An Engraved Invitation for all Eternity

My wife thinks I'm nuts, but over the last couple of years, I've taken to the occasional wandering though a cemetery. I'm not that interested in modern cemeteries, I like to find the really old ones. Well, that is, as old as you can find on the west coast. Most of our cemeteries only go back to the mid 1850's which, coincidentally is about the time California started swelling in numbers due to the 1849 gold rush. Which almost immediately lead to statehood in 1850 and started a migration to California that has yet to stop.

As I've wandered through the various cemeteries in town, I've come across many names of some of our local streets. Though I don't know much regarding the story for most of the folks buried there, I still find it interesting to note the names of those who must have had some prominence in our area. In most cases, I suspect that person to have been a hard working farmer or merchant who helped settle our fair city.

My family came to California in 1888, specifically to join the local temperance movement in the city of Lompoc. Which, as it turned out, had pretty much -- not to spare the irony --"dried up" by then. So they must have figured, "What the heck! At least the weather is nicer here than in Michigan. Might as well stay."

So, with all that in mind, I've found it interesting to view the tangible artifacts of my family which has come and gone before me. One of those tangible artifacts would be their tombstones. And, call me nuts, but I find a certain grace and beauty to not just MY family's markers, but to many of the older tombstones bearing witness to a human being's span on this earth. Ravaged by the elements, time and neglect, these grave markers seem to tell a story in and of themselves. I find a certain romantic beauty to an aging well crafted monolith in an out of the way graveyard.

Being an amateur historian, or at least someone who loves to watch the history channel as often as I can, I can't help but wonder what are the stories of those pioneers who came to settle the California I live in today. I know some of the story of my family, but I also wonder about ALL those who have come and gone before me.

Some of these stories are very sad indeed. Often I'll find a marker bearing testimony to the passing of a mother and child. No clues are given other than the dates. Or quite often, a tender marker will be left with the carving of a small dove or lamb to mark the untimely passing of a child. Such a stone even exists for my family. My grandfather's sister died as a toddler before he was born. Her name was Rose. To mark her brief time on this earth, they used the carving of a rose to indicate her first name, and then simply added her middle and last names.

Yet as interesting as is the history of those who've come and gone before us, and the beauty or pathos I think I can often coax out of a photograph of such stones, is that after viewing and photographing so many of these monoliths, I've become more aware that every one of these folks lived a life as real and full of daily activities as I have in my life. And yet for each one of them, in due course, those activities ceased.

When I drive the streets and freeways, I see people rushing to and fro to this and that as if what they are doing is urgent and important. Heck, most of the time I even do the same. Yet, someday, all that rushing will cease for me. And I will have but left on this earth, some decaying mortal remains and perhaps a granite marker of some sort.

As a man of faith in a God who -- as one of His many names -- is called "Ancient of Days," I think it would do us all well to realize that OUR lives are not anything greater than what has come and gone before us. Every human being who's long decayed corpse I walk over in my graveyard expeditions, lived in a here and now which they considered all important ... at the time. But time slowly inches forward, second by second, until we too come to the time where we turn back to the dust from which we came. And, usually, we will have a stone placed somewhere to mark our turn at passing through those seconds.

Typically these days a marker will have a name, a year, a dash, and the final year. God willing, I'm somewhere in the middle of my dash right now. The daily grind I live in now and act as if is quite urgent at times, will be all but forgotten. And in some future year, some other person who will be living in the middle of HIS or HER dash might happen upon my gravestone and wonder about MY story.

So, maybe part of the reason I like to wander through cemeteries and photograph tombstones is to remind me that I am merely taking my brief turn at this life, until I'm called to stand before the One who is Ancient of Days. The One who has seen and noted the comings and goings of ALL the others who have come and gone before me. However, I praise the Ancient One that He made provision for an "empty" tomb in Jerusalem, parenthetically, one I have actually visited. And because of THAT empty tomb, my span of life won't end with the one with which I am currently engaged at this moment. In fact, when I wander a cemetery and note an inscription bearing witness to faith in that Ancient One in whom I trust for an eternal life, I rejoice knowing that I will get to meet that brother or sister, and perhaps hear his or her story when I get to the end of my dash.

Perhaps the best quote I've ever heard on this subject came from a missionary named Jim Elliott who was martyred for his faith.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

In other words, if you give your life to Christ in exchange for eternity. How is that a bad deal? You can only hang on to it for maybe 80 or 90 years if you are real lucky. Then what?

So, come to think of it, I guess I'm not alone in my attraction to the beauty of a tombstone. We lost my mother early in 2005, and my father keeps in his wallet this photo I took on Easter morning a few months after Mom died.

