Have you ever dodged a butterfly, or a bee in flight, cause like you, they are being carried by the wind...have you ever conducted a symphony of wheat across a North Dakota praire as it answered your direction it seemed...have you ever smelled the fresh water of Minnesota lake country without seeing the water, as it will appear around the next turn...have you ever yelled at the top of your lungs in the middle nowhere although nobody is listening and you can barely hear yourself...have you ever passed a cotton field and swore you saw the ghosts of generations of slaves picking the cotton shell from the plant on a Louisiana backroad...have you ever cut through the mountains of West Virginia and got caught in a storm that shut a town down...but you had potato chips and beer for dinner with your newly found friends you met at a rest stop...have you ever come out of a tunnel that goes under the ocean and come out the other side and all you see is that blue water...have you ever been across the deep south and seen a rebel flag fly high behind the pine trees, and felt the current that built that symbol still flowing beneath you...have you ever travelled up and down the ocean front for seven days going nowhere yet everywhere at the same time...have you ever been to a beer can chicken roast in the middle of nowhere Indiana, and tasted chicken like it was for the first time...have you ever smelled a field of fresh cut hay, shortly after it had been swathed...have you ever stopped alongside a road cause the photo opportunity in front of you feels like your life...have you ever shook hands with someone at 80MPH in the open air, cause you share the same spirit...have you ever shared something with a stranger, because you could make a memory for them...have you ever seen a Nebraska skyline and river valley that if you look close enough you can see the cavalry riding through...have you ever been to the land of the seminole, and your senses smelled the pipe smoke of the elders as you crossed their land...have you ever stopped at an oyster bar on the Florida gulf coast and partook of the same oysters that feed the nation, except you get them right off the boat...have you ever waved at people with your left hand dropped down to your side, and felt a brother hood though you will never seen them, and will never have met them...have you ever crossed bridges that extend for miles over open water...have you ever stopped to take a picture of a town cause the road sign said " Faith" and you were looking for a sign...have you ever taken a wrong road for a hundred miles, and turns out it was a better option afterall...have you ever crossed through cajun country, and seen alligators in a skiff freshly caught from the bayou...have you ever looked out over the badlands into a canyon, and felt you saw over the heat lines the silhouettes of a Sioux hunting party riding bareback, horses colored for the hunt alongside a painted butte...have you ever cried when you saw your state sign as you entered it with a light rain glassing over the prairies...have you ever hung your jeans up on a door knob to wear the next day although they are soiled cause your grandpa did the same thing...his soiled from the farm, yours from the road...have you ever felt like you wished a day could last a lifetime based on what you experienced with every sense you were given...have you ever looked up into the sky and talked to those who left you to early, and hoped they see you flying down the road you find yourself on now and are looking down with pride...
I have, and much more, cause I ride a Harley Davidson...and the states most fly over, I ride through, and experience the individual beauty and uniqueness up close and personal. The filters of books, and media...dont compare.
So excuse my questioning nature when asked "Why ride?" I ride to experience the above and more, riding through this world to see it, touch it, smell it...is the only way I know to live. A man is dead in his spirit without the desire for learning and adventure through new experiences.
I am not dead yet...and I choose to experience. Thats why I will ride.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
" It's not the critic who counts."
People think you ride because you have a death wish...I ride because I have a life wish, and I embrace it through the wind we all one day will ride through, as fate takes course. I test it on open road, and if I should become a part of it...know I was not a cold nor timid soul who feared my destiny.
Friday, March 8, 2013
To Be Significant
My Dad is a significant man. He shows up, he listens, he cares, he loves, his time is never his, always is there for others, in short he matters. He has had a profound and significant affect on my life then under his watchcare and guidance, and now as his shadow of legacy in family and example of time deposits in others is ever before me. I love the man and not a day passes where I do not think of him or ask myself in situations what would he do, or how would he react.
