Midweekly Reality Check:
Meditations on the Mountain
Archives I
April-May 2005
ONLY THE
DEAD
by JD Wetterling
May 25, 2005
Greater love has no one than this,
that someone lays down his life for his friends.
John 15:16
It’s
been 87 of the bloodiest years in the annals of mankind since the war to end
all wars ended, and the killing continues unabated. When the dark cloud of
potential planetary annihilation evaporated 16 years ago, a misguided American
leadership made deep cuts in our military, ignored the rants of a
cave-dwelling radical half-a-world away and emboldened the most heinous attack
ever on American soil. Two more wars followed…so far. Plato’s postulate
still holds: “It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.” In
theological terms, the depravity of man is the only dogma documented by two
millennia of human history.
That’s why
Memorial Day should be the grandest American celebration of the year. Of all
the blessings of the greatest nation on earth, none is more worthy of undying
appreciation by our citizenry than the patriotic heroes of every generation
who willingly gave their all to defend their country. That we are 229 years
into the world’s longest running experiment in government by the people is
proof positive that America’s war dead have not died in vain. What a glorious
legacy. Even in this age when some of us bemoan the self-absorbed younger
generation, we found no shortage of heroes to bring freedom to Afghanistan and
Iraq and make the world a safer place. President Reagan called such soldiers
“America’s exclusive weapon.”
My
generation was called to fight and die for a shocking number of ungrateful
citizens in our country’s most divisive war—Vietnam. It was the only war in
our history where our government abandoned an ally on the battlefield. It’s
fitting—divinely just—that the only war where our warriors were so reviled and
our national leadership so wanting inspired the most profoundly moving
monument to full-price patriotism ever to grace this land of the free—The
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Among the
58,200 venerated souls on that black granite wall are four of my fighter pilot
friends. My wingman,
Robert “Vince”
Willett,
Jr. (panel 27W, line 103), crashed in a blinding fireball before my eyes in a
hellish out-country post-midnight gunfight.
Lance LaGrange (panel 75W, line 037) augured in for
reasons known only to God while attacking a target in the Central Highlands.
Lynn Hoffman
(panel
51W, line 032) landed on a stormy night with bombs unexpended, could not get
stopped on a wet runway, flipped over and slid through the perimeter
minefield, triggering a grisly series of explosions.
Lawrence Whitford
(panel
16W, line 21), a
Misty Forward Air Controller,
launched with Pat
Carroll in a two-seater F-100F
on a lousy weather day…into oblivion. Greater love hath no man.
There is
no earthly reason why I have not seen the end of war. The facts indicate a
gung-ho young fighter pilot, who, out of fear and fear of failure, tried hard
to engrave his name for the ages on that black granite wall.
As a
rookie on a Sunday morning in the summer of ‘68, I dove down the gun barrels
of an anti-aircraft artillery battery spitting more lead in my face than I
thought I could fly through. I frantically pulled the control stick well past
the point where that F-100’s wings should have folded up around my ears. And
then rather than take my perilously overstressed airplane straight home and
gingerly put it on the ground, I foolishly continued to attack the guns. We
left the gun battery a smoldering junkyard. My flight leader,
Dick French, received a
Silver Star and I a
Distinguished Flying Cross.
The jet took a month to fix. Sometimes hero medals are awarded to fools who
survive by God’s grace alone. (Details in next week’s blog.)
The cross
is the most popular symbol for heroism in the world, in honor of the most
heroic act of selfless love ever witnessed—Christ’s death on the cross. Mine
still hangs on my office wall, reminding me who saved my life in the summer of
‘68, but more importantly, who saved my soul nearly 2000 years before I was
born.
Although a vocal segment of our society strives to ban or redefine the
term, I affirm our founding fathers’ faith in “divine Providence”—I’m a
recipient of it. Whether we acknowledge it or not, our nation is, too. So
take a deep breath of the fresh air of liberty this day, then give thanks to
God that by his providence you were born in the same country as my beloved
brave friends, to whom I pay
special tribute. They and tens of thousands of heroes like them are the
only ones who have seen the end of war in this fallen world.
CLAUS,
THE AGRARIAN ANACHRONISM
by JD Wetterling
May 18, 2005
…for he maketh his sun to shine on the evil
and on the good
and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust
(Matthew 5:45b).
KJV
My beloved Blue Ridge Mountains are full of colorful characters. When this
suburban heaven real estate was explored by a committee from the
Presbyterian Church in America with an eye to purchasing it (from the TV
star, Jackie Gleason) for a retreat and conference center, one of the
explorers recalls it was a “thriving industrial park.” He said the committee
found, in tramping around several hundred acres, “17 active moonshine
stills.”
But none
of our neighbors, most of whom have gotten used to us in the intervening 27
years, are any more colorful than the flatland farmer who taught me the sinful
art of creative cussing before I even knew what the words meant.
It was a
spring morning in '53, one of those dead-still dawns on the farm in western
Illinois when the human voice carries as if the fallow black earth, just
awakening from winter hibernation, were an ocean on a mirror calm morning. I
was enroute to the barn to milk one of four cows, stumbling along in an
ambulatory comatose condition, a state of grace achievable only by a reluctant
pre-adolescent with an attitude, awakened at 6 a.m. to do a chore he hated.
A
shouting, irate voice shook me out of my self-pity. “Get your @#*&\ !%/@ into
that &%#@ )#@%**!”
A
different angry voice responded, “E-E-E-E-A-A-A-W-W-W!”
