About Killeen

Where were you in the fall of 1991, more specifically Oct 16,1991? For me this day culminated about two years of mentioning off hand in one setting or another, “Our lives an the lives of our love ones depend upon our instantly hearing and obeying    the voice of the Holy Spirit.”

Beginning on or about Oct 10, I began to feel concern for my mother who lived in Killeen, Tx. We did not have cell phones in those days, but used land lines like home phones or pay phones. I could not get to a phone at the time and with the confusion and  demands of life, I failed to call that night nor the next night. Sunday I did call her but the phone did not answer. Finally by Monday the 14^th The internal anxiety became so great that at lunch I stopped work and drove to find a  phone that would call out. When My Mom picked the phone she seemed discouraged, as  she had recently experienced a break-in. Some one had forced the back door, breaking the jams and entering at a time that she was at work. In those years she worked for an insurance agency selling all product lines. The thieves seemed to know where the valuables were located and did not do much other damage other than the theft(s.)

One of my skills is repairing and installing doors. I told her that I was finishing up a job that day that had lasted a week, would “cash-out,” meaning get paid and would be free for a day or two. As I thought through the situation, I suggested that I drive to various suppliers and pick up the needed materials, get up early the following morning to come down to repair the damage. Everyone would love it. On  Wednesday, we could load up the van and bring the family for a  day visit with Mimi, our grandma. Most particularity, My oldest would love a day at Mimi’s office doing filing and other incidentals that My Mom did not enjoy, but my daughter just loved to do.

After a little discussion, she relented and agreed to permit us to come. I am sure that she was thinking of the standing luncheon appointment that she had with the credit union officer in charge of auto loans. This lady would hand carry information as to who needed insurance coverage based upon the loans from the previous week. This week was extra special as it was National Bosses week(day) in which people took their bosses to lunch on Wednesday in order to honor and foster morale.

On the Wednesday morning after fading AM traffic we arrived in Killeen around ten thirty. The local Wendy’s still offered breakfast, so I stopped to fill the kids up before we arrived at her house. It never ceased to shock me how hungry everyone would be just after we walked into the door. At my mom’s house. I knew she would be at work and not prepared to fix a table of food. It took us about forty five minutes to finish up, and as we got close, I called my mom’s office to “surprise” her with the news that we were in town. My oldest, about fifteen, was to be dropped by her office and we were to proceed to the house. This was such an unusual event that all were excited and so plans were set. She made arrangements with her friend to have lunch a little later than the usual twelve o’clock hour. This was to give my mom time to get the office things cleared up and unknown to me stop by a different hamburger place to get enough to feed my crew (lunch.)   Did they really need more food?

Traffic and busy lunch pushed my mom’s plans back even later and she just arrived at the house around 12:45. I could tell that she was nervous about the time. I simply asked her to leave the food and proceed (with my daughter) to Luby’s to make the lunch date. We would be fine. I nearly had the door completed by then and it looked like all would go as scheduled. When she arrived at the restaurant around ten till one, the place was blocked off. Looked like some one ad driven through the front window, must be some kind of accident at lunch. Degree of damage was not known but it looked serious. Her lunch plans were definitely going to be changed. I the confusion, She called friends in the Killeen Police and discovered that some one had been shot, This was an “unheard of” happening in this little home of the largest army base in Texas.

We arrived home (back in Dallas,Tx) to discover the ten pm news story about the tragic events of this the :”Killeen Massacre.” This was at that time the greatest act of violence that had ever been perpetrated upon the citizens of this country. I called my Mom again to find that she was still in shock. She mentioned that her friend was gone and the funeral wold be next week. I cried  with her as we recounted the events of the previous week and the surprising co-incidence of the broken door and it’s life altering  effect in our lives.

As it turns out for the previous couple years we had been attending a  church that started a daily prayer meeting. The backbone of this prayer time centered around “The Lords Prayer.” In particular we would insert the names of family and loved ones into it in the place of (Our.) The goal was to provide a kind of umbrella of sorts over these who were important.

