The Sign

Seeing the devastation of the fires in Los Angeles reminded me of a drive I took, several years ago now. It wasn’t a long drive. In fact, I drove only about twenty minutes from my home. I turned off the freeway just after I went through the Caldecot Tunnel going west toward the Oakland hills. The area looked like a war zone. Just a few weeks before, a firestorm consumed thousands of acres and thousand of homes in the East Bay hills of Oakland.

I drove through what used to be beautiful neighborhoods with lovely trees and impeccably kept yards. Street after street. Block after block. All that was left of those beautiful homes was piles of rusty metal on empty lots and concrete drives that led to nothing.

I read the signs as I drove along — many heart-breaking signs, homemade and hand-printed — about lost pets in the fire storm. There were pictures of beautiful animals on the signs; cats and dogs that had once been members of families, faithful pets now missing and being sought. Rewards offered. Laments expressed on paper — blue flyers nailed to power poles about “General,” a Black Lab who hadn’t been seen since that awful Sunday it all began.

Another sign was carefully lettered in bright red paint and wired around a beautiful, old, oak tree sitting at the entrance to an empty lot: This tree is being saved. Do not harm.

The most interesting signs I saw on my drive, however, were obviously professionally printed and mass-produced for homeowners in the area. They were white signs, about two-feet by three-feet, with bright blue lettering. There were hundreds of them throughout the devastated neighborhoods. They were nailed to posts and fences and trees. They were stapled to anything left standing, anything permanent: “This property is not abandoned. It is under the control of the owner.”

I understood, of course, the meaning of the sign and why it was necessary. Some people in our society feel that when tragedy strikes, they have the right to pick up the pieces and call those pieces their own. The authorities call that looting, and it is illegal.

But I could not help being intrigued by the wording of the sign. Not the first part. Not the part that said, This property is not abandoned. People don’t just walk off and leave a place they call home simply because a fire storm incinerated everything in its path for miles. People are resilient and defiant. Even though it had only been a few weeks since the disaster, I could see some of them already starting to doggedly rebuild their homes. I understood perfectly the first part of the sign.

The part of the sign that intrigued me was the second part — the part that said, It is under the control of the owner. I felt an eerie sense of sorrow as I read that statement.

Their property was not under their control. It had never been under their control. Eight weeks earlier, a fire storm had swept through their neighborhood. Residents grabbed the few belongings they could (if there was time) and frantically fled through the winding canyon roads. Some of them lost their pets. Most of them lost their homes and valuables, and some of them even lost their lives. They were frightened and disoriented and absolutely out of control.

Within days after this terrible happening, they returned. They regrouped and resolutely set about beginning again. And one of the first things they did was post signs — markers to indicate they were in control of their lives and their property and their future.

Signs have always been important to us. That must be why God peppered the neighborhood with them. After one particularly devastating rain, He placed a rainbow — a sign and a promise that the water would never get that deep again.

Later on, He gave a sign to the shepherds. “Here’s a sign for you,” He said. “You’ll find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” Such an obvious sign, easy to read with bold lettering. Control was being re-established. It was time to announce the construction of a house not built with human hands.

A little more than thirty years later, construction was almost done, another sign was made. Crude and vile was the sign nailed over the Carpenter’s head. It was not ambiguous. It was simple and plain and easy to understand: “This is Jesus, King of the Jews.”

Priceless crown of thorns for the Prince of heaven; bleeding, dying Pauper of peace who never owned a home, putting the final touches on a new way to live. Suffering Servant with a sign over His head, proclaiming to the world once and for all that the devastation had been overcome and permanent residence for all who believe had been established. The Owner had wrapped His love-message around an old cross, sturdy as an oak:

This Property Is Not Abandoned;

It is Under the Control of the Owner. May “the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills” bring His comfort and peace to all who have suffered such devastating loss is my prayer.

The post The Sign appeared first on Ken Jones.

If you call my house the week after next, we won’t be home. We have to go to San Diego.My wife and I and our three sons plan to make the trip in two cars. We’ll have to rent a trailer, because of all the stuff. They say San Diego is lovely this time of year. I know he’ll enjoy it . . .

