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For Sons, Fathers... and SEARCHERS - 11/18/2009 8:56:37 AM
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the1Sackett
Posts: 59
Joined: 11/17/2009
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It's a sad truth that not every young man has a dad, growing up. That's just one of the facts of Life, sometimes. But what's beyond "sad" is when, with all the men (who know and remember full well what it's like...) that are otherwise "available"... there's no one to stand in the gap, and make the road to Manhood a little less confusing, frightful... and long.
Thanks to Tuck Arnold, that wasn't the case for one fortunate boy. In The 'DOORWAY' Buck you will find bows-n-arrows and boys of all ages. You'll see far away lands and historically accurate events, covering over a hundred years... and a few intertwined lives. But mostly, what your mind's eye will view, and your heart's ear will hear, are the familiar paths and sometimes stumbling steps of a boy, doing his best to cross that fearsome Threshold... and the too-few men, who have learned the richness and joy of helping them get there.
The King we serve is the foundation of the actions and heart of these mentors. The book is a bit like ESTHER (in His Word), the Lord's "name" doesn't appear that often, but His love, character... and the credit for it showing through the men Travis meets... does.
The book also deals with the transforming power of "preemptive" redemptive love ~ pure friendship ~ Alzheimer's ~ and the freeing POWER of honest communication.
NOTE: It is unashamedly a MAN'S BOOK, not candy-coated or watered down.
Following is a short snippet.
_________________________________________________
CHAPTER 5
The sky cleared, the air brightened… and the land lay silent. Looking out across the knoll and on up to the azure-toned vista of the flat, it was almost as though Newton county had been swallowed by the snow, and I had been bodily transported to that fierce, rich Northern land of Tuck’s memories. I actually caught myself looking into the snow-bound timber for a glimpse of Ben, or the young Inupiat warriors… or that bear (I still chuckle every time I remember that. But you know how it was at 18, the hair’s a growin’ on the chin… but the imagination is still as bald and vivid as a child’s! I was all right with that. Still am).
Mr. Tuck was adding a large stump piece to the fire. Noticing the tilt of my head and knitted brow he said, “On days like this son, leave a night-burner on for a watchfire. It’ll burn slow and steady and warm. That way, anyone who might come across the camp whilst we’re out will find a welcome break in their walkabout. And, even if we get back mighty late, she’ll be here to greet us with a warm embrace and a ready bed of coals.” And then he added, with a sly grin and a wink, “Roughin’ it don’t necessarily mean a lack of comfort”.
My ‘book-learning’ came to my tongue faster than my mouth could bridle it ~~ “Well, I’ve read where you’re supposed to always put a fire out when you leave camp.”
He just smiled as he tucked a few pieces of tinder into his war bag, “Read the same thing a time or two. But don’t ever let passive learning override active thinking, son.”
“Take a look around you. There ain’t nothing under this overhang to catch and hold a flame long enough to do any damage. And it’s plain from the patched holes in your tent, and the current selection of fire pieces that you’ve learned how to pick your camp wood better.” (…this one had me smiling. I’d almost burnt the thing up the year before when I threw a moss-barked pecan log on my first morning’s fire. Man, did she ever pop and spit!)
He took note of my grin, shook his head, and then continued, “And as for out there… even the Keeper of the Fires of Hell couldn’t get that lit today.” Then he turned to face me, “But you do as you decide. It is your camp. And that makes what any other man thinks on the subject just what it is… just~ their~ opinion.”
With that, he took his bow off to the other side of the fire and began drawing it back bit by bit, time and again, until the weapon was finally brought to full draw... and his muscles and joints to full limber.
I had never met anyone as seemingly prepared for a situation as Mr. Tuck, any situation. Everything I ever saw him do made perfect sense (even if some of it was after the fact). The term I later came to use to describe him was ‘self-possessed’. He was utterly and completely confident, and proved to be rightly so, in every circumstance I ever shared with him. And yet, I have never been around a man who was less inclined to (or who had less use for) bragging OR false modesty. That’s what I mean by ‘self-possessed’. He was whole ~~ complete in his manhood… without pointing it out himself, and totally aside from what anyone else thought of him. He put it to me this way, once…
“The Good Lord made me, boy. Gave me every gifting, aptitude and skill-set I have, just like He gave the trees their strength, the stream its chuckle and the fox its cunning. So the braggin’ rights are His. And so far, son… those things have been enough to keep me, and others alive… and to keep my word good. From what I’ve seen in this world, that’s enough.” And then, with the life-fire a blazing in those grey eyes, he added, “I have no problem standing in the company of ‘men’.”