How often over the intervening years have I wondered what might have happened if on that particular day I had failed to: call, change plans, or act upon the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. Today my mom  is a  great grand mother after twenty seven years and leading many to righteousness as she knows it. In the last ten years she has been active in her Baptist church taking as many to Sunday school as her car would carry.

I have shared this story with very few, not wanting to bring undue attention to her or in any way dishonor her by bringing to the surface memories most of us would rather forget. She is still able to verify facts to  those in the class of “Holocaust Deniers,” who might like to suggest that this never happened.  Write these thoughts today after praying “The Lord’s Prayer” with the names of friends and family; hoping that any contemporary event to rival this in the story would like wise some how be interrupted and the names of my people protected. How bad would I feel to find that some calamity might have been averted in their lives, had some one prayed. So with all of the emotion that I feel about talking to my mom last night, because she is still alive, I beg you to pray the Lord’s prayer and other verses over you friends and loved ones. We have little difficulty placing our names in the John 3:16 Whomever believes, I am suggesting that we could place a few extra names in the Luke 11:2 Our Father.   

    

Humility

Realizing       Much of your present condition (pleasant and unpleasant) Is: 

The Result of your own efforts,

The result of the efforts of others

The result of talents and gifts from God, parents, or origin,

or simply the result of unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances that happened in your path .

Let My Goodness Pass BY!

My Goodness

Casually sitting on my love seat next to my wife, "licking our wounds" from the day's events; my open eyes beheld a stack of rocks. These rocks resembled those that I played on as a child.

This configuration remains to this day, near Paisano mountain, a few miles west of Alpine, TX. The rocks actually stacked up as high as a four story apartment building. I estimated that any one might measure the half the size of a bedroom. For instance, five people holding outstretched hands would barely encircle even one. These boulders stood five to twenty feet high and varied in configuration. They also "leaned" against each other leaving enough space between one another for a person to walk through the openings. As a kid a I explored in and out of these same rocks for hours while my Gram would paint the landscape. These were some of the fond memories of my childhood, ages 6-8 years.

After I identified the picture, a voice seemed tosay, "I am going to permit my Goodness to pass by, before you." The voice was a whisper. So quiet a whisper, I wondered, "If some one else had been talking, would I have heard the syllables at all, did I really hear it?." Additionally I thought; "I believe that phrase is written somewhere in the Bible. Oh yeah; it is found in Exodus where Moses was given the stone tablets, the ten commandments." These thoughts all passed through my head in a fraction of a second. After what seemed like a long minute, a hand reaching around from behind one of the huge rocks in the what appeared to be a vision. This scene developed upon small a ledge, only a few feet wide. What a narrow ledge, the thought rolled through my mind. Such a narrow step, one slip and a person might fall! First appeared the fingers, then the arm and next the torso of the body. The arms clearly had no coat, nor did the legs, as they came in view; have any pants. For a cloak He had, instead a very bright light. This Light was, as I looked at it, as bright as the arc welder flash. Having worked around such, I have trainied my eyes to look away so as not to be burned. Otherwise I am sure that bright spot would have damaged my eyes; it was that bright. This light danced around the person; having distinct colors. In spite of the brightness, there was discernable color. A bright and a pure white as it flowed like fire up in the direction of the head. It's color flashed so that it appeared to have an almost blue whitecolor. In the periphery of my eyes, the light also seemed to be alive. Glancing closer at the light; it also contained fire with various colors each "flowing" up. Each thread of color weaved around the others not unlike like the colored water from in a "rain run-off" formed from the trickle of a stream that will begin after a rain when the run-off flows down a muddy ditch. The colored water weaves into the clear and unaffected water of larger river not yet affected by the mud and rain. These colors of golden yellow, red, white, light blue and green (similar to teal,) danced up and around the person, almost to the head. It was then that I made two striking discoveries, One that the trunk of the "person" was larger proportionately than the extremities in a way not unlike my own grand father. Second, like him, this image of a man was not very tall. Relative to what I knew the rocks to be, he might have been 4'8" to 5'6". This shocked me because I would have thought such an able powerful person should be six to eight feet tall. He slipped around the boulder, He seemed to hug and then slipped behind so that in a moment, He vanished.

