Favorite Stops on My Way to Paradise: Personal Vignettes, Stories, and Poems

By Lynn C. Rogers

In Favorite Stops, readers are taken through a series of “thin places” in the author’s life where people, places and events give a glimpse of an unexpected, mysterious realm where heaven and earth come together. Some of the vignettes are funny, some poignant, some in a dream world, all providing a brief view of an invisible, yet very real, higher power. It is a book about outdoor adventures, remarkable trips to places around the globe, and people with a strong influence on the life of a man having lived a long and good life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781532089824

Lynn C. Rogers

Lynn Calloway Rogers is a retired attorney, scientist, and inventor. He is author and editor of numerous articles in professional journals, is the inventor in several U.S. and foreign patents, and has spent his life reading, learning and seeking adventure throughout the U.S. and countries around the world. Named for his grandfather Calloway Rogers, Lynn was born in Oklahoma City and grew up on the family farm on the banks of the Washita River in southern Oklahoma. A member of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians, his maternal great-grandparents were original enrollees of the Chickasaw Nation before statehood, and his two-times great grandfather R. M. Harris was one of the last tribal governors. Lynn and his mother wrote several articles on the history of Governor Harris, the Chickasaw Bell, and of the Harris and Willis families appearing in the book “Pioneers of Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory,” by Nova A. Lemons (Timbercreek Ltd. 1991). Lynn has a lifelong interest in western history, including the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Little Bighorn (Custer) battle of 1876. His professional career spanned over 45 years as a research chemist and public finance attorney, before he and his wife Gaye retired to their creekside bird sanctuary in Norman, OK. He and his wife share a blended family of four sons, six grandchildren and two cats.

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Copyright © 2020 Lynn C. Rogers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-8981-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8983-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8982-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020901689

iUniverse rev. date: 01/31/2020

Dedicated to My Family

And Other Wonderful People I Have Met Along the Way

Thanks to my son Randy, without whose capable

help this book may not have been finished.

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Mountain Scenery

Foreword

T he best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. Joni Eareckson Tada

This book is about places, events, people and encounters I have experienced in eighty years of living. Rather than thinking I have discovered these places, people and events, it seems they have discovered me!

It is said that the celtic peoples in what is now Ireland and Great Britain called these places and events thin places, and I am starting to understand they mean places or happenings where the present, earthly world intersects with a heavenly, or other worldly realm, giving us a glimpse (however briefly) of what lies beyond in another existence.

The ancient ones of the southwestern American desert, according to a noted author, have a saying that wisdom sits in places, and I take that to mean much the same as the thin places known in other societies.

Who, or what is experienced in such close encounters? What lies beyond on the other side? Jesus often referred to the Kingdom of Heaven as being a place where we co-exist with God, a spiritual realm as well as a tangible, earthly one.

I envision this thin place as being somewhat like two soap bubbles that touch, at a membrane that is partly in one place and partly in another. We can see through the membrane and gain some knowledge of what is happening in each. Heaven is in one bubble, earth in the other, with our higher power, or God, present and in ultimate control of each.

What happens when we die? Is the question most of us will ask at various times in our lives. The apostle Paul, a follower of Jesus, spoke of Paradise as a place where humankind may reside, awaiting the time when the two bubbles will merge and all of creation will experience ultimate judgment as to who will spend eternity with our ultimate Creator, and who will be separated out to live in another, unspeakably more difficult realm.

Societies and cultures, throughout history, have asked the same questions. Is there a God or supreme being? What is he or she like? How did our earth and the surrounding solar system come into being? If we believe in a supreme being, what must we do to please (or at least coexist peaceably) with this deity? Is there life on other planets or star systems? If so, what does this life look like? Can we communicate with the ultimate Creator?

Neither I, nor any other living person, knows for certain what will happen in the netherworld between Heaven and Hell, but I think in the thin places we are able to have at least a glimpse of what it is like in each. When Jesus was being crucified, according to the Bible, the repentant thief dying next to him, after acknowledging the divine nature of Jesus, asked whether he would know Jesus in the afterworld, to which Jesus is reported to have said this day you will be with me in Paradise.