Marcus, I mean. For you see, in just a few weeks, Marcus—my first son, my oldest child, my very good friend—leaves for college, and he won’t be coming back . . . at least not to stay. He will begin a new life as a university student. I think he was wise to attend the local community college after he graduated from high school. His mother and I were glad to have him continue living here at home for these last two years while he got some of his basic coursework out of the way. But now, he’s transferring to a university to finish his degree. He’s made arrangements for an apartment, and he and his mother are already packing and planning how to decorate.

I occasionally hear them talking about towels and curtains and bedspreads. He’s going to take some stuff from our house to set up his new place: a bed and dresser, a couple of lamps, some dishes and pots and pans. My wife has been setting small appliances aside for months: an old vacuum, a toaster, an iron, and a blender with instructions taped to its side—Works just fine, but you have to jiggle the switch. It’s apparent—to this parent—that Marcus plans a longer stay in San Diego. He’s setting up a house. He’s intent on making a permanent home for himself—a permanent home away from home.

I never realized so much emotion was attached to “things.” I didn’t know that taking pictures off the wall could produce such strong feelings: deep, mixed moods, both melancholy and maudlin. I don’t know how everyone else in the family feels about Marcus leaving home, but for me, it’s not easy. Nate’s the next oldest. He will soon wear the mantle of “the oldest son in the house.”

Does that feel strange to him? I don’t know, but before Marcus leaves, I plan to ask Nathan how he feels about that. I’ll probably ask Simeon, too. His oldest brother had been his pal and model and friend. What’s it feel like to have your oldest brother gather up his belongings and stack them in a corner ready to be loaded into a trailer? When I get the chance, I think I’ll ask Sim.

Randee’s the momma, of course, and she must feel like a mother. I have no idea what that feels like—but I do talk to her some about it, and she tried to tell me how she feels. When she talks, there is a mother-pain I can hear. It’s a “birthing” pain that only mothers can know, I think: a pain that first comes when babies are finally born after nine long months of waiting; a pain that comes again when those same “babies” separate themselves from their mothers a second time.

Joy and expectation mix with sorrow and anguish to form a bittersweet cup. The marrow of a mother’s heart cannot be separated from her own flesh and blood. But Randee seems to be facing this rebirth of her oldest child with braveness and a genuine sense of expectancy.

No, I don’t know what the other members of my family feel about the oldest brother and child and friend leaving home. But I know what I feel. I guess the biggest thing I’m dealing with as I contemplate my son’s departure is wondering. Try as I might, I can’t keep my mind from opening the door of “I wonder if . . . “ and then walking into a room filled with all sorts of scary things. Some of the things that scare me are pragmatic, important, visible things that can be touched and seen and felt:

What’s he going to do if he runs out of money before he runs out of month? He doesn’t have a job yet. Where’s he going to work? What if he can’t find a job? What if he gets sick? What if he stops going to church? What if he can’t find a good friend? What if he does find a . . . girl friend?

I try not to spend too much time with those types of wanderings and wonderings, however. They all tend to focus on the future, and of course, I know I have no control over his future. But I have had some control on his past. There is a gnawing that eats away at my inner dad-self; hope and fear and doubt all wrapped tightly into one package that I’m almost afraid to open:

Have I told him everything? Did I forget anything? What more does he need to know about life before he walks out my front door toward a front door of his own? It occurs to me that reading about someone else’s child leaving home may be a little bit like looking at family pictures in someone else’s wallet. They’re nice pictures, but they’re not yours. You don’t have strong feelings about the people pictured in someone else’s wallet. And you may not feel anything at all as I tell you about my son—my oldest son who’s going away to make a life of his own, away from his brothers, away from his mother and his dad and his home.

But you’ll feel it if it ever happens to you.