A family man of 40 years, a man who cared about a son, and two daughters enough to spend his weekends with us and his wife. Looking back when you are of age is a sweet thing and a venomous trek as well. I regret some of the things I said to him...I understand now the term wisdom years later, and "because he said so" matters to me, and shaped me in countless ways foreign to me then. I guess he loved me in spite of myself, he cared no matter what I said, and he knew that his time and his guidance were seeds that needed time to nurture and grow. He understood that storms would come and that the sprout would be challenged, and challenge him, yet he had confidence in who he was and what he said, and I do to. In short time spent with my Dad shaped me as a man and as a nomad in this world.
My Dad made me feel like I mattered, that I had gifts and talents, that I was good at things I did, and that I could accomplish great things. He and my Mother encouraged me and taught me to have confidence and to work hard at anything you set out to do, and your God given gifts would come out. Together they layed a foundation of Godly confidence in who we were and more importantly who's we were. They mattered and they knew it would matter when life didn't request their sons permission to change course.
At times in my life I have felt significant to others. I thought that my time mattered, that my investment in their lives were deposits with lifelong returns, that trust and transparency with one another was present. When you feel like you are needed and that you make a difference, and that you are planting seeds daily, weekly and monthly in others that you choose to have close, you really feel like you matter. So much so at times you get lost in what you are doing and who you are doing it for that you begin to feel deserving, you begin to feel unduly important, and a sort of arrogant cloud in who you think you are hangs over you.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever found that maybe you are really only important if you are important in the eyes of those you are busy doing for? I have, and that cloud that followed began to let loose, and then the storms came. Thats when life became the instructor and I was deserving of nothing but question, and disbelief in who I perceived myself to be in the eyes of the others at times.
In sales there is a phrase that says " Value added, is only really value added if the customer perceives it to be." All the executives and management sitting in meetings discussing how great a product is, and why it matters, and will matter and make a consumer purchase it...really doesn't matter if it hits the market and the customer does'nt see the benefit to them. This is not only true for business, but for relationships, and for life.
I am thankful I had such wonderful teachers as my parents that taught me what true DVA- documented value advantage...is.
A family man of 40 years, a man who cared about a son, and two daughters enough to spend his weekends with us and his wife. Looking back when you are of age is a sweet thing and a venomous trek as well. I regret some of the things I said to him...I understand now the term wisdom years later, and "because he said so" matters to me, and shaped me in countless ways foreign to me then. I guess he loved me in spite of myself, he cared no matter what I said, and he knew that his time and his guidance were seeds that needed time to nurture and grow. He understood that storms would come and that the sprout would be challenged, and challenge him, yet he had confidence in who he was and what he said, and I do to. In short time spent with my Dad shaped me as a man and as a nomad in this world.
My Dad made me feel like I mattered, that I had gifts and talents, that I was good at things I did, and that I could accomplish great things. He and my Mother encouraged me and taught me to have confidence and to work hard at anything you set out to do, and your God given gifts would come out. Together they layed a foundation of Godly confidence in who we were and more importantly who's we were. They mattered and they knew it would matter when life didn't request their sons permission to change course.
At times in my life I have felt significant to others. I thought that my time mattered, that my investment in their lives were deposits with lifelong returns, that trust and transparency with one another was present. When you feel like you are needed and that you make a difference, and that you are planting seeds daily, weekly and monthly in others that you choose to have close, you really feel like you matter. So much so at times you get lost in what you are doing and who you are doing it for that you begin to feel deserving, you begin to feel unduly important, and a sort of arrogant cloud in who you think you are hangs over you.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever found that maybe you are really only important if you are important in the eyes of those you are busy doing for? I have, and that cloud that followed began to let loose, and then the storms came. Thats when life became the instructor and I was deserving of nothing but question, and disbelief in who I perceived myself to be in the eyes of the others at times.
In sales there is a phrase that says " Value added, is only really value added if the customer perceives it to be." All the executives and management sitting in meetings discussing how great a product is, and why it matters, and will matter and make a consumer purchase it...really doesn't matter if it hits the market and the customer does'nt see the benefit to them. This is not only true for business, but for relationships, and for life.
I am thankful I had such wonderful teachers as my parents that taught me what true DVA- documented value advantage...is.
Motorcycles
Yah, motorcycles are dangerous, and most choose not to ride for that reason and comment to the negative on those that do.