I offer no profound answers to these questions. If this foreword reads like a sermon, it is not intended to be. It is simply my recounting of various times and places I have experienced, providing me an opportunity to recall them as I stumble along life, in search of Paradise.

We are unable to discover or seek out the places, times and experiences amounting to thin places, from which we may be able to sort out the things of highest importance we encounter on our way. Rather, these places and experiences, I believe, instead, discover us, if we allow ourselves to realize and acknowledge what is happening.

This book is a compilation of several short stories, poems and essays I have written over the past 30 or 40 years on my journey. I hope they will provide to the reader a little window into experiences I have had along the way, and my reaction to them. I hope you will enjoy the writings.

Lynn Calloway Rogers

Norman, Oklahoma

2019

Contents

Chapter 1     Paradise Found?

Chapter 2     The Place

Chapter 3     The Saga of Whitey, The Night Blind Horse

Chapter 4     A Transfiguring Moment

Chapter 5     Recollections of An Earlier Stay at the

Infamous Elk City* Hotel

Chapter 6     Idaho

Chapter 7     Nanook the Wonder(ful) Dog

Chapter 8     The Falls of the Washita

Chapter 9     The Little Dipper

Chapter 10   Surprise

Chapter 11   The Rogers Boys in Canada

Chapter 12   The One Who Knocked on the Shutters

Chapter 13   Pops

Chapter 14   Dream

Chapter 15   The Foxes

Chapter 16   Summer Storm

Chapter 17   The Wedding

Chapter 18   A Letter to My Grandson

Chapter 19   The Rogers Boys in Canada (Again)

Chapter 20   Reunion

Chapter 21   Reflection

1

Paradise Found?

Or, The Bucket List

W here, or what, is Paradise? It is most difficult to give the word a meaning, reminding me of the struggle of Justice Potter Stewart in the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case of Jacobellis v. Ohio in describing a threshold test for obscenity, when he observed:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [‘hard-core pornography’], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." (emphasis added)

From this I know it when I see it test, comes my vision of Paradise; a place instantly recognized by me as one that stands out as supernatural, a sort of one of a kind experience, where the Kingdom of God and the human, earthly kingdom briefly touch. A place of unspeakable beauty and meaning. My writings in this book on The Place, The Little Dipper, A Transfiguring Moment, Surprise, and The Foxes, are efforts to describe such moments when they occur, from whence comes the book’s title.

At the risk of being viewed as overly mystical or spiritual, I turn to the words of Jesus in Luke 23 when, on the cross, the thief being crucified next to him said Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, to which Jesus replied Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Earlier in his ministry, as described in Luke 17, when the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you." (emphasis added). In other words, the kingdom of God is all around us; we need only to be aware of it.

In his book Surprised by Hope, (HarperCollins Publishers, New York 2008) Bishop N. T. Wright explores the mystery of what happens to us when we die, and whether a believer goes directly to heaven when he or she passes on. Wright reaches the conclusion that between the earthly realm and God’s kingdom in Heaven, there exists an intermediate place of rest, joy and refreshment, for which one name is paradise, a place where a believer lies in blissful sleep, awaiting the final, triumphal return of Christ to earth and the bodily resurrection of those having fallen asleep in anticipation of this monumental event.

Whatever one’s view of spiritual matters may be, my belief is there is a time of a final, physical, return of Christ to earth, and Resurrection of the dead when an earthly reckoning and judgment occurs and, so to speak, the sheep are separated from the goats. Paradise is where heaven and earth meet, whether it be for a moment, or for billions of years, waiting this final recognition of God’s reign over all, for all time.

Life has been good to me, no doubt. There have been ups and downs, but I’ve learned such is the nature of life. As we go, many of us make a mental bucket list of things we would like to do before we kick the bucket, or whatever you might call leaving the here and now for the hereafter.

I’ve had a few bucket list items, and have been fortunate over the years to do many of the things on my list. This collection sets out some of my memories of people, places or events along the way that are markers on my way to Paradise.

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I.

Roy Rogers

Growing up on the