I don’t know what you will feel exactly, because all families are different. But I am convinced reality will set in as you pack up the boxes. If you’re like my wife and me, then you’ll be packing prayers with the toaster. You’ll be tucking in your very best wishes with the dishrags and towels. And in spite of all you can do, you won’t be able to resist. You’ll take every opportunity as the day approaches to impart some final thought, some pearl of wisdom, some “don’t-forget-to . . . .“ Last minute instructions to reinforce what you hope you’ve said earlier in life. Then, you’ll load the car, as I will the week after next. You’ll take a quiet drive to your own “San Diego.” And the ride back home will be quieter, still.

I have come to a new understanding and appreciation of a sacred, solemn trust-agreement between the Lord God in heaven and parents on earth. I have known all along that children are a gift of God, a loan of love. It’s just that I didn’t fully appreciate a reality that has been true from the very beginning: Children come to pass . . . but they don’t come to stay.

“Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.”

(Ps. 127:3 NIV)

The post They Say San Diego is Lovely This Time of Year appeared first on Ken Jones.

We talked of isolation—the loneliness of writing. Good writing must be done in solitude, away from the noise and glare of people; well-meaning people who ask how you’re doing, about how it’s coming along, about “how much longer until it’s finished?” We talked about how difficult it is to get anything published, whether it’s an article, a devotional piece or a book. Competition is stiff. Writing is very hard work. It’s easy to become discouraged, when, after you’ve made your best pass at a piece, editors (who are paid to be critical) violate your “baby” by having the audacity to suggest that you clarify, simplify, or even leave some of it out all together.

I told my editor friend that at times, I felt very lonely as a writer, that I had some serious doubts about my capabilities, that sometimes that fear of rejection strangled what I felt I was trying to say in my writing. He sat patiently and listened as I talked about how it feels to be a writer, how it feels to face rejection, loneliness, solitude, and doubt in your own capabilities. I already knew that writing meant dealing with those feelings, but it was good to hear someone I trusted, who understood the writing life say, “Writing contains all of those elements. Anyone who wants to write must be willing to face them.”

Finally, during the last fifteen minutes or so of our appointment, I asked a gnawing question that I hoped he could answer. What of those days? Certain days, when a writer goes to his appointed place to write, and as he approaches a clean, spotless page or a blank computer screen to begin . . . what happens, when nothing happens? Instead of a creative stream flowing from a fountainhead of thoughts and ideas, there is a dry wadi, arid and void of life. There are no words, only a waterless riverbed, a dried-up stream where words one flowed. A dry, parched wind has replaced the breeze of imagination and brought with it a dust of doubt … a suffocating fear that the words will never come again; a blowing, blinding dust that burns the eyes of the mind and pollutes creative juices.

What’s a person to think when there are no thoughts? What does one say, when it seems there is nothing to be said? What happens when the writer can think of nothing to write? In other words, what do you do on days when there are no words?

Fortunately for me, the man I was talking with was very wise. He did much listening and nodding. He sat, legs crossed, leaning into my queries with a body language that invited me to open my soul and ask serious, difficult, questions.

And then, he did not answer. Instead, he asked more questions.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think a person who writes should do on days when there are no words?”  I spent the next several minutes trying to describe the routine I use for overcoming those days. He had some great insights, too. He mentioned diet and exercise and taking an occasional break from the rigors of writing. But eventually, we both agreed that there’s only one thing for a writer to do on days when there are no words … and that is to write.

What do writers write, you may ask? How do they write if there are no words? How do they say if there is nothing to say? They begin. I begin. I force my fingers to type words and sentences that I tell myself do not necessarily make sense. I am not concerned with syntax; passive verbs and conjunctive phrases will not cause me undue alarm on days when there are no words. I am not so concerned with making sense, as I am concerned that I write. There will be other days for sorting out; on other evenings I can examine preferred spellings and paltry punctuations that bring clarity to what I have said. On days when there are no words, I simply write—one letter at a time, one word at a time, one sentence at a time.

Writing and living are very similar activities. Days when there are no words are like days when there is no hope—no ray of sun to bring warmth and comfort; only a gray fog of despair that hides contentment, inviting insipid silence that deadens the spirit.