The whole feeling was not unlike sitting of an early morning; at the side of a small pool of water with no breeze and the surface; the water smooth as glass. There was such a complete sense of peace that a person could almost feel the residue of goodness. This Goodness had the texture of fresh homey; Pouring ever so slowly; folding over and around all that it touched and making all sweet in the process. I immediately shared the experience with my wife sitting right beside as it seemed that no words had been spoken between us for some time. At that time and immedately following, I didn't really understand how profound this little snippet of a vision would be or even more how it would affect my life. It has now been some days and that "sense of "Goodness" has pervaded the whole of my being. This feeling is not unlike incredible 'stillness' that happens inside a hurricane when standing between the two directions of the winds. I could not know that this sense of "Goodness" would roll into an all consuming desire, only leaving me to want for more. Just to BE with such a person who is so very good, is the most incredible; at once peaceful and powerfully explosive sense of well being I can imagine. As I think back upon this snapshot of eternity, my mind is a little "dazed," like I had bumped my head on something hard, so solid that it "just did not give." The surviving sense is similar to a person a little woozy from too much drink. I can assure no bump on the head or alcohol was cause of this once in a life time experience.

As I have meditated and walked out my daily life, I noticed something unusual about my 10 pound dog. He stands six inches from the floor and when I lean over I am always aggravated by a habit he has. If I bend over to snap his walking rope on his collar, he always bows down a little lower. In his effort to remain lower than my self, he seems to mbe uncomfortable remaining at my same level. This habit seems to be ingrained. This habit has also been characteristic in other dogs I have owned in past experience. He always wants to remain a little lower than my self; at all times, no matter what!. I began to think that if such a person as I saw stood in a room of people, they would all, in turn, kneel to a possessor of such Goodness. Out of honor and respect, in no wise fear, each would feel compelled to respond. If Goodness should sit in a chair of some kind, many would prostrate in order to keep the order in tact. If I think of a two thousand magnet like the one that picks up metal, it would not approach the drawing power of this Goodness, The paradox: I am at once both attracted and also respectful.

As I have noticed some middle eastern or Medeterrianian area men, at tiimes canbe be small of stature. Because the natural tendency of a people to become drawn to another like his own self, I can easily picture Abraham of old, to have been a man relatively small in stature. Can there be any wonder that a short man like Abraham might be chosen to "carry the torch" of God's rules and His Order. Later, Abraham's descendents would deliver the ten commandments, and subsequently the whole of the owner's operation manual. This one contained in the 613 laws also found in Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. In the vision there was absolutely no external pressure or word for me to kneel at the time. I was simply observing a scenario play out across the scene. It was only after that I became aware of what had happened. This is characteristic of me. At times the full effect of an experience or trauma does not become apparent to me for on average two days. It is something of a defense mechanism that I have developed over the years so that at the time of crisis, I may think clearly and rationally responding to the new facts in a reasonable way. I fully experience the event but hopefully at a later, safer time when lives will not be endangered by my responses.

In conclusion: this is what I saw, heard, experienced! At times the residue of , conflicting and confusing memories make it difficult to reconcile the things that I have seen and heard with the things that I had always thought to be true. . I have tried to understand and make sense of these differences during the intervening dayssince this vision. I have come woefully short. I also have tried to reconcile the various views of God that I have held over the years with a very different paradigm presented by this open vision. I do not assert that It was God which I saw, I simply do not know. Others before me have made this concept the major theme of their life: that He is a Good God. In an age where many call bad good and good bad, I have no explanation. For those who look at a thing they admire and in an effort to praise, they say that is so bad! I can not offer any help. Yet even so, God is a good who always God wants good (whatever is good, kind, true, pleasant, a good report, "to be praised," "to be desired!") For each person He seems to desire pleasantness. Love is like that!