So I guess you can literally consider tombstones as sort of an "engraved invitation" to join eternity. The way I look at it, if like me, you put your faith in the One who's invitation you can try to ignore for a while, but can't ultimately avoid, then if I don't meet you now, I'll see you at the party.

You never know what you're gonna get...

They get sneakier and sneakier all the time.

Today I'm getting ready to run out the door, and while I'm tying my shoes, I'm watching a segment of the afternoon version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." Suddenly a question flashes on the screen... "Because it's meaning changes over time, what U.S. manuscript has been called a living breathing document."

There were 4 answers; the so-called correct answer was the United States Constitution.

Pardon me?!?! But at what point did even the premise of the question become a fact? Must less the answer?? What group has universally decided that the "meaning of the words" in the US Constitution change over time?

Apparently Al Gore and these TV script/question writers have decided that is the case, but I know a hell of a lot of people who beg to differ. The folks in MY camp subscribe to the standard that the Constitution was written by men who meant it to say what it says. End of story.

Certainly we have a Supreme Court who, over the course of time, has made it their job to interpret the Constitution. But other than Al Gore and liberals like him, the MEANING doesn't change over time. Applications, interpretations, maybe ... but NOT the meaning.

So kiddies, if you want to learn about your history, stay away from Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Cuz, apparently, Forrest Gump is writing the questions now.

By the way, have you ever noticed how Al Gore sounds a whole lot like Forrest Gump?

I really think Al Gore-ump would get his point across better if he adopted something like the following as his mantra.

"The Constitution is like a box of chocolates. You never know what your gonna get."

It's good to finally know the truth!

Well, now that the Da Vinci Code has blown the lid off the church, I think we should look at other movies that have questioned our most dearly held beliefs.

Personally, I've always thought that the Holy Grail was pretty much legend or lost to history. But now that I can trust novelists and the movies to teach me history, I'm pretty sure Indiana Jones was a real person and he DID, in fact, find the cup of Christ. I mean all the details are there. There was a secret Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword who had been guarding the secret of the cup for centuries. The tomb of one of the 3 brother knights guarding the cup was found and has secret clues to the hidden location. And we saw proof of those clues when Indiana Jones found the last brother living because he had sustained from the cup all these years.

I mean how can it get any plainer than that?

So when it comes to the Da Vinci Code, obviously, those wacky Christians have been hiding the truth all these years and didn't see fit to add the Gnostic Gospels to the canonized books of the New Testament because they want to suppress the truth. Never mind that the Gnostic Gospels are written some 200 years after the time of Christ. I mean, if you want to know the truth about George Washington, would you want to read the accounts of his life that were written by his contemporaries, or would you more likely trust the accounts of his life written up by people alive today? And we can be certain that the Priory of Sion is legit because we have the documented letters of incorporation for that organization dated in 1956 by the goofball who founded the group. Who also, by the way, forged some documents which he hid and later discovered which proved he was the descendant of Christ and thus, the true King of France. Never mind that he confessed it was all a hoax on his death bed. I mean, it's all starting to make sense now.

And heck, we know that Opie and Forrest Gump are too honest to lie to us. They MUST be giving us the straight truth.

Oh, by the way, just the same as when you see it in the movies, if you see it on TV, it's also always true. I mean, for all these years, we thought Gilligan's Island was just a sit com. Who knew it was real?

It's a religion of peace

Is it just me, or do I recall politicians and media stories reassuring us over and over, "Islam is a religion of peace." "The Koran honors and respects Abraham and Jesus in it's pages." "The mainline practitioners of Islam harbor absolutely no ill will towards the Christian world."

Then can someone tell me why the new paid-for-in-American-blood Afghanistan government wants to put a converted Christian man to death for the highly offensive crime of leaving the Muslim faith for the Christian faith? He can't even get a Bible in his cell, yet we provide Korans and religious liberties for the terrorists in captivity who request them.

Is this newly minted democracy really a front for an Islamic theocracy? And is this the kind of pay back a Western (and predominantly Christian) nation can expect for all the G.I. blood spilled to free it from Taliban hegemony?

In the West, we have Mosques, Hindu temples, pagan shrines, wickens and what have you peppered through out our communities. No body is calling for the death penalty when they make converts within our borders. But Christians are being slaughtered all over the world in Islamic nations ... and now maybe in a country newly freed by soldiers (many of them Christians) who died for their new freedoms.

I'm sorry, but it has yet to be proven to me that Islam is a religion of peace. And I have grave concerns about the build up of Muslims within our Western borders. Sure, they come in under a banner of peace now, and I would guess that most of them wish to live quiet lives in a free West. But as they metastasize in numbers and political clout with Imams who, more or less, run the show -- who also AREN'T so peaceful and seem to make the "peaceful ones" clam up -- what might we see in 20 or 30 or 50 years?