In your life, what do you do when there are no words? On blank mornings when your feet hit life’s cold floor and you have no idea how to cope with the challenge of writing life’s script for another day, how do you begin? What do you do when you’re driving to work and you can’t think of one good reason why? You’re grateful for a job, but you already know that the check that comes on Friday won’t begin to cover the bills that arrived Monday through Thursday. How do you fill the page of another day, when loneliness and isolation grip you, choking the very life out of life; when you can think of no words to describe your discouragement and the gnawing fear … that the words will never come again.

Take it from one writer to another. There’s only one way to deal with days when there are no words. Begin. Force yourself to avoid trying to make sense of things. There will be other moments for that. Believe it because it is true. There will be other days to sort and sift and think.

Right now, you must live this day—the only day there is. Yesterday was, and tomorrow will be, perhaps. No guarantee on tomorrow. Only today actually is.

So begin.

Walk, not by sight, but by faith, one moment at a time, one insecure step at a time. For there is another Author—the Author and Finisher of your faith, who is the same, yesterday and today and forever. He knows the plot of your drama and the plight of your life. He—the Word become flesh—will be your word. There will be another day for making sense of it all. The only way to learn to write is to write. And the only way to live—really live—is to know that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him . . . especially on days when there are no words.

And the word of the LORD came again.

(Zech. 7:8 NIV)

The post On Days When There Are No Words appeared first on Ken Jones.

“First,” she said, “Latin is the mother of all languages. Many of our English words come from Latin derivatives, and if you have a good, solid base in Latin, you’ll be better prepared for future study in English.” Her statement made perfect sense to me. (Up to that point in time, I had given very little thought to where English came from, but I thought it might be nice to check it out.)

“Second,” she continued, “I think you’ll enjoy the intellectual challenge of the study.” Now emotion in her voice caused the pitch to rise a bit, and she seemed to lose touch with reality for a moment, as she turned her back to me and stared out the window. She talked slowly, deliberately as one who was remembering a time long-since passed. “I studied Latin for four years and loved every moment of it. It’s a beautiful language with much nuance and rich color.”

I didn’t know anything about nuance, but it sounded kind of French to me. My counselor made Latin sound so reasonable and challenging and…necessary. I signed on the dotted line. I enrolled. And so it was, that without fully knowing what I was getting into, I began a long night’s journey down the Appian Way.

Mr. Drowbowski (not his real name) was my first Latin teacher. He could best be described as serious– about everything.

He was serious about his music. He said his favorite key was C sharp minor because he loved the morose feeling it produced. (He didn’t say so, but I think he also read a lot of Edgar Allen Poe.) He was serious about the piano and hoped to be a concert pianist someday. He was serious about practice. He told us in class that he practiced piano eight hours on Saturdays and eight hours on Sundays.

But most of all, Mr. Drowbowski was serious— very serious– about “the mother of all languages.”

“There are some general thoughts about the language,” he said, “which will be beneficial for your understanding.” (Mr. Drowbowski always called Latin the language, reverently, with folded hands, using the same voice some people do when they talk about the arts or the theatre.)

“First of all, Latin is not a spoken language. It is a written language.” His statement caused a wrinkle to appear on my forehead. Uneasiness entered my mind and began looking for a place to sit.

I wondered why, if Latin could be written, it couldn’t be spoken. I didn’t wonder out loud though. I somehow knew that my teacher wouldn’t take kindly to questions like that, so I just wondered to myself. I couldn’t accept what Mr. Drowbowski said in it entirety. What good was it to know a language you couldn’t speak? I looked forward to proving him wrong. One of the reasons I signed up for a foreign language in the first place was so I could talk to my friends without anyone knowing what I was saying. I sat up straighter than usual, not wanting to miss what Mr. Drowbowski would say next. He was beginning to make me nervous.

