Echoes (From Joe)

From "Gladiator" - "What we do in life - echos in eternity"

I sit here this evening, actually 9 minutes until I sit here this morning, wondering how in life we get to certain intersections - and knowing the right way to turn - knowingly turn the wrong direction........

Wine, women and song - unfortunately I have known them all in my - thank you Jesus - becoming more distant everyday past.  I still wonder every day why the path(s) I have taken have brought me to where I am now.  Teacher, friend, confidant, mentor, husband, father, forgiven.... I sometimes feel as though I deserve none of them.  

Thick clouds of uncertainty loom over my thoughts at this time - advice to give, sooner, later, never?  I really wish Christianity came with a roadmap and instruction manual - when X happens, respond with Y and life's wrong turns would easily be righted.  

As I sit here & think about the past 6 months events - I have been on the highest of highs & the lowest of lows.  Basking in God's great gifts with the birth of my son & such a short time later shaking my fists at God and screaming WHY HIM?!  The happenings of late 07' and thus far in 08' have made me search for the answers - none have I found - sometimes there just isn't an answer - sometimes God wants us to just trust Him.

Some of you may be wondering why this blog has the lofty name 'High Flight'.  As I discovered this very evening, most of the folks I currently spend my time with weren't born when this poem (or at least a portion of it) was made famous.  President Reagan used it in a memorial after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff in 1986.  In my opinion that was one, if not the, most moving speech I have ever heard - and I was only 15 at the time.  I went looking for the poem shortly thereafter & here it is for your enjoyment;

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in sunlit silence.  Hov'ring there.

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God

John Gillespie Magee