celebrating kirk...

Honestly, when I received a concerned phone call from my brother-in-law this morning, I was inwardly terrified that I might be writing 'Kirk: R.I.P' tonight instead of the above. Our nephew went missing yesterday. He and a friend did not return from a dirt biking outing in Washington state Saturday afternoon as they had promised. All sorts of horrid things that run through loving and concerned minds...from getting lost or perhaps injured, to being victims of a crime. Relief today, when their truck was located from a cell phone signal. Relief when the two were found...and rescued...and are recovering.

A few years ago, when I was putting together a Power Point presentation on 'The Millennial Generation' for my university enrollment-expert boss, I was looking for a 'model' for this generation and asked Kirk's photographer father to send me some pics. A close-up of Kirk ended up - larger than life - on the opening slide. Looking rather cocky and self-assured, actually. Especially with the full-color, revolving planet earth that replaced one of pupils.

It was rather an apt representation of him. He is fearless in his relationship with life. When he was quite young and was hit by a car on an Oregon coastal highway, his mother hoped for a minute that this experience might instill some caution into his free spirit. But when he bounced up off the pavement and declared 'That, wasn't so bad!', she was clearly disappointed. I still remember a panicked call from his grandfather when grade-schooler Kirk went 'missing'. Actually, he had gotten irritated at waiting for his mother to finish her business at his school and decided to take off on his own and walk the 5 miles to his home...without telling her.

His young wife and their newly born son are two wonderful reasons for Kirk to change his ways. He'll have lots of time to think of this as he recovers from some serious surgery on a spiral fracture to an ankle. Having got lost yesterday, he and his friend set out to find their way to the truck...ran out of daylight doing so. In the dark, in their haste, an injury stopped them cold. They burned helmets and bike parts to stay warm during the night.

Do prayers form and move through our being from the 'point of knowledge and concern' forward? Yes...but why not backwards, also? The cocoon of God's tightly relentless grasp was a Kirk-appropriate splint. From the first misstep. A loving straight-jacket of grace for him.