“In addition to our study of the language, we will be focusing on the culture and life of the Roman Empire. It was an incredible culture, rich in nuance and color.” Mr. Drowbowski turned his back on the class and stared out the window, just like my counselor had done earlier. His voice had a far-off quality just like my counselor’s voice. And he spoke of nuance and rich color, just like my counselor. But he convinced me his train of thought was on a different rack than mine and going in the opposite direction. I still remember wishing I knew what nuance meant.

As my teacher continued to talk, two of my classmates walked down the aisles placing a text on each desk. I tuned Mr. Drowbowski out for a moment, opened my new Latin book, and began to thumb through its pages to see what was in store. Like most texts, there were lots of words and lots of exercises. But, in this text, on almost every page, there was pictures.

Some of the pictures were of ruins, broken-down buildings, and old roads with grass and weeds growing in the middle of them. One of the pictures had a caption about a place where Julius Caesar had won a famous battle. The book was filled with black-and-white photographs of statues in various stages of undress, which caused me to wonder about the propriety of the mother of all languages. This didn’t look like nearly as much fun as my counselor had said it was.

Mr. Drowbowski droned on about conjugations, verb tenses, and vocabulary tests. I continued to flips through the text, noticing that togas had a remarkable resemblance to my bathrobe and that Roman sandals looked for all the world like thongs. Anxiety squeezed my throat, but not so tightly that I couldn’t ask a question.

“Excuse me, Mr. Drowbowski, but did I hear you say we will have a vocabulary test every week?” I said. His answer brought no comfort to my now Latin-troubled life.

“Yes,” he said. “There will be a thorough vocabulary test every Friday.”

I continued glancing through the book, hoping for a ray of light, all the while getting closer and closer to a full-blown clinical depression about two years of incarceration with mother Latin. My hopes raised a bit when I flipped past a cartoon in the text book. Maybe there are some jokes in this book, I thought.

The cartoon was a policeman who had obviously stopped a young motorist in a convertible and was writing out a traffic ticket. He stood next to the car, looking down on the young man who was driving. the caption of that cartoon is one of the few things I remember about Latin. “Ubi est signis?” — “Where’s the fire?”

Was that supposed to be funny? Was that a joke in Latin?

Obviously, the reality of nuance and rich color was staring me in the face. Uneasiness had found a place to sit now, and depression sprawled out on the floor of my life, like a visiting relative with a sleeping bag. My life mad a slow, dirge-like pass before my eyes, and I put my face into my hands. This was going to be boring. It was not going to be fun.

Two years. I made it through Latin for two years. Straight D’s. Not “Improving slightly.” Not “Exemplary attitude.” Not “A joy to have in class.” For two years, the epitaph of my report card in Latin read, “Needs more work.” I could feel Mr. Drowbowski as he walked by my desk at the end of every quarter. I could hear his music in C sharp minor as he dropped the dreaded notice on my desk. I felt guilty. I had betrayed the mother of all languages, and what good was I now? How could I have missed the nuance and rich color that my counselor and my teacher kept telling me were there? I know they were there. Debbie Spengler sat right in front of me for two years, and she made straight A’s. She knew nuance. She reveled in every rich color. But me? All I could do was keep asking that question: “Where’s the fire?” I truly felt like a failure.

I buried those feelings for a long time. Gradually, however, as a grew older, I began to develop a sense that there is a lot more to life than Latin. I did well in English and enjoyed writing. I earned a degree in music and even composed and published some of it.

But I never wrote anything in C sharp minor because I don’t hear the song of life in C sharp minor. And I went on down the road of my life without looking back on the Appian Way or togas or statues without any arms. I didn’t make a big deal of it, but I thanked God I didn’t have to conjugate any more verbs when I got out of Latin.

Got anything like that in your life? You were told when you were younger that you had to read it or learn it or practice it because if you didn’t, then (implied) something bad would happen to you.

Give yourself a break. Whatever it was, let it go. I’m convinced it’s OK not to like the key of C sharp minor. It’s OK not to think Ubi est signis is funny. God made us all unique, and He expected us to maintain that uniqueness in the midst of intellectual, spiritual, moral discipline. I may need to learn about togas, but I’ll never enjoy wearing one.