Those
deliciously devilish sounding words, delivered with a decibel level and
passion that would strike envy in the heart of a traveling evangelist,
emanated from the mouth of our neighbor, Claus, a German farmer. His big red
gable-roofed barn was a half-mile to the northeast, sighting up the hypotenuse
of a triangle formed by traveling east up the gravel road a quarter-mile, then
north a like distance on a dirt road, part of that endless one mile grid
system that overlays the Midwest’s vast flat, rich black gumbo. The other
angry sound was conveyed with equal passion, and, if it could be translated,
probably equal impiety. It was one of Claus's two mules. In an age when no one
farmed with horses any more, let alone mules, Claus was Henderson County's
very own agrarian anachronism. His uniqueness didn’t stop there. He didn't
believe in tractors, trucks, cars, that new-fangled electric box that came
alive in the late afternoon—a television—or women, except for an old-maid
sister he lived with in a neatly maintained white clapboard, two-story
farmhouse. They say that, to his dying day, he never laid a hand on the
controls of any of the above.
But, aside
from his lumberjack language and aversion to progress and the opposite sex, he
was smart, a good farmer, and a big-hearted neighbor. With no intent on his
part, he was responsible for my early education in anatomy, blasphemy and the
facts of life.
In those
days farmers always helped one another in a labor intensive business that was
totally dependant on God’s grace in the growing season for survival—combining
oats, shucking corn, vaccinating and cutting hogs, driving cattle and baling
hay. Some of my happiest memories are of warm summer days, sitting next to
Claus among the men on the ground with back against the wall, on the shady
side of the barn, waiting for the next wagonload of baled hay to arrive from
the field. Curiously, I distinctly recall his clean, unadorned manly smell,
an uncommon thing on a hot summer day on the farm. That irresistibly risible
raconteur’s huge repertoire of what polite folks called "off-color" stories
was the source of all my prurient knowledge. I was not a part of the
conversations, merely one of the little pitchers with big ears who took it all
in with wonderment. I know not from whence cometh the authoritarian tones—his
stories were always told in the third person—and I was totally bewildered by
the concepts, but they always provoked uproarious laughter among the men.
Claus had
a baritone nasal delivery in a one-of-a-kind German dialect that rearranged
syllabic emphasis and drug out the endings of words. His were the most
colorful metaphors I have ever met, but I cannot repeat them around the folks
I hang out with these days. If his stories alone weren't reason enough to
provoke knee slapping belly laughs, then his low gargling chuckle, followed by
an inhalation that sounded like a misplayed trombone note, guaranteed it.
Claus had
only two uniforms, a clean pair of bib overalls and a dirty pair. It was the
standard work uniform for most farmers, but Clause wore them all the time
everywhere. Both were worn over a long-sleeved blue work shirt, buttoned at
the cuffs and collar on even the hottest day of the summer—the nonstandard
part. His untrimmed nose hair gave the appearance, from a distance, of der
Feuhrer’s mustache. Sitting beside him in the shade of the barn, on the
rare occasions when he was not telling stories, and listening to him breathe
was like listening to the wind in the willows.
He had a
pair of equally untamed black bushy eyebrows through which he looked with
bowed head in the presence of my saintly mother, beginning or ending each
sentence with "Ma'am" while carefully avoiding the use of all his favorite
adjectives.
If Mom
would send me over to his house with a box of freshly picked strawberries,
he'd say "Hallo Jerry," winding those words around his tongue and letting them
roll out the side of his mouth. Then he'd send me home with as much sweet corn
as I could carry in a gunny sack. If Mom delivered an apple pie, the next day
he'd walk over with two of sister Ella's freshly baked rhubarb pies—the
neighborly ratio was always at least two to one.
Many of
Claus's comments on life became clichés in our community, like the observation
he made on a hot summer day when he was stacking hay bales in the loft up near
the tin roof: “If hell is this hot I don't want to go.” Then there was the
doubt he expressed the summer the drought nearly wiped out the corn crop:
“They say it rains on the just and the unjust alike, but I don't believe it.”
His biblical allusions were curious, considering his shadow had never darkened
a church door...to anyone’s knowledge. I hope with all my heart it means he
was reading the Bible at home .
The last
time I saw Claus was at my father's wake, long after I'd grown up and left the
farm to wander the world. But for salt-and-pepper hair, he looked the same
after all those years—not an ounce of fat on his still-erect six-foot frame.
His only concession to the aging process was a long-legged riding horse. His
arrival at the old homestead was announced by the syncopated gait of four
steel shoes crunching gravel in the driveway. He said exactly five words...and
nobody laughed. I let him in the back door, the one that’s never locked and
all friends use in the country. He put a covered dish of something on a table
mounded high with donated food, strode up to Mother, head bowed, cap in hand
with clean bibs and buttoned collar, staring with puddled eyes through that
unruly thicket of eyebrows, and said with choked tones I shall never forget,
“I've lost my best friend....”
He turned
around and walked out the door. I watched through the big picture window as he
untied the reins of a beautiful sorrel gelding from the low branch of a pin
oak in the side-yard, and swung into the saddle with all the grace and agility
of a man one-half his seventy-odd years. Horse and rider—my unwitting mentor
astride a bygone era—rode east and out of my life.
Claus
finally made it into a church. My brother, John, who stayed on the farm, and
five other men carried him in. John said there were as many muffled snickers
as there were tears in that house of God, as a community mourned the passing
and pondered the destiny of a lovable, probable pagan, and recalled the tales
he told in the shady interludes of his life.
Your Chief End,
Your Only Comfort
by JD
Wetterling
May 11, 2005
…be transformed by the renewal of your
mind…
(Psalm 12:2)
Three hundred fifty-seven years ago this
Friday—May 13, 1648—the book, Christianity’s FAQ’s, went on sale in
England and Scotland, and is still in print. It was the product of five years
of labor by 150 of the most knowledgeable theologians to be found from the
major protestant denominations of the day—an unprecedented effort to explain
the message of the Bible—working under the aegis of the British Parliament at
the peak of the greatest moral and spiritual age in England’s history. At the
start of each week, all participants swore an oath to present only work for
the book that could explicitly be proven by reference to the Bible, and every
sentence that made the final manuscript was debated and voted on by all
members. Church historians call it the “…most logical, most complete…most
Biblical and noblest creed ever yet produced in Christendom.” Today it is one
of the doctrinal documents of a number of protestant denominations, whether or
not the members in the pews are aware of it.
