One Man's Choice

   I have just finished reading this book and want to pass on its story:

   December, 1943, in the midst of the air war over Germany and Europe, the lives of two men, both pilots, but on opposite sides, came together for a few moments and history was changed. All of this because of the decision of one pilot, a decision of life and not of death.

   Charlie Brown, a 20 year old B-17 bomber pilot of the US 8th Army Air Force, was nursing his shot up plane back toward England. His left rear stabilizer was shot off, his tail gunner was dead in the rear turret, he had two engines out and multiple wounded on board. It would be a miracle if he could make it out of German air space and over the North Sea to his home base.

   Franz Stiger was a German fighter pilot, a multiple ace, and had come across this crippled bomber as it straggled alone. If he finished off this plane, it and its crew would be out of the war and not able to bomb his homeland again. It was his job to make that happen.

   As Franz approached the stricken bomber from the rear, he wondered why the tail gunner did not begin to shoot at him as he got within range. This was the only gun on the plane that could have seen him as he closed in. Realizing there was something wrong, he edged in until he could see the tail gunner slumped over his guns, not moving. He could also see the shot up condition of the plane and the fact that two propellor props were not spinning and the plane was continuing to lose altitude. 

   Chances were that the US bomber would not make it home in its condition. There were several strikes against it. It was still in German territory and would have to fly over multiple gun emplacements that could bring the plane down, there was the lengthly water crossing and these were combined with the loss of the two motors and the dropping altitude.

   Franz could back off and shoot the plane down. After all he had plant of ammo to finish the job. He could also just leave it alone and let the guns deal with it. As low and slow as it was flying, it was a dead duck anyway. Or he could do the unheard-of act and stick with it for a while. No one would know.

   As the German ace pulled up alongside the bomber, he motioned to the surprised American, trying to get his attention and point him in the direction of Sweden, a course which would allow him to miss the guns on the ground, and give a him a place to land where he would not be captured. But Charlie Brown did not understand what he was trying to tell him and continued to fly west toward England.

   At this point a higher call kicked in. Franz decided to stay with the American till he could get out over the ocean. He would probably not make it to England anyway, but if the German fighter stayed with him the gunners on the ground would not shoot one of their own.

   Long story short, the guns did not fire. Franz left him over the North Sea, not knowing whether he made it home or not, and as he returned to base, decided to tell no one of what he had done. After all, what he did was against orders, and he could have been shot for his disobedience.

   The crew of the bomber threw out all the extra weight to get more altitude, the plane made it to land, the wounded men received medical attention and lived and both pilots survived the war.

   The striking thing to me was not that the men had survived the war, or not that they eventually found each other many years later in an emotional reunion, but the many lives that were affected by that one act. Those two pilots certainly, but also the crew members of the bomber and all the children and grandchildren of those men who lived. All of these families and the ones that they touched and continue to do so, flowed out of one decision of one man in one moment of a World War.

   The decisions I make today, decisions to encourage or put down, decisions to help or pass by, and just decisions to care for others can matter, and their effects can last a long time.

   One man's choice.

   Help me God to remember and to think as I live in relationship to others in my world.

Can We Be Absolutely Safe?

   On day 8 of our recent trip, we docked at the English port of Liverpool. Our excursion that day was to go to Chester, an old English town south and east of the big port city.

   After taking the tour, coming back to the ship to eat lunch, I decided to walk off and explore the Liverpool dock area and the surrounding city, at least as far as walking could take me.

   Tucked away in a garden beside St. Nicolas Church was a sculpture dedicated to the victims of the WWII blitz in 1940-42. German bombers had pounded this city, especially the dock area, in order to try to stop the supplies coming into Britain from the west. Upwards of 4,000 civilians died in these air raids.

   The modern day art piece was placed in the garden in 2000 as a memorial of all those who had gone through this rough time, especially those who died.

   The depiction shows a young mother, clutching a toddler girl, while she implores her son to come down from his perch and go with her to the air raid shelter for safety from the bombs. The boy is busy fighting the invaders with his model plane, a more important job for him than running off to the shelter.

   These shelters were definitely safer than being caught out in the streets, with bombs bursting, shrapnel flying, and buildings falling, but there was a relativity to this concept. Even shelters in Liverpool suffered from direct bomb hits where all inside were killed.