And thongs have always given me blisters between my toes.

Philippians 3:13-15

The post Latin appeared first on Ken Jones.

If your mother was like mine, you learned at a very early age to be careful how you used that word hate. Never, for example, would I entertain the thought of inserting a person’s name in the blank after hate. You don’t hate people. People are created in God’s image, and to hate someone would be a grievous sin. So I learned not to put people’s names in the blank after “I hate . . . “ (even though I did have an intense dislike for Butchy Sandstrom in second grade but I didn’t mention it to my mother).

Most of the time, it wasn’t even permissible for me to hate a particularly distasteful vegetable. I learned as I sat at the table in my growing-up years that food was provided by God, and cooked by my mother, and to intimate that you hated what either of those two sovereigns had set before you was positively unthinkable, to say nothing of unhealthy. I wasn’t forced to eat what I didn’t like, mind you, but critical commentary on dinner was totally unappreciated at our house and brought with it a certain and immediate invitation to leave the table without finishing, the comment or the meal.

No, you didn’t hate people, and at least while you were sitting at the dinner table you didn’t hate vegetables, not out loud, anyway.

It did seem to be permissible to hate other annoyances, however. For example, mosquito bites were okay to hate, just not the mosquitoes themselves. When I was young, mosquitoes used to eat me up. When I scratched a mosquito bite and it became red and sore, I could express my hate, while my mother put ointment on the bite. But, I remember my mother’s corrective rejoinder if I said, “I hate mosquitoes.” She had what seemed to me a particular theology about mosquitoes, a sort of circuitous logic that seemed to envelop everything from the tiniest insect to the largest of animals. “Do you know why God made mosquitoes?” she would ask.

I hated it when she asked me questions I didn’t have a good answer for.

“Well,” she would say,” God made mosquitoes so the frogs would have something to eat. If there were no mosquitoes, the poor little frogs would have nothing to eat.”

While I knew better than to argue with my mother, deep inside where she couldn’t look, I also knew that her logic must be flawed. If God created one thing so another thing would have something to eat—if God created mosquitoes so frogs would have something to eat—then it seemed to me that the next logical step in that proposed food chain was that I was created so that the mosquitoes would have something to eat, and that just didn’t seem to be right. Intuitively, I knew I had a deeper reason for being that providing nourishment for mosquitoes. I didn’t argue, though. I just let it go at hating mosquito bites.

Since I’ve grown up, I’ve come to appreciate that there are many things I can “legally” hate. I hate cars. I know very little about how they operate; I know where to put in the gas and the key. About once every other year, I also put in oil. But I hate cars … and they hate me.

I hate plumbing, too. It leaks, but I can rarely figure out why, or even where. I’ve replaced all of the pipes and fittings under our kitchen sink twice and the plumbing still drips. (Have I mentioned that I hate drips?)

There are all sorts of things I hate: ball-point pens that skip, flashlights whose supposed ever-ready batteries never are, anything, anything that is late, standing in any line, the sound of the vacuum cleaner.

I typed an invitation for people in our office to write down the things they hate. I won’t share all of the results, but here’s what some of them said they hated:

Sushi, Live (Ugh!), Anchovies, Raw Onions

Okra (You know, the Vegetable?) Obviously, this person never met my mother

Cleaning house (Note: This particular “hate” received more than one vote, but in almost every case the person who hated cleaning house loved a clean house. You figure out the significance of that bit of detail)

Shoes that hurt my feet

Cold coffee (3 votes)

Bugs (dead) on my windshield

Potty training

People who are perky and bright first thing in the morning (It’s not normal)

Alarm clocks

And finally, one of my personal favorites—

Memos I receive reminding me about a meeting … that happened yesterday

Several of my friends mentioned that they felt better after having written down what they really hated. I guess I felt better, too. Cathartic best describes the effect this little experiment had on me. “Getting life off my chest” you might say.