You’ve
never heard of it because I gave it a modernized computer-age title. The
proper title is the
Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms,
a series of Bible questions and answers, the shorter version designed
for children, derived from their larger work, entitled,
The Westminster Confession of Faith.
It turned my life right-side-up fifteen years ago, after first sitting on my
library shelf gathering dust for five years. It had been given to me when I
was elected elder of a large church in a mainline protestant denomination, but
no one told me I had to read it, and I don’t recall meeting another elder who
admitted he had. It was only when we moved to Tampa, Florida, and attended an
inquirer’s class of a Presbyterian (PCA) church where it was required reading,
that I cracked the cover. It was startling—I knew little and understood less
about theological things in those days. My first response was, “No Way,” and,
arrogant pseudo-intellectual that I was, I set to work examining the
scriptures to disprove those ancient English and Scottish theologians. And I
learned, as many before me have…it is the only way. God is not my co-pilot,
as my friend,
Bob Scott, World War II Ace,
claimed in the title of his famous book. God is my pilot (Q.11)!
Those who
think God is a myth and truth is unknowable may snicker all they want at my
politically incorrect, exclusive
metanarrative, but I find great
joy in defending my faith.[1] It’s the most important gift I have
received—could ever receive—in my life.[2]
I cannot communicate it any better than the slave trader turned preacher, John
Newton did in his classic hymn,
Amazing Grace. Nor will I ever
tire of glorifying my Savior, Jesus Christ, who loved me so much he died for
me 2000 years before I was born. No one can steal me out of his hand. I have
a guarantee from the highest authority.[3]
A
catechism is a road map, in Q&A form, that explains, but does not overrule,
the good news of the whole Bible—scripture alone is the ultimate truth,
and a catechism is merely an excellent aid to understanding God’s truth. In
addition to explaining who God is, the state of man, sin, the Lord’s prayer
and the Ten Commandments, the catechism also tackles the hard parts of the
Bible: Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery? (Q.
20) What is effectual calling? (Q.
30) The Westminster Confession and
Larger and Shorter Catechisms turned on lights, opened doors and put
puzzle pieces together in my mind, filling in massive blank spots and
clarifying supposed biblical contradictions in my theretofore casual
Christianity.
The very
first question of the catechism is as old as mankind: “What is the chief end
of man?” In today’s idiom the question would be, “What’s it all about,
Alfie?” The answer is as short as the question: “The chief end of man is to
glorify God and enjoy him forever,” with three scripture references to support
it.[4] To unbelievers who enjoy their sinful ways, that reads
like an oxymoron. But enjoying anything forever, versus just the cosmic
nanosecond of a human lifetime, is a great hook. That very first answer in
both catechisms captures the bottom line of the Bible—glorifying God and
enjoying him eternally is our primary reason for existence. The remaining
Q&A’s are the how-to, answering every query an inquisitive mind would ask
about how we should live, even beyond death, in the unimaginable everlasting
state of bliss that awaits God’s children in heaven.
[5]
On a large
table just outside the Assembly’s meeting room at Westminster Abby, another,
even older catechism was available for easy reference by the Westminster
“divines.” It was written by Zacharias Ursinus, a student of Martin Luther in
1559. Unlike the Westminster Catechism, which has the tone of
committee-derived scholarship, the Heidelberg Catechism reveals the godly
heart of Ursinus so passionately that it survived intact the review of
numerous theologians and met with widespread approval. It asks a very similar
first question in a different way: “What is your only comfort in life and
death?"
The
answer, complete with scripture proofs, in my view comprises some of the most
heart-warming, assuring, conviction inducing, joyful words ever written
outside the Bible.
Q. What
is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That
I, with body and soul, both in life and death,[6]
am not my own,[7]but
belong unto my faithful savior Jesus Christ;[8]who with his precious blood[9]
has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of
the devil;[10]
and so preserves me[11] that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair
falls from my head;[12] yea, that all things must be subservient
to my salvation,[13] wherefore by His Holy Spirit He also
assures me of eternal life,[14]and makes me heartily willing and ready,
henceforth, to live unto Him.[15]
Like many
aspects of Christianity, catechisms are out of favor today—some denominations
and independent churches don’t even have them—but the biblical truths they
point to are no less morally absolute.
Catechisms, like my words, don’t change hearts. God’s Word and the Holy
Spirit do that (Q.
89). But for those who are steeped in what passes for reason in
this postmodern world, catechisms are an invaluable aid to understanding the
Bible, and that is why the book is still in print. I urge you, dear reader,
whether a seeker, new believer, or faithful follower of God rich in years, to
study the Westminster
Larger and
Shorter Catechism and the
Heidelberg Catechism along
with the Bible. All are in the public domain and are therefore free on the
internet. You can cut and paste them into a Word file and underline,
highlight, add your own notes, ask your own questions, do your own research.
A
good Bible commentary is also
extremely helpful. And
here’s the sourcebook, the
revealed Word of God from which it is all derived, the best translation,
quickest, most user friendly online Bible that I have found, complete with New
Testament audio. These are all the tools you need, right at your fingertips,
and the only cost is your time. Do your soul an eternal favor (Q.
37 & 38)—try it. Taste and see[16]
and, God willing, you, too, may be …transformed
by the renewal of your mind.[17]
ENDNOTES
[1] “Blessed are you when people hate you
and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on
account of the Son of Man!
23 Rejoice in
that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so
their fathers did to the prophets (Luke 6:22-23).
[2] For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this
is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that
no one may boast (Ephesians 2: 8-9).
[3] I give them eternal life, and they will
never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand (John 10:28).
[4] So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory
of God (1 Cor. 10:31).
For from him and
through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen (Romans
11:36).
25
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is
nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My
flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strengthof
my heart and my portion forever.
27 For
behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone
who is unfaithful to you.
