006 - Hair and Birds

*Possible Trigger Warning* - What is your worth?  How cared for are you?  Stay tuned and in tune with the promptings inside you.  Episode 6 is a parallel between a Wife/Mom and her actions, to us and ours.

Email your stories to Bruce at parallelproofpodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Parallel Proof Episode 6:  Hair and Birds

Hey there, welcome back to Parallel Proof.  And, just for a moment or 2, please let me reiterate some meaning. I’ll get to the story in a few.  Here’s why I am doing what I am.

No matter what your past.  All the accomplishments.  All the failures.  Everyone you have touched, or spoken to.  Your life lessons and your missed opportunities.  Things have happened either good or bad, right or wrong.  You can’t change it, but it has formed your very existence at this exact moment in time as you listen to my voice.  Your past has shaped who you have become right now.  I love talking to people and hearing their adventures.  We are all so different, with commonalities.

One thing I hope this podcast does for anyone who comes across it, really is to plant the seed of relevance.  Find those significant reference points of your past, find the remembrances from childhood to moments ago that are impacting.  Great or small.  Positive or negative.  And make them pertinent to your calling.  What differences are you and I supposed to be making in our little bubble of a world around us?  Most of us are in the 97% of all Americans who are average, ordinary people trying to survive.  Some well off, some struggling.  You may have family.   You might have a tight knit group of friends.  Coworkers around you.  Some go to church, some like me, can’t find a church that completely fits.

Some don’t believe in the Almighty.  I can’t blame you for that one, nor will I.  

Regardless, there is a compilation of books, 66 to be exact, purposed for every human on earth.  Within those pages, are instructions, cues, commands, signals, expressions, --juicy--- that can, and does, parallel those reference points comprising the formation of the now, YOU.  There is text, inside, specific to you and I, and those inspirations contain a mission.  We are all called.  It falls on each of us to figure out what that prompting entails.

So here’s this.  IF you are called by God, or some higher being, or a greater force, whatever you believe, AND you are who you are at this moment, that means your previous experiences have meaning, and there’s a good possibility God spoke to you through those encounters.  Or wants to speak through them, directly to you.  As a guide.  Life happened.  What was he saying?  What IS he saying?  Think back and pick some meaningful remembrances.  Read the inspired word, and tie both together.  His words are relevant.

This is Episode 6:  Hair and Birds

Prior to becoming a cop, and still as a pastor, some life altering, enormous decisions were made by me that produced a drastic shift in direction including consequences with severe implications.  The settlement after those decisions caused me to reevaluate what was next, and which heading I was to point my toes.  I had to figure out, OK, what did I always want to be when I was a kid.  Growing up I was enamored and totally addicted to 2 different shows on TV.  It was the shows Miami Vice and CHiPs that absolutely drove me to want to become a cop when I got older.  Don Johnson and Erik Estrada.  There I was, at the crossroads, with a blank page to write on, and that was it.  I am going to become a police officer.  Wear pastels, live on a boat with an alligator.  I so wanted to be Sonny Crocket.  Carry a cannon of a gun as a .45, and drive my dream car, a 1972 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder.  Oh My God!  Still what I want to this day.  Someone please find me one.

I was considered a pre-hire at the Sacramento Police Department waiting for the academy to start, and they placed me in ID, Forensics, and Fingerprinting department to assist and basically do some grunt work.  I was more than fine.  The academy was in sight in 3 or 4 months, and I am jazzed.  One of my main duties was to develop photographs taken by CSI at crime scenes.  The filing of them wasn’t very fun, I’ll tell you that.  But, looking at those photos was extremely interesting and made me thirsty.

Of course, everyone who worked in the department knew I was waiting for the academy to begin, and a few of the CSI investigators felt bad for me and took some pity one me.  One in particular showed her compassion by getting it approved for me to do ride-a-longs with her on some CSI dispatches.  Heck YES!  Get me out of the dungeon and get me into the field.

This specific call, and first ride-a-long ever for me with CSI, ended up being a very eye opening, real-time tutorial on what humanity is capable of.  Remember, I just came from the unrealistic, out of touch with reality, bubble of pastorship.  And side note, I was just speaking with a long-time friend of mine who is an ex-pastor as well.  Now he suggests every pastor, minister, priest should take 6 months once every 3 to 5 years to work a secular job and immerse themselves in the reality of life.  Ripe with all the temptations, and struggles, and world views.  Let’s get in touch with what’s really out there.  Anyway.  Off my soapbox.

I’m riding shotgun across the city as we make our way to the incident that had just taken place that morning.  A call originally comes out from a concerned citizen living in an area northwest of the city that is a new construction zone for housing.  Many houses are being constructed in the midst of some already completed.  This particular resident was making his way to work in the morning travelling through the myriad of homes, and as he is exiting the complex toward open fields zoned for the next phase of dwellings, he notices a man parked on the side of the road at the curb, and he’s concerned.  To the observer, it appeared the man was wearing a mask, like a Halloween mask, that portrayed some demented, evil, scary looking creature.  The resident called 911 for police to come patrol the area, and find this dude, fearing this mask wearing weirdo was going to burglarize homes or rob people.  We are like 6 months away from October 31st, so no one should be driving around in some Halloween mask.  It makes sense to me.  My CSI chauffeur had the details of this whole scenario, and chose not to tell me until after we arrived on-scene.  We were dispatched to the area where the man was parked in his vehicle.

