Musings at Altitude

Adverse conditions are affecting people I know all over this country:

• Volcanic ash in Anchorage
• Avalanche near Anchorage
• Blizzard Conditions in Colorado, New Mexico, and Northwest Texas
• Thunderstorms in Houston
• Flooding in North Dakota
• Storms and Flooding in Biloxi, MS
• Sand Storms in Iraq

And for us personally, we’re stuck in Wichita Falls, TX, right now with all roads into Colorado closed from the blizzard like conditions!

This has been one weird week for weather and one big nightmare for travel.

I’m looking forward to getting home to the serenity of the front range of the Rockies.

I hear it’s in the 50’s there today after 20 inches of snow Thursday and Friday!

Nothing like Spring!

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My Bible reading today took me into Psalm 136.  I’m reading from The Message, which is a very modern translation of the Bible.  But this chapter really caused me to think:

Thank God!

He deserves your thanks,

His love never quits.

Thank the God of all gods,

His love never quits.

Thank the Lord of all lords,

His love never quits.

So building off those verses and moving into my prayer time, I prayed very differently today.  After every praise, every petition, and every request for forgiveness, I ended with “Your love never quits.”

So it went something like this:

Our father in heaven, I praise you.

Your love never quits.

I ask forgiveness for my sins.

Your love never quits.

I thank you for my family.

Your love never quits.

I thank you for healing.

Your love never quits.

I pray for healing.

Your love never quits.

I thank you for the job you have provided for me.

Your love never quits.

I pray for wisdom.

Your love never quits.

I praise You for your presence in our lives.

Your love never quits.

To You be all the glory.

Your love never quits.

As I finished praying, I was smiling because “Your love never quits” fit so perfectly after every line of my prayer.

I’ve heard time and time again that “God is love”.

This was great affirmation for me!

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This has been an incredibly busy day, with every possible minute filled up with either conference calls or meetings.  And just after lunch, I had exactly 7 minutes from the time I got in the car till the time I needed to initiate the conference call that would occupy my time all the way to the airport. 

As I sat quietly, I looked at the radio and figured out I had time for just 1 song.  I turned up the volume, and sure enough, “I’ll Praise You in This Storm” was on the radio.  For those of you who read my last blog and are now saying “yeah right”, it really is true.

I sang along with the song for those few minutes I had available, and smiled as I thought about what just happened.

For those of you who actually believe in “coincidence”, I wonder what the chances of this happening really are.  I listened to maybe 10 minutes of radio yesterday and then maybe 3 or 4 minutes today, and in both cases, “Praise You in This Storm” was on the radio.  In addition, heavy rains were in the area and storm clouds were all around, so as I sang I smiled in knowing that the gentle whisper from yesterday seemed like a giant scream today – “I’m with you”.

I often times wonder why God isn’t more visible and using His almighty hammer more often to get our attention.  No doubt He does at times.  But what I’m seeing, when I take the time to watch and listen, is His obvious yet subtle presence, and He’s eager to have us separate ourselves from the busy-ness of our lives to worship Him.

As I write this note, Denver is getting hammered with a blizzard, Houston is getting hammered by a thunderstorm, and New Orleans (where I sit) is engulfed in ominous looking clouds and lots of desperate people trying to get home to Denver and Houston.

And I sit here smiling….because I don’t believe in coincidence…”I will praise you in this storm!”

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I sat down this morning for my Bible reading and prayer time, and my journey through the Old Testament has brought me to Psalms 121.  Verses 1 and 2 say this:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills

From whence cometh my help

My help cometh from the Lord,

Which made heaven and earth.

I immediately marked that spot in my Bible, because those words are also in one of my favorite songs, “Praise You in This Storm”, by Casting Crowns.

Later in the day, I stopped by a very special spot in Baton Rouge and I took this picture:

And then, as I was driving to my next appointment only minutes after taking that picture, “Praise You in This Storm” came on the radio.  If you have not heard the song, here is a link for you:

Praise You in This Storm

I don’t believe in coincidence.

As I sit here now, listening to the music of this very special song, the words are ringing in my ears – “I barely hear You whisper through the rain, “I’m with you”.”

I think He was whispering to me today, “I’m with you”.

