Here I am back on the farm. Most of the land no longer belongs to our family. It’s not the 90s, it’s the 2020s. My mom has cancer, and I’m getting divorced after 19 years and two children. I’ve come back to this place for healing. For you see, the name of the place I grew up is [bradtip text= “Eden” tooltip= “so beautiful I have over 40 Youtube videos from there”] after the location where God made earth as it as in heaven. I’m sure there are many places with this name, because people who name things are broken, sore, cancerous, abused, abusing, and sick of death taking their friends. When I arrived on Sunday I learned that my favorite oak tree, one that I’ve driven circles around countless times, had fallen in the storm.

When I was that 15-year-old learning how to drive this chopping machine in Part 1, I had big dreams. In fact, I can remember having big dreams as far back as I can remember. I thought the world was gonna be awesome. I could be a ninja. I could be a police officer. I could be one of those guys that flies the helicopter so the other guy can clip onto the high-power lines. Actually no I wanna be the guy that jumps from the helicopter to the power lines! The world seemed like a place where the opportunities were endless, and I tried to imagine what the future would be like.

What? I was just a kid. I didn’t know anything. I had no clue that Father was lining up adventures for me so exciting and praiseworthy, my imagination at the time just wasn’t big enough to contain it. We have weapons inside of our minds? We can advance the Kingdom by pushing back darkness? We can step on scorpions and snakes, and that’s actually a metaphor that means we can tell demons to leave in the name of Messiah? At 15 it’s just not possible to know God that well. There was just no way to imagine what God could do with my life. It reminds me of my favorite poem in the New Testament, written by John, buddy of Jesus:

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children, because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. 
1 John 2:12-14

When I was the “young men” in this poem, it was all about fighting dragons. Or since those are extinct, fighting horseflies. Me versus the devil to decide how drunk I’ll get tonight or how much porn I’ll sneak when no one is looking or how many packs of cigarettes I’ll have to buy underage this week. But now that I’m a father, I know the one who is from the beginning. I’ve spent decades witnessing the goodness of God to those who are obedient, and I’m not all that obedient. I can confidently testify of the resurrection of His Son the firstborn of the dead, because I carry in my body the very Spirit of God.

I Challenge Horseflies to a Rematch!

I’m old now. I’m sure 15 year old me thought when he invented time travel, he could take on 40 year old me. But a 15 year old hasn’t finished growing a prefrontal cortex, so he has no idea what a 40 year old is capable of! Here’s what I’m gonna do: I will write this post while being attacked by horseflies, and this time I won’t break anything or raise my voice. How? I told you my mom had cancer and I came back here for healing. Well, 40 year old me wakes up with the sun every morning and runs a few miles. All I have to do is run into the trees by the marsh sweaty and breathing deeply; they’ll come to me.

Recap of Round One

Anyone reading part 2 of a story ought to have read part 1, but I understand how hard reading is so here’s the quick version: I was 15, I was driving my dad’s tractor, and I was tormented by horseflies which are the most bloodthirsty and fastest turning creature flying at low altitude. In my youthful tenacity I switched from my hat as a weapon to my hand as a weapon and shattered the windshield real bad.

Then I used the analogy of lying to my dad to talk about our relationship with Heavenly Father. He gives us beautiful things, pure things, abundantly. We break His stuff and then we get too embarrassed to talk to Him about it, as if Father cares about His stuff. The same Yahweh that brings [bradtip text=”drinking water out of desert rocks” tooltip= “So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me” class= “bradtip-gold”] gives you water and life and love and tractors because He loves you and He wants you to ask Him for things, knowing there’s a chance you’re going to break or misuse or neglect them. And yes, the Lord of Life created horseflies for a reason, even if I’m not informed enough to know what that is. So I’m gonna go learn more about horseflies.

Let’s Start With This Fallen Oak Tree

For those of you from Texas who use the word “oak” loosely, I’m not talking about just any tree in the Quercus genus. I’m talking a Burr Oak, so majestic that whoever cleared this 40 acres of forest in the 1800s left only two trees, and we lost the other one a decade ago.

