The 1 percent comes home

"Suppose someone among you had a hundred sheep and lost one of them." Luke 15: 4a

I was talking with my youngest daughter, Carrie, yesterday and was taken back to a time long, long ago in a land far, far away when I was a sophomore in college. She has recently decided, wisely and correctly, to return to college. We were talking English and Math and such and I thought about those days long ago.

There was a time when I would go into the college cafeteria each morning and play two songs on the jukebox: Crocodile Rock by Elton John and Operator by Jim Croce. Each morning. They were my coffee/Red Bull all wrapped into a small package of music. Then I was off to class, or off to get an interview for the campus newspaper or the local newspaper sports section or off to talk to someone or whatever it might be. That was my college experience that I loved the most. Later at Mississippi State, not so much. That was more about drinking and writing and loneliness.

I was discovering who I was, a little song at a time. I  had left the church after a freshman year when I lost a first-love and lost my way a bit and had begun to wander into drinking and such. I was testing myself, learning who I could be apart from the image I had built at least partially because others had "taught" me to be that person. Now I could make decisions on my own. Turns out I wasn't good at that. Unfortunately, though I would turn out to be fairly successful in this writing thing, what I discovered over the next 22 years or so was that I was a lost, lost sheep in great, great need of a shepherd.

Family found. Check. Family lost. Check. Family found. Check. And through it all I drank, and drank. Lucy in the sky with diamonds I lived, and lost, and lived and lost.

Then, oh, then, I reached a stage when I couldn't live the roller-coaster any longer. I needed to find the air-break and hit it ... hard. I needed, oh, uh, uh, something of meaning.

Did I think that would lead me to some place like Eunice, La., later this year to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Nope. Nada. I just wanted to find meaning. Didn't go looking for religion. Didn't even go looking for Christ. I went looking for sobriety, peace, further accomplishment.

Found? Jesus. In absolute inexplicable fashion (the Bible calls it a peace that surpasses understanding), I found what life can mean, about how it was okay to think more of others than one does oneself, how it was okay to love fully and deeply and to receive love in the same fashion. I found it, while not looking for it. Perhaps that's the key.

Those who don't know what I mean won't know what I mean. But my life was changed because somehow inexplicably the unexplainable became known to me. What wasn't wanted became all I wanted. This part about eternity, well, that's fine and great and worthy of great praise and I do. But what I found works darn well right here on ol' Earth. The Bible cause it abundant living. I simply call it life.

I'm not a part of the 1 percent by any stretch; in fact, we don't have all that much any more in terms of income. But I'm proud to say I'm also now part of the 1 percent who came home to join those 99 in the pen. The shepherd wasn't even mad about the time I spent sampling what I thought was greener pastures. He simply gave me some fresh living water.

Heaven rejoiced on August 16, 1995. I've been doing it since. I wish only others could do the same. It has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with him. I really, really believe that. I continue to pray others, especially my readers who are in deep pain for various reasons, would come to know that, too.