I don’t know for sure if God watched my recent preoccupation with things I hate, but I suspect He did. He sees and notices everything. When I compare things I hate with things He hates? Well, leaky faucets didn’t make His list. Neither did cars that didn’t run or pens that don’t write. In fact, as I read His list in Proverbs 6, and compared it to my list of silly annoyances, I’m convinced that I have a lot more important things than mosquitoes to worry about that may be eating me up. How about you?

“These six things the LORD hates,

Yes, seven are an abomination to him:

A proud look,

A lying tongue,

Hands that shed innocent blood,

A heart the devises wicked plans,

Feet that are swift in running to evil,

A false witness who speaks lies,

And one who sows discord among brethren.”

(Prov. 6:16-19)

The post It’s Not Nice To Hate appeared first on Ken Jones.

I saw a man, today.
I sat, eating a noon meal,
And as I enjoyed my food,
I noticed him.

I watched him cross a busy street.
Oblivious to traffic,
Or the sounds the traffic always makes.
His arms gesticulating, jerking back and forth,
Back and forth,
In a cadence all their own.
Involuntary spasms, I suspect,
Without purpose or warning.
Painful to watch;

And I was sad for that man, as I noticed his torment.

He seemed to be in a conversation,
Although I could not distinguish with whom he conversed,
His head swayed, as if he searched for some imaginary something
On the horizon of this day.

Back and forth. Back and forth moved his head
While his tongue wagged,
And his mouth moved,
And some of his life’s moments ebbed away,
In front of my very eyes.

Moment by sad moment, while I watched it all,
He stood like some marionette whose hands and arms
Were controlled by invisible strings he could not escape.

He walked across a busy street,
Oblivious to traffic,
Or the sounds the traffic always makes.
And as he walked by, he crossed at the intersection of my life, and his.

I was sad for that man, as I watched his torment.

Reflecting back,
I’m fairly certain I saw someone’s brother, today.
Or perhaps someone’s son?
Or friend?
Or some old acquaintance who should ‘never be forgot’?

I was sad, as I watched that man I did not know.
But not sad enough to interrupt my meal,
Or stop my eating.
For a fleeting moment, I wondered if he might be hungry,
But I didn’t wonder enough … to ask him.

The post The Man I Saw Today appeared first on Ken Jones.

But there’s a lot that’s special about that one word.

It’s a word that I (or others like me, who choose such a word) decide on.
A word we’ll keep on the front burner of our lives.
A word whose meaning and definition we’ll contemplate,
And rehearse,
And re-visit for the entire year.

A few weeks ago, I chose my one word: Notice

I chose that word because, well, I noticed something.
I noticed that I wasn’t noticing some things I felt I should be noticing.
For example, I don’t think I notice how much I talk, and how little I listen.
I don’t think I take stock at the end of each day, and notice important intersections that have occurred.
People I met along the mile-markers of my everydayness.
Or, occasions I’ve had to make a difference in the life of someone else that slipped right on by me.

I’m sure there are opportunities aplenty in every single day.
I just don’t notice them.

I all too often don’t notice my mind wandering off into corners;
Places my feeble brain has no business visiting.
Entire rooms in my mind where critical thoughts, judgements about people I love, opinions about people I don’t even know can materialize, take root, grow.
What’s up with that, I wonder? And it happens more often than I’d like to admit.
And usually, I don’t even notice it until it’s already happened, and my ignorant brain has moved on to something else.

That’s the reason I decided to choose “Notice” as my word for this year.
I’m ignorant, in so many ways; ignorant in too many ways, really.
And the root of the word ‘ignorant’ is ‘ignore.’

My definition of ‘ignore’ is “to notice, without take note.” In other words, to be ignorant is to ignore what’s happening inside you, outside you, and all around you until it’s too late to notice.

So … if your reading this, you’re on notice:
Notice is my one word for this year.

The post On Notice … appeared first on Ken Jones.

When ‘quiet’ happens in a life, I think,
It almost seems as if normal distractions have decided to pack their bags and leave town for awhile;
The disquieting moments that can make so much noise in the midst of an unsuspecting day,
Dissipate or dissolve or disintegrate into thin air because ‘quiet’ decided to show up.

