Imprints Of The Heart

I really struggle at times trying to convey, connect and bring forth the link between what is in my heart, head, soul and spirit to word, sight and document. Sometimes a picture brings this forth to a certain scale, or a piece of music and I think, as the human condition allows, it brings us a touch of the eternal, the mystical relationship between creator and created, between the infinite and the finite.

This weekend was another trip back down to the crystal coast to help Elizabeth and her amazing business partner, Kathleen Troyer, get set up, and take photos and videos of their seminar. In a matter or two weeks the coast went from being ‘T shirt off’ weather to ‘wrap yourself up’ cold. I got up early to go for a run this morning. The wind was blowing so hard the sand was flying in my face as I headed out on the un-level beach. I was wrapped in a few layers, working to get a little heat started, as I moved into the wind. I turned at one point and saw my food prints and it made me think… my life ‘can’ be as fleeting as my shoe prints in the sand. I don’t want that for my life.

As I ran into the wind this thought warmed into being in my mind. If I were to stop and ask myself, ‘who has made the most difference in my life’, would it go to those with the most money, toys, or extravagant ‘things or events’ that were in poured on me? No. It is squarely focused and rooted on those people and places that have left an imprint in my heart.

My Mom and Dad are at the top of this list. Year and year, life change after life change, decision, moves, careers, birthday after birthday, they are deep in my soul never to leave. Elizabeth Love, who literally picked me up, a broken man, scarred from life, and cleaned my wounds, my dear son Cayden, my dear brothers, who are near my heart always, and the list goes on. But it isn’t just people that have imprinted my heart.

Today, I stood under the highway 58 bridge over the inter-coastal waterway, looking at the lush green sea grass blowing in the storm of a sea breeze, the ripples on the waters as it ran with the wind, the 1000’s of twinkling light reflections under a beaming warm sun, and my heart was touched. The beauty was too much for me to put into words that would take you there and let’s you connect in the way it did with me.

I’ve stood on a high desert mountain in Virginia City Nevada and watched the crimson sun set over the brown scrub brush rolling downs the Six Mile valley. I’ve stood over a snow covered mountain pass looking down over Maggie Valley N.C as clouds drifted below me over the town partially blocking out the town as the sun warmed it’s cotton tops.

I’ve sat in the cockpit of a Piper Cherokee flying over the multi-colored, uneven mountainous landscape of the on coming Fall over the lower Blue Ridge Parkway. This list can go on also, but the end of my thought is that those things which touch our hearts, which touch my heart, are the things that last long past anything material or anything ‘sold’ to function in the same. It’s sorta like unreal food… you can eat it, but it isn’t good for you, doesn’t last long and leaves you empty.

As I ran, it occurred to me, that those hearts I have touched, really hasn’t been from my doing, but from something that happened organically by my ‘being’. Years ago I found out that someone I had influenced was doing great things by saving lives, another is off in another country meetings the needs of others. How can this be? That isn’t the stuff I could make happen. Trust me on that. Clearly not of my doing. But it must be of a larger master plan. Though some of my readers don’t get it let me go religous for a minute. Jesus didn’t give away homes, land, money or a promise of earthly peace in His time. But He related to and touched others where they were at. I am just saying…

I turned the corner to run with the wind at my back and it hits me what I want to leave you with. Planned or not on my part, those lives that I have touched the most, are the ones that I have left an Imprint on their Hearts, a tattoo of sorts, a remnant of my being imprinted on someone else. Conversely, those events in my life that have ‘made me who I am’, that have ‘made a difference, made a lasting impression, are the people and events that have touched my heart.

As the wind pushes me along this old prayer comes to my mind.

It’s an old Irish Prayer

“May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand”

Safety and Peace on your journey this week.