El Sabab Panah

When son Jimmy was little, maybe 5-8 years old, if we were walking in a store or on a sidewalk somewhere, I would often place one hand on his shoulders right at the back of the neck, and use that to "steer" him toward where we needed to go, rather than let him wander off on his own as he was prone to do.  It kept us connected, and was easier for him to tolerate than me holding on to his hand, since he was getting a little "big" for hand-holding.  Plus, at that age it was a comfortable height for my hand to rest - sort of at my chest level.  His neck and shoulders were still small enough for just one of my hands to shift his direction easily.  

In Summer of 2018, I was in a Bible study led by my brother-in-law & his wife on the topic of the Names of God.  The study encouraged us to understand how God has revealed Himself to us individually, much as He did to the ancients. They named God for how they met Him and what He showed them about Himself.  As I was thinking about that idea, the picture came to me of my hand resting on Jimmy's neck and how I turned him gently in the direction we needed to go.  I realized that God had been doing that to me for decades, and so I gave God a name of El Sabab Panah: the God who directs me, who turns me this way and that, with His hand always upon me.

It was an object lesson also of the Fatherhood of God - how He restrains our inclination to wander off, keeping our focus on where He is going, and never more firmly than is needed in the moment.

Crisis and Adjustment

 God to me following a session in 2018 studying Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby:

"Crisis is transformative, Bill.  And if the crisis is from Me, it will transform you for good, for the purpose to which I'm calling you.  And as to major adjustments, if I am here and you are there, and I want you to work alongside Me, then an adjustment will be needed, won't it?  It's simple, Bill."

Memoirs and Musings

While wintering in Texas the last two years, I've spent time working on my memoirs, which are little more than one-page vignettes of various aspects of my earlier life - curated memories.  I have about 100 pages now, and am current through this year.  Of course, I'll keep writing as new ones are created, but who knows how long that will be, right?  I'm thinking another 17 years or so, if the actuarial tables are right.

So, that goes some of the way to explaining why there has been precious little activity on this site lately.  But there will be more soon enough.  At church, the pastors are preaching through Proverbs, and that prompted an idea for more content here.  I've used the Notes feature on my cell phone to record ideas that I want to retain, but who looks at my cell phone but me?  Better to transfer them to this blog and store them here.  After all, blogs seem pretty permanent right now, and require no maintenance or subscription fees, so... why not?  

Stay tuned for some random thoughts over the next several weeks.  They may not all be profound, but they seemed worth retaining at the time I thought them.  :)

Finishing Well

From a conference presentation by Paul Leavenworth, listing the end-of-life characteristics of persons who finish well:

1. Have a more vibrant relationship with God at the end than when young (Caleb)
2. Maintain an active learning posture throughout life
3. Model Christ-like character through the fruit of the Spirit, especially in the hard times
4. Live life with a growing sense of conviction that the promises of God are real for their lives
5. Leave behind one or more ultimate contributions or a lasting legacy
6. Live life with a sense of destiny, making necessary sacrifices to realize this to a significant degree

Barriers to finishing well:

1. Sexual immorality (Samson)
2. Misuse of finances (Judas Iscariot)
3. Abuse of power (King Saul)
4. Self-centered pride (King Solomon)
5. Problems with marriage & family (King David)
6. Allowing ministry to plateau (Gideon)
7. Emotional wounding & bitterness (Jonah)

Sin always takes us farther than we are willing to go, keeps us there longer than we are willing to stay, costs us more than we are willing to pay. ---- J. Oswald Sanders

"We nibble ourselves lost."  Per Paul Leavenworth, a sheep doesn't set out to get lost and go hang out with the wolves.  Instead, it gets focused on the next clump of grass and the next and the next so that it doesn't lift its head to see where it is versus the flock and the shepherd.  It nibbles itself into a position of separation from the shepherd and the rest of flock.  So it is with us.  We lose intimacy with God and with other believers by focusing on mundane, temporal matters.