   The headline of The Brunswick News screamed out at me this morning:

                          ARE WE SAFE ?

   My questions as I looked at this were, "Are We Completely Safe?" "Can We Ever Be?"

   No matter the shelters, or the agents at all the airports, or a border fence, there is no such thing as absolute safety. Relative safety is all we have.

   I see in this sculpture above that this family has no man present. Presumably, he is off fighting somewhere away from his wife and kids, trying to keep them safe as well as he can. I thank God for those men and women doing that today.

   Just like those in the blitz in Liverpool in the dark days of WWII, and like those in the World Trade Center in 2001, we each have no control over the events that might overtake us.

   The only safe place to be is in the center of God's Will. If we and our loved ones are in that spot, no matter the circumstance, we are safe.

   There was life after the blitz, whether you died in it or not...

 

Sometimes You Just Have To...

   Raining in our part of the world this morning, tennis courts are too wet to play, just a time to eat breakfast and relax.

   As I got up from the table to walk into the bedroom, I glanced out the door to the outside porch and noticed a big black shape next to the pool. It was a cloudy, rainy morning without too much light yet, but there he (or she) was, checking out the hot tub and pool.

   I had to try to get a shot. I had never seen a heron like this parading around this pool area, and it was too good to miss.

   Running back into the front room to get my camera, I quietly moved out onto the porch and shot away, knowing I had the wrong lens, it was too dark and I had no tripod to make up for the slow shutter speed that I had to use to get some light into the picture.

   So I got this, knowing it would not be a very clear or sharp picture, but wanting to preserve the moment anyway, regardless.

   The heron did not stay long, in fact as I went back to get a longer lens, off he flew, as if to say that I had had enough time and he could not wait any longer.

   Oh well, wrong lens, no tripod, handheld at a slow shutter speed to get some light, and then I realized that I still had on my polarizing lens that I had been using in the bright sunlight the other day. All of those technical things working against me, plus shooting from the porch through the screen wire made this effort iffy at best.

   But I will remember the sight of that bird, his majestic parading around the pool, and his showing up to add some oomph to a cloudy, rainy morning.

   And I am still thankful.

A Pilgrim On Tour

   In Psalm 46:10, the English Standard Version reads:

“Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”

   Be Still and Know. Many times, even in places of worship, it is hard for us to be still and know. We are surrounded by God, yet the bustle and agendas of people get in the way. Our own thoughts betray our impatience to get on with life, and we refuse to be still, and so we do not know.

   The third morning of our trip, we were sitting at breakfast as our ship pulled into the Irish town of Cobh, our docking place for the city of Cork and its surrounding countryside. As I looked out the window, this scene filled the landscape:

   As was the case in so many of the places we visited, the town cathedral towered over the surrounding buildings, and my eyes were drawn to its lofty spires and dominance of position. I knew that was where I wanted to visit on this day.

   As I climbed the streets leading up to the church, I thought of all the people that had lived in that place over the years, even centuries, and had seen that building, had walked up to it and through its front doors, and sat down to worship and pray in its sanctuary. How many times had God spoken to individuals in those seats and at those altars? Was He still doing that today?

   In the churches of those cities and towns along our route, I had played the tourist, with my camera, taking those shots that would let me remember the majesty and grandeur of what people of the past had built. I had slipped inside and tried to get the flavor of what the peoples had witnessed over the many years.

   I had marveled at the colors of the stained glass and the stories that they told.

   I had looked at flickering candles and thought of the prayers that had been offered at those altars over the many years.

   I looked around the inside of those places of worship.

   But I wanted most of all, just to sit in those seats and think, not of just those people in the past who had sat there, but that God could still speak to people today in those same seats, maybe even me if I took the time to be still, even in the bustle of a tourist trip.

   So, at each stop, I found a seat and tried to do just that. I say tried, because I was not always successful in shutting out the things going on around me, but ofttimes I could feel that, not only had God spoken there in the past, but He could do it again to anyone who would take the time to be still and listen.

 

   I also found that others did the same, and that old building which had known so many pilgrims over the years, could also know a few more, even that day.

   A good day in the House of The Lord

   Amen

   Picture credits (from top to bottom of the post)
      Cobh Cathedral
      Glasgow Cathedral
      Chester Cathedral
      St. Patrick's at Dublin
      Bayeux Cathedral
      Chester Cathedral
      St. Magnus Cathedral at Kirkwall in Scotland

 

Pray and Draw

   A couple of hours ago, I woke up. I had been dreaming that my life and all the things around me were swirling out of control, and I could not think of a thing to rectify the situation. It was chaos, and I was helpless to do anything.

