Category: All Post

“The Garden”

“The Garden”

An Allegory

I was out walking early one morning, and came to a beautiful garden. There were all kinds of flowers, the strange thing was that they were all ten times larger than normal and ten times more beautiful. I saw a rose bush; the petals were covered with large drops of dew. As I drew near, the aroma came to me long before it should have. It surrounded me as if it went right through me. I was captivated by the smell and the beauty. There was a crystal-clear creek running through the garden. Water was splashing up as it hit the rocks. It looked like diamonds glittering in the sun. The sound of the stream was like angles singing. It was as if it was all around and through me, it was bigger than life. I moved away from the stream and continued up the path, the overwhelming beauty of singing fading behind me. The grass on either side of the winding path was greener than I had ever seen. Continue reading ““The Garden””

“The Stumbling Stone”

“The Stumbling Stone”

To stumble on something, it had to be in your path. Once my wife and I went up Big Creek looking for ramps, an onion like plant.  A friend was taking us to where he thought a patch of them were. We had walked about a mile and had not found any. A man on a horse came from up the trail, so we asked him where the ramps were and how far. He said, “They are just to the right, after you cross the river bridge ahead”. Well, we walked about another mile, crossed the river, no ramps anywhere, so we kept walking. After walking another three miles, we found the ramp patch. We were happy, but tired by now. We pulled enough ramps to fill our bags and started back toward our truck. We noticed something now that we were tired, that we hadn’t noticed when we were fresh. The trail was full of round stones about 4 to 5 inches in diameter. They were just close enough together so we were constantly stepping around them. Some we didn’t miss and stumbled on them. It was about 5 miles back to the truck. Sharon wore tennis shoes and I thought I was going to have to carry her. Looking down that trail was hundreds of those round rocks about a foot apart as far as we could see. We finely made it back, worn out and tired. We planted some ramps along our creek bank and now we don’t have to go back up Big Creek for ramps. Continue reading ““The Stumbling Stone””

“The Great Divide”

 

“The Great Divide”

We were camping once many years ago, in the Great Smoky Mountains. My wife and I set up our tent and arranged everything the way we wanted them. Soon it grew dark and I blew out the lantern. In all my life, I had never seen it so dark. Well, we joked about it and told some scary stories. You know stories get spookier the darker it is.  I told my wife one about an old Indian that used come through here from Cherokee to Gatlinburg, going after whisky. I shouldn’t have done that. Chill bumps shot over me when she started screaming. I’m not talking about a little scream, I’m talking, blood thirsty. Well, I don’t think I should have said, did you hear that? With her voice reverberating like a speaker in a rock band, she said in a high-pitched voice, “light the lamp”. I tried calming her enough to ask her where the matches were. She reverberated back, “I don’t know, turn on the flashlight”. I was scared to say, it’s in the car, until I got some distance between me and her flailing arms. I had to go get the flashlight or stay there and get killed either by busted ear drums or flailing fist and arms, so I started toward where I thought the door was. Well, I finely got out of the tent. The screams were getting louder so I picked up speed to where I thought I had parked the car. Tree bark can hurt when it hits you in the face and the big rocks that you don’t see can bring out words you thought you didn’t use anymore. A chill swiped over me when I thought I heard something other than my wife’s screams. Drunk Indian popped into my mind. It’s hard to hurry when you can’t see your hand one inch from your face. Scratched up and bloody, I ran into the car, literally. I got the flashlight and headed back to the major mental breakdown in the tent. I shouldn’t have told her I was just kidding about the old drunk Indian. It would have been good if there had been just one star in the sky that night, but there wasn’t. It could have protected me from my foolishness. Continue reading ““The Great Divide””

“Full Impact”

 

“Full Impact”

