Grandpa died, but not really

I woke up early this morning and was pondering my late Grandfather. I was feeling somewhat melancholy because I felt like there were things I wanted to talk to him about, but just never did. Then I realized I had just had been dreaming and that of course he was still alive and kicking about 7 miles down the road. In the dream, there was a courtyard in a secluded corner of a public space. There were trees and plantings and such. It was quite a nice little setup. There were concrete tombs everywhere and another platform in the entryway to this space that had Germany inscribed upon it and also Wilser in another place. I was standing there with my Dad, and his best friend Brian. Oddly enough we had walked here with a man named Roy Crowder and his 3 six foot tall monkeys, although they had disappeared at this point. Roy was a big man you see, so he had to have BIG monkeys. Yeah I know, this is a weird dream.

My grandfather is a genius you have to know. He could probably build you a Blu-Ray Player in a couple of days time just with spare parts he could find in his garage. He will also fix your car, or your clock, or your 747 if you have one. He started a little company called Raleigh Flying Service in 1969 which had over 100 employees at one time in it's tenure. He ran it as a family business for 30 years before finally selling it in 2000. He was an old IBM guy that worked to produce the bar code system way back when. Yeah, I'm talking about the bar code that is on every product you buy in any store in most of the free world. It's possible that he even reads this blog, so this is sort of weird because he might be following along with us right now.

When I was lying there in my bed this morning, I was thinking of things that I wished I had talked to him about. Things like faith and spirituality and what it was like to be involved in World War II. Did he have any cool stories from being there. Hey Grandpa, are you aware that you say cuss words under your breath in almost any situation, like especially when we're driving around trying to find a bathroom because you have to take a steamer? Jerry Bruckheimer could probably make an action movie around my Grandpa's style of cussing. He really is better at swearing than Clint Eastwood, and he never uses the f-bomb. I'm talking old style swearing....the kind that comes with your dignity included.

So anyway, I'm glad that grandpa is still around for a bit longer. He's a cool guy, but very reserved. Maybe he'll open up and talk to me one day. Maybe he'll talk about His thoughts on God, or life or whatever. I hope he does. But if not, I'll just have to embrace the mystery of a man who loved his family in his own way, and left his insides up for interpretation. Not everyone can be as open as this blog you know....Monkeys? Really Alan?

Trendy Acts of Service

These thoughts are in reflection and summary of a sermon by Jeff Ramsey of Visio Dei Church in Raleigh, NC.

At the heart of my faith, I find a terrible dilemma within my own ability to be who I should be. Within the Western Christian church in general, there is a great pendulum swing between what you might call an emphasis on personal righteousness and conversely on Social Activism. You could also call Social Activism the performing of beautiful deeds to the world around us. These types of things are exemplified in drilling wells, caring for orphans and widows and so on. Few communities of believers have been found to exhibit a healthy balance of the two.

Over the past few years, our particular church community as a whole has become much more concerned with doing the great things around the world and within our community rather than be concerned about behaving perfectly in a personal righteousness sense. Honestly, some of us have enjoyed this position for quite some time, but as months turn into years we find ourselves facing an old problem with a slightly different face. We realize that our attempt to bring God’s goodness to the world around us, the projects in Africa, India, and Nicaragua simply become less and less cool. People stop caring or getting as excited about it. What is happening is that we are beginning to realize that it was all about ourselves in the first place. As we discuss this problem, and really get honest about it, we find that it was a road we had to walk and that ultimately, this new realization is a good one to have. The only problem is that the orphans at the Africa Hope Center are still orphans. The people in the Chinandega region of Nicaragua are still dying from the conditions in which they work, and people are going hungry and thirsty all over the world.

The good side to our problem is that swinging to the “doing beautiful acts” side of things only brings us back to an understanding that it is indeed WE who are broken and seeking to validate or even save our own selves. We find that there is some elusive balance to our lives that we can’t seem to correct, and so we experience God’s grace through Jesus once again in a new way. It is only with this grace that we can pick ourselves up and find center, or at least pursue center once more.

Titus 3:14 speaks of LEARNING to DEVOTE yourself to beautiful deeds. When the author speaks of learning to devote ourselves, He has to be talking about something we could call Conviction. Once this trendy good feeling wears off, you can either quit your efforts and go do whatever makes you happy, or you can revisit the true reason why your formerly trendy mission is in fact a good and beautiful thing and that perhaps Jesus Himself may have loudly or even with subtlety called you to this work.

I’m pretty convinced that any person who follows Jesus will come to this Crossroads at some point in their life, maybe even several times.

May we take the road towards maturity and allow our trends to become CONVICTIONS.

Far too young.....Kristi Winters Walker

I just heard a few minutes ago that an old friend from my formative years passed away this morning after a short but aggressive battle with Cancer. She was 29 years old and had 3 kids. The cancer hid behind the cloak of her 3rd pregnancy. The sickness was simply thought to be a part of maternity. Who would imagine a 29 year old healthy mother of two could possibly have something like this living inside of her.

She was a person of faith in Jesus Christ, and I'm confident that she is now experiencing something more beautiful than we can imagine. In more relative terms than we can feel or understand, we're not that far behind her. I take stock of my life today.....and I hope that you do the same.

Kristi Winters Walker.....we thank you for all that you are and we look forward to seeing you again!