I just don’t believe in coincidence.

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When I arrived in New Orleans today, I quickly went to the rental car shuttle, got to the lot, and heard those dreaded words come out of the agent’s mouth – “Sir, will a full size sedan be ok?” 

At the risk of scaring her if I screamed, “NO!!!!!”, I quietly said instead, “Do you have anything smaller?” 

In the course of just a few seconds, I pictured myself looking like an old man driving that full size sedan down the streets of Baton Rouge.  And then even worse, if it had been a Lincoln or Cadillac, I pictured myself being considered a highly sleazy, underworld operator as I drove around doing my business.

After a minute or so of searching, the agent came back with, “Sir, will you take a compact car?”

“Absolutely”, I said!

She looked pleasantly surprised, and judging by the number of empty spaces on the lot, I bet she really needed that full size.

She finished printing out the rental agreement, told me “Space 301”, and pointed me to the other side of the lot.

I quickly grabbed my things and headed over.  I found the car, put my bags in the trunk, and jumped into the Mazda 6, smiling at feeling really good in that small and yet somewhat very comfortable vehicle.

As I was pulling out of the parking space, I realized that I hadn’t checked to see if they were charging me for insurance.  They shouldn’t have, but I had a nagging feeling that they may have put on those additional charges during the car swap.  So I put the car in park and pulled out the rental agreement.  The insurance was correct – they did not bill me for any.  But the mileage was wrong.  The rental agreement said 34,000 miles out, but the odometer said 26,000.  That caused me to look at the front of the agreement, and it said I was supposed to have a Chevy Cobalt and not a Mazda 6.

Dad gummit!  I was in the wrong car!  Thankfully, I figured it out before getting to the exit gate!

I quickly figured out where the right car was, got my bags transferred and settled inside.  The small, luxurious Mazda 6 turned out instead to be the base model Chevy Cobalt.  And by base model, I mean BASE MODEL!  Since it was 75 degrees out and I still had my Colorado winter clothing on, I reached down for the window button and saw no buttons at all!  I smiled as I rolled down the window.  Then I looked for the side view mirror adjustments, and each mirror had a knob out of the side for manual moving of the mirrors.  I smiled at that too as I reached across the car to move the mirrors into the right locations.  And I looked for a power lock button to lock the doors.  Sure enough, I had to go around the car and individually lock each of the doors!

I was completely laughing as I drove down the road, talking to my good friend Clyde on the phone, using my knee to steer while trying to manually roll up the window so I could hear!  I called Clyde because he’s the only other person I know that owns a vehicle with no power windows, no power locks, no power anything.  Clyde has a BASE MODEL pickup truck.

At least he has a truck.  I was driving a BASE MODEL sub-compact!

I truly am spoiled!

DISCLAIMER:  The comments above are not meant to annoy or impugn anyone that drives a vehicle classified as “nothing powered”.  In fact, I have great respect for those in “nothing powered” vehicles who have to yell across the car or truck and say “can you lock the door for me?”  And for my good friend Clyde – I bet my Chevy Cobalt can take your Red Pickup Truck!

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I’m all packed.  The travel bag is by the door.  The backpack is fully loaded with those essentials for at altitude serenity.  And I’m on my 4th cup of coffee.

I’m ready about a half hour early, which is very unusual for me, and quite frankly, I’m struggling with what to do.  I can’t dive into the big proposal I need to review, because I need “straight time” on that one and an uninterrupted few hours of focus to do it right.  And I don’t want to go to the airport early, because I’d get to Starbucks before “the time is right” and then I’d get to the airport too early, and then I’d get frustrated by the crowds and the always too loud announcements in the terminal.

So I decided to quickly look around the house and see if there was anything I could do to “prepare the house” before I leave.  My wife has this mastered.  She’ll clean days in advance of her trips, and then leave the house spotless upon her departure.  That cleaning spree usually doesn’t end until she’s wiping counters as she walks out the door.

But I’m a guy.

It was heroics for me this morning because I made the bed AND put stuff in the dishwasher (lots of stuff – stuff that my wife would cringe at if she saw it).

