Spring In Texas

“…Now that your rose is in bloom, a light hits the gloom on the grey.”  – Kiss From a Rose (1994)  Recorded & composed by:  Seal.

Spring is springing in Texas.  As we knock on the door of April, there’s visible signs breaking through.  The cover shot above is the celebrated Bradford Pear just across the street from my place.  I always watch from the blooms from this tree as I equate its awakening to Easter season.

A Texas spring is kicked off by an explosion of a rainbow of colors along the highways, side streets, and pastures.

Just hit the nearest entrance ramp to an interstate, or more rural state highway, and soon your eyes will be filled with Indian Blankets, Black Eyed Susans, Pink Primroses, and Indian Paintbrushes.  No need to plant them, although many do for strategic landscaping displays, just expect these little scenic treasures.

However, the most beloved, the most watched-for, the most valued would the the Texas State Flower…the Bluebonnets.

It’s guaranteed that if a blue-eyed person sits among the Bluebonnet patches, the shade in the eyes radiate.  In fact, as you drive along the freeway, it’s not unusual to see families taking pictures of their kids among the Bluebonnets.  I’ve personally witnessed a bride, fully decked out in her gown, posing in the Bluebonnets for the professional photographer.  Our next door neighbors followed suit.  Before they were married, he came from Oregon, and she was raised in Florida.  After they settled here in Texas they couldn’t wait to have their family photo  taken among the Bluebonnet blooms.  They knew just what to drag out of their closet, too.  Sweet family.

Earlier I said you can find them mainly in patches.  It’s true.  Rarely will you find a large crop of them, like a cornfield.  But frankly, I like it that way.  When driving along plots of the Texas State Flower, it just seems to push the unanticipated joy button. 

Texas wildflowers are brilliant, especially when nature is used to cluster them like a painter’s palette mix.  It’s fairly normal to witness Bluebonnets intermingling with the yellows of Sunflowers, the ambers and mauves of Indian Paintbrushes, and the golden winks you catch from the Buttercups.  Mowers are careful to mow around them.  However, I hate to throw a wet blanket on it all.  There is a down-side.

Here in Texas, most wildflowers don’t last long at all.  If you are a Texan, you know to take those pictures while you can.  Our prized Bluebonnets wave howdy only for about five or six weeks.  The perennials usually peak in mid April.  By May most wilt away, not to be seen again until mid March, or so.  For those who diligently watch for them in March, it’s a somewhat sad time when the Bluebonnets begin to fade and say goodbye.

My great-grandmother, on my mom’s side, was well known for her green thumb.  Everything she touched turned green.  She lived in Cash, Texas, a small farming community about sixty-five miles east of Dallas.  Her little frame house, some would say cottage, was built on the edge of one of her brother’s pastures.  Sometime in the mid 1960’s, she planted daffodils along the exterior of the foundation.  I remember playing in the barn next to her little house watching her carefully tend to them about this time of year.  Some would eventually wind-up in a vase on her farmhouse dining table .

Photo:  gardeningknowhow.com

In 1971, she passed away while sleeping peacefully in her bed at the young age of 61.  The house, long since removed, can be easily imagined as you drive up to the spot.  There, along the outline of the old forgotten house, are daffodils blooming each and every spring.  I don’t drive out there often, but when I do, it’s this time of year.  You can count on me to stop the car, gaze at the piece of land, and smile.  The perennials line up, just as they did in 1966, testifying that Ella Swindell once lived on that spot.

“…you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” – James 4:14 (NIV)

Our Bluebonnets, and other Texas wild flowers, are a welcomed sight.  But the sweet and sour is reality.  We all admire the beauty, knowing all the while they are short-lived, as the dry Texas sun dictates.

