I really contemplated where I should post this commentary and none of the many that I write seemed appropriate. What I’m about to write though seems lost in the “otherness” of life or somewhere in that hallway called “liminal space“: a place where were’ totally lost, but found by God, so it’s here that I have landed.
I’m an outdoor person, a nature lover, an animal lover, and one who is ONE with all that God has created. I can’t help but believe that we all are, but few realize it. As I sat in my lawn chair this morning looking up at the trees in my side yard (of which there are about 100), I could help but glance at certain ones and ask, “what’s your story”?
I’m not losing it. Really, I’m not! 
I’m just drinking diet coke with a splash of lemon from my lemon tree that sits beside my lime trees, my apple trees, my plum trees, my two puny orange trees, and my lone tangerine tree. I really do have them all and I planted them all. But that’s another story.
It’s the 100 year old pine trees, the various oak, and an assortment of varied varieties that caused my mind (and I think my spirit) to ask of them what they knew and what their historical life had seen. You’re probably not surprised and maybe even relieved that they didn’t talk back. But, I did hear this in my spirit. They are God’s creation, anchored in God’s creation, as we all are. How easily we today, rip out millions of acres of tress in the rain forests around the globe with no thought to what we’re destroying, but only that economic gain need be considered.
Is it any wonder then that killing tens of thousands of people, even millions of people in various genocidal acts over the past few decades, doesn’t seem to bother us? A proverbial tree-hugger I am not. But a respecter of how all of God’s creation I am becoming more aware- even to the level of thinking they have something to say to us.
Onward down the hallway!
I think it is all good. I wrote a letter to my friend Paul Legros who died a year ago Sept. 1st. I sent it addressed to Paul & Kathy Legros. After all the wife gets to open and read the mail if her name is on it. She was really blessed by the letter.August 27, 2007. Here is the letter. It helped me too.
Dear Paul,
I sure do miss you! I miss calling you on the phone on Sunday afternoons and the tone of your voice perking up and replying, “Hi! Marvin!
I miss coming over to pick you up and take you to Philips to play acquire or staying at your house and wait for Philip to come over. I miss our conversations while driving along in the car or sitting and talking in the house or the times when we would talk after game night on the way to the car. I miss your jokes and then when I would come up with one and when I was through with the punch line, you would reply, “Needs work.” I miss the times we would play manipulation with Kathy. I played several games of manipulation last week with her up at April Sound, and I tell you, she is still difficult to beat.
I remember one time when I shared a question with you that I had about eternity and you said that you would let me know. I asked you how you were going to do that and you replied, “I don’t know.” Then again, maybe you replied, “I’ll let you know.”
I just wanted to let you know that I love you and that here on earth it will be 1 year since you left. To us it will be your first birthday in heaven. You are 1 year old, but in Heaven I think it’s only been a moment, whatever that is.
Well, I have mixed feelings, but I am truly glad that you are where you are. There is no better place to be than to be in the presence of Jesus.
My hope is to be there, but now to be how Jesus wants me to be here on earth as long as I am breathing.
Loved by you like a son,
So much pressed into my soul,
I love you Paul,
Marvin