Don't expect to see the Mongol hoards crashing at the gates. That's old school. Heck, our gates aren't even locked. The downfall is going to come from within, while we sleep dreaming our sweet dreams of tolerance.

Look, I'm sorry. But she DID invite it...

Groan ... the femi-Nazi PC police are at it again.

Some male radio talk show host got into trouble for having the temerity to mention that Imette St. Guillen, the co-ed who was brutally murdered in New York a few days ago, "invited" the fate that happened upon her.

Women's groups all over are jumping on this guy's back for laying ANY of the blame at her feet. "She has a right to go anywhere she wants at any time day or night!" ... is the war cry from these NOW rejects.

Yeah, well, I have the right to go surfing in 60-foot waves over rocky coral reefs in the middle of the night if I want to do that too. But it ain't necessarily a smart thing to do. Especially since I don't know how to surf.

Face it ladies, if you go drinking with your co-ed buddies at 4AM in the morning, then wander off drunk and alone in a bad section of town, you may be "inviting" disaster. And you will most certainly make an "inviting" target.

No one has the RIGHT to harm you. The scum that killed this beautiful young lady is 100% to blame for his actions. But WAKE UP! In the real world, there are predators who will use the opportunity to hurt you if you give it to them! We do not live in utopia! You have the "right" to walk down a dark alley with one-hundred dollar bills hanging out of your pockets, but if you want to keep them, you might want to rethink your rights vs. common sense.

So get off your high horses and stop moaning about the right to do anything your precious little hearts desire, and get a grip on the real world and it's dangers.

By the way, why aren't these feminists up in arms about the term "co-ed" being used in the media? Doesn't that stand for "co-educational?" Isn't a male college student just as co-ed as a female?

Yeah, right ... now I'm opening up ANOTHER can of worms.

UAL Flight 930

My daughter is in Europe and on her first self-paid vacation as I write this. In fact she turned 22 today in London just as her jet landed.

Oddly, tho she is a fully-grown young lady with a good head on her shoulders, as a dad, I still feel about the same as I did a short 8 years ago when she was just 14 and taking her first trip out of the country.

At that time, it was just a short missions trip with our church youth group to Mexico. I knew the leader of the group, and trusted him. Yet the thought of MY child being so far away, and ME being unable to physically intervene in any kind of emergency just wasn't a comforting feeling. And it still isn't today. Which is probably why I tracked her flight using a web based tracking site. The graphic above shows her flight just as is was leaving the Northern American continent.

Funny, you count the days until they can grow up, leave the nest, and take care of themselves. Then when it comes, you wish you had those old days back again.

Inconsistency, thy name is Dad.

Viva la difference!

When I was a pre-teen in the late 60’s, early 70’s, the Women’s movement started taking an aggressive, militant form. At least, that’s when I remember it taking shape. Helen Reddy’s popular tune, “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” was the anthem for the movement. Bras were burned, men’s faces were slapped for opening the door for a woman, the mantra was that women were exactly equal to (or in fact, better than) men and no one should dare claim otherwise.

Now much of what happened in that initial phase of the women’s movement was a pent up explosion of hostility many women rightly felt towards the status quo of the time. Women had been relegated to lesser paying jobs, or worse yet, paid less for doing the same job as a man. Many jobs weren’t even open to them. And I had no problem with those wrongs being righted. But the absurd notion that women and men were exactly the same in every and ALL ways, and thus, should be treated as such has been underlined, highlighted and put in BOLD text with this recent report about plastering a men’s room with photos of gawking and laughing women.

It’s been reported that the brand new, $45 million Hotel Sofitel in Queenstown, New Zealand is featuring local models with humorous looks on their faces as they check out the men while they take care of their business in the hotel toilet.

Now if anyone could possible imagine the REVERSE case scenario to this story ever actually taking place, then they should also have no problem imagining the public hue and cry that would result from such an outrage. The author of such an idea would be labeled a sexist pig and be run out of town on a rail … if he was lucky. More likely he would be taken to court for some kind of sex crime.

However, in the current case, this story is considered humorous and lighthearted, and certainly isn’t making the red hot headlines a reverse situation would invoke.

In fact, I would get a big laugh out of it myself.

So the next time someone tells you there is no difference between men and women, take a gander at their genitals, laugh out loud ... if you find yourself locked up with a bunch of other men, you’ll know I’m right. Or, if you can then just calmly walk away, leaving a red faced gentleman in your wake, you’ll STILL know I’m right.