Spend a day, spend a life

Yesterday I was at Sky Harbor, the coolest name for an airport. Six years ago I met a tall vibrant friend there on the way to a conference. She told me she was raised in the Grand Canyon. Yesterday the work of her Father Bruce Aiken was prominently on display, a lifetime of painting the Grand Canyon and surrounding areas has made him an artist of local and national fame.

His bio says he desired a life near an object of beauty, so he took a job at a pump station and raised three kids a five hour hike and 125 mile drive from a grocery store. Thirty years living, working and painting. Mercy was formed by the dreams of her father and it made her a most unique person.

I picked up Luz Nacionales, who for fifty years has been a Christian worker in the Phillipines, where she distributes literature, visits prisons, and tries to get people to believe in Jesus and go to heaven. She spoke about her parents love, and following the dream of her father she has become a unique person.

Last night I spent two hours at Oregeno's enjoying a wonderful salad and talking to lively and interesting children about religion and education and politics, trying to hear each over the crowd and music. They were my family and they lived my dream of following the Father to a big city in the desert, where we each became unique people.  You spend a day, you spend a live.


Waiting for Luz, I watched thousand of travelers of all shapes and sizes, airport workers changing shifts, children returning from school break visiting grandparents, it was a panoply of life and it always amazes me about our nation and the ability to fly so many places. And I wondered how Father knows and seeks to direct them in paths that will lead their children to be free and fulfilled.