So as always, I ended up in my home office and looked out the window and saw this:

For those who don’t know me well, you just see a corner of our front yard marked with a bunch of flags.  For those who know me well, you see the ultimate example of procrastination.

We called the utilities to mark the yard almost 5 months ago now because I needed to place a beautiful address marker that I bought my wife for Mother’s Day last year!  So many things have happened since then – vacations, travels, winter weather – all of which gave me one excuse after another to “hold off” and wait till a better time.

So the address marker sits in the garage:

It really is a beautiful address marker.  And I’m really anxious to get it out in front of our house.  And I’m hoping for a good weather weekend sometime very soon to actually get the quickcrete down and get it place.  And I’m desperately hoping that the marker flags don’t fly away (but hey, they’ve made it through 40 mph winds thus far).  And I’m hoping that my good friends who will most certainly be needed to help place this very heavy marker will be available that one weekend that the weather is good and I get off my FDAH butt and do what I should have done months ago.

And I hope to get it done before this next Mother’s Day.

Or maybe I can give her the installation as a gift this year!

That would be cool.

PS.  With my wife gone, I wanted to post a picture for her to show how much she’s missed at home:

My wife has a years’ long battle with the pigeons on our roof.  With her gone and no one firing water guns at them right now, they sit arrogantly staring at me now, knowing they are not at risk but most certainly fearing her return!

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At the risk of life, I’ve mentioned before that my wife has been going through pre-menopausal symptoms.  She’ll wake up in the middle of the night just radiating heat.  She’ll then throw the comforter off when it’s 20 degrees outside with the window open and I’m in the fetal position under her blankets and mine then just freezing beyond belief.

Well speaking of role reversals, last night I woke up twice, soaking wet, and then had to throw the comforter off because I was so hot. 

Now I don’t know what this means, but I have several theories:

(1) sympathy sweats really do occur when your spouse is going through that pre-menopausal thing

(2) I had a nightmare and just don’t remember it since I watched “Tremors” before going to bed

(3) I had an adverse reaction to my 4.5 mile walk yesterday with my body now telling me, “you got to be kidding me”

I gotta believe it’s (1).

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I’m sitting in my home office this morning with the window open, the chatter of the birds surrounding the house, the warmth of the sun now beaming through the windows, and a cool and gentle breeze that can be felt and heard as it passes over the candles that I have lit.

Out the front of our house, the sun is majestically breaking through some early morning clouds letting me know so clearly how magnificent this day will be:

And off to the side, a path up the hill is calling, knowing I need that walk and taunting me with the beauty of today:

Sunday’s are always special for me because my spiritual reservoir is filled through fellowship and worship at church, and then my heart is uplifted as I spend time responding to that call to get out and experience God’s wonderful creation.

Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

That renewal has already begun in me today!

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I’ve been very blessed to be home more than gone this year, and I really enjoy spending those quiet moments with Denise and sharing our evenings and weekends together.  In our 26+ years of marriage, I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home, so we’ve learned to cherish the reunions and also truly enjoy those times together.

This evening, I got home from my trip (only my 4th this year), and Denise was gone.  She’s off in Texas visiting our daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law and the house is very quiet.  This role reversal with me here and her gone hasn’t happened a lot in our lives together, and I get a sense of what she has lived with over half of our married life, spending lots of lonely nights in an eerily empty house.

It’s amazing what goes through your mind when you get some time alone in a space that is normally occupied by others.  On the road, I get lots of time alone in the hotel rooms, but that’s really forced isolation and not quite what I’m feeling tonight.  Tonight, I want others around, and this space I’m in is typically filled with chatter, and hockey on the TV, and review of what happened at school, and the whine and wine after a tedious day at work.

But not tonight.  Tonight I hear every creak in our house.  Tonight I hear the wind blowing against the windows.  Tonight I flip through the channels looking for something of meaning to watch.  Tonight I’m lonely. 

At times like these, I think back over my life and remember the choices I made and the separations I caused because of the numerous quests I was on.  And I can’t help but think how wonderfully supportive Denise always was.  And as I sit here in this very lonely house, I love her even more for the loneliness she must have felt.  And through it all, she never once complained and never once asked me to ease off of my pursuits to spend more time here at home with her.

