Heroes and Roads

On the road part deus.

I wish I had the ability to learn math. I take that back, I wish I had the gall to tell myself to shut-up long enough to listen. I wish I understood gravity, and I wish that I knew the principles of trigonometry. I wish I understood why my spine did what it did and I wish that my knowledge could help someone who needed answers. I wish that I knew how to propel rockets into space or build drills that find the depths of mines. I wish I could find my falsetto back and I wish I could sit with my dad at a table and understand the words that shaped his profession. I admire a man or a woman who dedicates him or herself to one thing such as respiratory medicine.

I've not seen such a life. My road marked with pot-holes defined by a sometimes bad temper, laziness, addictions and lack of many things. I thought I'd learned how to recognize my limitations and I suppose all our roads are marked with them. I became my limitations.

I always knew I couldn't build a house or a road. I knew they'd have to be built for me. But I also knew that I had the world at my finger tips if only I could find myself to dedicate my life to its fruit. I've learned It's alright to spend my life trying to please someone else, but eventually I must make a decision for myself and my family. I could've played piano way-back-when...piano seems like a lost art amongst men. I could've pursued publishing or television. It seems I could've striven for responsibility long ago.

Now I'm here. I've preached, I've taught, I've learned how to play guitar. I've counseled and I've given advice. I've learned how to read a bank statement, I've learned about real estate, learned how to write and learned how to negotiate. I've learned to talk over the phone and I've learned how to resolutely make decisions for my family. Lots of people became my mentors and teachers along the way.

My point--I've seen all your lives in tid-bits along the way and you've seen mine. I love life that way because I'm sure you've watched me work as often as I've watched you. I'm not sorry I've failed in front of you. I am sorry for the days and years I hid from you.

The things is, I'm me and what I've done might have patched up a pot-hole for you along the road. I know you've saved me from a few. There are great scientists and teachers and workers. The smell of the first rocket that sailed into the heavens rings in the memory of the folks who lived in that day. There are those with a dream and others who ask what they can do for their country. There are great businessmen of whom I've talked about and read. I've met a few of them. Maybe they're knowledge has put us where we are today with Heartland Stores. I met a bonafide star of television and stage the other day. His legacy lies in some books and his actions might have changed the course of history. But he or they are not my heroes...building blocks maybe, but not heroes. I've got my parent's love for words, my dad's hard but patient head. I've got my mom's love for English and poetry and I've got my grandfather's sense of honor and my grandmother's sense of humor. I've got my mom's love for singing and my dad's love for the guitar. I know in whose shadow I've tread until I created my own shadow. And In lieu of my own little ones are those who've needed my shadow for one reason or the next. And I know with whom I am cleft and I am incandescently in love with Her.

Maybe I could've been the one who passed on skills like being an organist to the next generation. I've turned into the guy who simply walks a broken road and whose God has allowed others to watch and learn. I'm glad about that. Because we watch and learn, we gather together and we worship the God who paves roads. We get to watch those on stage playing and singing and we get to be glad for them. We get to watch teachers and cooks and secretaries and preachers and financiers. We get to watch servers and mechanics and we get to watch janitors and builders and cleaners. We're all so afraid of tootin' our own horns, but I'm not afraid to toot mine. My trumpet is pointed towards heaven as my knees are solidly fixed to earth. Some of my notes have been sour but my true heroes forgive them and encourage me to play again, as I've sometimes forgiven another's sour note and encouraged them.

I'm not afraid to toot my own horn because I'm not an island and I'm playing along side my wife ringing bells and singing purely, beside a clarinet and a guitar and a drum and I'm playing beside violins and organs and all those who are tootin' something meant for them. Together we make an orchestra and it makes traveling the road through the narrow gate really loud...but amazingly beautiful.

Roads and those who walk them.

Life is a race and we're always training. My training hasn't looked the same as yours maybe. But I train. My heroes...I don't really have any. But I know who's blood runs through my veins and I know who's name I shall never seek to disparage. And I know who's breath passed into them and who said it was Good. And I know who's Sabbath rest we now lie in.

Roads.