As I get older, I learn so much more than I ever thought I would.  If you’re over fifty years old, you know what I’m talking about.  Not only do we gain knowledge and wisdom (hopefully) we also experience the fragility of life.  Pick a topic.  What fades away after its prime?  What weakens with wear or age?  Could it be the cushy job?  Can it be a bank account?  Dare I mention relationships?  Like a patch of Sunflowers and Bluebonnets, stellar health, often taken for granted, in a single moment collapses.  What about that mid-life crisis red Corvette, once driven with pride, grows old, chipped, and rusty?  Then there’s someone’s model home, the floor-plan of which is the envy of every neighbor to the right and left, sags with age while the pipes and foundation cracks.  Everything depreciates.  Everything thins and erodes.  Everything we touch, feel, see, and taste is temporal.

So James would write, “What is your life?”  It’s a hard question when not distracted elsewhere.  Right?

I think the Bluebonnets, if they were able to verbally communicate, would urge us onward.  I can almost hear them say, “It’s okay.  Bloom where you’re planted, no matter how short the time may be.”  Jesus said we should not take the light, the Spirit of God planted within each who He calls His own, and hide it under a bowl.  The light within is there to share in a darkened world for others to see, and be drawn to the glow of what is done in love for others.  Can the scorching sun beat us down to wither for a time?

Sure.  Yet, the Creator speaks truths in nature to show we can, and will be, perennials.

So, I say, Bluebonnets don’t bloom for the short span only to take selfies.  They bloom to shine out God’s artistry for our eyes and hearts.  And so are we.

Arise from the dirt.  It can be done when nourished with fuel for the race.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.” -Isaiah 40:8 (NAS)

 

 

 

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Trash In – Trash Out

“I don’t know why nobody told you how to unfold your love.  I don’t know how someone controlled you.  They bought and sold you.  I look at the world and I notice it’s turning while my guitar gently weeps.  With every mistake we must surely be learning.  Still my guitar gently weeps…”   While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968).  Recorded by:  The Beatles.  Composer:  George Harrison

A friend of mine took the cover shot above for a Facebook post.  Like her, I immediately saw the humor.  For many who are against fast food, as it bashes decent dietary habits, this is the perfect photo to get on a soapbox and rage away.  Once again I laughed thinking about an old friend of mine who never cleaned out his car.  Whenever I hopped in his Triumph TR6, I first had to push over all the old fast food wrappers, along with the burger boxes, just to sit.  Then, my feet found a place to rest on top of more take-out sacks and such.  The trunk was even worse.  There’s a somewhat faded memory of a cousin who would finish his burrito while driving his pick-up.  After he finished, without a miss, he would toss the wrapper and sack in the bed of the truck behind him where it found company with dozens of other discarded items.  Here, in the photo above, at least as you order from the outdoor menu, you could throw-away yesterday’s take-out trash at the same time.  However, wherever you go, you’ll find garbage.

Trash in – trash out.

I needed a chuckle this week.  Watching the news sank my spirit.  How about you?  I’ve been thinking about how you must be feeling.

God bless the citizens of Christchurch, New Zealand.  Here we are, yet another senseless mass slaughter.  Dozens of worshipers, men, women, and children, in two different mosques were killed and severely injured.  As often the case, the evil-doer had posted a lengthy manifesto.  It was filled with hatred for other races, and those practicing various religious faiths across the planet.  If you’ve been living in a cave this week, you might be unaware that this corrupted heart, this darkened soul, found forethought to wear a body camera to live stream his ethnic cleansing event for the world to see on social media.  Millions have seen the tragedy from his viewpoint.  In the shredding of lives, he somehow survived, as if protected.

Oh, and should I mention the thousands of Christians in Nigeria which have been slaughtered by Muslim extremists all within the last year?  It is still going on.  Yes, it’s true.  Interestingly enough, it is being reported the victims are mostly women and children in this case.  Very much like a Nazi military doctrine, the idea is to eliminate reproduction of Christian families in that small nation.  For some reason very few news outlets cover the genocide there.  Millions of Christians and Muslims are in concentration camps in China right now.  China calls them “Reeducation centers”.  Honestly, I am barely touching the surface of the topic.  There’s so much more to report concerning hatred on wheels.