28 But
for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord
God my refuge, that I
may tell of all your works (Psalm 73:25-28).
[5] “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2: 9).
[6] For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to
himself. 8 If
we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then,
whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
9 For to this end Christ died
and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living (Rom
14:7-9).
[7] Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for
you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20).
[8] So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
22 whether
Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the
future—all are yours,
23 and you are Christ's, and
Christ is God's (1 Cor 3:21-23).
[9] knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or
gold, 19 but
with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or
spot. 20 He
was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the
last times for your sake,
21 who through him are
believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that
your faith and hope are in God (1 Pet 1:18-21).
[10] Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slaveto
sin. 35 The
slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.
36 So
if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:34-36).
[11] And
this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he
has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my
Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day”
(John 6:39-40).
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I
give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch
them out of my hand.
29 My Father,
who has given them to me,is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of
the Father's hand. 30 I
and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30).
But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and
guard you against the evil one (II Th 3:3).
Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has
caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead,
4 to an inheritance that is
imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
5 who
by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time (1 Pet 1:3-5).
[12] Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And
not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even
the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear
not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10: 29-31).
You will be delivered up even by parents and brothersand relatives and
friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17 You
will be hated by all for my name's sake.
18 But not a
hair of your head will perish (Luke 21: 16-18).
[13] And we know that for those who love God all things work
together for good,for
those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
[14] For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back
into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we
cry, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that
we are children of God (Romans 8:15-6).
And it is God who
establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us,
22 and
who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a
guarantee (2 Cor. 1:21-22).
He who has prepared
us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee (2
Cor. 5:5).
In him you also, when
you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in
him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is the guaranteeof
our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,to
the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:13-14).
[15] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sonsof
God (Rom 8:14).
[16] Taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:1).
[17] Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal
of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is
good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).
THANKS, MOM
by JD Wetterling
May 4, 2005
A wife of noble character
who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies
(Proverbs 31:10).
She gets up
while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family…(:15)
Her
children arise and call her blessed…
(:28a).
“many women
do noble things,
but you surpass them all”
(:29)
…a woman
who fears the LORD
is to be praised
( :30b)
“Did I
wake you?”
With that
soft-spoken, considerate question, she faced death with the serenity of an
eighty-two-year-old saint. It was just before dawn, January 30, 1999.
“Would you
please come take me to the hospital? I think I’m having a heart attack.” She
was as calm as if she were inviting me to breakfast.
I had been
up awhile, had finished my morning devotionals and, as usual, was drinking
coffee at my computer. I ran to my truck, coffee cup in hand and raced over
to Mom’s condo not a mile away. The coffee cup flew out of its holder on the
first turn—thankfully
a left-hand turn—but
I hardly noticed it. I was trying to decide whether to call the ambulance
when I got there, always the right thing to do, or take her myself in the
truck, now with a brown puddle on the passenger side floor. The hospital was
so close I could have her there before the ambulance could arrive at her
place.
Mom solved
that dilemma by walking out the door all dressed up, still calm and collected,
when I arrived. We took her car and sped to the hospital. I must have looked
a little panic-stricken. Mom turned to me and said, “Don't worry about me.
I’ve had a wonderful life.” We arrived at the Emergency Room just in
time—things got worse rather quickly. The next day our family gathered around
her bed in ICU. We recited all the underlined scripture passages in her
well-worn Bible and sang hymns she knew by heart but could only mouth with all
those tubes attached. Half-a-day later, following some of the best of many
great hours spent with Mother, she joined the heavenly choir.
Every Mother's Day and every day in
between, as long as I have breath, I will give thanks to God for the woman who
is responsible for everything I am or hope to be. She led me to the Lord,
taught me how to pray, sing, be a true friend, a witness, and, perhaps the
greatest lesson of all, she taught me how to die in the peace that passes all
understanding.
Mom was a
Proverbs 31 farmer's wife. She had a song always in her heart and nearly
always on her lips. All my life with Mom, if there was lull in the
conversation, I’d hear a hymn being hummed. And her work ethic was unmatched
by anyone I know. She maintained a drafty old farmhouse absent indoor
plumbing and cooked 21 meals a week for six hungry people. She tended a large
garden and flock of chickens, push-mowed an acre of lawn, and interrupted her
teaching career to raise four children with abundant love. I do not recall, in
my entire youth, ever seeing Mom sitting around doing nothing at any hour of
the day or night. In the evening, while Dad read Wallace’s Farmer and
I drew pictures on the floor behind his easy chair, Mom hummed or sang her
favorite hymns as a stack of folded, ironed clothes grew from the linoleum to
the height of her ironing board by my bedtime. Then she sat at the foot of
the stairs darning socks as we four kids trooped up to bed and said our
prayers in unison loud enough for her to hear.
As a widow she spent her last
nineteen winters on the Gulfcoast of Florida in a condo near my family,
migrating from Illinois on the first of November. She always arrived cheerful
as a mockingbird at dawn, and the sun shone brighter for the rest of the
season.
Sure, it
was a bit of a bother for my wife or me to take time out of our schedules to
fly up to Illinois and drive her down to Florida so she could have her car
with her. But it didn’t begin to equate to the bother I was to her for the
first eighteen years of my life. It began when I demanded to be born in the
middle of the night and the hospital was twenty miles of mostly gravel roads
from home. I am sure it was a terrible bother when she sat up with me when I
cried in the night from an allergy that drove the doctors, Mom, and me crazy
until they figured out it was the chicken feathers in my pillow. Getting a
haircut on the back porch from Mom with her mechanical, semi-sharp clippers
was a bother and a pain for both of us as I provided the dissonant vocals. I
was fifteen years old before I experienced the joys of a barbershop haircut,
and it’s still one of the highlights of my social life.
