I love sunrises and sunsets. It does not matter if they provide the backdrop for an ocean view or a shopping mall. They are magnificent and stir something inside of me. They are the most photographed natural phenomena and I can not help but to pull out my camera anytime I see them, stop on the shoulder of the road to snap a picture usually falling short of fully capturing the beauty that my eye has witnessed. There isn’t much time to snap the photo as the combination of golden sunlight and countless colors will only last a few seconds. We often forget the speed that we are moving through the galaxy and take for granted the sunrise and sunsets. We often forget the vast expanse of the sun. Often, we only really reflect on it’s beauty as it makes its daily entrance and exit. In fact, the sun is always there whether or not we notice it. Throughout the day it’s directly overhead lighting our world, nurturing the landscape, and providing nutrients to the food we will eat. Even in storms with clouds that attempt to cover it, the sun is still there. It has not left us. In fact, if it weren’t for the sun, I can only imagine the complete darkness that would engulf during a light spring mist. Even in the dead of night, the sun is still there. Our world is seemingly moving, spinning away from it, yet its light relentlessly bends around the sphere and reflects off the moon. It is not as if it left us, it’s just that we forget it’s there. It seems the only time we remember the sun overhead is during the hot Texas summers and we can only complain about the heat. But thankfully the daily sunrises and sunsets faithfully wake us up to its glory. Yet, as glorious as this distant life-giving ball of gas is, it is still mere creation. It is but a pin-light beaming from the fingertips of its Creator. By the Word of His mouth, he placed it out there 93 million miles away to constantly remind us that He alone is the beginning and end of every day. He put it there to remind us all that even when we forget he’s over head sustaining us, that He is there even when our visibility is muted by the filter of creation. Today is Sunday, and millions of souls will be stirred by the magnificent glory of their Creator. Soon after, the majority of us will forget the glory as quickly as the fading brushstrokes of sunlight, and we will complain about the sanctifying heat; we will balk at the daily manna. Still there are some who will miss the beauty altogether to focus on the shopping mall in the foreground. We will fix our gaze on the creation which we see only by the light of the Creator, and we will make the fatal exchange. How can we be so blind when we’ve been given so many signs? How can we miss the sunrise for the shopping mall? How can we bask in the light, but not the Light? How can we lose our way when the Way is right in our path everyday? How can we believe a lie perpetuated in western culture by tragic celebrity examples when the Truth is there resounding like an eternal echo from the cosmos? Honestly, we can’t see, bask, believe, or find our way at all. Not without the Light.
Big Tex and Marshall Dillon
As a lifelong Texan and frequent visitor of the state fair, I was saddened by the loss of its iconic figure, Big Tex. He was a mere 52 feet of cowpoke shaped fiberglass, steel, and fabric, but as a child he seemed much bigger. I can’t look at photos of him without a flood of childhood memories gushing forth. There were times like when my dad took me on my first roller coaster, a rickety wooden ride that thrilled me and inspired the words from my dad’s mouth, “my stomach just dropped.” I remember trips to the fair with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and wonder why other family gatherings weren’t always so congenial. Then there were the “smells” that drew you in before you even made it through the front gate. The State Fair of Texas is likely the reason I order “Corny Dogs” from Sonic when in reality, they’re just corn dogs. Indeed, Big Tex embodied all of those memories, and while I’m a proponent of a bigger and more modern version, I am hesitant that his reincarnation will equally stoke the fires of my childhood experiences (no pun intended). Perhaps it will for my grandchildren.
The incineration of Big Tex marked the end of an era for many of us, but earlier in the week another era came to close for me and my family. While Big Tex was a larger than life figure, our little Jack Russell Terrier, Dillon, was larger than every other dog, at least in his own mind. We adopted him 9 years ago and it was apparent from the get-go that he thought he ruled the roost. Walks in the park were difficult because Dillon never thought he was outmatched. “Little Man Syndrome” was how he was described to us from the SPCA worker when we picked him up from a pet store in Lewisville, Texas. Ironically, he wasn’t my first choice for adoption, but my wife Tina saw something in him that I missed. She thought he was cute. Cute got him in the door, but loyalty earned him a permanent spot in the family. That’s the way it usually works. Momma wants the cute little dog, and daddy ends being his best pal. The Jack Russell breed, as I found out later, are a hyper bunch, but in some ways low maintenance. Dillon was a lone wolf most of the time he was with us but he never needed much more than a couple squares a day, a good hunt, and neck rub every once in a while. In short, he was a man’s dog. While Big Tex watched over the fairgrounds, Marshall Dillon canvassed our modest backyard for every kind of nocturnal creature imaginable. The dog we adopted because my wife thought he was cute, gave us more than we ever bargained for with dozens of late night hunts. He delivered moles, possums, lizards, snakes, frogs, and ferrets to our back porch many times although the squirrels eluded him. (At some point, a book will be written to chronicle those adventures.) He was our son’s boyhood dog and he was iconic to the life and times of the Wren family. He roamed in the background of birthdays, church functions, holidays, and graduations. He brought laughs, frustrations, and in the end, tears. His life served up useful markers for the many miles of a priceless journey and as to be expected, the decision to let him go was difficult. Like Big Tex, he was irreplaceably unique. Oh, there will be another Big Tex, and there will be other dogs. After all, as George Carlin put it, “life is a series of dogs”. But there will never be another Dillon, and that’s just fine and dandy.
Anger
Where did you come from loathsome vice
oft muted, mercifully constrained?
You’re the altar’s flame of burning ice
inner tranquility feigned.
You keep the gate for a powerless king
who scratches for a throne,
Whose worthless decrees he feebly clings
emboldened by his groans
Grace Breaks 