The Widow's Mite

They asked me once… No, come to think

It was more than once; Actually when have they not

Asked me? But for the sake of the poem, once,

“Why? Why throw it all away? Why sink

Into oblivion? I mean, you know, you’ve got

It all! Brains, muscle, health. You dunce.

Why let it go?”

                        And I must say…

                                                       I don’t know.

I don’t know what it is that I am letting go

Of, I have let go of quite a bit in my time

Sacrificed time with family,

Time with friends,

Time with books

Time in Church

In my search

With vague frenzied looks

For insufficient ends.

Time in college,

Time at the park,

Around the campfire in dark

And much knowledge

Gained from teachers

And preachers.

Sacrificed time at the end of my life

With my aging wife

Time borrowed against my latter years

In health used up now

And wealth spent on things

I do not even remember. Silver wings

For a meniscal tear

A green hat

For an arthritic back

And a bursa spent upon

Who knows what? Need I go on?

And yet I have been the gainer, through it all,

A certain mental toughness, a confidence

I never had before; a physicality

Beyond the reach of most. My personality

Needed the reality, banality, inanity and all out insanity

Of such a life, to break at length through the dense

Obtuse mind’s self centered wall,

To see what truly matters.

And now, having seen much of places and climes,

Governments and men, through various times

And traded gold for success,

And achieved success and filled my mouth with the whole dusty mess

And chewed and swallowed and soliloquized

On the dry, tasteless, much prized

Dust, and how delicious it would be if only

I could season it with a little more dust…

In short, having become lonely…

At length I can hear

The silent voice in my ear

Deafening me with His love.

“If dust is all you have, then give it to me

Every speck.

Keep not one fleck

For yourself. Then you shall see

How I make much of nought.”

And so, I thought, why not?

Having made a hell of a try

Of this and found it dry,

If He offers me living water for the dust of earth

That forms my frame,

And shapes what fame

I might yet have achieved,

So what? He is to be believed.

And in the end all I have from birth

Is His, to give, to whom he will.

So it is willed,

Where what is willed must stay.

And so you can keep this whole mess

The fame, and fury, and utter pointlessness.

I will give it all for love and fade away,

And thus be filled.

Green Hat

This week was the culmination of a very long, long road. It started years ago, when I was only 17, and I first heard of the "Special Forces" when I was in basic training. Even before I left basic I had decided that I was going to leave the Army Reserves, go Active Duty, and try out for this elite unit.

It would be years before I finally got the chance to go to selection, and I didn't make it the first time. I smoked all the physical and mental tests, but my interpersonal skills were not up to par. At the end of Selection I was non-selected as "too much of a loner."

I didn't want to go back. It was a hard school, and I felt like a redo was just too much work. So I spent four more years in the regular army, working my way up from specialist to sergeant, to staff sergeant, and gaining experience as a soldier and as a leader. After fifteen months in Afghanistan, during which I served as a squad leader in combat for more than a year, I felt readier and went to selection again with a very clear plan in my head: I would either make it and go Special Forces, or I would finish my enlistment and get out. At the time I was strongly thinking of entering the seminary if SF didn't work out for me.

The second time through was ten times worse than the first time. They had shortened it from 24 days to 14 days, but still had all the same events, and some of them were even harder than I remembered. The shortened timeline meant very little sleep, no time for food, and a much more distant and stoic cadre. When I finished, still standing tall at the end, I knew it was only the grace of God that had gotten me through. Once you are selected that certificate is good for two years. You don't have to decide to go to the Qualification course right away. I had planned on taking some time off, not making my decision right away, but taking some time to think and pray about whether SF was really what I wanted to do, but when I sat down with the Cadre who was counselling me on my selection at the end, something else happened. He said, "Congratulations you have been selected. Do you want to accept your selection right now?" I opened my mouth and the words, "Yep, and I want to be a medic," came tumbling out of my mouth. It was not my plan, but as soon as I said it I felt like it was a pretty good plan after all. I had already been a regular army engineer for six years. Why not do something different. The Cadre was surprised, but he signed me up for it. I also got my first choice of language, which was Korean.

Fast forward almost three years, through Airborne School, leadership training, Korean School, Small Unit Tactics, SERE school, the year long Medic School, culminating last month with the famous "Robin Sage" exercise.

 And then, on wednesday, I graduated. I walked across the stage and got my Green Beret in front of my parents, and some of my relatives who made the trip out to see it.

This is me shaking hands with my Dad.

It has been a long road, and it ain't over yet. It's just begun. I now have a three year commitment to an operational Special Forces group, with many deployments around the world ahead of me. I have a commitment to furthering my medical knowledge and skill level, possibly becoming an MD eventually. Add to all of this that I have a deep certainty that Special Forces is not my ultimate calling. God is calling me to something else, and SF is just a step on that road. I don't know what it is, yet, but I think it will be cool.

He is faithful. HE has gotten me this far. I have no fear.