Thousands of thoughts run through my mind as I write this.  Frankly, the old man in me wants revenge for the bloodshed of the innocent ones taken from us.  The heart is a tool of great unselfish love…and unthinkable evil destruction.  Washing over me are the biblical words of God, “Vengeance is mine”.

Hearing how the evil one in New Zealand strapped on his camera, along with admiring other mass murderers of note, and his total disregard for life itself, with the exception of his own, I can only imagine one of his goals.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out other fools like him will follow suit.  With the 17 minutes of squashing human life from his camera, looking very much like a violent video game, a huge population of sick kids will use it for their video gaming, with their faces pressed against computer screens.  Already the video has been reproduced for sinister marketeers.  God help us all.

The investigation into this 28 year old mass murderer is underway.  When all the facts come out, no doubt there will be found violent gaming in his little darkened cave.  Along with other vicious videos, there will also be tons of extreme violent movies, authentic death-lovers videos, and celebrated ghoulish websites.  Oh, yeah.  They exist.

Here’s what trash in the mind will do for you.

Photo:  Huffington Post

When diving deep into the garbage evil sets up, soon one can discover entanglement with the refuse once admired from a distance.  Once it sticks to the pursuer, as it wraps its claws around the mind, it actually distorts who the fantasizer was created to be.  It disfigures the one pursuing.  Truly an assault on the Creator Himself.  Trash in – Trash out.

We are like trash receptacles.  How we act-out all depends on what we toss into ourselves.  We are what we consume.

Make no mistake about it.  The process works like this.  First there is a single thought.  That thought is allowed, given permission, to enter the storage of the mind where fantasy breeds.  The imagination of the mind is sparked by the thought, which came from outside of one’s self, and begins to choose to feed on the thought.  A sense of pleasure hatches from the fantasy, and it is entertained if allowed to fester by lingering.  Soon, the hatching is not a single hatch at all, but rather hatchlings, like infant snakes, or parasites.  As they swim through the bloodstream of the heart and soul, only untried action is left to perform, as it hunts for an ascension to satisfy the urge implanted in the core of a pre-criminal.  The seedling of a thought allowed to nestle ends up overwhelming the will.  Hate is very much like a serpent crawling out of its shell.  It can, and will, only grow.  It is covert, camouflaged, and quick.

It’s times like these when people in the world, who feel intelligent when stating there is no “evil”, only bad decisions, need to reevaluate their belief system.  My recommendation is Jesus, the Judge, the Destroyer of evil.  In scripture, recording the life of Christ, agents of evil feared Him, even asking permission to escape from His immediate vicinity.  I love reading those accounts.

Please, if you dabble in violent video gaming, or you have a child who does, RUN FROM IT!  Soaking in it will distort the view of life, love, and our fellowman.  Visuals are a tool to burn, to etch, to brand images in the mind where nothing can be reversed.  One cannot “unsee” these images.

Think well on a passage from the writings of Catherine of Genoa from the late 1400’s.

“…I have given the keys of my house to Love with permission to do all that is necessary.” – From:  Life and Teachings

Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. on Pexels.com  

Dregs in the tank can be burned away with fuel for the race.

“Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable – if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy – dwell on these things.”  St. Paul, Philippians 4:8 (CSB)

Knowing Where You’ve Been

“I guess happiness was Lubbock, Texas in my rearview mirror.  But now happiness was Lubock, Texas growing nearer and dearer…”   Texas In My Rearview Mirror, (1974).  Written and recorded by:  Mac Davis.

I left Texas once to chase a dream, building on my career.  It’s true what they say about never being able to go back home again.  I did come back.  However, my town, Dallas/Ft Worth area, had grown and changed.  Among the alterations, more glass, steel, and concrete.  Nevertheless, I was glad to be back.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, “A Family Affair”, I had the joy of spending lots of time with my three daughters.  It’s been a celebration of hearts as my middle daughter, Megan, was visiting from New York.  She brought her boyfriend with her this time.  He had never been to Texas and truly wanted to get a good taste of the culture.  That’s not always easy to show, as the Metroplex has grown into an international community.  In Dallas we tend to demolish the old and rebuild.  Feeling what he really wanted was to experience our historical side, we pulled out all the stops.  Of course, he wanted to visit the grassy knoll in downtown Dallas where JFK was assassinated.  For Texans, in general, it’s a tourist spot we are not proud of.