My earliest child hood experiences lead me to think that of God as strong, severe, and unapproachable. This vision presented a very different image. Severe or Kind, He is Real and at some time each and every one of us will have to account for themselves. I hope that each person who reads this account will liberally cover him self with the Blood of Jesus to reconcile the Goodness that I saw with the "dirty here and now!" The natural consequence of seeing this bright light is to realize how dark I am. This also gives the feeling for me of being so very unworthy to stand or even remain in the presence of so great a presence. The courage is to realize that nothing that I could ever do would clean me up enough to be able to so stand, but that another has already paid the price for all my misdeeds.

'Thank you

When I, as   a Dad give,  a gift to my children, and afterward there is no thank you...
I can only conclude that my sacrifice was not valuable to the recipients.
Am I inclined to yield to that inner urge to give again, or do I back off and "let them see how they can do by their self?"

1 K Challenge

1 k =1000; 1000/365=~ 2.75 ; maybe 3x @ day with only 2x once  every other week(so who is perfect?)
The Goal ix  to verbally out loud and in the haring of the loved one: /Say "I LOVE YOU!"

1.  Morning watch, 
2. Evening Watch and 
3. Some other time in the middle of the day.  

Three times a  day for one year

The One K Challenge

What it does for you:: (James  3:3-6) Words paint the picture that the actions of our life live out. Saying "I Love You" directs the Body to begin to feel those feelings and to begin to think  thoughts that are Loving Kind and Understanding..  In short it begins to create a new world that conforms to these words. Because Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, hopes all things, is never jealous; these words frame an atmosphere where Life can flourish.
If minor corrections are needed in the Love walk, they are immediately apparent and the words become mid-course corrections. In time they take you back to the experience of "First Love."  
What it does for the other: It counters any misconceptions about your feelings for the other. It comforts and reduces fears that commitment or feelings have grown cold. It covers a multitudes of sin. It moves the focus of day to day life from the dirty here a now to the happy by and by.
It calls the "Highest good" out of the life performance of all else that happens in the day to day life.
Because Love is a spiritual force first, and only subsequently a physical one, it lifts all who think about it to the "Higher Plane." It tends to draw out the Dream process that hosts all creative thought and action.
So the 1 K Challenge will elevate your and their lives to the best self, the place where life really happens.

Hope that you do well and of course: I love you.

Thoughts on Encouragement

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do - Freya Stark 

 Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - W. Churchill

Time is short

Shocking news yesterday, here is the rest if the story....

Have a neighbor with some history... Now how often does Neighbor and history mean something good????? Well with this guy and his story it at best has been a little "iffy!" As events unfolded yesterday we discovered that almost no one in the neighborhood liked this guy. Could be that I am little unusual, but I never looked at all his deficits but only his better points. In short I did like the guy. He was a very interesting person, his profession was that of a DJ. He owned a firm that would sent a MC to a party, function or event. He personally moderated the VFW monthly events, and several other regular club events. Additionally, he became the "canned party" at many weddings as well as other similar celebrations like Birthday, Graduation Parties or Quientera. One time he mentioned that he had twelve thousand songs (MP3) on his computer. His search engine would find the tune as fast as a person could request it; making these parties seem spontaneous.

Over time it became a game with the two of us to tell each the joke "de jour" we had heard. Seldom did I hear a joke that he did not already know and could beet me to the punch line. Even that fact was fun! Once started, we could tell jokes back and forth for some time, He had no trouble telling three to my one, but it was still fun.

Here is the scenario making this piece relevant. With no presenting medical issues; he pulled into a famous Tex-Mex restaurant for a light lunch before an afternoon "Gig." He called his wife from the parking lot to "touch base." She reported that there was no particular alert within his call. He told her of his love for he and hung up. He must have sat in the car a few seconds as the doors were never unlocked. Later a passer-by noticed him. Then after knocking with no response, they called a paramedic. Arriving; The emergency team opened the door only to find that my friend had passed from this world.

... Left this piece in draft form several months: Even today the unexpected nature of his "Call To Report": "Who is the God of your Life?" leaves me stunned (as I think about it!).
Was My Friend ready? Am I ready? Are you ready?

It is never too soon to make your piece with HIM!