God
blessed Mom with many other gifts. She could bring an ax to bear on a
chicken's neck with finesse, drive a team of horses, slop the hogs or milk the
cows when Dad worked late in the fields. Those same hands played the piano in
accompaniment to her beautiful soprano voice. She could wield an elm switch
across my behind like a Puritan schoolmarm, or cheer louder than any teenager
in the stands when my brother or I scored a touchdown. And she got more
Christmas cards than anyone I know, the fruit of selfless friendship. In her
seasonal Florida sojourns, she learned to play card games she didn’t even
like, just to be neighborly.
Sunday was
her favorite day because singing God's praise was her passion. With a college
degree in music, she directed the church choir all her working life, leaving
Dad with his monotone down in the hard, wooden pews, riding herd on four small
squirming sinners. No one in Henderson County was properly married or
buried unless blessed by Mother’s solos. From her first solo gig at age four
until six weeks before she died, Alberta's ageless vocal cords were in demand
for public gatherings. She taught hundreds more the joy of music. Two
generations of Illinois farm folks owe her for a great first grade
education—her first and third career after raising a family. At her wake I
heard scores of tearful testimonies to her impact on lives young and old.
By Grace
alone I'm adjusting to life without her hugs, yet my soul aches on Mother's
Day. I have a recording of her singing her five favorite hymns that in time
will be a wonderful tribute on this special day, but I need more than six
Mother’s Days to pass before I'm sufficiently sanctified to handle music from
heaven on my home stereo. At 5:07 a.m. last Friday, the morning after I
rewrote this oft told story for this blog, I was jolted wide-awake by her
calling my name. I’m not a mystic, but if it was just a vivid dream, I
remember nothing else. It was at least a dramatic reminder that her
godly influence on my life is undiminished six years after she left this
world.
I’m a
blessed son. Thanks, Mom.
Thank you,
LORD, for such a saintly Mom.
MY BROTHER
BY BIRTH AND REBIRTH
by JD
Wetterling
April 27, 2005
He is a dear brother, a faithful minister
and fellow servant in the Lord.
(Colossians 4:7b)
We've always been close. We even shared a bed back when we were still
wearing pajamas with feet in them. It was a rollaway bed in the second story
bedroom of a drafty old Midwestern farmhouse. It felt like a hammock. Many
mornings I awoke on the opposite side of the bed I went to sleep on. It took a
few extra years to housebreak my baby brother, and some cold winter nights he
provided the sole source of warmth in that bed. Few can claim the camaraderie
of sleeping in a cold bed in the same puddle with a bed-wetting sibling.
Except for our college years when John bulked up to play
football, we've been the same size, even though I have a sixteen-month head
start on him. Our one-eyed grandfather never could tell us apart, so he just
hyphenated both our names whenever he called either one of us: Jerry-John.
We also shared a passion for sports—a genetic thing in our
family. In baseball I was the pitcher and he was a fearless catcher. He had a
habit of squatting down too close to the batter, causing his mitt to interfere
with the swing of the bat.
One summer night in a Pony League game he came within an
inch of making me a vegetable. My control had deserted me so I was playing
third base. With a runner on second base, the batter laid down a bunt that
died three feet in front of the plate. Like his namesake, Mr. Bench, brother
John leaped to his feet, tossed off his mask, barehanded the ball and wound up
as he looked at first base. Sensing the play was away from me, I turned my
attention to the flying spikes headed toward my kneecaps. The runner arrived
in a cloud of dust, but before I could congratulate myself on avoiding
bloodshed, something stung my left earlobe. It was a ninety mile-an-hour
fastball headed toward left field from home plate. We won anyway, but we
argued long into the night about who was to blame (we had bunk beds by then).
I know I was at fault but it was years before I told him so.
In high school football I was the quarterback as a Senior
and John was the starting halfback as a Sophomore. It was one of the peaks of
parenthood for Dad and Mom. Dad had played football at the University of Iowa
in the depression, until the money ran out, and he could quote every football
statistic beginning with Bronco Nagurski's rushing yardage. Mom’s hysterical
soprano voice carried across the field better than the loudest cheerleader on
either side.
In the last game of the ’60 season I nearly died again—this
time for my brother. The conference championship was on the line and we
were the underdog playing a school twice our size. On the first play from
scrimmage, on our own twenty-five yard line, I took the snap from center, took
two steps to my right, and smacked the ball into John’s gut as he charged
straight ahead between right guard and right tackle. I continued down the
line, faked a handoff to the fullback slanting off-tackle, then faked a
bootleg on toward right end. I turned around just in time to see John bounce
off a wall of big corn-fed country boys. Still on his feet, he headed my way.
We turned the corner and, amazingly, the field ahead of us was clear.
John veered to the right of me and a step behind and we
sped toward the end zone, seventy-five yards away. Three defensive backs
slanted across the field to cut us off. They had the angle. The student body
was on its feet screaming, but rising above it all, as we raced past the
fifty-yard line, were Mom's cheers.
“Come o-o-o-o-n-n-n, Jerry. Come o-o-o-o-n-n-n, Johnny.”
And then I heard a sound like a cat makes when you step on his tail.
I gauged the closure rate of the three defenders, running
nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, and threw myself full length at their knees. In
those days only sissies wore kidney pads, and real men still didn't wear
facemasks. It was like being run over by a giant roto-tiller. As I lay face
down in the turf, trying to will my pain-wracked body up off the ground, I
could hear the play-by-play announcer yelling over the loudspeaker, “He's
going all the way, and big brother threw the block for him.” Then I heard
that cat again, and the crowd went crazy.
I staggered to my feet and stumbled toward the bench. An
ecstatic brother caught me from behind in a bear hug. I saw Dad standing on
the sidelines. An unlit, six-cent Emerson cigar angled out of his half-smile.
Our eyes met. There was just the slightest head nod—high praise from my old
man, and we both knew it.
We won.
Baby brother went on to play small college football and I
went to a big university and envied his collegiate gridiron glory. Then,
about ten years later, as he was driving a big combine in the field of our
farm, he felt it begin to tip over and he started to jump off. Somehow his
head cleared in the nick of time and he got the big machine stopped. It was
insulin shock from diabetes, and he’s been injecting himself daily ever
since.