He sure didn’t.
But what I marveled at most, and came to cherish and treasure above all else about this crusty old man was the uncanny ability, and pleasured willingness he displayed in giving me room… to be a man.
And since this was my camp, I made an executive decision… “Fair enough” I said, “Let ‘er burn.”
The DOORWAY Buck
< Message edited by the1Sackett -- 11/18/2009 9:42:10 AM >
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RE: For Sons, Fathers... and SEARCHERS - 11/20/2009 6:31:27 PM
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the1Sackett
Posts: 59
Joined: 11/17/2009
Status: offline
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For more information, just go to: http://doorwaybuck.com
_____________________________
The Cost Of Liberty Tends To Run Very High.
The Cost Of APATHY... Incalculable.
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RE: For Sons, Fathers... and SEARCHERS - 11/28/2009 6:32:10 AM
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the1Sackett
Posts: 59
Joined: 11/17/2009
Status: offline
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Here's another short section... not all parents "stay away" because they don't care... not by a long shot.
_____________________________________
So it was, that over the next two hours, I heard the very first ever non hate-borne words about my father… and they had to do with my buck!
Tuck waited until we had the fire stoked in the stove, two fresh cups of steaming comfort in hand and a fresh night-burner nestled amidst the snap and pop of the fireplace’s warmth. He even went into the Cavalry room and brought App out… and hung him above the fireplace, on a hook in the river stones that formed the chimney.
With everything right with the world, he started.
“Five years ago your daddy (funny as it may seem, hearing that word, spoken honestly and innocently in its proper context, hit me like a ton of bricks at that moment. Don’t know if Tuck noticed or not. Thankfully, he acted as though it was the most natural thing to say in the world.) made yet another trip across country to see you (This was a shock…I had been told he NEVER tried to see me). You remember, you was an Indian brave in that Thanksgiving play at school?
I nodded, but couldn’t believe he knew about that!
“Oh, you did a fine job, Travis! And yessir, I’ve kept tabs on you from the beginning son. That’s how your daddy was able to keep up with your progress… and keep from sending the whole filthy, lying bunch of them to their rightful holes in the ground.”
That last statement didn’t bother me at all.
Funny thing about holding onto someone’s affections and loyalty through lies and deception… when the light of truth finally reaches the inner cell of what you’ve been drilled and hammered with to be the Palace of Love, and you see it for what it is, a dank, dismal, rat-infested dungeon … it’s the jailers you’re most disgusted with. The process of my awareness had started a couple of years before I ever came to Lost Lodge. Tuck’s patient, unpainted truthfulness helped. But it was actually his willingness to constantly risk losing whatever future friendship might exist between us by laying a solid foundation of honest talk, block by block, each step of the way~~that to this truth-starved searcher~~was the real manna in the wilderness.
I didn’t “hate” my mom. But I was honestly finding great relief in seeing her and that mess she called ‘family’ for what they were. I had thought I was crazy all this time, thinking things weren’t “right”.
And she and the rest of them had even begun encouraging that line of thought. Funny ain’t it, what some folk will call “love”?
That’s not to say I didn’t have questions… and Tuck Arnold answered every one of them. Without fanfare. Without flinching.
“If he made all those trips, why didn’t he ever just “see” me?”
“Believe it or not, it was for your sake, son. The woman that gave you birth, because of her own nasty darkness, hates your father with a blind, burning passion, as does nearly all her family. She was able to get a bogus restraining order against him early on… and renewed it with a vengeance. And as gutless as that bunch is at heart, they do make up a goodly portion of the community, as you know… including the sheriff's office, school principals and a county judge. There was just no way to get to you without running into some part of the pack. And that, would have led to a killing.”
“So he is a mean man…” The words I’d heard hissed so often by so many in the family came to my lips. They came from my training, not from my heart. But even as I said them, I wondered. And I do believe that was the first time I’d ever seen the old man truly stunned.
“Mean…? MEAN?!” He shook his head in disbelief. “Travis, next to Mr. Parks, down at the DX, your father is without a doubt one of the kindest and gentlest men I have ever known. Don’t get me wrong, he’s got a backbone that’s bear-wide and wolf tough. And he has a no-nonsense, determined sense of right-n-wrong. Those parts of a good man’s nature just naturally terrify the uselessly bold and gutless. But mean? Travis, that’s a matter of intent and lack of character, not necessarily “observable” actions.”
“Sir?”