It’s in these quiet times where you open up your heart and you sense and see those things you didn’t see before.  It’s also in these quiet times when God puts His message in our hearts.  And tonight, I turned to a channel that I never ordinarily watch, and I heard this song while thinking of Denise:

The Prayer

I pray you’ll be our eyes

And watch us where we go

And help us to be wise

In times when we don’t know

Let this be our prayer

When we lose our way

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we’ll be saved.

Over the years while I’ve been chasing my dreams, Denise has been the rock in our family, and the home which she has single handedly built has been our sanctuary for peace and security.  Regardless of what was happening in my job or in my travels, I could always come home and find that comfort and peace.  God matched me with the perfect mate to ground me, to guide me, to remind me of my priorities, and to make me so desperately miss her when she’s now off on her travels and I’m now sitting at home alone.

I’ve told her before that I finally get a short glimpse of what she went through during all those years of separation when she’s gone now and I’m home alone.  I certainly can’t get those 12 or 13 years of separation back.  But I certainly can cherish even more the time we get to spend together now.

So while she’s gone, I’ll spend this time listening and learning and yearning for when she’ll return.  And I’ll listen to the words of songs like The Prayer, and smile in knowing that God is reminding me of what I have too often taken for granted.

I love you Denise.  And I miss you.

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Many of us have heard the old Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times.”  Unfortunately, many of us may actually believe we’re living under that curse today!  I certainly do on the days that I’m enmeshed in bureaucracy and seemingly glued to my current place and time with no apparent prospect for any form of business momentum in any direction I look.  I also definitely feel this way when I’m slowly sinking in that business quicksand and every action I take just seems to accelerate my sinking into the abyss of business malaise.

Being honest, I despise those events that take me to such low levels.  In fact, I become part of the problem and an accelerant to the malaise when I let myself sink under the Chinese curse.

So I have a theory.  In networking, we talk about degrees of separation and how we’re no further than six degrees of separation from anyone we need to be in contact with.  Let’s modify that just a little bit and ponder the idea that in overcoming the curse or defying the malaise of business insanity, we’re really only two degrees of separation from something joyful that reaches down deep inside us and pulls us out of that desperate and sinking feeling.

That happened to me today.  When things earlier this week brought me down and caused me to feel like I was straining under the burden of business insanity, I metaphorically looked in every direction and saw no clear step to lift me out of the business quicksand that I was in.  So inadvertently, I looked beyond those first reachable and yet still cumbersome steps and mentally leaped to the near nirvanic foothold beyond.  Surprisingly, I found peace.  By looking beyond the issue of the day and focusing on the real purpose of our business existence, I mentally and emotionally lifted myself back up and smiled in knowing that the insanity was not permanent and the purpose would always prevail.

This relief occurred because I was sucked into conversations that reminded me of the real reason I jumped at the chance to be part of this journey in the first place.  And though “we live in interesting times” and we’re faced so often with the insanity of actions that really bring us down, typically, just two degrees of separation away from our quicksand is that clear and compelling purpose that focuses our vision, gives us hope, and provides that ladder or limb that anchors us as we climb out of the sinking sand and fortifies us as we reach forward and leave that malaise behind.

In great organizations, team members are constantly looking for those who may be sinking.  When a sinker is found, great team members jump in and provide that metaphorical leap to that two degree reference so those sinking can reach out and grab that future and heave themselves past that potentially devastating first step.  Once beyond that first degree of separation, phenomenal team members can then provide the once previously sinking individual a firmly grounded next step that allows that team member to focus forward and not sink back into the abyss. 

I want to be that two degree anchor for those struggling with business issues today.  To do that effectively though, I have to anchor myself out of the quicksand and fortify my position by focusing on our common purpose.  I also have to realize that I need to reach out to others who can reach back and constantly anchor me as I then reach back to yank others forward and out of their own personal malaise. 

There seems to be something very special about reaching back for others.  And there seems to be something even more special about anchoring on that purpose and fortifying that anchor by reaching out and grabbing on to others who also have desperately attached themselves to that same purpose.

Who knows, maybe through anchoring on our purpose we defy the curse?  If nothing else, we most certainly move towards the positive side of “we live in interesting times”.

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