One Pants Leg at a Time

Posted on January 1, 2012 by jkd

Whenever a team is facing a highly ranked opponent, this is what coaches will sometimes say to de-mystify the aura of the other team.  “They aren’t so great, they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like we do.”  They aren’t supermen.  They don’t perform supernatural things like putting pants on both legs at once.

For me, it has taken on a slightly different context. Like everyone else, I put my pants on one leg at a time.  But, it has become much more difficult. My left leg no longer has sufficient cartilage in the knee to allow me to smoothly rotate or use my left leg to support the rest of my body without significant pain. In fact, it hurts “like the dickens”* more often than not.  (I get that saying from my mom.)

Have you ever paid attention to how you put your pants on?  I mean, you just about can’t put pants on two legs at a time without significant help.  You have to have one leg to stand on while the other is raised in a manner to allow the pant leg to slip over the foot and up the leg.  Which leg do you put on first?  I always start with my left leg. I don’t know why. I have never observed anyone else enough to know which leg is first for them. I have asked a few people and so far no one knows which leg they start with.  It hasn’t occurred to them to note.  I just know for me it is my left leg.

This has become a problem since my left leg is the starter leg.  I get the left leg on fine because I use the right leg as a support. But, since my left leg hurts so much, I have to either sit down, or lean heavily against some support structure to ease the weight on my left knee and allow me put on the right leg.

The second problem is being a creature of habit. I have tried to start the process with my right leg, thinking that doing so would allow me to stand on my ‘good’ right leg while putting on the left leg.  Well, it just wouldn’t work.  A habit I’ve been following for over 60 years just wouldn’t be broken.  Try as I might, and I did try several times, it just wouldn’t work. I would get that right leg in and try to go to the left and … something wasn’t happening. My balance was awkward, my effort failed and I couldn’t follow through.  I suppose I could have kept practicing, but, it didn’t seem to be worthwhile.

I’ve decided to get my knee fixed instead. It needs to happen, with or without the pants problem.  Other things like getting into and out of cars, going down stairs, and the list goes on …  have become more and more precarious, risky events.

January 5th, I will be having knee surgery, getting a newish knee, something called a “Stryker Triathlon” knee.  The doc says it’ll be about 3 days in the hospital, about 3 weeks to get to where I can walk without the aid of a cane or walker and 3 months to learn how to walk ‘normally’ again.  And, it takes a year to forget there is something new in your knee every time you get up.  I’ll take it over what I’m doing now.

It is a little thing, I know, knowing which leg you start with when putting your pants on.  Your life and mine won’t be better by knowing this.  It’s good to know that old habits are hard to break so make sure you develop good ones.  And I’ll try to keep you up-to-date on progress with my knee.

PS.. (*  I didn’t know from whence the expression “hurts like the dickens” was derived. I had to look it up, or google it, as they say.  It seems this is a minced- oath, or euphemism, used by the sly English to approximate profanity without being such. “Like the dickens” is one-off from saying “like the devil”.  It is even used by Shakespeare in the play “the Merry Wives of Windsor”.

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.

Mom, how Shakespearean of you?  And, no, I have no idea how to parse that sentence.)

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Jack and Deb, transitions 2008

Posted on January 1, 2012 by jkd

Jack and Deb, transitions 2008

Just added Tumblr import, testing out the capability so you see old pics and new ones.  Who is that beautiful lady?

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New Years celebration at the Salt Lick, 2011

Posted on December 31, 2011 by jkd

New Years celebration at the Salt Lick, 2011

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Jackson and Barbara Boyett

Posted on December 5, 2011 by jkd

Jackson Boyett

Shock. Disbelief.  It can’t be.  Kenny Smith called me Wednesday morning, early, and asked if I had heard on the news that Ernest Boyett and his wife had been killed in an auto accident in southwest Austin the night before.  Was Jackson’s name Ernest?  Kenny was sure it was, but I had only known him as Jackson.  It couldn’t be, but it was.  Two lovely people, gone from us in a flash.

The internal struggle to rationalize something that is random and makes no sense whatsoever churns for days.  I don’t remember when I first met Jackson, but I remember we hit it off, having a similar sense of humor about religious things and we were both intent on living a life of faith.  We both attended Central Assembly of God in the mid 1970s.  Our community was full of life and activity and our youth-ish group, like many, resurrected the ever-cyclical  ‘coffee house’ setting.  Jackson was a student at Austin Presbyterian Seminary and he and a friend, Jim Gill, were regular performers, sharing in song and stories with gospel centric themes.  Jackson and Jim were both very talented, artistic, relevant and downright funny.