As for me...LIFE is dangerous and for that reason I ride. I like that element, I need it, thats a challenge that builds. I embrace the risk, and in doing so gain perspectives few will ever know through the sun, wind, and rain.
As for me...LIFE is dangerous and for that reason I ride. I like that element, I need it, thats a challenge that builds. I embrace the risk, and in doing so gain perspectives few will ever know through the sun, wind, and rain.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Turns out I'm a child.
I am thankful for my job and the life I have. The dotted lines on highways that I travel give birth to thought and provide the aquafir of water I pump from to cleanse my spirit.
Today as I crossed through Sulphur Springs TX a stop sign on a blacktop on the highway in NE TX, I looked in the rearview mirror. For a moment I saw a man with slightly greying hair, few more wrinkles, tired eyes...in short I saw an older man. I thought about how I could live with the ghost of my former athletic, younger self the rest of my life, and work to get back to that...knowing I never will, or I could choose to be the child that I am.
You see no matter how old...20...25...30...40...50's...60...70's...80...if I make 90's...HE tells me Im a child. I'm sticking with that, I choose to be surrounded by the promise that I am a child of His, no matter how old, what circumstance, what choices,what consequences, what happens to me in life.
Yah...Im good, I like that, no matter what the world tells me I am. I am a child, and dont tell me or my FATHER...any different.
Today as I crossed through Sulphur Springs TX a stop sign on a blacktop on the highway in NE TX, I looked in the rearview mirror. For a moment I saw a man with slightly greying hair, few more wrinkles, tired eyes...in short I saw an older man. I thought about how I could live with the ghost of my former athletic, younger self the rest of my life, and work to get back to that...knowing I never will, or I could choose to be the child that I am.
You see no matter how old...20...25...30...40...50's...60...70's...80...if I make 90's...HE tells me Im a child. I'm sticking with that, I choose to be surrounded by the promise that I am a child of His, no matter how old, what circumstance, what choices,what consequences, what happens to me in life.
Yah...Im good, I like that, no matter what the world tells me I am. I am a child, and dont tell me or my FATHER...any different.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Change...on the rocks
The glasses are lined up on the bar pad...they have been dug in the tub for ice cubes, liquor spills over them and they are filled, served, and consumed. Beer cans are cracked and opened, trays are set to serve, feet walk to tables and hands transfer over the liquid thought of the moment...and God is there.
Patrons line up, standing room only, profanitys are echoed, eyes are set, some wander, others stare into space, belly up, grab chairs to fill a table, stand by a pool table, a jukebox, an entrance...and God is there.
There are no secrets when people partake of the poison, " en vito veritas" ( in wine there is truth) and nare a truer word has ever been spoken. Doubts, questions,fears,thoughts,secrets,joys, pains,heartbreak,love,lost love,triumphs,defeats,the conquerors, and the conquered in life...gravitate to this place alike...and God is there.
Some people would think it odd for God to be in a place such as this...a bar. Bars have a bad image for the most part, not on their own merit, but the consensus of the masses. One needs only to look at scripture to understand where a living God would work...and it wouldnt just be within the brick walls of a church, a mission, a temple, a sinogogue, a parsinage...WWJB ( where would JESUS be?) I say a bar, an alley, a lake, a road, a concert, a baseball field, footbal field, soccer field, hockey rink, park, meeting room, balcony. Think about this...we spend at most 1 day a week in church on average. We spend 6 days in the real world in all of these other places...where do you think God would be? I would like to think in all of these other places and then he joins us on Sunday to celebrate and renew our thoughts and minds for the 6 days again we face.
Ever had that thought...ever allowed the thought to absorb in your minds eye, that no matter how far you fall in life, where you go, what you do, who you do it with, how you fail, how you fall, where that takes you, when you fall to the bottom, look in the mirror, stand in the shower,fall on your knees, cry about it all,struggle to stand, have a fear to speak, to take another step, because you feel unworthy...be considered a fool, a failure...then to realize there is an unconditional hand underneath your life...that catches you...and quiets it all. This hand controls it all, your life, your hopes, dreams, doubts,fears,questions,answers,failures,successes,addictions,sins, and your gifts...we always seem to forget about our gifts it seems- I know I do.