   So I got up with those thoughts still there and sat down to read and pray and look for some semblance of order in all of this. Then the website for the Scripture for this day just gave me an error message, saying that it could not be found. It did not look good.

   Then as I walked, it began to sprinkle and then rain a little harder. Finding a house with a raised back porch, one that I knew no one was home at the time, I ducked under to wait out the weather. As I stood and watched and thought and prayed, I realized that this was what I needed. A forced wait, a quiet time to think and pray, and so I did.

   As I returned to the condo, I remembered that I could access the day's Scripture with a different approach, so I did, and this is what I found in the Psalm 71 reading:

"Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
Do not forsake me when my strength fails."

   Yes, it was the way I felt and the verse rang true.

   I thought back to our recent trip. On the "at sea" days, our friends brought out a game that both couples enjoyed playing, a domino game, called Mexican Train.

   Sometimes you draw a hand, and nothing seems to fit in place. Everywhere you look to play, there is no match and you are forced to draw again and again.Everyone else has their train moving, but your's is stalled, and the tiles that will count against you just keep piling up.

   How to cope with a "no control" situation?

   Pray and draw again…

   There were times on that trip when we had events planned that we wanted to be able to enjoy. Realizing the control over these that I did not have, I just prayed. There were a lot of things that could have damaged the day, but God was gracious and the days played out well. I was grateful, and still am.

   Sometimes the dominos just line up to be played.

   Even then I realize that any control over that game, or life, is not mine, so what do I do when things swirl.

   Pray first and then keep drawing.

 

Scottish Independence

   While we were in Scotland some few days ago, there were signs everywhere like this:

   Basically just  one word signs, simple words, but ones that can make the difference in my day, and, through the extension of this day, to my life later, depending on which I use.

   And the answer I give, using one of these, depends on the question I ask.

   In Scotland today, the basic question relates to control.

   In my life today, there is that same question. It may take many forms before this one day is over, and it will not be settled for all time with the mark on a ballot, and, just as those folks over there may not see the implications of their answer on their futures, neither do I on mine.

   When I got up this morning, my day was stretching out in front, and the first verse I read in Matthew 6 stated:

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

   What would I seek first today? What suited me, or what God wanted? If the question was who would I serve today, was I going to go for independence and have my own way, or dependence, and be guided by One that knows the way?

   But here is the main problem: I can make the decision to follow that verse, but there will be many other chances to deviate from that course as the day progresses. I may set the tone for my future decisions with this quiet time, but, unless I stay close to the divine source of my guidance, I can vote for independence at any time.

   So, if the question continues to be this day, will I remember God and follow Him, I want to not only answer YES right now, but continue to answer that way all day.

   And continue to ask that question.

   Living in the sunlight of His Will.

 

 

The Best Day (Part II)

   Little did I realize, when putting our cruise trip together, what one day of the whole 2 weeks would mean to all concerned. Looking back from this time vantage point, I can tell some of it at least.

   When the friends who had gone with us wrote the other day, his line was:

"We also had a ball on the trip.  The visits to Mrs. Jorges' childhood home and place of work were meaningful to us because we were able to see just how much they meant to Mayre Lou."

   That probably sums up my take also. I knew my wife wanted to go and see all that, but just did not realize what the impact would be, or turned out to be. Even to this day, as she reads some of the things that I have written and looks at the pictures of that day, she tends to tear up and say something like "I can't believe we got to do all of this".

    But we do need to look at this day some more.

   After the visit to Carluke, the cemetery and the Hillhead cottage there, we took off for the village of Hyndford Bridge. We had a house name, but no specific address, so we just went. When we did not spot anything on the way through, we continued on to Lanark where we did have the name and address of the factory where Mamie was a bookkeeper after she finished school. We found it.

   When she worked there, the name was A MacDougall, and we found that name on one of the old doors.

   Everyone was leaving for lunch, so we just snapped a couple of shots and went to get a bite ourselves.

   While we were inside the cafe getting something to eat in the car, Tom was in the van making calls. I'm not sure what he did, but he ended up talking to the lady who lived in the house we were looking for. She gave him directions and off we went back to Hyndford Bridge.