It was twenty-seven football seasons after our big night
that we faced the biggest battle, only this time I couldn't block for brother
John and Dad had crossed the goal line of life. John looked like the
healthiest farmer in the county and was in the middle of his morning workout
when he felt chest pains. A week later, on the night before his scheduled
heart surgery, we both were sitting, casually dressed, in his hospital room
when the nurse walked in with a tray of pain-inflicting tools.
“Which one of you is the patient?” she asked. Seven words
have never before or since gotten my attention quite like that, but that's a
story for another time.
The next morning John was on the operating table and the
only interference I could run for him was intercessory prayer. In the middle
of his angiogram his heart stopped. What happened next is what popular
literature calls an out-of-body experience. John and I call it, in no
uncertain terms, a wake-up call from God. The doctors applied the high-voltage
paddles to his chest and a few minutes later I got to see him. I will forever
remember the look of his face—he glowed like Moses after being in the presence
of God on Mt. Sinai. I shivered, not from the cold of the Intensive Care Unit,
as he told me, in a halting, husky voice, what he had just experienced.
A few days later his by-pass surgery was successful.
Then, with his diabetes and heart history he had a new
problem: It took what profit there was from farming to pay his health
insurance premiums, so he rented out the farm and took a job as a janitor in
the local school district to get on a company health plan. Financially it
solved his problem, but it was quite a psychological adjustment for a proud
farmer, a member of the aristocracy in an agrarian culture, to be seen by
other farmer’s children with a broom in his hand. God in his grace humbles
those whom he means to exalt. Brother John became a beloved friend and father
figure to hundreds of kids, too many of whom had no father at home.
Fifteen years after that, just last year, he was diagnosed
with Hepatitis C, a disease that had laid dormant in his body since he
received a tainted blood transfusion during his heart surgery. He struggled
through six months of chemotherapy-type injections…successfully, and never
once said, “Why me, Lord,” never stopped trusting in, witnessing to and
singing the praises of the great God who brought him through all his
trials.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Most men die with their music
still inside.” That won't be the case with my brother. His days are now
filled with music leader duties, lay ministry and shepherding as an elder in
his church. Farming and custodial chores are just a sidelight.
I have often asked myself why my godly brother has suffered
so many more slings and arrows than I, and been used so mightily by God
through it all. I think it’s because his shoulders are so much broader than
mine. Paul told the Corinthians, “And God is faithful; he will not let you be
tempted beyond what you can bear.”[1] And I have always believed that those whom God would use to do
great things for his kingdom he first burnishes in the crucible of adversity.[2]
A warrior must first be toughened before he can do spiritual battle for the
King of Kings. My brother is tough—embracing him is like hugging a tree.
Our lives have taken such different paths since the
gridiron glory days of our youth. I have traveled the world while he has
bloomed where he was planted, spending nearly all his life within fifty miles
of his birthplace. But we will be together again one day, in a pain-free
healthiness and eternal joy beyond our comprehension, with our older brother,
the “firstborn among many brothers,”[3] our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This is not a eulogy, it's just that Wetterling men aren't
very good at baring their souls to one another in person—that's a genetic
thing, too, I guess—and I wanted him and the world to know how much I love
him, and how much we both love the Lord, while we're both still in the game.
ENDNOTES
[1] 1 Corinthians 10:13a
[2] If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Proverbs
24:10
[3] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the
image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:29
SPRINGTIME
ON MEDITATION MOUNTAIN
by JD Wetterling
April 20, 2005
O
LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name
in all the earth.
(Psalm 8:9)
I
spent the first third of my life longing for perpetual summer, the middle
third living in it, and am now back among four moderate seasons—the best
kind. Each season is pure joy at its best, entirely tolerable at its worst,
and all are so beautifully, metaphorically Biblical. I love living close to
nature in this
wilderness cathedral, with its
miraculous cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The spectacular beauty of all
things new in the spring, the riotous, near-rain-forest growing season of the
summer, and the glorious multi-colors of aged autumn leaves, followed by death
and then rebirth, is an annual catechism of God’s grace.
Just as dawn is the highlight of my day—I miss nary a
one—spring is the highlight of my year. I feel born again with every dawn,
regenerated with every spring. Twenty of the twenty-five different
kinds of trees within 25 yards of my front
door are busting their buds as I write this, the other five are evergreen.
The first dozen or so of 200
resident wildflowers,
(found, photographed and catalogued at Ridge Haven so far by Karen, my bride
of nearly forty years), are dazzling to my eyes as I hike to my favorite
mountaintop. The topo map labels it Frozen Mountain, but I call it Meditation
Mountain, from whence cometh my help,
[i]
and
I climb it regularly, praying with my eyes open as I ascend. The first part
of proper prayer is adoration, and I find it effortless amid the spectacular
spring resurrection taking place all around me on this hallowed ground. The
hike takes a little more work—it’s a 600-foot climb in a mile-and-a-half, an
invigorating uphill outbound, a joyous downhill homebound, and it has the
added benefit of keeping me at my varsity playing weight.
I have an
enduring fascination with the view from a mountaintop. I think perhaps it has
to do with a born-again desire to see the world through God’s eyes, or at
least as I envision him seeing it. But it’s also related to an earlier
memorable time in my life when I saw a great deal of the world from above,
through the bubble canopy of an F-100. The panoramic snapshots in my grey
matter file that are closest to the front of the memory drawer are all photos
from above: Athens from 30,000 feet, the Swiss Alps and Mt. Etna emitting a
swirling steam cloud on a clear day, the Azores and Midway way below, all
alone in a vast expanse of water.