Besides treating him to Texas style Mexican food (Tex-Mex), along with some of the best Texas BBQ available, we drove him out west, so to speak.

Photo:  My Grandpa and Grandma Brooks.

We visited Graham, Texas, a couple of hours west of the city, where cowboys and oil fields are the norm.  My dad’s family is there where we are part of the historical landscape.  My great-grandfather, Lewis Pinkney Brooks, helped to found that part of Texas.  In fact, he was the second sheriff of Young County, Texas.  He built a home there in the mid 1870’s where one of my cousins resides to this day.

Photo;  Brooks Homestead

The homestead is registered in the Texas Historical Society.  He was a pioneer, decorated Confederate soldier, builder, and cattle drover.  Individuals like, Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickok, and Wyatt Earp were contemporaries.  After the Civil War, he left Georgia on a mule to settle in the Graham, Texas area where the Comanche and the Tonkawa native Americans ruled.  There are hair-raising stories concerning gunfights, grave robbers, horse-thieves, and indian wars.  The old homestead was also used as a stagecoach stop for weary travelers, as well as, frontier families in covered wagons heading west.  His wife was a bit of the community doctor and midwife.  She tended to many who needed physical and medical aid, no matter what race or skin color.  Yet, the land was wild, rough, and untamed.  The gun turrets he built in the attic walls helps to tell the tale.  It’s a rich history and heritage I hold dear to my heart.  It’s never a chore to drive out to spend time in the old homestead.  Frankly, it’s like a museum, with a great deal of love sown into its lintels.  We were honored to share it with our younger generation.

The following day, we drove our New York friend to the famous Ft Worth Stockyards before touring the red waters of the Brazos River, along with Ft. Belknap, just outside of Graham, Texas.

Photo:  fortworthstockyards.org

A wealth of Texas history feeds this area of Ft Worth.  Just to the north of the modern downtown high-rises, the old west is almost unchanged.  Throngs of tourists flood the Stockyard District of the city each year.

Photo:  Our friend took this shot from his cell phone.

As early as the late 1850’s, cattle drovers drove their cattle up from many areas including, southern Texas and Mexico, then down Exchange Street to the Ft Worth corrals and railroad.  There the herds were prepared for auctioning, or loading onto outbound cattle cars on trains headed north for places like, Kansas City, Chicago, and Denver.  The unique Texas Longhorn breed was, and is, a high commodity.  The top of their hips are almost six feet high.  There’s no other sound exactly like hooves pounding the antique bricked streets.

Photo:  fortworthstockyards.org

Although the Stockyards are family friendly today, it wasn’t always that way.  Just like in the movies, saloons, whiskey bottles, and skimpy-clad women eager to take your money were the order of a cowboy’s day.  It was here where outlaws like, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Sam Bass, and the James brothers frequented the streets.  Also, Bonnie and Clyde found a temporary refuge in the Stockyard Hotel, now a luxury hotel displaying a Texas historical marker.  In fact, the infamous cowboy outlaw from Texas, John Wesley Hardin, didn’t do well in hotels in the late 1800’s.  He once shot a cowboy through the hotel room wall.  It seems the man was snoring too loudly.

Photo:  stockyardshotel.com

Twice a day, cowboys drive Longhorns across the tracks, down Exchange Street, while onlookers gather with cameras in hand.  It was a stampede of Texas history for our friend from New York.

Photo:  Sarah Hetrick

May I get real and ask you some hard questions which might offend you?  Either way, I’ll love you.  Okay, here goes.

In an age when a selective younger generation feels empowered by destroying statues representing our history, whether good or bad, I can’t help but feel a mistake is being made.  We saw ISIS doing the same thing to monuments, ancient ruins, and antiquities from the biblical days of Nineveh.  Hear me out before you judge me too harshly.

