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Hearing With Our Hearts

Hearing With Our Hearts

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Kim shared a message she received from Greg Laurie, a pastor,  this morning that kind of hit home to me of late.

“So many of us tend to run around in our self-made circles of activity instead of wisely and calmly sitting at His feet” and that “We need to be ready to hear what God has to say.”

The author goes on to use the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 where Jesus describes four reactions to hearing the truth.

First, there is the hard heart and the seed on the path or the roadside. The hard heart doesn’t receive the Word and therefore doesn’t produce any fruit.

Next is the shallow heart, which is the seed that fell on the ground filled with rocks and with shallow roots, the emotional who have no depth in their lives, thus bearing no fruit.

Then there is the crowded heart, the seed that goes into the soil embedded with weeds. This seed may take root and bear fruit initially, but the worries of life choke it out.

And of course, lastly, there is the seed that bears fruit, one that sows deep and therefore those will hear the truth in their hearts.

And it is up to us to decide whether we will have a hard heart, a shallow heart, a crowded heart, or a fruitful heart. We determine how we will allow God will affect our lives.  It’s up to us.

We decide if we want to hear with our ears, but not with our hearts.

 

Yeah, I get it.

 

I haven’t written in a while because I have been busy.  I guess I have been running around in my self-made circle of activity again.

 

That is not to say everything has been bad, not at all in fact.

 

Covid cases popping up in the Rehab facility my dad is in and at the Assisted Living where Kim’s mom resides has restricted our ability to visit our parents in the last month.

Though that has been hard we took advantage of our time off from worry and used one free weekend to bottle our newest vintage of Little Chickens Winery called  “Wedding Blend.”

Little Chickens Winery “Wedding Blend”

Then I had to accompany Kim on a trip to Orlando sponsored by her company. I will admit that was hard, but I got through it.

 

Once home from Florida, we had the main event, which you might guess from the “Wedding Blend” was, a wedding.

Yup, Savannah and Leon finally tied the knot.

 

Now, you have to understand in my family, weddings haven’t historically been events to celebrate over the years, and typically when we have a wedding in my family, that means there is a divorce coming.

However, I don’t really believe that will be true of this family wedding or ever again.  And in fact, I said in my father of the bride toast, that finally on this day, I feel like all my girls are in a good place, they are all safe, and they are all happy.

And that makes me happy.

Mr. and Mrs. Boone

Of course, the side benefit of having a wedding is having all my kids and all my grandchildren together at the same time which generally doesn’t happen but maybe every other Christmas, in fact, Christmas of 2019 was the last time we were all together.

And that made me happy too.

Me and my little guys

Normally this past Saturday, November 6th being both Alexa’s birthday and Kim’s mom Faye’s birthday, one or both of us would be traveling maybe in the same direction, maybe not.  Though we had planned to be with Faye on her birthday, the covid restrictions wouldn’t allow that and since Alexa was having to endure her own trip to Orlando and in her case, Disney World this past weekend, Kim and I stayed home.

Instead, we used that time to perform the annual felling of the banana trees.  With Harry Belafonte, playing “De-O The Banana Boat Song” in the background on YouTube, I felled the bananas…trees that is and stacked them in my truck for a trip to the landfill.

Then to end the weekend on a nice note we spent the late afternoon bowling with Cameron, Savannah, and Leon.

Cameron bowling in 2016

In February of 2016, I wrote about bowling in an essay entitled Bowling for Cameron. Being around all my grandchildren on the days surrounding the wedding and also with Cameron on Sunday and my bowling reflection, I realized how much time does not wait for you to find your way out of the weeds. You can miss a lot.

Cameron bowling in 2021

So this morning on my way to work I thought about where my heart has been the last couple of years, and maybe the last many years.

Somewhere between being on ground filled with rocks, and being embedded in the weeds is my guess.

 

But this morning I felt different.

Our parents are in safe places.

My girls are in safe and happy places.

My family shared some way overdue time together as a family (and will do it again this Christmas.)

 

And I am happy.

And best of all, I am calm.

And I am not used to calm.

It is very strange.

 

But maybe that will allow me to pay attention more.

Maybe that will allow me to hear better now.

And not just with my ears.

 

 

Banana trees before the felling
To Every Thing There Is a Season

To Every Thing There Is a Season

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)

 

This is a bittersweet time of the year for me.

Trying to hold on to the last hint of summer, we spent a long weekend at the beach last week fishing, biking, and getting some rest.

This morning however the temperature was 34 degrees, signaling that it was the time of the year to give up the sanctuary of our back yard that we worked so hard in the spring to build, and begin to get ready for winter.

The time to pluck up that which was planted.

The first time I held my wife’s hand early in our courtship I remember saying to myself, “man, this girl has some rough hands!”

A farmer’s daughter, growing up working on the farm, created those tough hands.

And on a day like this, the time for plucking, that kind of wife comes in real handy.

So this morning the annual ritual of taking down the banana trees began.  This was the most prolific year we have had with our banana trees, and they produced many “pups.”  They also grew bigger than they ever had before.

One by one we dropped them down leaving about four to six inches of the plant above the ground.

We collected the leaves of the hardwood trees that had fallen, having served their purpose now laying in colors of red, orange, yellow, and brown in our yard.  These leaves will serve a different purpose now, to try to preserve the life of what was left of the banana in the ground as winter sets in.

So we covered the short stumps of the banana trees with the dead leaves.  On top of the leaves we laid the clippings of the tall grasses from our yard leaving some of the grasses up for the birds and as protection for the fish in the koi pond.  Then finally on top of the dead leaves and the tall grasses, we made a thick layer using the leaf of the banana trees themselves.  Some of these leaves were over six feet long.

Once the banana trees were tended to we dug up the bulbs to be brought inside for the winter and wrapped the palm trees with bubble wrap and a bed of pine needles.  This will be my first experience with trying to get a palm tree through a winter.  With bubble wrap and duct tape, the four trees I planted this year in the yard were ready.

It was a good day, and now as I sit on my deck without the privacy of my banana trees, I realize they had served their purpose all summer long, and today we served ours, working hard all day to hopefully bring them back again in the spring.

 

Yesterday our mail contained an envelope addressed to Donny from the Franklin Mint.  After seventeen years to get a piece of mail addressed to Donny caused a bit of a pause.

Because I guess I realize that to every thing there is a season.

And I understand a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

But sometimes it’s hard to understand why that to those who are born, the time to die could come so quickly.

Couldn’t we have just wrapped them in bubble wrap and duct tape just that one time and protected them?

I don’t suppose.

I guess there is a time to every purpose under heaven, even if we don’t understand.