Enhancements to finishing well:

1. Long-term perspective on life & ministry - every decision has long-term consequences
2. Position yourself to expect periodic times of renewal - over time the power of God will manifest
3. Practice spiritual disciplines (Foster: disciplines of grace, not of duty)
4. Have a learning posture - be open to be taught
5. Develop accountable relationships
6. Invest in the next generation with mentoring relationships
7. Order life & ministry in a focused way to honor God's call

Characteristics of focused life:

A focused life is a life dedicated to exclusively carrying out God's unique purposes by identifying the focal issues of life purpose, major role, effective methodologies and ultimate contributions, which allows an increasing prioritization of life's activities around the focal issues, and results in a satisfying life of being and doing.

1. We can know our life purpose (who we are by God's gifting and how God intends to use us)
2. We can become comfortable with our gifting and understand our best areas of contribution
3. We can understand what methods are most effective for us to employ in our role
4. We can have a legacy to pass God's grace to others, particularly via relationship impact

At The Highground

On the occasion of laying a memorial stone at The Highground Veterans Memorial Park on the moraine west of Neillsville, WI.  Here are some highlights from the ceremony:

What follows is what I placed in the Registry at the Highground as background on the stone:

They say that in comedy, timing is everything.  In life generally, that statement is also pretty true. When and to whom you were born influences a lot; my family’s military service was no exception.

My father, Melvin Edward Mech, was born in August 1920 in Clintonville, WI to Theodore (Ted) and Amanda Mech.  By the time December of 1941 rolled around, bringing with it the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dad was a freshly minted 21-year-old, eminently draftable, with a new wife (Alma Beyer) and a new baby, their firstborn.  Dad, like so many others, enlisted in the US Navy, who was okay taking him even with not the best eyesight.  His physical exam determined that he would wind up serving stateside rather than in combat, which was fortunate for Mom and that new baby!  His time at the Central States Teachers College in Stevens Point gave him some skills in Math and Teaching, which guided him to a particular billet as an instructor in the relatively new technology called Radar.  He was stationed both in Pensacola, Florida and later in Corpus Christi, Texas.  I still have his slide rule with his name and rank (ART 1^st Class) on the box.  In the late 1960s, before pocket calculators, I learned math on his slide rule. I recall Dad telling me that using magnetrons to generate microwave radiation had some safety hazards that came along with it.  He had to teach sailors that if you got in the way of that microwave radiation, you would get cooked like meat.  When we got our first microwave oven in the mid-1980s, I often remembered that story.

My brother, Dennis Arlen Mech, was born in August 1941.  He was that brand new baby and the firstborn child noted earlier.  By the time the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs incidents rolled around, he was also eminently draftable.  At the time, however, he was enrolled in college at Stevens Point State University, with a deferment.  However, through a variety of circumstances, Denny was disenrolled from college and, like Dad, enlisted in the US Navy to help guide his role in the newly emerging conflict in Southeast Asia which came to be referred to as the Vietnam War.  14 years my senior, he and my sister Helen (12 years older than me) were strong influences in my growing up years, and I particularly wanted to emulate Denny.  He was an Aviation Electronics Technician and served on board aircraft carriers during Vietnam.  I always looked forward to his letters to me which came in that unique blue air mail envelope with the red & white trim.  While he could never reveal his location, he would sometimes enclose a patch for my jacket.  My favorite was one for his unit labeled “Phantom Phixer”, for those who worked on the F-4 Phantom jet.

As for me, I was born William Theodore Mech in October of 1955.  By the time I turned 18, the Vietnam War was winding down, and my draft number was high enough that I would not be taken.  That was favorable timing for me since I met my future wife, Diane Christenson, when I was 18 and in Wausau, WI attending North Central Technical Institute (then NCTI, now NTC).  I graduated from there with an Associate’s Degree in Insurance in 1974.  Diane and I married a little over a year later and it didn’t look like I was destined to follow in my father and brother’s footsteps when it came to military service.  After several years of “normal married life”, I decided to go back to school and get my Bachelor of Science degree in Business Economics from Mt. Scenario College in Ladysmith, WI, graduating from there in 1984 and making a career change to actuarial science.  We adopted our first child, Julie, in 1983, followed by our second, Jimmy, 4 years later.  During the mid-1980s the US Navy had a program in place offering “direct commissions” to college grads in certain degree programs.  I qualified, and just got under the wire for the age requirements, so I applied and was commissioned as an Ensign in the Supply Corps of the US Navy’s Ready Reserve, assigned to the USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20), operating out of Norfolk and serving as the Flagship and Command Ship for the Sixth Fleet.  I trained out of the Naval Reserve base in Milwaukee, WI, where I was also working as an actuarial trainee for Milliman & Robertson in their New Berlin office.  Eventually, I took another actuarial job with Wausau Insurance, so we moved back to Wausau, WI again.  This made the training regimen difficult, and so I requested and received my Honorable Discharge from the US Navy.  As I said earlier, timing is everything, and whether by twists of fate or the hand of God, my military service turned out to be in peacetime.