Sure, one can ask if all of Texas history is good.  Quickly I would be the first to answer in the negative.  On the other hand, I would point out the overwhelming majority of Texas history is positive and inspiring.  In order to appreciate where one lives, it should be understood where one comes from, warts and all.  It’s all about what makes us who we are, and where we are going.  After all, if we, as individuals, take it upon ourselves to burn all things we personally do not like, what does that make us?  What does it say about us?  In this scenario, I dare say, nothing would be left to remember, or observe.  If we succeed in the attempt to erase history, where does that take us?  How does that enrich us?  How do we educate ourselves, or avoid repeating mistakes from the past?  Better yet, how does that serve future generations?  Do we truly want museums to be eradicated, along with the Library of Congress, free speech, free press, etc.?  Something, somewhere will offend someone, somewhere.  Only cows belong in cattle train-cars.

Ancient Egypt declared all historical characters and events were not to be recorded, if they put Egypt’s kingdom in a bad light.  Even certain pharaohs, queens, and races of people were removed from their hieroglyphic records.  If not for archaeological efforts, as well as, other historical documents, we would be unaware of much of Egypt’s history.  It’s a shame.  Their future generations were stiff-armed to learn more of their own culture.   

One of the commands in the Bible, from Genesis and onward, is one simple word spoken by God.  Numerous sentences begin with the word, “Remember…”   The word erupts often in the scrolls, especially in the Torah.  It is filled with God urging Israel to “Remember”, or to “Recall” where they had been, what they had gone through, and Who brought them out of harm and slavery, etc.  He wanted them to remember not only the victories, but also the pain of racism, suffering, defeats, and famines.  There’s value in documenting the sourness of our times.  As we enter the Passover and Easter season, it’s a significant light bulb for us to recall how Jesus broke the bread, then poured the wine and said, (Paraphrased for modern emphasis) “Do this often to remember me and my sacrifice for you.”  Remembering is an important element in the growth, the thanksgiving, and the psychology of a society.

It’s no wonder why in Texas battles for independence it was shouted, “Remember the Alamo!”

Dismantling the rearview mirror isn’t a wise thing.  The road ahead is at stake.

Happy trails begins with fuel for the race.

“Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’…” Isaiah 46:9-10 (ESV)

 

 

A Family Affair

“It’s a family affair, it’s a family affair.  One child grows up to be somebody that just loves to learn…”  Family Affair (1971), Recorded by:  Sly & The Family Stone.  Composer:  Sly Stone

Somebody told me once that the terrific thing about grandchildren is, after they visit they go home.  That thought leaves some room for the idea our own kids don’t leave to go home because they ARE home.  For me, as a dad, that was a good thing.  I was/am blessed to have three great daughters.

To my grave I will say, I was gifted by God to be in a position to take on “Mr. Mom” for many years.  Tabitha (31), my oldest, and Megan (29) are two very different ladies.  Who said siblings had to be alike?

(1998)

When they were born, it was early in my radio career, working overnights.  When they were about two and four, I was on the air in the evenings (7pm-12am) for a few more years before taking daytime on-air hours.  It was during those sleepy evening and overnight shows I was able to be with my girls in the daytime.  Moreover, it was their formative years, all the way through elementary school days.  I didn’t plan it.  It literally was one of those “God Things” in our lives.

Domestically speaking, those were times of horrific turmoil in hour home.  We did a decent job of hiding it from friends, but it all took its toll.  In efforts to avoid dishing out unnecessary dirt on some private family dynamics, I will say nothing more on the subject.

All things work out together for God’s purpose.  So, it was my pleasure to instill in these young hearts my faith, my real-world experience, and loads of wacky, swinging-from-the-chandelier-playtime.  We built memories.  Most of all, when they needed protection, they knew who to run to.

Nine years after Megan came along, D’Anna, my youngest, was born.  Unfortunately, I was working an afternoon drive-time show during those same years in her life.  I regret I didn’t get the same amount of quantity time with her, but we sure had tons of quality times together.

