gobble

Be afraid.

Wild turkeys wander through my back yard like it belongs to them. A group of six males (flock? brood? gaggle?) waddles through together, looking for chicks. A larger group of females comes a little later, gleaning for lawn bugs in the snow --I suppose they had to stay back and make the beds.

These turkeys are large: market-size. To see a couple dozen of them off your back porch through the sliding glass door, poking around for insects, each gang strutting their stuff for the other, is disquieting. They run like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, bobbing their beaks with mysterious, brightly colored body parts wobbling, making clucky, gobbly sounds. It's not hard to imagine them pecking you to death.

So OK. Here's the worst part: Turkeys fly. THEY FLY! God save us all.

I've seen them fly over the river, so I know it's true. I thought turkeys were incapable of flight. I've been to a turkey ranch. The fences are not high. Thousands of birds eek out an existence behind the fences, kicking up dust and feathers and turkey dung all in one tight space. You'd think that just one of them would say, "OK. That's it. I'm outa here," and spread its stubby wings and take to the sky. But they don't. And I always assumed. . .

So OK. Here's the worster part: Turkeys fly up into tall trees. They "perch" there. God have mercy!

The back of my house sweeps down to riparian woodland. 30-40 foot trees grow out there on the edge of the river, and turkeys roost in them. Imagine one of those frozen turkeys in the open freezer cases at Kroger. Now imagine it with wings, sitting in a tree near your home, watching you. Not a pleasant picture.

I was gazing at the river the other day when two turkeys with great drama flew up into the trees and sat there looking at my home, scouting for small people. So I know it's true. Turkeys fly and perch in tall trees.

My new back yard is no longer the quiet refuge I thought I was getting when I bought the place. I was duped. My back yard is a breeding ground for large, bulky, eerily wattled animals with beaks who live in trees and monitor your every move.

So OK. Now I understand the whole Thanksgiving Turkey Feast thing. I'll grab the cranberry sauce and meet you at the tree line. Bring a gun and some rain gear. This could be messy.

Cone of Silence

For those unexposed to great 60's comedy, here's a clip about the Cone of Silence from Get Smart.

Church

Church bleeds from my veins.

Papa was a pastor, and I grew up thinking that the church building was just as much part of my home as the bathroom, although I didn't work that out in the most graphic of ways.

I recall running through the sanctuary--not on Sunday morning when it was was a sin, but on a weekday afternoon when holiness was looser. The church was like a playground to me, offering much more space than the tiny parsonage next door, and letting Mom have a few minutes of sanity whilst I roamed the property.

My brother and I used to crawl under the pews while the church pianist practiced and the room was dark. She suffered from delusions, and believed she was a former Communist, now a U.S. spy, and she knew that her previous employers would eventually hunt her down. Robert and I would sneak around making creaking noises on the floors, popping up every now and then, and trying to cough like Communists, to watch her jump from the piano bench.

Growing up a PK provides a singular perspective on the church. I have been a pastor for over twenty-five years, and serve as a pastor now. I have seen the church from the inside out.

I have observed the way a church can love a person into faith in Jesus, and I have seen how a church--even the same church--can convince a person to turn around and walk fast in the opposite direction. I can delineate the methods of subversive torture a church can use to ravage its leaders, and I can testify to the wonder of a soul restored and given hope in the midst of darkness and evil and guilt.

As a result, I have a perpetual question on my heart. I live with it every day, and although I hope it will be answered before I die, I do not anticipate that resolution. The question is this: Is the church God's agent for grace?

I want the answer to be yes.

What is your answer?

Patching

I cried today. Bending over a crack in the concrete in my driveway. I blubbered up, tears rolling off my cheeks into the mortar I was fingering onto the crack to repair it. Emotion that has been boiling under the surface for weeks, months, came rolling over the edge.

Headphones were blaring the Hope College Worship Band CD, Fill the Streets, and "Praise to the Lord the Almighty, King of Creation" was playing and the sound in my ears went to a place in my heart and touched right there where the soft tissue was hiding and BINGO! I fell apart kneeling on the pavement with the Quickrete Patch bottle in my hands.

Why? I think it was these timeless words that finally found the tender place: Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, if with his love he befriend thee. It struck deep, the thought that his love has been so active in my life, and I haven't noticed. When I look behind me, I see the tracks of his love, the evidence of his work, the skill of his merciful hands.

It's his patching. The BIG CRACK in my heart, made by the years, had been repaired. That crack had kept me wary of ministry and leary of church in general, willing to avoid at any cost the ensnarements of personal contact. Could it be that while I was protecting myself, he was at work patching the breach? While I was concerned with keeping the crack away from anything that would make it worse, spread it apart further, and make it hurt more, is it possible that he was gently, faithfully filling it in with his grace?

I'm not worthy of his skill, his artistic work. My failings and weaknesses have made that crack wider, deeper. But his fingers work the mortar of his love into the gaps, and the trail left behind is a testament to his amazing ability.

I fell on the ground, hands and knees bent in humility, sobbing. I don't know if I can do this thing. I don't know if I have what it takes to be "in the ministry" again. But I know this, and will hang on to it:

Praise to the Lord, who o'er all things so wond'rously reigneth.

Shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth.

Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been

Granted in what he ordaineth?