This tree is familiar to me because I’ve seen it from every side, round and round in a field with not much to look at besides the straight line I’m cutting and the wind-twisted, bark-hardened branches reaching all directions having never been trimmed.

My whole life, it’s been my favorite. I guess my next favorite tree will be when I walk/drive/fly circles around this one:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
 Revelation 22:1-5

Forgive Yourself

As I pass by the site of the original tree, remembering how the hawks would hover overhead for any rabbits I might be scaring out, I just thought, I wasn’t a bad kid. There’s no reason to remember that time as only stupidity, stumbling, and the ensuing wreckage. Now that our girls are teenagers, I just call it growing up.

We get this one wrong in our culture. When our children are learning to walk, we generally let them do it at their own pace, and we never get upset at them for falling. Why is it that by the time they reach adolescence, we put these huge expectations on juveniles to behave like a fully grown oak, when really a teenager is just a sapling?

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. 
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians13.11-13

I’m sure Abba loved me just as much then as he does now, even as drunk, stoned, and lustful as I was. Back then I might not have known it, because I had not yet overcome the evil one(s). But now I know who my Father really is, and appreciate a fuller faith and hope in His love.

To the Tree!

Okay, I’d forgotten how big of a bite they take out of your shoulder. I’m gonna step into this cornfield right here and finish my thought. Right, so big difference between old me and young me. Though I took damage first, I didn’t immediately go to violence. I came into this expecting to be targeted, so I actually didn’t break cadence. I just made a quiet decision to continue walking but in a new direction. And because of it, I’m already in easily defendable terrain with some level of air suppression and it only took a few seconds.

...Whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.  
Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues,  and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Matthew 10:11-20

I Still Get Lost

Lest I get too confident in my own abilities, I am going to do something that no man ever wants to do. Admit that I’m lost. Here’s an embarrassing little data spill for ya.

I got off to a good start, met waypoints A,B, and C. I figured early warning interceptors would be set up at the edge of the tree line where the road turns north, and that’s exactly where she took that first bite. I’m now in the cornfield but that’s where the map gets tangled. I got lost, okay!?!?

When I was a kid in the 90s, walking through a cornfield was fun. That was before they engineered the stalks to grow closer together and invented GPS-guided robo-harvesters. True Midwesterners know that whenever you’re walking through a cornfield, you’d better be walking elbows first. It’s not just the knife’s edge, it’s that microscopic velcro on the flat part of the leaf. I did a pretty good job, but one got through so I can taste just a little blood on my lip.

Three Ironies of Farming

If you’re a fan of irony, then great news! You have just finished reading a story with three farming ironies, which I will label FI 1, FI 2, and FI 3:

FI 1: The irony of farming is that my mom drove circles in this same field to maximize the sunlight exposure on the crops, but the sunlight exposure started the melanoma that’s now 8 mm deep in her arm. We pray for sunlight and we rejoice when we get it, but there is a chunk of the Bible devoted entirely to the theme “everything that happens underneath the sun is vain, toil, evil, wasted time, wasted money, and turning back to dust.” If you ever want to have a real good lament, and I recommend you lament every once in a while, don’t go straight to Lamentations; that is a very specific lament. You my existential friend, are in the need of Ecclesiastes, in which Solomon makes it universal. Introducing himself as “the Preacher, the Son of David, king in Jerusalem”, he’ll punch you right in the gut with gems such as:

Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive.  But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

FI 2: The irony of farming is that too much sun is called drought, so you pray for rain. Then when the rain comes, the very rain that provides this year’s corn harvest also brings lightning, which momentarily carries more energy than sunlight, and milliseconds is all it takes to destroy the tree that survived centuries of sun cancer-free. A tree without light is a dead tree, but lightning brings death to a living tree.

FI 3: The irony of farming is that you grow corn so can eat it, but the corn cuts you in the mouth. That one is a divorce metaphor, you understand. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Guard Your Tongue

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!
And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. 
It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers,  these things ought not to be so. 
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
James  3:5-12

Wisdom From Above

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.