(2003)

When thinking back to those days of tea parties by the dollhouse, walking on hands and knees pretending to be a riding horse, or playing dress-up (Complete with make-up.) I would never consider changing any of it.  Nope, not one thing.  It was all so worth it.

(1992)

During my daddy/daughter years, I dated my girls.  We set calendar days, reserving them for “Dates with dad.”  Sure, we did stuff as a pack, but I wanted one-on-one time with each girl.  Just a movie, playground, or dinner at a favorite spot always suited us nicely.  Again, all so worth it.

(2007)

If parents were blatantly honest, I feel it would be said we learned so much while parenting.  I know I did.  Do you feel that way?  The triumphant trio grew up knowing they never had to “perform” or “measure-up” for my love.  Each one saw unconditional love, no matter what kind of trouble they fell into, or words spoken in haste, or diverting to another ideology different than mine.  To this day, it holds true.  Scripture taught me the way God loves.  It works.  There are rewards of various shapes and hues.  For one, to this day they want to communicate with me.  The girls want to visit with me, showing honor and respect personally toward their old man.  Although I am faulty, blemishes and all, somewhere, sometime, I must have done something right.  It really was so worth it.

Today, I’m about thirty minutes away from Tabitha and D’Anna.  I love it!  Megan is about a four hour flight away.  That’s hard.  Usually, when she comes for a visit, it’s either for a funeral, a wedding, performing with her band on tour, or to be by my side when I am in the hospital.  In recent years I was on my deathbed twice.  She was there to join Tabitha and D’Anna next to me both times.  Feeling their hands in mine gave me an enormous amount of comfort, a boost to fight for life.

(This week, march 2019.  L-R:  Megan, Tabitha, and D’Anna.)

This week, Megan, who is literally a busy rock star and recording artist in Western New York, came to spend some time with us in Dallas, with a boyfriend in tow.  Things are getting somewhat serious for them.  He seems like a really nice guy.  In fact, we have a few things in common.  As we watched them drive away for the day in their rent-a-car, my wife leaned over to me and said, “Your girl got her a guy just like her dad.”  I replied, “REALLY?”  She went on to explain our interests, talents, and backgrounds are very much the same.  Even the coloring of our eyes and hair are the same.  How come that didn’t pop out at me?

(2016)

There is one thing very noticeable to me.  It is the connection we share as a family.  When my girls and I are together, it seems like we pick up right where we left off last time.  The years don’t seem to calculate our ages, or bond.  Our first dinner together this week testified to it all.  We could tell what each other was going to say.  We knew when we were going to laugh, what we would eat, and what our favorite movies are.  It’s amazing to me.

In scripture, God calls those who belong to Him “His children”, an intimate title to say the least.  He states the number of hairs on our head are numbered.  Now THAT’S intimate.  It is written He knows our thoughts before we think them, or speak them.  He knows how and why we tick.  Most of all, He said we know His distinct voice in our hearts.  My favorite name for Him comes from the Aramaic, the ancient language Jesus spoke.  It’s the word  “Abba”, meaning “Daddy”.  It’s a very affectionate, closely knit family title for a father.  When crying out in pain, from the grunting of the core of the hurting heart, one calls out for relief to the cozy “Daddy” instead of the more official and distant term, “Father”.  Two of His biblical descriptions are “The Rock”, and “Shelter”.  Jesus Himself gave us a snapshot of how He loves by describing a hen.  He mentioned how sheltering she is by spreading her wings over her chicks, pulling them to her side, taking on the downpours onto herself.  What a beautiful picture.  It’s exactly the definition I’ve tried to be, and continue to attempt to be, for my girls.  There are times of failure in this area for me, but it’s what I strive for.  In the end, it’s all so worth it.

My hope is that no matter where they are in life, or on the planet, they can feel our DNA strand.

Family ties can be tightened when knotted with fuel for the race.

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are…”  1 John 3:1 (NAS)