   The couple that lived in that house had occupied it for 49 years. Their last name was Bennie, and they invited us in to see the place and what they had done with it. It was a neat house, and hard to realize that it had been built back in the 1850s.

   The husband wanted me to see his flowers out back, so we did. When I asked him about the name of one of them, he just said "You will have to ask my wife, I grow them, but she knows them."

   It was a great experience, getting to meet with these folks, ask questions and hear of their life there for the past half century. They were good people.

   Seeing these places on this day answered a lot of the questions that Mayre had about her Mom in her growing up days, before coming to America, but it also brought up a lot more that we had never asked.
Like:

   Where did she go to school?

   What kind of school and how far from her home?

   How did she get to school and later on to work in Lanark?

   How did they shop? Where?

   You just can't know the questions to ask that would put her in this place, until you see how it is laid out, and now it is too late to ask those who lived it,

   But all those unanswered things did not dampen our day and neither did any rain. It was a great day, one that will be remembered fondly for years. My only regret was that we did not do it sooner. Oh well, better late than never, I guess.

   My wife says with conviction, "This was the best day ever".

   And we are both Thankful...

The Best Day of Our Trip

   We had done all we could from 4,000 miles away, but it looked like we might not be successful. We had read the book that talked about Mayre's mother's Scotland family and the area that she grew up in. We had read the journal of her trip back in 1964 and the people she met in those Scottish towns. We had done the genealogical research on the family, and we had been in contact with a lady in Scotland, given her our information and received her report as to where we might look when we got there.

   But now on Day 10 of our British Isles cruise, we were on our way from the harbor at Greenock toward Carluke, wondering out loud how successful we might be in finding the two houses mentioned in these reports and journals. It was this quest that began our thinking about this trip, many years previous.

   Our driver, Tom, had been given all we knew, and he was making it his personal quest to help us in ours.

   Arriving in Carluke, we first went to the cemetery where Mamie's (Mayre's mother) father was buried. He was a minister of the United Presbyterian Church, but had to resign his very first pastorate because of health reasons. Mamie was born in 1893 and his death was in 1895.

In Loving Memory 

of

The Rev. John Gray MA

Minister of the UP Church

Rothesay

Who Died at Hillhead Carluke

March 2nd 1895 Aged 39 Years

   This was the tombstone of my wide's Grandfather.

   After this stop, we proceeded to the area south of Carluke where a cottage with the name Hillhead was supposed to be. Our lady in Scotland had sent a picture of the house she had discovered, but our road names and directions did not produce its actual location. After stopping and asking at a gas station, we retraced our route to look once again. Turning off the Lanark road onto Bullhead road, we spotted a cottage on the left as we turned onto Bullhead. The trees had completely blocked its view from the main Lanark road, and we could not even see the front of the house (which was our picture view), so Tom stopped and asked. It was the right place, and the owner was happy to show us around. He even remembered that he had been told when he bought the place 30 years ago, that it was once owed by a retired minister, and once we got around to the small front yard we could see that it was actually the house of our old picture.

   The house had been added to on the Bullhead Road side, and the look changed, but it was the one we were looking for, the one where her mother had been born and spent the first few years of her life

   It was exciting for my wife, and all of us for that matter, for her to see that place and relive some of the history that she had been told by her mother.

   Mayre would go on to say that "this day was the best of the whole trip and worth all the trouble to get there".

   But there is more to this story…

   To be continued...

 

 

Don't Rush to Judgment

   There is an old says about judging a book by its cover. As I think back over our recent trip, these thoughts come to mind.

   We had been at sea for a whole day with all kinds of weather. Periods of sunshine, of rain, of deep clouds and also with blustery winds. We were going to dock in the Orkney Island port of Kirkwall on Friday morning of our second week, and, as my habit was, I woke up early and got up on deck 11 to check out the weather.

   For some reason, I was looking forward to this port of call. A small town right close to the dock in an area of Scotland that spoke of isolation and history, perfect for exploration and picture opportunities.

   As I walked out in the darkness of the predawn, I saw these sights:

   And I thought, "Oh well, we can get off and explore anyway and try to stay dry".

   After breakfast, the announcement was made that we could leave the ship and go ashore. There would be a shuttle bus to take us to the center of that town, and we could come and go as we pleased.

