Two weeks ago, I took my daughter to see the movie, Australia. Despite what the critics had to say, we thought it was a great movie. I encourage you to set aside three hours and go see it. The primary characters are Lady Ashley (Sarah), an aristocratic English woman, Drover an Australian cowboy and Nullah a half white, half Aborigines boy.

The story line is that Lady Ashley’s husband has gone to Australia to work a cattle ranch he bought. After not hearing from him, she leaves England to find her husband with intentions of selling the ranch and returning home. The boy, Nullah lives on the ranch with his mother. Drover works as a cowboy on the ranch.

The boy spends time with his grandfather, a native called King George. The grandfather teaches him the customs and ways of the Aborigines. Nullah lives in two worlds. During this time, boys who were mixed breeds were gathered together and sent to Missions where they were taught Christianity and had the savage “bled” out of them. Nullah often “made himself invisible” in order to prevent capture.

Lady Ashley’s husband is killed before she arrives. She hires Drover to help her deliver the cattle. Nullah also serves as a cowboy. Eventually Nullah and Lady Ashley grow close, but in time he explains that the time is coming for his “Walkabout”. Lady Ashley forbids it, but King George beckons. Drover explains that Nullah has to go. It is the Walkabout that gives an Aborigines male his identity, his purpose. He tells her, “If he doesn’t go he will never know who he really is. He wont belong in the white mans world and he wont belong in theirs. He won’t have his dreams. He won’t know his story.”

The Walkabout is a spiritual journey to a “belonging place”. It is where the young males connect spiritually to the land, it is here that they learn the songs that lead them, and it gives him his dreams and his voice in the world. It is the path to a belonging place.

Should 2009 to be the year of your Walkabout? It seems we will invest time and money in improving our golf game, dance steps, physical fitness, nails, hair and psyche, but will we invest time and money in the spiritual journey of discovering our “belonging place?” I have a goal to take some time, perhaps several days for solitude and to walk. I need to discover my dreams again, to learn the songs of direction and to reconnect to the Earth. I want to find my voice in the world, to recapture my story. I need to find my belonging place.

The Old Book says that Jesus often stayed in lonely places and prayed. Make 2009 the year of your Walkabout. Take the Lord Jesus along because wherever the Walkabout may take us, it’s in Him that we discover our voice, learn our songs, write our stories and connect to what truly matters. He is our Belonging Place.

telemicus out

Back in the mid 70’s our family lived in Kirksville, Missouri where my dad, Jonathan preached. In the trenches of ministry, it is sometimes hard to see if you are making any progress. We see challenges, we take on the opposition, we beg God for help, we walk faithfully and we wonder; Am I making any difference? But now and then, we find out that something we never expected was a big deal. Rocky Veach was a young boy when I met him. This is how it happened.

Dad sent out a mass mailing in our town offering a free Bible Correspondence Course. Out of four thousand fliers, he received eight responses. Rocky’s mom was one of them. She finished the course, in time had further Bible studies, and was baptized. Rocky and his brothers began to ride the church Joy Bus to Sunday school.

One Sunday morning, Rocky missed the bus. I think he was about ten years old. He called a cab and paid with his own money for a ride to church. I remember one of the men at church saying, “We have adult members who don’t want to be here bad enough to do that.” He looked like most any boy I guess. He had long hair, thin build and loved being at church. So whatever happened to Rocky?

This week, with the help of a friend, I found him. Rocky was, he says, “radically” saved at the age of 18. From 1984 to 1986, Rocky attended Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also met and married his wife Bobbi, during that time. Rocky has been involved in ministry for more than twenty years. Today, Rocky Veach oversees TORCH Ministries and directs IMN, a Missions based organization dedicated to spreading the Gospel, while helping the poor and needy around the world. Rocky travels internationally, ministering in churches, conferences, and Bible Schools. Together, Rocky and Bobbi also pastor, “Connections Church” in New York’s Hudson Valley.

This is what Rocky said to me.

“Please tell your father I have often reflected on the way the Lord used the Joy Bus and am very appreciative of the impact your family made on my life as a young boy.  It is amazing how passing acts of service and leadership can have eternal results, sometimes in the least likely of candidates.”

We never know what the simplest act of service might mean to a person or to the world. Nice going Pop!

telemicus out

When I was a teenager, our parents let the four of us kids drive out to the Christmas tree farm east of Kirksville to pick and cut down the family tree. I think the price in 1975 was $8.00 if you cut it yourself. We loaded into the station wagon, my sister Cindy drove. We arrived at the lot with saw in hand. The hunt was on and we ran all over trying to find the perfect tree. It was almost dark and we found one that we liked. I lay on the ground and in a little while, we were dragging the prize to the Buick.

In the light of home, it became evident that the darkness of the night had also clouded our judgment about the tree. The trunk was as crooked as a reindeer antler. Like flowers at Lowes look really great when there is whole flat of them but one by itself looks a little sad, so this tree looked fine in the natural setting with all its friends. However, standing alone in the light of the Taylor living room all its flaws were on full display.

For years, the family served up memories of that tree fiasco with a generous side of laughter when decorating subsequent trees. I know the tree was flawed. It received the nickname the “Charlie Brown tree.” I’m reminded this week of the original Charlie Brown tree. When the Peanuts gang worked their magic on that pathetic little tree and it became full and beautiful, Linus said, “It’s not such a bad little tree – all it needed was a little love.”

I suppose many of us, if we were Christmas trees, would be like the one I cut down in 1975 or like the one Charlie Brown chose. We have bare spots, falling out needles, crooked trunks, misshapen bodies and perhaps we are even a little dried out. All the folks you will see this holiday season are like the trees in our homes. Some are beautiful and majestic, while others are simple. Many are refined with gold decorations and white lights while others are little more than cedar bushes with homemade ornaments and a single string of giant multicolored lights. We know the real ones and the artificial, although some of the frauds are very realistic.

Common among all of us is that we are not such bad little trees; all we need is a little love. May we all decorate the people we meet this Christmas season with a little bit of love. It’ll bring out their best.

telemicus out