There it was, some older model Honda accord, just like as advertised, parked against the curb near open territory, and away from the housing development.  We parked behind the vehicle my guess some 30 feet away.  My instructor/tutor gets out and tells me to come along.  She allows me to go ahead a bit and I am approaching on the passenger side walking on the sidewalk.  As I am near the vehicle, I can see through the back window that a man is sitting in the driver’s chair, seat belt still on, and not doing much of anything, just sitting there.  

Apparently, this dude, now loitering in his car, was involved in a deep seeded argument with his wife the night prior, that went on until the early morning hours.  This man now sitting in the car proceeded to get up early this morning and make his way to his wife’s workplace looking for her with the intention of killing her.  At her place of work, without a care of who witnessed it.  That was his plan.  But, she wasn’t there.  Somehow, someway, she felt it in her gut that her crazed husband would do exactly as she feared.  With that intuition, she had left work and immediately pulled her son out of daycare and fled the area.  The husband and father of that son had the same objective as he pulled into the daycare to murder his son as well.  Wife not at work, son not in daycare, and neither home in that new development he was now sitting near in his car.

As I kept moving closer to the Honda, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to behold.

Allow me to pause here and draw a parallel.

This wife was terrified of her husband and she had every right to be.  She felt some prompting inside her soul to make a radical move.  Leave work, pick up her son, and run.  Her pursuer meant harm with deadly consequences.  And as I think back to the meaning of her actions, it directs me to something I read in Matthew 10:28-31, and what I read are the very words of Christ Himself.  Him, speaking to you and I.

As powerful as God Almighty is, as He being the supreme conqueror, I find it interesting that he tells us to be afraid.  Now He starts off by saying, “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but can’t kill the soul,” although, to be honest, there are instances, like the above story, where you should be afraid, but He admonishes, let’s not necessarily worry about them.  He continues on with, “Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”  Agonize over the one that can cause havoc and demolish your mind and spirt.  The one that can devastate families, dismantle hopes, damage reputations, and disfigure bodies.  Jesus Himself says, “be afraid.”

But I absolutely love what he says next to us.  He just said, “Be afraid.”  And he follows it with, “So don’t be afraid.”  Ummm, Ok.  We are all average, ordinary people living in a mostly cookie cutter lifestyle.  And yet, God Almighty, the King of all Kings, says, “are not 2 sparrows sold for a penny?”  These appearing to be meaningless tiny birds, they are fairly insignificant, a couple of them for a penny---YET---He goes on, “not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father.”  How powerful is that?  As unimportant as they appear, the birds are noticed.  Every one of them.  What else?  Jesus pronounces, “Hey, even the very hairs, those thin little whatever one hundred thousand number of keratin on your head are all numbered.”  You have got to be kidding me!  I mean, the hairs that drop in the shower alone.  Keeping track?  Obsess over me much?  I’m shook! And the reason I am, is because of the amount of care He has for someone that feels as insignificant as I do.

In the fog of trying to survive at times, in the hamster wheel of day to day life, among the fun times and boring moments, God knows there is an enemy always lurking at your door.  Looking for a foothold to get in and wreak some destruction.  He may be subtle, like a wolf in sheeps clothing.  He may be overt, well, looking like a wolf.  Be mindful and aware.  Keep on the lookout.  Heed the inner voice urging you to be careful, to turn around, to run, or to fight.  But—

He resumes with, “So, don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”  Understand He cares, know that God is always watching you, heed that inner prompting to do whatever it is he is telling you.  We may not feel it, but we are worth so very much!

Ok so back to my story.

Nothing could have prepared me for what was next.  I am elevated a bit standing on the sidewalk so I can see over the top of the Accord.  As I get to the passenger side window and look down at an angle, I observe a cell phone on the passenger seat and to its left, I can see an arm and hand with a thumb placed in the trigger of a sawed-off pistol grip 12 gauge shotgun laying across his lap.  I lower my head to look into the window, and I perceive what looks like a person wearing a Halloween mask.  Still sitting upright, was this guy not moving in the slightest.  From his eyebrows on up, his head was completely flat and hanging over to the left side like a beret.  His left eye was out of its socket and hanging over his cheek.  A one inch hole in the right side of his temple.  Blood spattered everywhere against the driver’s side.  Approximately ¾ of his brain, still in tact, was laying on the backseat.  It was a tragic, sad, and interesting sight.  When the coroner arrived and removed the body from the car, I was standing now on the drivers side watching their procedures.  One had his legs, the other his armpits.  As they were laying this body down, his head fell backward, the skull beret disappeared and head back to form, and I was able to peer directly through one side of his head and out the other to the car.  Needless to say, it was an impression I will never forget.

Why this story?  No matter what you are going through, the good times, the difficult ones, know this.  There is one able to kill both body and soul.  Keep your guard up.  Be afraid.  And yet, Don’t.  If God has his eyes on the sparrow, and has your hairs numbered, how much does he care for you and will be with you in times of trouble and need.  We are worth so much to Him as His children.  He has a will for us.  Don’t be afraid.  Listen carefully to what He is telling you, and make the move.  Stay tuned.

Thank you for being here.  I’d love to hear your stories and with your permission I’d love to use them, or even have you as a guest on this podcast.  Email me at the link provided.  If you enjoy it, please share this podcast with anyone that would as well, and, I will see you here next week.