel like I keep passing the same place again and again. I often feel that all I do is put one foot in front of the other - over, and over, and !over. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus

How do you manage your long way around?

A Baker's Dozen of Practice Hints

1)      The first time you play your piece, or any section of it, be fanatically careful not to make any mistakes either in notes or in time values.  “You learn what you practice.” " Practice does not make perfect, only permanent."

2)      Sub-divide the piece into short sections.  For the first few days of practice on a new piece, repeat one section four to eight repetitions before beginning to practice the next.  When two sections have been practiced in this way, they should be joined together and given two to four repetitions this way.  Special “drills” are helpful, e.g. hands separately, in rhythms, etc.

3)      Occasionally begin your practice period by beginning at the last section of the piece, then the next to last section, and so on until you have reached the beginning.  “Spot practice breaks and divide your daily practice periods."  Be on the watch for signs of staleness.  This usually reveals itself through a lack of interest in your piece, in the presence of more than the usual amount of inaccuracy, or in rushing.

4)      Develop the habit of looking at yourself as an ordinary human being.  This means you set for yourself neither absurd, impossible standards or work or achievement, nor allow yourself to be satisfied with work which you know really could be and ought to be better

5)      Liszt said, “Think ten times, and play once”

6)      Count bars (feel downbeats), not beats if your playing is lacking in line and movement.

7)   Set tempo, and feel the rhythm before starting to play.

8)    Listen for resonance, not noise, in loud passages. Don't play louder, 

9)   Don’t work against time.  If you only have one hour at your disposal, plan for 45-minutes of practice and do the most with each minute.  If you attempt a plan for the whole hour, you will have an eye on the clock, a nervous tension that may result in muscular tension, and much of your mental energy will be wasted.  “Surround every action with a circle of non-hurry.”

10)   Play musically, even when sight-reading or playing scales, arpeggios, and chords.  Always express something and never “just run through.”

11)   Mark the beat with your other hand in a passage that tends to rush. Especially at the beginning, when practicing one hand at a time, use the other hand to tap your rhythm.

12)   Think a piece through without any playing, either with or without the music.  Know the underlying key scheme and modulations clearly.

13)   Every pianistic problem has both its origin and solution in the music itself.♫

notes: Baylor University Summer Piano Institute 2004 - Dr. Keyes

Guagua Guagua by Jorja Davis and Chariti Young

Guagua Guagua

Are these streets I’m on the streets of change?
Do I really want to know?

Am I brave enough to see? (See what’s really going on?)
Am I strong enough to feel? (Have I been all along?)
Am I whole enough to love? (Bring the pieces with me?)

Time and distance, healing song.

Familiar roads.
Sometimes full circle takes me back; sometimes moves on.
Some riders change, some never falter.
Where are you? Here now. Now gone.

Brave enough to see.
Strong enough to feel.
Whole enough to love.

En la guagau que le toma en todas partes y no le toma en ninguna partes para guagua
hay muchos amantes sa como usted bien sabía.
Pero la guagua guagua vé solamente mentirosos y tramposos.
¿Puede ser? Es sólo tú y yo una vez más.
La guagua guagua sólo puede saber donde ha ido
Y donde esto irá otra vez.

In the bus that takes you anywhere and takes you nowhere for little or nothing
Are many lovers as you well know,
But the little for nothing bus sees only liars and cheats.
Can it be? It is only you and I once again.
The little for nothing bus can only know where it has been
And where it will go again

Are these the streets I’m on the streets I’ve seen before?
Do I really want to know?

Was I brave enough to go? (Go where I’d never gone?)
Was I strong enough to heal? (I have been all along.)
Was I wise enough to love? (Use what I learned before?)

Time and distance, come and gone.

Familiar roads.
Sometimes full circle takes me back; sometimes moves on.
Some riders change, some never falter.
Where are you? Here now. Now gone.

Brave enough to go.
Strong enough to heal.
Wise enough to love.

Labyrinth #1

 A labyrinth is the exact opposite of a maze. Designed to help an individual find the way, the labyrinth above is from the floor of the Cathedral at Chartres just south of Paris, France. This eleven circuit path is non-linear and non sequential. If Paris is not on your travel itinerary this week, just use your finger and follow this path as it winds it's way. Tracing the labyrinth "is a way to pray and meditate, just as kneeling, folding one's hands, or bowing ones head are ways to pray. In walking the labyrinth we seek to know God's presence in our lives.


"It is helpful to think of the path in three stages:

1. Going in, which provides a releasing, quieting and emptying experience. Slowly trace the path and quiet your soul asking God to show you his way of truth.
2. Rest in the center of God's love. Linger a while with God. Receive whatever is given to you in this time. You may pause at the center for as long as you wish.
3. Follow the same path back out which returns you to the world. Do not be in a hurry. Rejoice in the Lord!

