Louis Classen:  

Scarlet Thread Where will I go; when each passing minute has finally gnawed through the shell of my existence, and the vacuum of eternity withdraws the last vestige of my life, through the breach that time has made? I do not know the place; yet I dream of it often and believe! Tightly in my grasp, I clutch the promise and cling to the hope that drives away the darkness, binding the hands that would snatch my treasure from me, if they could. Wrap around my heart the scarlet thread from Rahab's window, and bind me to the rock of my salvation, for my bones are weary and my soul longs to enter into His rest. How I long to hear the words well done and to feel His loving arms of welcome about my shoulders, but I know my time has not yet come and I must endure, until He calls me safely Home. By Rev. Louis L. Claassen I am, therefore I have Purpose Unmasking the Paradox Like grapes in a wine press, I crushed every waking moment of those days, in an attempt to extract from them some magic elixir that would free the heart, heal flesh and restore the wholeness lost at birth. How often do we probe our minds and hearts, searching for that vague connection between conception and purpose? So many factors come into play, geographic location, demographics, economics, ancestry, history and a plethora of other significant and maybe not so significant circumstances surrounding our insertion into the cycle of life. How many times have we echoed the cry? œI didn't ask to be here. I was conceived in early September of 1946 and entered this world at 5:55 PM June 9th 1947. Omak Washington was my insertion point. My father who was 20 and mother who was 15 at the time of my birth, held in their arms, a tiny bundle of imperfection that would change the course of their lives in ways they would never have imagined possible, and my journey toward life's horizon, began under the hovering shadow of death. Like steam divided into fire and water, I became a living dichotomy, the virile offspring of my parents grafted family trees, divided into equal and opposite sub beings one struggling to live, and the other dying because of a congenital abnormality. Why I survived, when another child born with the same debilitating dilemma perished, I will never know. How I traversed the ensuing years, of childhood and adolescence when my prognosis held little hope of survival, still remains a mystery. As my mind and body matured and naivet` succumbed to the harsh realities of life, every day I lived, I lived as one not expecting to see the dawning of another. Like grapes in a wine press, I crushed every waking moment of those days, in an attempt to extract from them, some magic elixir that would free the heart, heal flesh and restore the wholeness lost at birth. For years, I sought opportunities to bring relevance to my existence, to somehow attach myself to the fabric of life in a way that would say I had purpose, that my life, in all of it's complexity, doubt and insecurity, would not leave this plane of existence unheralded or unremembered. Expression, in any form became my forte, but art in it's complexity of medias and the written word, became the tools of my obsession. On June 9th 2007, at 5:55 PM, after 31million 536 thousand minutes of heart pounding, mind boggling life, I found myself standing only 82 miles from the place where it all began. With every step, every experience, every joyful and torturous moment indelibly etched on my soul and stored in some distant place, I struggled to remember what brought me to that present moment and dreamt of times when things were better, at least from my biased point of view. None the less, the vast majority of my past is where it should be, archived in some nameless vault, in the deep recesses of my subconscious mind. Memories go there you know, when we finally release them, realizing that they no longer hold any relevance to our spiritual, physical or emotional well being. It's like taking out the trash at the end of the day, once it's in the can and the lid is on it, we should walk away and allow it go where trash is supposed to go. Unfortunately; many angry and unhappy souls hoard their garbage, tenaciously clinging to every scrap of adversity that has ever permeated their lives. They refuse to let them go, even though they produce nothing but stench and heartache, taking up valuable space, in their lives, meant for retaining the joy's and positive things life brings. As I look back at my u...Expand for more