My father and brother both passed from this life in 2006, within a few months of each other, and I am honored to share the same memorial stone with these two men who instilled in me a desire to serve my country in the US Navy, however different from theirs that service turned out to be.

Bill Mech, September 2021, Clive, Iowa.

Winemaking 201: from Grapes, not Juice

This year for the first time, I have made wine from real fruit, not just from juice.  And it's a red wine, which means that the fermentation to at least some degree takes place on the skins to better extract colors, flavors, tannins, etc.  So there are some additional steps than need to happen to get the finished product in the bottle.  The photos below are from various stages of the process, from "veraison" (grapes beginning to turn color), through harvest, crushing, fermenting, pressing and including the latest stage in which the fermented wine is racked to a glass carboy (in this case 3 gal.) and allowed to age for about a year, until next year's grapes are processed.  I'll let you know how this batch turns out, but early indications are that it's a winner!

 

Lectio Divina - 2 Samuel 22:31-33

As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless; 

He is a shield to all who trust in Him. 

For who is God except the LORD? and who is a rock, except our God? 

God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect.

This passage has a parallel in Psalm 18:30-32, one of a couple of King David's songs that are recorded in the historical books, too.  This one had historical significance because it commemorated David's deliverance from the hand of King Saul and his armies.  

A few word choices come to mind here.  Of course "the LORD" here is actually YHWH, the covenant name of God, and can be read that way.  

The Hebrew word for perfect carries a connotation of completeness, full of wholeness and without fault, much like the word shalom has versus our English word peace.  In our Western culture "perfect" often has a scientific or manufacturing aspect to it, with more of a quality control or precision orientation, as in made exactly to the specifications of a template.  In the context of the Scriptures, though, I think you could read the word more like what a friend might say when you have described your lifestyle (as in "Hey, nothing wrong with that!") or shown the friend your home/yard. ("Yeah, this is perfect for you").  It doesn't mean everyone needs to have an exact clone of something that is good and complete to also be considered good and complete.

When the passage talks about the word of the LORD, the word for flawless is also used to describe a process of refining metal by fire so that it is pure.  Better here, I think, to describe the word of the LORD as tested and proven.

Trust, in this passage, could better be translated as "take refuge".  Certainly trust is implied, but taking refuge also contains an action within it - you go in to a place you trust, go to a Person you trust.

The word translated here as strength is really a place of safety, a refuge; "power" in this translation is a strength of resources or protection (as in Psalm 20:7 - "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the Name of the LORD our God.")  In other words, we have a feeling of strength and power, but it is not ours, not based on our resources - it is God's power and strength, available to us because we trust in Him and His resources for refuge and protection.  Or as Ps. 46:1 puts it: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."

It's like this old scripture song from back in the 1970s:

You are my rock my shield and my deliverer my refuge and my strength 

You are my rock my shield and my deliverer you'll rescue me in time. 

Na na na na

Na na na na

I cried for help and He delivered me

Na na na na

Na na na na

I cried for help and He delivered me

(based loosely on Psalm 18:1-2)

So for me, I would translate the passage more like this:

As for God, His way is complete, full of wholeness, without fault.  

The word of YHWH is tested and proven.  

He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.  

For who is God except YHWH? And who is a rock, except our God? 

God is my refuge and strength, and He makes my way complete, full of wholeness, without fault.