Huff Expressions

May I share a Kentucky morning with you? It is Saturday, mid-August and I am quiet on our patio swing praying and thinking, trying to see and hear what matters. The cattle just across the way –mothers, calves, and the Bull – move toward the barn, quiet as well. In a far off meadow the neighbor’s cows are likewise grazing. The hills beyond them fold down into a long valley, the ridges like large fingers of two hands coming together, disappearing down into the clouds of mist rising slowly. A distant cloud shifts and for a few minutes the rising sun peaks through and brightens the mist, promising to eventually burn it away and bring on the day. But for now, a heavier fog is drifting in and the cool air says there is still time for quiet and meditation.

One always wonders if it is right to interrupt this kind of reverie. The world so bombards us with the artificial, it is hard to see the real. Closer to my swing I see a plastic bag of compost, a hose caddy – accouterments of the garden growing with various states of ease just a few yards away. Closer to me are tools and discarded boards left from an unfinished patio project, waiting to be put away later in the morning – sawhorses, a shovel, a broom, buckets of nails. The neighbors on both sides keep the hummingbirds busy with four different feeders and these overgrown bees buzz me now and then. My coffee cup, now empty, tells me to get more. I notice a cobweb in a chair arm and wonder at the countless spiders and their countless webs in myriad places. And then I wonder about this crazy business of modern technology which means I try to express my mind through keys on a quietly humming plastic box.

Are you still there? This is a Kentucky morning. The sun is peeking through on that meadow again, though the mist that had been only in the valleys is blended in with a general fog all around. Near the river here where we live the morning fog is a given, a soft blanket on the day that always rises as you get things underway.  Our oldest sons steps outside for a moment.  “Dad.”

“Huh?” I reply, sort of lost in my thoughts. “Would you fix me a pancake?” Jane is a fabulous cook; I am not. However, I can make a pancake pretty well and so I tell him of course I will, I just need a few more minutes of quiet.

The peeking sun is gone again. What am I saying to you after all? Well, as I prayed this morning, “Lord, are we to imagine this life is of no value – just a barren passing through? What is all this beauty? What are all of these joys – and pains? Without question they point to you if we can see at all.”

A year ago I was praying for our friend Neil, diagnosed with a vicious cancer that had already invaded his liver and left him little hope. I was joining others in praying for his healing – something God can do with a glance, a thought, a touch, while we are helpless completely. Neil died in November, leaving a wife and two beautiful, recently married, daughters. He was in his mid-fifties. Was he eager for heaven? No doubt – this world is indeed a valley of tears, a broken place as our 24/7 news wearily reminds us. Was he eager for life here? Without question – two daughters, hoped for grandchildren, precious wife and home and life’s work. But with so much pain and tears, can Creation be good?

I am thinking I hear an echo from Eden that says, “It is good. All that God made is good.”  And I believe again that though we dare not love the world and lose our soul, in loving God we are saved and we can then rightly love the world he has made.  The trees matter — they are his.  The singing birds are expressions of his unbounded creativity.  The rising mist had its birth in his mind from all eternity.  And while these things are child’s play to Him, for us they should be cause for unspeaking wonder.  The cooing doves in the distance, a cow mooing just now, our neighbor’s dog barking to the world, the growing garden nearby. Can I ever be still long enough to see the amazing good of God in the world He has made? Do I really have to write about it even? No, and yes.

In writing about it my understanding improves.  And as we love God with our minds — which he also made — we come closer to Him whom to know is life in the fullest sense — eternal life.  So we can say together:

 Thank you, Lord, for the world you have made and the life you have given.  Please help us know what it means, always looking to you, the Author of it all and the Finisher as well.  Until that great day, Oh Yes! (Amen!)

That helps me a lot on a Kentucky morning.  Helps me know what matters, helps me more rightly love the God who made this beautiful world, and helps me be ready for whatever else the day may bring.

…raise kids?

I dunno — never done it.

Why are you doing it now?

Because we have two sons and we love them.

Doing it without experience?

Yep.

Strange.

Yep.

Having children is as real and life-intrinsic as breathing.  It challenges everything about you, requires more than you ever dreamed, and teaches you a thousand lessons about yourself.  It pays back far more, too, but that is for later, further out there than we can see.  Good thing we don’t really know all that is involved or we might not want the job!  For that matter, we don’t ask for it exactly, it seems, but life urges us on to give back what we have received and so for most of us, we receive the amazing gift of children and realize they are very much worth wanting and having.

And I am out of words except for this effort to muse about what it all means.  We are raising our boys on our knees.  And we are engaging in their life where they are.  We are modeling and demanding discipline, albeit imperfectly, and we are meting out discipline, again, imperfectly.

And this "imperfect" business goes without saying, but perhaps we need to say it to help us remember that we have limits.  Of course we are imperfect.  But we strive and pray and engage and seek counsel and press on.  We read about and witness parents and children who seem to do it all right and we say, "Well, we’re still working at this thing."  We feel all that is at stake and the pressure mounts.  We remember that countless folks have done well in this thing and we take hope. And we smile with pride at the progress our boys make and remember that God knows us and them and we are in His care.  We remember they are not us and we make this enormous stretch of trying to see the world as they do.  And we pray some more, and some more…and some more.

So I’ve never raised kids and I don’t have much to say on it.  When I finally might have a thing or two clear in my head about it, my boys will be out on their own, hopefully trying their hand at this parenting business.  I hope our example will be a guiding light and, as my Dad told me, that they will do better in every respect than I did.

And here I find another hopeful place.  I loved my Dad.  He was a good man and a good father who patiently bore all that is involved with raising a son like me.  He wanted me to do better than he did, but that’s too tall an order.  I just hope I can be like him.  Did his son turn out perfectly?  Not exactly!  And neither will my sons.  But, if they can love the Lord, pursue wisdom, and trust in Jesus for salvation, then I can rest.  Not there yet — still on the stretch.  But with memories of my own Dad along the way, I’m believing we can win this thing.

That’s 2 cents in the too occasional blog.  I welcome your feedback and insight over at our FB (RandyandJane Huff) or email: rhuffATkmbcDOTedu.  (This blog is currently in ailment mode but will have the comment feature fixed soon and be in better shape.)