I know God for I have seen him in the unlikeliest of lonely places in life. I have seen him in bars, cabs, airports, coffee shops, ball games, homes, golf courses, fields of hunting,fields of sport, and places of vocation. God is seen there because he inhabits our lives, our daily lives, no matter where it takes us, he chases us down...think about that and allow that thought to detinate in your skull and blow your mind. The God who created the heavens and the earth, knows how many hairs are on your head, sees you in your current place in life, knows you, loves you, and cherishes and wants the best for you, chases you and millions like and unlike you.
Change doesnt occur in set places, change occurs where God choses to inhabit. As for me, I most recently have seen a God chase me to a place and put people in my life where there was a choice to make, there were changed lives in front of me. The ministered to, become the ministers, and beauty of that is evidence of a living God. Neat, or on the rocks, shaken, or stirred, in a can, or in a glass, everyone has there own preferences here, and God has his angels placed as well.
It doesnt matter where you find yourself...what matters is when you see God there...do you chose to drop it all and follow where he leads. Could be a conversation, could be a tear, a story. Could be change right in front of you on the rocks, or a shot...with a living God chaser.
Patrons line up, standing room only, profanitys are echoed, eyes are set, some wander, others stare into space, belly up, grab chairs to fill a table, stand by a pool table, a jukebox, an entrance...and God is there.
There are no secrets when people partake of the poison, " en vito veritas" ( in wine there is truth) and nare a truer word has ever been spoken. Doubts, questions,fears,thoughts,secrets,joys, pains,heartbreak,love,lost love,triumphs,defeats,the conquerors, and the conquered in life...gravitate to this place alike...and God is there.
Some people would think it odd for God to be in a place such as this...a bar. Bars have a bad image for the most part, not on their own merit, but the consensus of the masses. One needs only to look at scripture to understand where a living God would work...and it wouldnt just be within the brick walls of a church, a mission, a temple, a sinogogue, a parsinage...WWJB ( where would JESUS be?) I say a bar, an alley, a lake, a road, a concert, a baseball field, footbal field, soccer field, hockey rink, park, meeting room, balcony. Think about this...we spend at most 1 day a week in church on average. We spend 6 days in the real world in all of these other places...where do you think God would be? I would like to think in all of these other places and then he joins us on Sunday to celebrate and renew our thoughts and minds for the 6 days again we face.
Ever had that thought...ever allowed the thought to absorb in your minds eye, that no matter how far you fall in life, where you go, what you do, who you do it with, how you fail, how you fall, where that takes you, when you fall to the bottom, look in the mirror, stand in the shower,fall on your knees, cry about it all,struggle to stand, have a fear to speak, to take another step, because you feel unworthy...be considered a fool, a failure...then to realize there is an unconditional hand underneath your life...that catches you...and quiets it all. This hand controls it all, your life, your hopes, dreams, doubts,fears,questions,answers,failures,successes,addictions,sins, and your gifts...we always seem to forget about our gifts it seems- I know I do.
I know God for I have seen him in the unlikeliest of lonely places in life. I have seen him in bars, cabs, airports, coffee shops, ball games, homes, golf courses, fields of hunting,fields of sport, and places of vocation. God is seen there because he inhabits our lives, our daily lives, no matter where it takes us, he chases us down...think about that and allow that thought to detinate in your skull and blow your mind. The God who created the heavens and the earth, knows how many hairs are on your head, sees you in your current place in life, knows you, loves you, and cherishes and wants the best for you, chases you and millions like and unlike you.
Change doesnt occur in set places, change occurs where God choses to inhabit. As for me, I most recently have seen a God chase me to a place and put people in my life where there was a choice to make, there were changed lives in front of me. The ministered to, become the ministers, and beauty of that is evidence of a living God. Neat, or on the rocks, shaken, or stirred, in a can, or in a glass, everyone has there own preferences here, and God has his angels placed as well.
It doesnt matter where you find yourself...what matters is when you see God there...do you chose to drop it all and follow where he leads. Could be a conversation, could be a tear, a story. Could be change right in front of you on the rocks, or a shot...with a living God chaser.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)