What I see
from my mountaintop these days most closely approximates some close-up photos
from my file that few besides fighter pilots are blessed to see: The forlorn,
haunting hills of Scotland from just above the heather, the Italian Alps and
the Anatolian Mountains of Turkey from down amongst the peaks, and the jagged
karst and triple canopied mountains of Laos, wherein lies
my soul-brother wingman with
his F-100, in a grave known only to God. These things and
a hundred other things you have not
dreamed of pass through my mind as I thank Him for my bountiful
blessings and press my petitions on the mountaintop.
The
sweeping vistas of majestic mountainsides in their vernal transformation, from
the mauve of dense denuded trees and deep green of evergreens into a thousand
shades of new green, shout at me, “I AM.” Accenting the macro-view of this
divine work of art in perpetual progress are white splashes of serviceberry
and dogwood blossoms, and the opaque red of a billion maple buds, all on a
crystalline cobalt canvas not yet
permeated with the famous smoky blue of a Blue Ridge summer. I'm overwhelmed
with gratitude that I have been given eyes to see God's glory over so much of
this abundant earth.
[ii]
The
micro-view is of bright yellow and blue and purple and red wildflowers at my
feet, some no bigger than a squirrel’s ear, poking out from a mottled brown
bed of last year’s leaves. I find more eye-watering, intricate beauty in a
single tiny wildflower than in the most massive architectural masterpiece ever
constructed by the hand of man. Jonathan Edwards, on his walks in the New
England woods, was often moved to tears by the beauty of a wildflower. O
Lord, what I would give to climb Meditation Mountain with Jonathan Edwards. I
think you’d see two grown men weeping with grateful joy.
Occasionally a turkey is startled to flight at my intrusion into his world,
sounding like a helicopter rising from the underbrush. Aside from that it is
profoundly quiet on Meditation Mountain, no muffled whine of spinning turbine
blades, no meadowlarks or red-winged blackbirds trilling the day away as in my
flatland youth. Perhaps it has to do with predator birds lurking in the dense
woods. At dawn and dusk the hills are alive with avian arias of
praise—ecstatic cardinals and titmice announce the dawn and the soul-stirring
yodel of wood thrushes at vespers closes the day—but midday the birds go about
their business in silence. If there is any wind at all, it is just enough that
I hear angels’ wings in the treetops. Silence satisfies my soul, for reasons
the Psalmist makes abundantly clear: Be still and know that I am God.
[iii]
It reminds
me, too, of the most alone and intimate time I ever spent with my Creator,
high above the earth in an F-100, flying single ship—a rare thing for a
fighter pilot—between Taiwan and the Philippines. There was nothing but 360
degrees of sky and water, just as the world was at the end of the second day
of creation. The only colors were two shades of blue, illuminated by a
blinding fireball. The dials of my navigation instruments, with nothing to
lock on to, were slowly turning…looking…searching for something to home on,
accentuating my aloneness as I raced across the wide waters. Those who do not
know the Lord are like that, racing toward a catastrophic end,
searching…searching for they know not what, absent the Divine Lodestar.
Praise be to God I have seen the star in the east
[iv] and worship the Savior it announced,
[v] and am comforted by the Holy Spirit he sent
[vi] to graciously reside in the tumbledown shack of my
soul.
These
blessed spring days I feel least
alone
when I am alone with God on Meditation Mountain, rejoicing in his magnificent
handiwork and giving thanks for his unmerited favor. He hears my pleas,
restores my soul and sustains me with his mountain-cooled breath of life
eternal. It amazes me that the Holy God of the Universe could love this
sinner so much. With gravity on my side, I fly down off Meditation Mountain,
happy as a Mockingbird at dawn. No one can take away my joy,
[vii]
because,
unlike the trees and wildflowers on Meditation Mountain, I’ve been promised
just one cycle in my growing season, with vivid annual reminders of my
resurrection to come. My next spring will be an eternal one, in my Savior’s
presence, with bliss beyond the meaning of words,
[viii]
in a place made new forever.
ENDNOTES
Photo #1: new green of dogwood, new red of maple and old evergreen on
crystalline cobalt, by The Master Artist.
Photo #2: dogwood blossoms, by the King of Kings. Click on the thumbnails for
a big picture.
[i] Psalm 121:1
[ii] Psalm 57:5
[iii] Psalm 46:10a
[iv] Matthew 2:2
[v] Luke 2:11
[vi] John 15:26
[vii] John 16:22b
[viii] I Corinthians 2:9
FOR CHRISTIANS ONLY:
HOW LONG…?
by JD Wetterling
April 13, 2005
O men, how long shall my honor be turned into
shame? (Psalm
4:2)
Oh Lord, with sorrow and with shame,
We meekly would confess
How little we, who bear thy name,
Thy mind
and ways express.[i]
The blogosphere is a great invention, on
balance, and it’s making a positive impact on the world, but it surely is the
wild west of 21st century communication.
Lately I’ve
been reading some Christian blogs, blog responses, commentary, and open
threads that make me cringe, and I'm not referring to those periodic pesky
trolls.
It seems as if hate and rage have never been
more popular, even among those of us who have been commanded to love one
another.[ii]
It appears that many have been taking lessons in human relations from
attention-seeking terrorists, who were the first to realize how well rage
plays in the media's mainstream. If we spend prime time with the wicked, we
feel their influence. Among Christians, it is too often exacerbated by a
paucity of humility in the midst of debate, the flip side of faith that
forgets the definition of grace by which it comes. One of my favorite
Christian weblogs recently initiated an open thread with the disturbing plea,
“Be nice.” Even more disturbing, another Christian blogger I admire has
suffered major battle damage from friendly fire. And most condemning of all,
a hugely popular secular blogger recently bemoaned a spate of hate mail from
Christians.
If we would be soul winners,
a Biblical mandate for God’s elect, what we say and do on Monday through
Saturday must match our Sunday morning manner. If we are to demonstrate daily
the reality of the gospel, we should start with a Sunday saved-by-grace smile
and a tamed tongue.