One memorable night, Jackson appeared on stage, a colored sheet wrapped around, robe style, and proceeded to perform the book of Philemon.  I know, it is only one chapter, but, it was the first time I had seen someone do this, dramatically presenting this sacred text as if he were Paul, writing a letter to a dear friend.  The story leaped off the page and into my heart.  Not just words, but an event of life.  Later in life, he memorized and performed the book of Mark, and probably much much more that I missed.  Amazing memorization and even more amazing talent to pull this off well.

Jackson was so quick witted.  He was a radio DJ for a while.  Once, he neglected to flip the proper switch and ‘dead air’ ensued for a minute or so.  The dreaded ‘dead air’ time is feared by radio people.  Realizing his mistake, Jackson quickly reset the switch, and spoke into the mic “This minute of silence is brought to you by the Austin Public Library system”  and continued on with the regular programming.

Jackson played a Martin guitar, played it well and was stunned that I didn’t play.  He grew up in Junction, Tx., similar to my hometown of Wink in its isolation, desolation and any other “ation” you can think of to describe our little desert habitats.   He would look at me askance, and say “How can you grow up in west Texas and not know how to play guitar?  There is nothing else to do out there!”

Most of my memories are of Jackson, as we did so much together so I don’t recall much about Barbara, but what a gracious, kind, beautiful lady.  They were probably already married when I first met Jackson, but somehow she escaped me in those years.  Later, as we would get together, I recall that soft southern voice, that look of “Jackson, your friends are crazy and infantile but I’ll put up with them because I love you” …  One of the elders of Dayspring Fellowship described them as a couple perfectly suited for each other.  I have to agree.

Jackson is Top Row, left side

Jack and Deb Wedding Party

My friends Randy and Becky Schmidt were married by Jackson, and it was his most likely his first wedding to perform.  When Deb and I married, we invited Jackson to be part of the wedding and pray a pastoral prayer.  July 15, 1978 the temperature in Altus, Ok. was 110 degrees, plus or minus a degree or two.  Yessir, that was hot, even for Oklahoma.  The church building was packed, the A/C was groaning, trying to keep the internal temp below 80.  The prayer was early in the ceremony and what an eloquent prayer.  Jackson began in Genesis. He noted that God called all His creation good, but the first ‘not good’  was for man to be alone.  I loved that thought.  Little did I know that he was just warming up.  When he got to the Psalms, he soared.  The New Testament entered and the content included the wedding at Cana.  When we finally arrived at the great wedding banquet in Revelation, I felt sure we had covered the Bible and the Amen was near.  The photographer had chosen this time to take natural lighting photos.  He had lots of time, took many, many photos.  We may have used up most of our film budget on this moment in the wedding.  We were also in danger of candle burnout, as well.  However, I am sure that our wedding that day was well prayed over.

Once Jackson and I were talking late into the night about music and somehow we came upon the old song, “Job’s God is True.”  The refrain begins “Tho God slay me, yet I’ll trust Him”.  Jackson said that it was made somewhat famous by an evangelist named Jack Coe.   I’ve only heard 3 people sing this in my life.  My mom occasionally sang it in services as a solo.  Jackson sang it at one of our coffee house events.  My dad was in a coma for a couple of weeks in 1974, and occasionally we could hear him humming the tune to a couple of songs.  This was one of them .. “Tho God slay me, yet I’ll trust Him.”

Both my parents were beset by life-altering / life-shortening diseases.  Jackson and Barbara certainly had their productive lives cut short, in an instant gone from here to indescribable THERE.

It just isn’t right.  How am I to respond to this?  There’s a great sense of injustice, of wrongness about all of it. If I think about it, there’s a deep outrage …”This is not fair, this is not how it should be, how will this be made just?”  Sometimes we are afraid to express these emotions, as if our anger, disappointment – when verbalized, would display lack of faith or distrust in God, as if God will be insulted by our cry.

Many of the Psalms are laments, cries of outrage, suffering, anguish, despair, and more. After several thousand years, we have not become immune to injustice, pain and death.  I have decided that God can take my honest anger and outraged cries for awhile. It’s my real emotion expressed with no disrespect to the one who can change things.  It fuels my prayer and strong desire for ultimate justice, for an end to the brokenness of creation as is.