Some people think of these three stages as Releasing, Receiving, and Returning...going in allows a person to shed the everyday so that he or she may be open to receive God's guidance and peace. The path going out prepares an individual for the everyday once again."*

*http://www.thewoodlandsumc.org/res/dl/labyrinth-0510.pdf

Charlie Plumb - Remembering Heroes on Memorial Day

Charlie Plumb was a United States Navy pilot during the Vietnam war. On his seventy-fifth mission, just five days before the end of his tour, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile on May 19, 1967. Plumb ejected from his F4B Phantom jet and parachuted directly into enemy hands. He spent the next 2,103 days in a North Vietnamese prison.

Ten years later, I was fortunate enough to hear him tell some of the lessons he learned from that experience. As a prisoner of war, Charlie was tortured, humiliated, starved and left to languish in squalor. He painted a vivid word picture asking us to try our best to smell the stench in the bucket he  called his toilet and taste the salt in the corners of his mouth from the sweat, tears and blood that pooled there. He asked us to feel the jungle heat as the sun bore down on the tin roof of his cell. To face those challenges on a daily basis required unity and strength found in fellow prisoners, love of country, and faith in God.

That day he told us a story he has since included in his memoirs. 

Charlie and his wife were sitting in a restaurant. A man came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?"

“I packed your parachute.” The man pumped Charlie’s hand. “I guess it worked.”

"Yes sir, indeed it did! And I've said a lot of prayers of thanks for your nimble fingers, but I never thought I'd have the opportunity to tell you in person.”

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about the man. He wondered how many times he might have seen the parachute packer, and not even said “Good morning.” He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands, each time, the fate of someone he didn't know.

Then Charlie Plumb stopped, his gazed roamed around the tightly packed crowd, “Who is packing your parachute? Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day.”

Plumb went on to share how he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory: he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and probably most importantly his spiritual parachute given him by grandmothers, Sunday School teachers, pastors and chaplains, and Bible verses he had memorized over the years. He called on all these supports before he was released.

Sometimes in the daily challenges life gives us, we miss what and who is really important. I went home and made some phone calls that day to say hello, or thank you to some of the people God had asked to pack my parachute.

I have a friend whose husband is preparing to deploy next week to Afghanistan for the 3rd time in their 6 year marriage.  In a recent email she told me "I have had the great privileged to become involved with the non-profit wear blue: run to remember, founded by the widow of soldier stationed here at Joint Base Lewis McChord. 

"On Memorial Day, Monday May 28th, wear blue: run to remember is launching a memorial event called wear blue Runs for the Fallen by partnering our organization with Run for the Fallen, a non-profit, whose runners run miles for every Service Member killed in the Global War on Terror. Run for the Fallen supports wear blue: run to remember’s mission to honor the Service and Sacrifice of the American Military as well as our goals to act as a support network, create a living memorial, and bridge the gap between the military and civilian communities.

"While Americans may pause to reflect, for many, Memorial Day represents a long weekend, typically filled with backyard celebrations and sunshine. For members of wear blue: run to remember, it is a day to remember each life sacrificed in a positive and life-affirming way. As such, in Arlington, VA, after the wreath is placed upon the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, wear blue Runs for the Fallen runners will begin their run at the Joint Base Lewis McChord flagship chapter in DuPont, WA (8:00 AM PST).This coming Monday wear blue Runs for the Fallen participants will run 6,400 miles across the nation; each mile representing a member of the United States Military who made the Ultimate Sacrifice.

"Monday our running population will consist of Gold Star family members who are running in honor of their American Hero, active duty military members who are running for their friends who never made it home, and military family members and civilian supporters will be running to honor the Fallen. People from different corners of the country will unite on the same day for the same reason: to pound the pavement for as many miles as they choose to contribute toward the 6,400 end goal. Some people will run 3 miles while others will run 41 - each runner will choose his/her own meaningful mileage number. 

"By the end of Monday May 28th, a mile will have been run for every single member of the American Military who laid down his or her life for this country. Locally, in DuPont, for each mile accomplished, an American flag will be placed into the ground as a visual reminder of a life sacrificed. It will be an appropriate and profound sight for both runners and spectators once the collective miles have been run." For more information, visit this website: http://www.wearblueruntoremember.org/

Who is packing your parachutes? Call them. Go by and visit. Send them a card or a note (better by far than an email or message, but even those will work). Pound the pavement. Above all, thank God for your parachute packers who are providing what you need to make it through each day.