For a time in my youth my
father sat on the local school board. His “lickin’s” for my transgressions
were worse than when he was just another farmer in the community. His
unsparing rod of choice was the closest approximation within reach when
required, and he was very creative. He never let me forget, whether he was
applying the fear of God to this incorrigible kid’s backside or just warning
me as I walked out the door, that the son of the Chairman of the School Board
was being held to a higher standard. Does not our Father in heaven, in whose
image my father was made, do the same? Who would be drawn to the God we
worship if we did not joyfully demonstrate the higher standards we inherit as
his adopted children?
Part of the problem is our
nature. Is it not intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, when
analyzing any personality but ourselves, that human nature is basically bad?
Take an objective look at your kids or grandkids. A Presbyterian friend and
father of three lively boys says that anyone who does not believe in the
depravity of man never had kids. I say, “Amen.”
It takes a regenerated heart and a lot of grace
to admit the same about oneself, as the Apostle Paul did: “For what I do is
not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on
doing…. What a wretched man I am.”[iii]
Actually, the Psalmist said it first: “There is no one who does good, not
even one.”[iv]
John Calvin emphasized this in his magnum opus, The Institutes of the
Christian Religion, and even pagans and liberal Christians who think his
theology is wrong prove him right daily.
The New Testament writer,
James, has a sobering warning that applies to internet communicators. In 1:26
he says, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but
deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” My fingers on the
keyboard are an extension of my tongue, and when I get wound up they fly out
of control even easier than my tongue, deceiving my own heart. Sitting behind
the protective veil of my computer screen I cannot see your nonverbal cries of
pain, and I can say things to you I’d never have the nerve to say in person.
In the guise of righteous indignation I can vent and you can’t lay a hand on
me from that distance. Then the geometric progression of the internet lets my
lousy witness circle the earth at the speed of electrons, demonstrating "my
religion is worthless." A computer is a megaphone all the world can hear. If
James were alive today he might rewrite 3:6 as follows: Fingers on the
keyboard are a fire, a world of unrighteousness when angry mind mates with
machine.
R. C. Sproul, Jr. may not have the towering
intellect of his
father, but he has a greater
literary gift, in my view. He recently stated the Christian’s spiritual war
plan about as well as it can be stated: “The path to winning the culture war,
the war out there, is to win the sanctification war, the war in here. We will
change the world only as we, by the power of His Spirit, change ourselves.”[v]
When will we start gratefully treating others with even a fraction of the
grace that God has showered on us? R. C., Jr., has the answer there, too—when
we change ourselves “by the power of His Spirit.” Have you wounded your
spouse or a friend with your razor tongue lately; or taken devilish glee in
your brilliant literary dissection of a Christian blogger with a differing
point of view; or demonically smoked the open thread field for Christ with
your theological sophistry? Repentance still leads to forgiveness for those
who love the Lord. And if you don’t feel repentant, maybe the Spirit doesn’t
reside in your soul.
Solomon’s practical wisdom
for living offers some divine guidance. He said in Proverbs 7:3, “…keep my
commandments and live…bind them on your fingers.” That advice seems even more
relevant now that computer keyboards are a proxy for the human tongue. If
you’re a lousy typist like me, you spend a lot of time looking at your
fingers. (When I was in high school, only sissies took typing class; real
men-in-training, in their macho myopia, saw no need for secretarial skills.)
Matthew Henry interprets the proverb
to mean wearing God’s commandments as a wedding ring, a badge of
“thy espousals to God,” as an honor God has put on you, and an “ensign of thy
dignity” as his child, a “constant memorandum to thee of thy duty.” A potent
metaphor! Try remembering that and trashing your Christian friends as you
type. If that doesn’t paralyze your fingers, then your sin is worse than you
assume. A self-deluded heart saves the devil a lot of work.
Here’s the
best antidote for an acerbic tongue and complicit fingers: Bathe them in the
pure living waters of Amazing Grace through penitential prayer.[vi]
Would you please pray with me? O Lord, my thoughts are sinful all the time,
and when my words and deeds are not, my motives are. I desperately need your
forgiveness every moment…and your constant restraining hand, or I am ruined.
Teach me to curb my tongue and put my hands in my pockets when I feel
self-righteous, and to forgive as easily and often as you have forgiven me.
May I never forget that revenge is yours, not mine. By the power of the Holy
Spirit, make me a winsome witness for your Glory. In Christ, my
Savior’s name I
plead, Amen.
Endnotes
[i]
Spurgeon’s Devotional Bible, page 746
[ii]
A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you. so
you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are
my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:14. See also Romans
13:8, 1 Peter 1:22, 1 John 3:11, 23, 4:7,11,12, 2 John 1:5
[iv]
Psalm 14:3, Psalm 53:3
[v]
“Machen’s Warrior Fathers,” Table Talk, April 2005, page 58
[vi]
For a powerful primer on prayer by one of the great all-time prayers see
“Martin Luther on Prayer, April 9, 2005, at
Blogotional
The Ultimate Reality Check
by JD Wetterling
April 6, 2005
…his word is in my heart like
a fire…I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9b)
Welcome to Midweekly Reality Check: Meditations on the Mountain. It’s where I
live and work, praise the Lord, not just something I climb like an aging hippy
when I want to meditate. I’ve had an uncommon life with blessings far beyond
my deserving, and now I have the time and inspiration to emulate the psalmist,
to ponder and proclaim, with passion and plain English, all that a gracious
God has done for me.[1]
That will include, among other things[2] ,
a witness to the bountiful showers of God’s grace in my growing season (in
progress), with vignettes of the angels who cultivated me: From a heartland
farm through the Orient aflame to the Old World on nuke alert in a Cold War,
at the tip of a high-speed spear—a single-seat jet fighter; from the
metropolitan madness of post-modern America and Europe via Florida’s slothful
Suncoast to the Delectable Mountains of the Blue Ridge; from birth to rebirth
enroute to Glory beyond; from incorrigible country kid by way of Top Gun and
urban overachiever to mellow mountain man. I’m a blessed soul, utterly
u