   I could tell from the restaurant views that it was still cloudy, but the clouds were moving along bringing periods of bluer skies.

   So we went, and here is the day we received and the sights that we will remember:

                                                St. Magnus Cathedral

                               The Castle of the Earl

                                The Town Hall

   The Day had not started out so good, but it was a glorious time. Isn't that the way it is in life also? Instead of bemoaning the day from the rainy beginning, I needed to just give it over to the Creator and see what He had in store.

   This street sign as we walked back to the shuttle seemed to be the reminder I needed.

   And the day was one of the best of the whole trip.

   And I am thankful for the day and the message.

Normandy, Guernsey, Cobh, Dublin, Hyndford Bridge, Glendalough, Kirkwall

   All through the last couple of days I had repeatedly put off taking my camera out and transferring the pictures from the trip into the processing program on the computer. Maybe, deep down, I was afraid of what I might find. Pictures that look good in the camera sometimes do not seem as good later on. I did not want to find that I had missed some good shots and mishandled some others.

   But this morning I woke up thinking of what thoughts I might write about in this post and also which kinds of pictures I could use from the trip, so I had to get them in the computer in order to see what I had.

   I thought of some ideas, but as I began to upload the shots from the camera to the computer, and as the pictures kept coming in, and in and in, I realized that I did not have any clue about where to begin. The upload was 765 pictures. Even after I went through and culled about 130, the file was still massive.

   So here is a quick overview in pictures of the trip. I have taken a shot from each of several different scene types, ones that I find occurring over and over again as I go down through all the file. There may some psychological disorder that comes out of these fixations, but here they are anyway.

   I find a lot of shots of each of these:

Cemeteries

Cathedral

Ruins

Special Home

Color

Stained Glass

Sunrise

Sunset

There are stories to go with each one, and more to go with the 600+ more shots. Maybe tomorrow I can put some coherent thoughts to go with some.

Stay tuned in.

Happy To Be Back

   Back on August 20th, a few days before we left on our trip abroad, I wrote a blog post on this verse in Psalm 118,

"This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it."

   This post was still open on my computer this morning, some 22 days after it was written, and I find that it sounded good when I wrote it, but I certainly did not live by it in those days overseas.

   In the hurry of getting ready to go, in the looking forward to the things we were going to experience, in the long plane rides from Atlanta to London, in the 14 nights on board our cruise, in the bustle of a new port most every day, and in the long and tiring journey home to our own beds, it was easy to let the words of that verse slide into the background.

   Back in the early part of this year, a couple who had been our good friends for over 50 years mentioned that they might like to take a cruise around the British Isles. Mayre and I had been thinking the same thing for several years, but had never gotten to the point of pulling the trigger and doing it.

   This seemed to be the prefect time.

   My wife's mother, born in Scotland in 1893, had immigrated to Canada and on to the US when she was 18 years old. She had always talked about her homeland, and this trip would allow my wife to see the area where she grew up before coming here. We knew from past family members that a couple of her residences were still there and also the factory where she was a bookkeeper. Even before she passed away in 1992, she had put the desire to see those places in the heart of Mayre, although we just never did anything about it.

   So, even at this late stage of life, we bit the bullet and went, and, although I would not like to go again tomorrow, it was a real adventure worth taking.

   God blessed us with good friends on the trip, with an abundance of good weather, with experiences of new places and people, and with a whole day to see those important places that connect us with our past.

   Was it tiring? Well, we got home Monday night after a 24 hour day, and it took me until this morning to actually sit down and write.

   Did we eat too much? Sure, it was a cruise, and that's what we do.

   Did God keep us safe and well? Mayre had a slight stomach problem the first night on board and I came home with a cold, but all the days in between were free of any health issues.

   Did I take some photos? I have over 600 shots in the camera on the memory card and there is no telling how many I culled while looking at them as we went along. I'm sure some will show up on this site in the days to come, along with some commentary on the ports of call.

   So, after a bunch of days without computer access, I write this post to explain our absence. God gave us many days of His presence as we prayed for various things along the way. His hand of guidance and protection let us experience things we had only dreamed about for years, and we are thankful.

   And we did visit the places in Scotland that Mamie had loved, Carluke, Lanark, Stonehouse, Hyndford Bridge, and met people there that blessed us.

   More later, but we are glad to be home.