Coming Up For Air

4 Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! You shall again be adorned with your tambourines, And shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice. Jeremiah 31:4, New King James Version Morning is my go time. A light sleeper in the latter stages of the night, I hit the floor with ambition, all the more focused because I know this energy will fizzle. My will to achieve is all the more combustible because I know it's got to move limbs stubborn with cerebral palsy, first across the floor, then locked onto the bed frame, pulling me upwards with biceps and chest muscles that come the closest to having been spared by CP, and then throwing me back in the wheelchair. The process regularly takes somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-seven minutes. Aware of that range with an objectivity that shows my father's accounting genes aren't entirely absent from his history major son, the contrast, the waste, between how long the battle takes and how long my me...

2 Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword Found grace in the wilderness— Israel, when I went to give him rest.” 3 The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Jeremiah 31:3, New King James Version It was a beautiful weekday morning at the University of South Carolina, and I had the whole day before me. If I wanted to study, which is what I was doing, I could give my whole heart to that. If I wanted to play, which is what my roommate Brent and his easy-going friend Jeff were doing on the other side of the room, I could do that. Jones in the Fast Lane , a humor-loaded computer game that offered practice runs for real life decisions had them laughing and was an option for me. Think Monopoly but with individual goals in budgeting, fun, and career progress. I was too grown-up for that, I thought. I was fuming. These kids, I actually thought as a curmudgeonly 20-year-old, not only a...

2 Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword Found grace in the wilderness— Israel, when I went to give him rest.” Jeremiah 31:2, New King James Version Alfred Hitchcock is purported to have said drama is life with all the boring parts cut out. Aspiring to captivate more expertly in this season with the glory of God as a writer, I surmised there were a lot of dull bits in my story. From a wheelchair, many of my dramatic moments come in encounters with books. Hey, look at that, I bauble as I search for somebody's attention to draw, somebody's wonder to tap into. It's a life different than that to which most people readily relate. Thus, I launched an effort to replace my dull bits with plot points from the lives of others. Believing I could simultaneously deepen relationships, build readership, and mine for content that would more readily engage those on the periphery of understanding their part in God's story, I began to send out the question that was going t...

“At the same time,” says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.” Jeremiah 31:1, New King James Version There were times my dad would hold forth on How the World Works. He would expound on geopolitics, on macro and micro economics, and on how these principles played out in the world around us. With the acumen of an accountant's data-driven certainty, he would caution, cajole and coach that we needed to line our lives up to be on the right side of these big trends. He was in the whirlwind, and warning about its power. Then there were times he would relate to my brother and myself where we were, snuggle with us at the beginning of even his longest days running his own practice. Valuable as his time was, and he once mentioned to another grown-up this calculating, compounding trap as his success grew, he invested it in us not just as recipients of his wisdom but as his sons. Football contained no profound life lessons he sought to propou...

23 Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord Goes forth with fury, A continuing whirlwind; It will fall violently on the head of the wicked. 24 The fierce anger of the Lord will not return until He has done it, And until He has performed the intents of His heart. In the latter days you will consider it. Once when our transportation's reliability didn't make the 25 minute commute to our usual church wise, we attended locally. As a follow-up, a couple of congregants from that church came knocking at our door. One of them, named Jim, in ensuing days inserted himself in our lives in the most gracious ways. As I have a disability which precludes many of the things on the usual husband's honey do list, he picked them up. He also invited me to study the Bible with a group he influenced. There, his impact was first more grating than gracious as he kept insisting on the sovereignty of God to determine ends, kept pointing to Him as the star of the Bible rather than the cast of human characte...

21 Their nobles shall be from among them, And their governor shall come from their midst; Then I will cause him to draw near, And he shall approach Me; For who is this who pledged his heart to approach Me?’ says the Lord. 22 ‘You shall be My people, And I will be your God.’ ”Jeremiah 30:21-22, New King James Version It was an adolescent May that stirred optimism even in this old head on young shoulders. Characteristically, I took my emerging thoughts to a computer screen rather than a live human. I had just returned home from a study session for the AP US History test, and my feelings about life were somewhere near voluble. Yes, this was my subject. Thirty years later, I still imbibe for fun what some might consider a dubious duty. At about the same time a peer more academically accomplished overall than myself commenting on my relish for the relevant US history anecdote and asked if I had taken the test already. I hadn't. I just really connected with the subject and especially wit...

And I will punish all who oppress them. 21 Their nobles shall be from among them, And their governor shall come from their midst; Then I will cause him to draw near, And he shall approach Me; For who is this who pledged his heart to approach Me?’ says the Lord. Jeremiah 30:20b-21, New King James Version As Chief Financial Officer for a small Christian college, Chris works mostly remotely. Gifted with an incisive, analytical mind, he makes the tough calls the numbers dictate. When he comes among the flock, he does so with an awe he would deflect having anything to do with generating. Nevertheless, for instance, he visited with those who had been grappling daily with the details of a software update, and within minutes he caught on to the minutia that it took most people considerably longer to absorb. When I worked there, Chris usually went by in a friendly flourish. Meetings were already lined up at decision points for maximum efficiency. Yet, he paused as he went past my office door, b...