An impact is when two objects or things comes together. When they come together and touch. This coming together can be light or heavy. It can be gentle or hard. It could be like the difference in two boxing punches. Say, like a jab as opposed to a punch. The punch is stronger than a jab. I just got over a bad upper respiratory infection. At first when it hit me it was light. I doubled up on vitamins and such. In a few days, it hit me hard, then came two shots in the rump. I have seen many hurricanes, some light and some strong, they all have an impact. Some things like a wasp can have a small sting but a hard after effect. Sometimes we can learn to appreciate things, the harder they hit us. Like the smell of a beautiful rose garden. At a distance its light, but when we draw nearer the aroma engulfs us, or we get the full impact of the smell. All of us who get the full impact, never forget it, whatever it is. Continue reading ““Full Impact””

“The Journey”

“The Journey”

Everybody has one. Life is one long journey, with many short ones in between. Sometimes while we are going through a short one it may not be seen as a part of the long one, but it is. Sometimes we affect someone else’s journey and sometimes others affect ours. I affect their small journey and they affect mine, each becomes a small part of each other’s long journey. Some small journeys we don’t want to remember and some we do. Continue reading ““The Journey””

“Listening in two directions”

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“Listening in two directions”

I was watching a deer in my upper field one day. He was eating grass. All of a sudden, he looked up towards the woods. He was perfectly still looking in that direction, eyes glued on the woods. Then I noticed, one ear was turned toward where he was looking and the other was turned backward in the opposite direction. He was listening in two directions at the same time. The forward facing ear was listening for what he had heard and the backward facing ear was listening for what he might hear. He couldn’t see what was before him and what was behind him at the same time, but he could hear what was before him and what was behind him at the same time. Continue reading ““Listening in two directions””

“Born Dying”

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“Born Dying”

Everything in the earth is born dying. There was a bridge in Del Rio, Tn., not far from where we live. It was just replaced with a new modern one. It had done its job getting folks across the French Broad River for many years. The only thing is, it slowly starting dying the moment the workers finished building it. The wind, the rain, ground settlement and the sun took its toll on it. Everything man builds is that way. Continue reading ““Born Dying””

“Winter Trees”

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“Winter Trees”

Our house is nested between two steep hills. It’s in an old stream bed with the creek running through one side. In the summer the trees are thick with leaves, so you can’t see the sky. The fall colors were beautiful this year. Last night the wind blew hard. I could see the leaves falling like great snowflakes. This morning I went to take Honey out, our small inside dog, for her morning constitution. I set her on the ground and as I raised up, to my surprise, I could see the sky through the trees for the first time since last winter. When the beautiful fall leaves are gone we see another beauty, things we forgot we have. The big rocks, the terrain, birds and animals that were hidden from sight and so many other things that can only be seen in winter. Continue reading ““Winter Trees””

“Against The Wind”

 

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“Against the Wind”

A number of years ago while working on a high-rise condominium at Gulf Shores, Alabama, I was taking a break for lunch when I noticed a car pull up loaded with people. As I watched I saw them take out their blow up mattress and head for the water. Now this was winter time in Alabama and people around here don’t swim this time of the year, so they had to be from up north where it is a lot colder. This weather must have felt pretty nice to them, so in they went. Well, in winter here we have off shore winds, meaning the wind comes from the north and the Gulf of Mexico is south, so whatever hits the water is pushed south. The first land to the south is Cuba. When they first realized they couldn’t get back they were about 100 yards out. Panic began to set in as they paddled harder and harder toward shore, to no avail. They began to holler, and then it escalated to screams for help. They understood that the wind was against them and it was blowing harder than they were able to paddle against. Cuba is a communist nation and that was not an option. So they couldn’t get back to shore and couldn’t go with the wind either, they needed outside help. This time of the year there aren’t many people on the beach, but there were two or three. Some swam out and tried to help the paddlers paddle and others swam out and couldn’t make it and barely made it back to shore alive. The paddlers were holding their own until they exhausted their energy and began to lose ground and began to drift toward Cuba. Someone had called the Coast guard and they showed up as the floaters were almost out of sight.


As tough construction workers we thought, how stupid, if the wind is blowing from the north and the Gulf is to the south, don’t get in the water. We had no idea that we also were heading to Cuba, and the wind was stronger than we were, in our own lives. As Forest Gump would say, “Stupid is as stupid does”.