“Though God slay me yet I’ll trust Him.” Those words speak of eternal faith, a faith that endures all the trials off life and ushers into the next life.  Jackson and Barbara, Mom and Dad … they all lived with this thought.  Even in song, they expressed their faith.  Whatever comes, I trust God with the outcome.  Another way to say it, “It is well with my soul.” Farewell for a little while, Jackson and Barbara. You are great people, worthy of respect and honor here.   We loved you dearly while you were with us.  We cherish memories.  You beat us to the finish line.  “We’ll meet you in the morning.”

PS. Words to the song, public domain:

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Timeless: Ancient Psalms for the Church Today

Posted on November 28, 2011 by jkd

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I grew up in a singing tradtion, church-wise.  My dad led the ‘singing’, my mom was the pianist.  I was told that I attended my first church service when I was 6 days old, and slept inside an open guitar case, though I have no recollection of that event.

We sang choruses and hymns at Kermit First Assembly of God.  Somehow, it never dawned on me who the writers of the songs were.  I didn’t know the names Watts, Wesley, Crosby, ….  I just knew how to sing their songs.  Later in life, I began to recognize composers and appreciate those who had written prolifically and well (Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts ..).  One thing though, I didn’t know any of them personally because they all had passed on, most of them dead for a century or more.  Today, I know quite a few living hymnists and, wow, one of them is my wife.

An unexpected thing happened a couple of years ago.  Dr. R. Mark Shipp, professor of Old Testament at Austin Graduate School of Theology invited my wife to submit one of her songs for a new hymnal, and, in fact, to become one of the composers.  Several of the Churches of Christ sing one of her songs (from Psalm 124) so they invited her to be part of the writers group.

The new hymnal, volume 1 – just released through ACU Press, is “Timeless: Ancient Psalms for the Church Today”.  The project has a goal of producing a 3 volume set of hymns and commentary based on all of the 150 Psalms found in the Psalter.  Ambitious project, much?

The publishing of anything of substance is an arduous task.  The process of producing this first volume took 8 years.  (The pace for the next two is substantially higher with a goal to finish each on a two year cycle).  We met many of the writers, arrangers and reviewers over the last two years, (we were late to the project).  My hat (if I wore one) is off to all of them for their dedication, craftsmanship, and buying into the vision for completing this project.  They were and are still, wonderful people to know and work with.

Dr. Mark Shipp, wow, what a monstrous effort, writing many of the songs, editing the entire tome, building a team of musical and theological contributors to finish this first volume.  It is a vision bigger than many of us would think possible, but, I know the feeling of seeing something unfold before you like this, and suddenly, you know it can be done if we all get together and do our part.  What a delicious thing to see it, struggle with it, and finally, it happens.  Congratulations Mark, and to all of those you represent who have worked so hard to see it happen.

And how delightful for me to say “congratulations” to my wife, Debbie, who is a contributor on 7 of the 108 songs found in the hymnal.  I’m probably the only one who knows how hard you worked on these songs, how ill-equipped you felt as you labored to deliver something worthy of the task.  The task is daunting, mixing the call of being a devoted worshiper of the most High God and striving, fearfully,  to create songs which would reflect your heart and remain true to the scriptures we love.  I so appreciate the fact that you are humble about this, and that you are embarrassed by all the attention.  However, I, and many of your friends, honor you for this gift that you are to us. We love the songs you write that help us connect to our Redeemer and Creator.  Let us, at least, tell you that much.  It’s not bragging, it’s honoring. We’re not saying you are Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley.  We’re not comparing at all.  We just know that you help us worship God, and we are so grateful.

And, it is good to have contemporary, living hymnists (I know they don’t think this is a word, but I like it so I use it).   I do regret that my parents aren’t here to dote on you a bit.  Dad would take the hymnal and use it for his morning devotions.  Mom would play and sing them and be convinced they were the best songs ever written.  I am so glad your mom, Bobby Byers, is still with us and able to enjoy this with you.  And, I am sure your dad would have gotten choked up every time he tried to tell someone about it.  I can, even now, hear his voice, see him shaking his head and clearing his throat.

I love that this wasn’t a long term goal for you.  I love that, instead, it was a serendipity and a grace from God to have this door of opportunity suddenly in your path and that you simply walked through it and offered your gift to God, first, and then to the rest of us.  As the song goes, “It’s a small thing to lay your life before a loving King”

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