Tuck sighed slightly, pursed his lips and looked around the room, like he was searching for something. Then he leaned forward, and with a softer tone laid out something I had sensed about the world instinctively, but had never heard put into words…
“Travis, in the act of defending his home and his family, and in the course of war, many a good man determines and does many a hard thing… without malice or evil intent. They do these things, son, because the wicked who without cause, bring harm to the innocent… in their relentless, bold glee to cause that suffering, make such strong actions necessary. Does that make a man ‘mean’?”
“No sir.”
Tuck glanced into some unseen distance for a moment, like I’d seen him do so many times before. And then, with a soft sadness framing his face, he continued. “And here’s the flip side of that, Travis. Much of the true evil of ‘mean’ folk slides between the ribs and into the heart by them doing absolutely… nothing. When ‘mean’ people have a chance to tell a truth that would bring freedom, to stand up and give testimony or a warning that would turn the tide, and with a bland, blinking look of total innocence, they stand by, and do… nothing.” His eyes narrowed then, but I could see the flame burning hot and bright within them. “That, my boy… is the beastly heart of ‘MEAN’.”
______________________________________
Tuck watched me chew on that last statement for a bit. Then, as he got up to get more coffee, he cleared his throat to get my attention and said as he went by, “If he were as mean as I’m thinking they made him out to be, ask yourself just one question, son… how is it they have all lived to this day… unmarked?”
I had to admit, that was a good question, and one that had faintly ghosted the halls of my mind from time to time. But it also set off my next question.
“So, was he afraid?”
Tuck never even slowed down in the hall. In a calm, matter-of-fact tone he called back, “Well now, that’s a good and fair question, Travis. Asked him that myself, one time.”
I waited what I thought was plenty of time for the old man to come back through the doorway with his coffee, and the answer. But the only thing that made its way through that opening was the sound of things being rustled and clattered in the kitchen… and Tuck Arnold hummin’!
So, I finally got up and headed to the kitchen to see what was taking so long. As I cleared the doorway I could see Tuck putting the finishing touches on a platter of various meats, cheeses, olives and pickles and such. Without looking up he motioned to my right, “Wondered what took you so long. Would you mind carving a few thick slabs of that wheat loaf right there? Mrs. Parks sent that along for you… figured you’d be nigh-on to starved by now, eatin’ nothing but hot dogs and chips.”
“Mrs. Parks? I don’t even know the woman, didn’t even know Floyd was married.”
Tuck straightened up and wiped his hands on a tea towel that was hanging from a hook on the wall. “Well, you don’t remember her. But she’s known you since you were nothing more than that first excited chatter out of your daddy’s mouth. She changed more than a few of your diapers." Then, with a slight cock of his head and a look on his face like he was studying calculus or something, he added, "Fact is, lots of folks around here did.”
“You mean, I’ve been here before… when I was little?”
Tuck was already chuckling. “Travis my boy, you were born in this house… and toddled and traipsed around the place until your third year.” And then, leaning forward a bit, and with a gentler tone, he added, “But let’s just eat one elephant at a time, huh?”
With my head a-swimmin’ and my heart racing, all I could manage was a slight nod. Can you understand what I mean? All these years the pantry shelves of my life among my mother’s people had been covered in velvet and filled with an assortment of bright, colorful candy. Great for the occasional sweet tooth, but death to a soul starving for the meat of Truth and the milk of honest kindness. And here, in one night, the bounty of a lifetime (my life’s time…) stretched ungated before me like a king’s feast. And, at the moment, it was every bit as overwhelming as it was rich… and as terrifying as it was long’d for. You’d have to have been there I guess for that to make sense.
__________________________________________________
TO ORDER YOU COPIES, GO TO: http://doorwaybuck.com
_____________________________
The Cost Of Liberty Tends To Run Very High.
The Cost Of APATHY... Incalculable.
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RE: For Sons, Fathers... and SEARCHERS - 12/7/2009 5:15:13 PM
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the1Sackett
Posts: 59
Joined: 11/17/2009
Status: offline
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If your church, or men's group is looking for a seminar/retreat that WILL positively reach men from all over your community, give me a shout. I've spent over 30 years (14 of those as a missionary/teacher, Hospice chaplain, and ad hoc fire/police chaplain) teaching, training and providing motivational inspiration for audiences that include 5th CHAPTER bikers (former drug and alcohol users) and senior VPs of FORTUNE 100 companies.
I have a biblical-based series of motivational lessons, dealing with the man-issues in this book (mentoring, divorce, godly responses, friendship, leadership... and honesty).
Be glad to hear from you: cmsackett@doorwaybuck.com
CM Sackett
_____________________________
The Cost Of Liberty Tends To Run Very High.
The Cost Of APATHY... Incalculable.
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