In these swimmers’ situation the wind was their enemy. The word enemy is interpreted as who, or whatever is against you. Jesus said, “If you are not for me you are against me”. There was a great wind of opposition blowing against Him when He walked this earth and there still is today, opposition to His name, what He teaches and what He does. There is a great wind of opposition against those of us who are for Him, and are against what He instructs us to do, as we do it. The wind is against God and all that is good. The origin of the wind is satanic and is against God’s kingdom and His church, His people.


The shore line symbolizes everything that is good and Godly. Cuba, symbolizes a godless dictatorship and everything that is bad. I am getting up in age and have observed the godless wind of liberalism that has raised its ugly head and blows many people to Cuba. Our feet can be on American shore and our head in Cuba. What we have come to believe can reveal if this is the case. Do we believe things that are against God’s teachings? Our Father created the earth and created men and women to live in it and tend it, according to His instructions, as man and wife. We were created after His kind. Have we now come to believe that a man can marry a man? Cuba. Do we now believe that a man can have a sex change and become a woman and marry a man? Cuba. How many things has the strong roaring wind forced us to accept? Do we know it is wrong inside but accept it on the outside just to get along? The old Indians called a man like this, “One who speaks with forked tongue”. God calls him a double minded man shaky in all his ways. How many things have we come to accept that is against His ways?


Our nation has been engulfed in a wind that has grown stronger and stronger over the years. The Democratic Party has grown more liberal and godless as the years have gone by. They have elected godless men to office and appointed them to the courts. They own the Attorney General, and many law enforcement people and none of them are ever prosecuted for their lawless acts. By the way, did you know that elected people such as the President and congress don’t have to go through a background check? Only citizens such as you and I have to. They are also issued security clearances without checking their past associations and actions. I wonder who made that rule. When a nation has little recourse to lawlessness and dictatorial rule we are almost to Cuba. We have paddled hard to get back to shore and are about exhausted. We need help from the outside, and we need a coastguard ship to show up. I know many of you have been calling the coastguard, so to say, for a long time. The ship is coming, can’t you see it?


We can’t paddle our way back to shore we are too weak. We need help. God has sent help in the form of a man. Names mean something to God, so He named him Trump. What does a trumpet do? It sounds an alarm. It speaks God’s instructions. It tears down things. It is stronger than the wind. Do we remember reading, Jesus woke up while in a fishing boat and there was a great storm blowing? The disciples were afraid and Jesus rebuked the storm saying, “Be still”. Can we allow His man to do the same? God is for Donald Trump, can we be against him? Will we find ourselves against God and His plan? This should be obvious to God’s people. One person is blowing us to Cuba and the other is taking us back to shore. Do we have the strength to change this situation? We certainly do. We can get up and go vote for God’s man. The choice is given to us. He won’t force us to go, but we are a part of this also, just as Donald Trump is. Can we do our part as Donald Trump is tirelessly doing his? Is he by himself or are we with him? God’s plan is to take back the land that He gave us. Do we want to be loved by God or hated by liberals the rest of our lives? This should be obvious to the church, or does it take a Prophet to say it.? if so, so be it. “The wind has blown us down, but we still have the strength to sign our name to a ballot. The roar of the wind has beaten and scared us, but we will prevail. We will not give in to the failure. We are God’s handy- work and we are for Him. We will stand together as His church and body in the earth. He has given this land to us and we will not stand by and let somebody else take it from us. If God is for us, who can stand against us? Are we waiting for an angel to come from heaven to strike our enemy or are we going to get up and do our part? We have been taught passivity forever from the church buildings while liberalism continued to grow and look where it got us. We are men, made in God’s image. He is not passive. Was the Cross passive or was it a war against evil. Did Jesus come to the earth to undo what the devil had done to His people or not? We are salt and light to the earth. Will the people in our land see that? Why do we fight for what is right and good? Because He did and still does. Are we for Him and with Him? The wind won’t stop just because we want it to. It will stop when we tell it to.”

David McClary