Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Listen to my words, Lord,
    consider my lament.
Hear my cry for help,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.
In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait expectantly.

• Psalm 5:1-3

To you, Lord, I call;
    you are my Rock,
    do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you remain silent,
    I will be like those who go down to the pit.
Hear my cry for mercy
    as I call to you for help,
as I lift up my hands
    toward your Most Holy Place.

• Psalm 26:1-2

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
    he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
    I will call on him as long as I live.

• Psalm 116:1-2

Come and hear, all you who fear God;
    let me tell you what he has done for me.
I cried out to him with my mouth;
    his praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished sin in my heart,
    the Lord would not have listened;
but God has surely listened
    and has heard my prayer.
Praise be to God,
    who has not rejected my prayer
    or withheld his love from me!

• Psalm 66:16-20

The photo above has been my Windows background for a month or two.  And in looking at it closely, I remember what was going on at that very moment.

Sorry, I will not give names, but the lady in the chair, playing the guitar, is my mother-in-law.  She passed away soon before I started writing this blog.  At the far right, singing into the microphone is my wife. 

The adult women a aligned in order of age, from right to left.  My wife is the second oldest in the family, and the only daughter born in Indonesia (2 sons born there).  To her right on stage, to the left in the photo, is the next girl, the only daughter born in the Netherlands (2 sons born there).  She recently called me and lamented that my wife was so good at carefully listening and giving sage advice if you wanted any.  Of course, my wife was the oldest daughter, and she played that role to perfection.  But, that is just a husband who still misses her talking.  She is looking at my wife and smiling.  My wife could sing all the songs solo and did so before the invitation to the Texas Folklife Festival came along.  Who passes up a free trip to San Antonio?  But when the other sisters joined in, and in this picture their children, my wife would flip to alto for harmony.  Thus, hearing my wife harmonize made her sister smile.

The stage was set in a natural amphitheater near the Tower of the Americas and the home of the Texas Institute of Culture – the sponsors of the Texas Folklife Festival.  Over more than twenty years most of their performances were from that stage, and often they were the warmup act to other performances that followed.  Wherever they performed, they drew a crowd, some people just coming to hear them sing. Some of the ladies did not like the early hours, but it gave them hours to visit other performers and eat cuisine from around the world – but Texas style.

Now for the little children.  The two older ones feature the only daughter from one of the sons of my mother-in-law.  They wrestled a bit for control of the umbrella (Paraplu in the song – Dutch).  But otherwise, they behaved, knowing that they were on stage and there were too many witnesses if they fought as young cousins often do.  But now for the three near the left end.  The youngest stood there, a little scared of the crowd or her bigger cousins who held both the paraplu and the mic.  The other two girls had to hold the mic.  The mic was on a stand.  Neither HAD to hold the mic, and both seemed to smile when they held the mic.  But through the entire song.  One of the girls would turn the mic toward her, wanting to be heard. Then, the other turned the mic back toward her.

From what I remember, one of the girls sang loudly.  This is typical of children of that age.  You could have heard her from the top of the hill.  The other had a very delicate voice, soft, strong, pretty, but not loud.  But the swivel of the mic stand got a workout throughout the song.

They both wanted to be heard.

Don’t we all?

I have been the workhorse that shunned the spotlight, but when the spotlight was thrust upon me, I accepted the task.  I was, and still am, task oriented.  Get it done, and get it done right.  Others are counting on it.

On one occasion, I was working late one night.  I was asked if I wanted some champagne and a chance to hobnob with dignitaries.  The Washington, DC elite were there to experience a special event.  I was working late to make sure that if anyone checked the files, the paperwork was duly signed, checked, and filed, proving we had done due diligence so that the event would happen safely.

Alcohol was forbidden on site, but this was a special occasion.  I turned down having my picture taken with the vice president of the USA, a couple of senators, a few representatives, the governor of the state, and a couple of Cabinet members.  Hey, the paperwork was important and I would feel strange getting paid to do nothing when the paperwork was necessary work.

But a few weeks later, on a cool weekend, cool for Georgia, the entire scouting council was hiking through what was then Fort Gordon.  The cub scouts, the younger kids, took a short cut so that we would be back at the football field’s grandstands about the same time the boy scouts took a longer route.  When we returned, the boy scouts were nowhere to be found.  In grave irony, they had taken a wrong turn and were lost.  The Military Police was out looking for them.  The Council Executive, the head paid person in charge of this fiasco, came to me and said, “We have three-hundred boys from 7-10, jumping all over the grandstands.  Someone is going to get hurt.  I hear you know a song or two.”  Without a microphone, I started singing silly songs.  Everything that I could think of singing, a lot more songs than there were in the Scouting songbook.  The kids loved it.  They sang along.  Even better when we had motions.  They would spin around with their tongue hanging out (at least required in one song) just to release the tension of the day.  After an hour and a half, three or four other cubmasters came forward to “help” and suggest songs they liked.  A sadist in this group suggested we sing three songs in this order: the Cub Scout version of Singing in the Rain, Father Abraham, and Alice the Camel.  I say sadist in that we had just taken a five-mile hike, and I was the only one leading the singing for over the next hour, with a lot of dancing around.  Then these three songs, highly popular with the boys, all involved deep knee bends.  I almost needed a wheelchair to get to my car.  But I got in front of the crowd because someone needed to do something.

But whether you are a person that is out front or the wallflower, we all want God to hear us.

He does hear us.  If we are not asking for what aligns with His plan for our lives, we may get a “no” or a “wait” in return, but God is faithful.  He hears us.

Amazing, eight billion people on earth, but God has infinite capacity to hear each of us.

He loves us and He sees to our needs.  We only need to trust in Him.  Okay, we might have to do some work along the way, like sing to over 300 young boys and keep them engaged.  But God gave us the strength to do that too.

Honest, you do not need to fight over the microphone to be heard.  You don’t need the microphone at all.  Some of my best prayers begin and end with “Oh, Lord, help me.”  He already knows what we need, but when we talk to Him, we engage with Him, just like those cub scouts did with me.

Note: None of them fell off the backside of the grandstands.  All the boys went home safely to Georgia and South Carolina.  I sat on the couch with the heating pad when I got home, but the boys were still wired.

But looking back at the photo, all those children on that stage have children of their own.  I miss those good ole’ days in the Texas heat.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.