What was Inauguration?

It's a new beginning. It's a changing of the guard. Webster's Dictionary says it is the act of starting a new operation or practice. I can't say that I voted for Barack Obama this past November, but I was certainly struck with a degree of awe today. There was something that shook me when I saw the two most recent Presidents of our country embracing and treating each other with such dignity and mutual respect. I think back to just a few months ago when I was in the capital city of Nicaragua. There were men protesting the current administration on a Rotunda with masks over their faces. They feared there very lives if certain people were to recognize them.

When these two Presidents who differ in so many ways can show that much love and respect for each other, I feel very proud to call myself an American. I'm proud of George W. Bush and equally proud of President Obama. If only the rest of the world could conduct their disagreements as cordially and respectfully. Well then, that world would be quite a better place.

We've been glued to the TV most of the day and I'm restless. I don't want to go to sleep, but I can't watch TV anymore either. I need a problem. I need something to fix. I want to die for something higher than myself . I suppose that's what today's inauguration was for me. It was a reminder that we've got a part to play, a reminder that the forces of evil aren't taking a break today, and neither can we.

to faith would be freedom

I'm aware of a faith that is not adhered to or believed in, but rather lived. A faith that is intertwined with everything you are. If only His love would bleed from us all of the time. If only we would follow Him that hard. I'm tired of talking about it, dancing around it, and then putting it away as if it were an old algebra II textbook. I want to jump from it's steepest rim and never look back......maybe I will.

Sometimes I sit in coffee shops on rainy days and wonder what the heck I'm supposed to be doing. That's today I mean. Sure, I've got work I can do, but it's the kind of work that could easily be passed off til tomorrow. Days like today for a guy in landscaping send your head spinning. A lot of why questions. Why are some people so lazy that they live on the street and just start asking for money when they get hungry or need a drink. Why am I here in Raleigh landscaping when I could be down in Nicaragua helping those kids learn how to develop and sustain business. Then the HOW questions come in. How can I get back down there. How can I make my lawn care business work and not have to spend 40 hours a week doing it? These are the questions that pervade me today. Oh well, I had better get back to doing something productive.

Getting Down to Business

It seems that Casey and I will be sticking around the Raleigh Area for a couple of years at least. I am currently launching a new business here in the Triangle. T1 Earthcare is a basic lawn care maintenance business and green is our new favorite color! I haven't figured out how to greenify (which may not actually be a real word) this new venture other than running my work vehicles on Vegetable Oil powered Diesel engines. We'll get there though. I may try to offer gas free lawn maintenace which would run the customer about double the cost of the conventional mowers and 2 cycle equipment. Sort of impractical, but I'm thinking about how to make it work. For now, we'll be piecing our consciences together as we continue to burn gasoline in most of our equipment.

Earthcare probably gives you a good feel for the nature of the work but T1 is a little less self-explanatory. The T is short for Tzedakah and 1 indicating that this is the first of many Tzedakah sanctioned small-business efforts.

Tzedakah is an ancient Hebrew word that refers to a set of social practices that make an interesting blend of two of our English words that may not seem to fit together. Tzedekah wraps together the significance of Charity and Justice. If you take our western meanings of these words and sort of blend them together; then you can begin to understand the principles of Tzedakah. There are 8 levels of Tzedakah and each of them is a graduated expression of providing justice and charity in a socio-economic sense. For instance; the lowest level of Tzedakah refers to giving unwillingly and the highest level of Tzedakah is the process of helping someone to become financially independent to the degree that the helped party may turn around and give Tzekakah to another person who is in need. If I could define Tzedakah in one sentence; I would say that it is exercising ethical and gracious business practice while giving responsibly to the poor. I say responsibly because it is so easy to splash into the welfare side of things which is usually more hurtful than helpful.

You're probably wondering how a small business has a whole lot to do with helping anyone and the truth is that T1 Earthcare is really just a gateway into the world of small-business for me. As far as the government knows about; this is the first time I've set out to work for myself. I shamefully admit that I did earn unreported dollars as a youngster with a business that I named "Automassage", which involved detailing cars and airplanes. I hope that you and the IRS will forgive me. The holistic purpose of T1 Earthcare is that it will provide me with the necessary experience and funding to begin other projects in the developing world (likely Nicaragua). The greatest problems that I observe in that country revolve around poor economy and the lack of simple business knowledge. When people are not busy working, a multitude of problems present themselves. One of the leading causes of the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa is attributed to the lack of work which leaves people bored and with little to do other than have sex.

Myself and a handful of other Christ Followers in the area have a vision to see the poorest of places improved through small business. I can't think of a better way of sharing the love of Jesus than by providing a better standard of living to the developing places in this world. This is where the person of Jesus is currently leading T1 Earthcare. I pray that our vision will be blessed and that we will have the courage to see it through.

I hope you're as stoked about T1 Earthcare as I am. Being so far away from the developing world, it's hard to believe that this is good and that God could smile at this. In all honesty, I am deathly scared that what is meant to be a beautiful thing will turn into the pursuit of wealth. A goal that will destroy everything that T1 Earthcare is supposed to be. I pray that God will protect his people (especially me) from becoming consumed with money. The problem is that I can seek all of the things of this world and make it look like following Jesus and I need to be rescued from that. Who will save me?