Where does it come from, I wonder?
And why can’t we bottle it, when it arrives?
How great would it be if a body could save up ‘quiet,’ like we save up frequent flyer miles?
Why is it that ‘quiet’ in a life is such a great space to visit, yet we don’t get to live there?

Quiet isn’t some ‘thing’ I can go to the store and buy.
Nor is it an announcement or pronouncement.
I can say, “Quiet!” to myself as much as I want, but it still won’t make ‘quiet’ happen in my life.

I can’t know what my chances are for ‘quiet’ to happen tomorrow, either;
I’ve noticed that I can’t know about ‘quiet’ in my life, like I know there’s a 40% chance of rain this week.
There’s no place to look it up;
There’s no place to check it out.
When ‘quiet’ happens in a life, it almost seems like it sneaks up on a soul.

You can hardly hear it coming, most of the time in life;
It walks on tiptoes.
It doesn’t make a sound.
Then again, I don’t suppose it should make a sound.
It’s not suppose to make a noise.

Perhaps, that’s the nicest thing about ‘quiet’ happening in a life …

It’s quiet.

The post When Quiet Happens … appeared first on Ken Jones.

I was sad, because I knew of the great struggle he had been experiencing in recent weeks:
Failing health.
An inability to really function in what he would think was a meaningful way.
He was a truly brilliant man, who held an earned doctorate in education;
A gifted teacher and communicator.
A man who loved his family,
And a man who loved his God … passionately and with great fervor.

And I was sad to think that this world had lost a wonderful man who loved God, and loved people.

But as I reflected on my friend’s life, a warm fondness began to blossom in my mind,
Like some flower opening up in the morning sun.
I remembered his friendship.
I recalled many of his witty comments,
I revisited, in my mind, our times together, what I learned from him.
And I smiled … at what I observed in his life.

When I was just a boy, and many times throughout my younger days,
My dad would tell me that I should choose my friends with great care.
”Friends,” he would say, “are a life-long treasure; The man who finds a good friend really has something.”

He was right, of course. (Dads are right about a lot of things, I think.)
The company a man keeps will have a tremendous impact on his journey in life.

I found a really great treasure, the day I met my friend.
And now, he has moved from ‘here,’ to THERE.
I will have to be content with the memories of our friendship until we meet again.
Iron, indeed, sharpens iron;
“ … One man sharpens another”, says The Book.

I am a better man for having known and ‘sharpened’ by my friend who died this week. I am sorry he is gone.

It is a truth, for certain: Good and loyal friends are a life-long treasure, and the man who finds a good friend really has found something unique and wonderful.
Losing such a friend … is a very great loss, indeed.

The post On the Death of My Friend … appeared first on Ken Jones.

They had been waiting for Him,
For what must have seemed like ‘forever,’ really.
Zechariah wrote about His arrival, hundreds of years before.
Yes, the prophet had said that He would be showing up.
He’d come riding into town on a donkey.
And so, the people of Israel waited.
And waited.
And waited.

Generations came and went.
Babies were born, and grew to be old,
And those old ones finally died, waiting for His coming.

No wonder, when He finally rode into Jerusalem,
They were ready for the party to start.
True, He didn’t look like much of a man,
His legs thrown over the side of a donkey,
But then, Isaiah had mentioned there was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
Nothing to attract them to him.

No matter, now.
He had finally arrived.
Let the ‘hallelujah’ chorus begin.
Throw down the coats, as a sign of honor.

And, don’t forget the palms.
By all means, shout ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’
And wave those palms as if your life depended on it.

No question about it.
Palms are an essential part of this week’s story:
Their palms, the fickle ones the crowd waved on Sunday.
They would forget all about those waving palms by Friday.

But what of His palms?
Both of them.

.Fastened by nails on Friday.
In just a.few days, no waving of his palms.
Instead, arms outstretched in love.
And the names of the redeemed, … etched in blood.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands ….”
(Isa. 49:15, 16)

The post A Word About … Palms appeared first on Ken Jones.