Destiny, Faith, and Other Deep Thoughts

Juvat has been a fairly good muse for me lately.  His posts of the last 2 weeks have really got me thinking about my own life, my kids, what I have, and what I'm grateful for.  On October 4th he wrote about Sergeant Erwin and the heroic action he took to save his crewmates. There's someone who could have easily died from what he did, serious phosphorus burns over much of his body, but he was meant for something greater and lived a long life afterwards. I like to think that we're all destined for something, but maybe only some of us are fortunate to find what that is.  The lucky ones live a life where that destiny is realized and put into action. It could be your life's work and occupation, or just meeting the love of your life.  I truly believe that my life has been very blessed and that it has God's hands all over everything, from my career to my family, even to my home, and I can see how I've been helped at each phase of my life.

Thanks to the encouragement of my father I worked hard in school and had my heart set on attending the Naval Academy.  My grades were good enough for three separate nominations: one Oregon Senator, my Congressional Rep, and a Vice Presidential nom thanks to my father's service.  But due to my less-than-perfect vision, I had to compete across the nation* for a waiver, as only 20% of each entering class is granted admission without perfect vision.  Because of that I was unable to secure an appointment.  I was crushed at the time and was aimless for a week or so.  Thanks to the local Navy recruiter's encouragement though, I had later applied for and received an NROTC scholarship to my mother's alma mater. That turned out to be a huge blessing as my calculus and physics grades there proved I probably would not have withstood the academic rigors of Annapolis.  USD or the Boat School- both of them make Ensigns.

Later in that post Juvat mentioned how he and his wife found each other. For me and my own partner, my wife of 28 years, I'm quite sure we were supposed to be together because of the circumstances of how it happened. First off, my brother, my sister, and my mother all knew her, but didn't know that each of them knew her as well.  My sister had taken a couple college classes with her and they had chatted often and were friendly.  My mother knew her from from church, where Mindi had been going to mass by herself after her parents fell away from the church.  And my brother John knew her because he was friends with her brother Shane, having gone to boot camp together.  He later married her cousin.  I was either away at college, or down in Pensacola for flight School, and had never had the opportunity to meet her.

Fortunately, one New Year's Eve while home on leave, my mother felt sick and could not attend a party that she had been going to for many years, one I had attended once or twice. She asked me to go in her place, but I balked, not wanting to go alone, and not having anyone that I'd want to take.  She asked if I might be willing to go on a blind date with someone she knew.  I found out later that she too was smitten from that night on.

Juvat's most recent post talked about some technology he installed that will help his daughter with his first grandchild, some high-tech baby monitors and automated devices to help comfort their child.  When it came to my children, both were premature (10wks/5wks), and as I commented to Juvat, I believe they had guardian angels on patrol over their beds from day one.  There's also a bit of divine intervention in how I got to my wife's bedside after she gave birth to my son when we were stationed in Japan.  It's a great story that happens to be my very first post here on the Chant.  It shows how I too was being looked after, with a lot of help from some wonderful people, and some cards that seem to have aligned with significant help from above.

When it was time to leave Japan I didn't get the specific San Diego job I wanted so I was strongly encouraged to head back to Pensacola and become a flight instructor for the student NFOs.  However, my wife and son spent over three months in the NICU, some of it alone since I went back to the ship after a time.  That was very tough and stressful on her, so I wanted her to be closer to family when we got back stateside- either my own extended family here in San Diego, or all of hers (and a few of mine) just up the coast in the PacNorwest.  It wasn't the best for my career, which I fully understood, but it did enable us to purchase the home we still own.  Had I gone down to be a flight instructor, there's no way we could have afforded to buy the next time I might have been stationed here- a city I knew I'd want to eventually retire in. So this was another blessing.  While house-hunting, I kind of think we were led here, because I had to make several wrong turns in order to wind up in front of the place, far off the course I was planning on taking and in a neighborhood I had no idea existed.  

I didn't have this same attitude earlier in life, believing of divine inspiration, blessings and such.  And my faith was weak at best.  Maybe it was a bit of arrogance on my part as I either didn't attribute much of what has happened in my life to God's hand, and I believed too much that my own smarts and self-discipline was all it took get me to where I was.  I do attribute some of it to a strong work ethic instilled by my father and growing up on some unimproved land in Oregon.  Between my 7th and 9th years on Earth we built our house, a log cabin kit-home you see above.  It was my job to carry water uphill from a creek to mix concrete, to get tools for my dad and grandfather, or to fetch nails or other building supplies.  Daily chores feeding a small cadre of animals, like goats, chickens, dogs and cats among others, was also a requirement.  And in the winter, chopping wood and keeping a fire going was another of my duties.  There was no complaining, not that I ever wanted to, but it would not have turned out well.  That was a different time though when parents were allowed to discipline their child without fear of CPS or a neighbor recording them.  I now know how blessed I was to have those experiences, as they helped shape me for later.  Throughout all this, with the deep faith of my mother, we always attended Sunday Mass.  And while I didn't necessarily pay attention all that much, it slowly instilled a sense of faith in me that strengthened after my son was born.  Seeing him in the NICU for several months causes one to make deals with God.  I don't think I promised him anything I wasn't willing to do otherwise, but I did learn to pray deeply.  They say it takes 30 days to form a habit.  What do you think 100 days does?  It'll definitely change your perspective, if not your life.  For me it did both.

I truly feel that I was destined to have my beautiful wife and our lovely home.  I also know God is the reason we have our kids.  That and my sense of faith helps keep me grounded and grateful for all I have.  I think it's an important quality to have, as it centers you, keeping you focused on your own life and not on things that aren't so great, or what other people have.  While I don't have too many problems in my life, it can be a challenge to not focus on the problems of the world.  I will continue to do so a little bit, with a pithy political post every now and then, but I also need to keep the faith and pray about it every once in a while.  It definitely can't hurt, and it might get some of that divine assistance that Juvat and I have received.

*There are by-state quotas for the service academies.  With respect to the Congressional nominations category, each Congressional Representative and Senator is allowed to have five persons charged to his or her quota at any given time for each of the academies. For each vacancy that occurs, the Member may nominate up to 10 candidates to be considered for an appointment.