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Gael’s Words

“It’s you again, isn’t it? I know it’s you. It’s always you.”
Gael’s words, Summer 1959, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

I think the best year of my life was when I was thirteen. When I was a thirteen, my family lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. To me, Sioux Falls was the most wonderful place on earth, and my friends at Patrick Henry Junior High School, just a block or so away from my previous school, St. Mary’s, were among the best friends I have ever known.

Gloriam Deo • Honor and Praise to the Maker of All Things

One night that summer, some of my friends and I decided that we should lie in a circle on the grass in Chris and Phil’s back yard.

Lying on a big green army blanket, we placed our heads together, fanned out like the spokes of a wagon wheel.

Lying there, looking up at the stars in the night sky, I think we became our true selves for a while, sharing our 13 year old thoughts with each other.

Patricia, said, “You can’t whisper just any old thing to the stars.”

“Only the most thoughtful, most beautiful, most treasured ideas are good enough. They need to remain private for them to become real,” she said.

“If we should come back after we die, Charlie said, “I think I would be a strong white horse, so I could run to the farthest horizon without getting tired.”

“I would be a magic cat, and become invisible whenever I felt the need to disappear,” whispered Shirley.

Rich thought he might come back as a spiky hedgehog, because he doesn’t like too many people around him.

Jack suggested that maybe he’d come back as a skunk. “I don’t like crowds, either,” he said.

“The world is so beautiful. Life is so short,” said Janet. “Yes . . . it is,” she whispered.

Gael, a violinist in our 9th grade school orchestra, asked, “Can you hear it, the music of the stars?” and she sang part of a melody, very softly.

Gael told us that sometimes, when she plays really beautiful music, she feels the presence of God all around her, and she thinks to herself, “It’s you again, isn’t it? I know it’s you. It’s always you.” That’s what she said.

Looking up at the night sky, the obvious occurred to me, “Sometimes, it can feel so good to be small,” and I whispered “thank you” to the Maker of All Things.

Somebody said that stars and the night sky “know things” and have a way of reminding us of things we need to remember.

Later that night, we decided it was time to get up, and head for home.

That night is the best night I can remember from the year when I was thirteen.

Then it happened. When I was fifteen, my father accepted a new job, and we moved to Minnesota. Suddenly, I lost all my friends. I had to start all over again at a new school.

I really did miss my friends in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Sometimes, I think about that starry night, when I was at peace in the presence of my friends, the year I was thirteen.

Chris and Phil’s back yard is still there, and Gael’s words are still as powerful today as when I first heard them so many years ago.

Now, I am becoming ancient on the outside, and am very grateful for my quiet, invisible, unlisted life.

More than 50 years ago, when I was as a young officer in the U.S. Navy, I was a cố vấn (advisor) in the river forces of the Vietnamese Navy.

My guys and I conducted combat operations on the Vĩnh Tế Canal that forms the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, and also on the Sông Cửu Long, the River of Nine Dragons, that flows 3,050 miles down from the highest mountains of earth in Tibet through Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia through the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam into the South China Sea.

In those days, “unusual” things could happen around us without warning at any time, suddenly immersing all of us way over our heads in harm’s way.

Now, many years later, flashes of memory from those days may suddenly begin to swirl around me. The air stops inside me, really. Within my thoughts, I know just enough to say, “Okay, Lord, what do you want me to learn this time?”

Inside the noise, Gael’s words whisper softly behind me. I hear myself saying out loud, “It’s You again, isn’t it? I know it’s You. It’s always You.” Eventually, a gathering silence returns to calm the moment.

Smiling quietly to myself, tears of amazement flooding across my face, I think out loud “My Lord, Jesus, why do You do this? I am the least of Your creation, yet You are generous with me.”

Quietly, softly, I whisper to the silence, “Thank You, My Lord. Thank You, Sir, from the depth of my heart, from the core of my soul, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

Yes, it is true. I have fallen into the hands of God. I never want to fall out of them.