for grandpa

my grandpa's funeral will be on tuesday. i will still be in new zealand. after he passed, my mom asked me to write something out about him. my brother is going to read it at the service and i have decided to post it here. it is my tribute to somebody i truly admire and love.

-----After my brother graduated from college, Grandma and Grandpa travelled down to Tennessee for a visit. In honor of the occasion, we had a party. Our house became filled with both people, packed in like sardines, and noise, which could have drowned out a passing train.

Seeking refuge, a friend of mine, our former youth minister and Grandpa joined me outside on the back porch. There we would eat our food in peace and quiet, enjoying the cool night’s breeze. Jay, the youth minister, was always one to collect wisdom. Seeing the time with Grandpa as an opportunity to add to that collection, Jay decided to ask him a question.

“Mr. Bedi,” he started, “What have you found to get you through the hard times of life, the times when nothing seems to go right and life doesn’t make any sense?” It seemed like a good question, so we all turned our heads to Grandpa, the wise sage among us.

Grandpa finished his bite, wiped his mouth and smacked his gums (as he tended to do). He reflected over the question a bit, searching his memories and answered.

“Well, I don’t believe I’ve had any of those times.”

With that response, Grandpa took a sip of his coffee and offered a comment on how good it tasted. My friend and I direct our gaze back on Jay, now sitting there with a bit of a perplexed look. He had expected a profound treatise on suffering or an enriching moral story, not this simple answer. It was Jay’s turn to talk and like most ministers he was never short of words. But here he could muster only one word:

“Wow.”

This little conversation, one of countless in a full life, illustrates what I admired and loved most about Grandpa. Somewhere along the line, he learned to be content. If life offered hardship, you sang a song and went to work. He made his difficulties simple. How could you not admire that?

Grandpa’s inner peace, joy and happiness could not be shaken. Well, maybe it could a little by Grandma. A simple phone call up to them would become a comedic argument on the other end of the line with the two debating small details of the call. Sometimes they would leave messages on our answering machine like this. Those were not deleted with much haste. But after 63 years of marriage, there was no doubt they loved each other. 63 years of marriage is something to be in awe of, probably even more so if you’re married. Sometimes 63 days is more than enough.

Since he walked closely with the Lord, I have no doubt that Grandpa is now in His arms. This being so, my mourning is mixed with joy. There is a bit of confusion in my heart, perhaps this explains the heaviness I’ve felt since I heard he did not have much time left.

He is now where every follower of Christ wants to be. I can only feel happiness about that. He has gained more now than any man could in infinite lifetimes. My grief comes from my, rather, our loss.

I’ll not get to have any more conversations with Grandpa. I’ll not get to hear that voice he reserved for babies. I won’t get to do any more puzzles with him. I’ll not get to see that grin, that big healthy smile that came as he listened to stories and when he was around his family or when he was trying to get Grandma a little flustered and riled up. And I’ll not get to see him in those two perpetual outfits: that brown or that blue sweater.

I have the memories, but to know that no more will be made is a loss. Perhaps that is not quite true. The new memories will come as I share my knowledge of him with those close to me: my future kids and family, my friends. They’ll come as I talk to my brother and sister-in-law’s coming baby in the closest voice to Grandpa’s I can muster. They’ll come as I try to live my life with the same goodness he did.

My time with Grandpa was not long. We moved away when I was 9 and the distance made it hard to stay connected. But it made the time I had with him all the more sacred. I went into that time with purpose: to know him, to learn from him, to enjoy him. I am grateful for those times, especially those I got to have in the last few years while I was grown up, or at least close to it.

There was a goodness that dwelled in Grandpa, richly and deeply. As his grandson, baby grandson at that, I feel nothing but sincere pride and honor that his blood is running through my veins. He is my heritage, my ancestry and because of that, I am blessed. I hope that I can honor and inherit that goodness in my life and that when I pass through this world I’ll have a grandson that will look upon me with even a fraction of the adoration as I do him.

Grandpa, thank you for your life. I love you and I’ll see you again.-----

mcsweeney's

COACH
BARRY MURPHY'S
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
(LIFETIME RECORD:
14-91-1).

this above link is from mcsweeney's. feel free to have a look around. just be careful, it could eat up your day and inspire a good deal of laughter.

change of pace

tonight, in the simple attempt to read, i was attacked by new zealand's biggest fly.

the buzzing literally shook my bed. this buzzing was a blessing for it warned of the incoming danger and imminent attack of the mutant creature. it was not afraid to die.

time and time again it would dive bomb me, leaving me itchy and paranoid. i became convinced that it had developed in similar fashion as the teenage mutant ninja turtles. it had all the tell tale signs of toxic mutation. i half expected it to eat pizza, practice martial arts and speak slang-filled english.

assuming that if it did not speak english, at the very least it could understand it. "come on, land where i can kill you." i found myself saying this out loud to the creature. surely it would understand. it was all i could provide for a strategy, desperate pleas for it to give up (i'm no stonewall jackson).

rising from my bed, book in hand, i decided i would no longer play the victim. i was going to fight back, to mount an offensive. i began to hum a toby keith song.......... not really.

this bug was crafty. suffice it to say that you do not grow to such a state without knowing how to handle the would-be swatter. i'll not lie. many a time during our fight, i did not think i would make it or that i would ever get him. i thought it would follow me all my days, buzzing, making me itchy, terrifying children.

alas, one fateful swing of my book sent my foe sailing through the air, lifeless, behind a radiator near my bed. silence. he had fallen, a worthy foe, a freak of nature laid to rest.

but like many evil villains before him........ he came back.

it started with a buzz. there is just no way, i thought. i ignored it and went to back to reading. yet the buzzing continued.

i began my hunt and found the fly, still alive but having trouble navigating through the tight area. muttering my battle cry -"come on, land where i can kill you"- i finally delivered a fatal blow. i added several more just to be sure, the final shot in the head if you will.

it was only then that i saw the poignancy of the book i was reading. it was a.w. tozer's "the divine conquest." i can think of a title no more fitting for this epic battle against a fly the size of a decent sized grape.

"whatever made you do it?"

so i've fell into the abyss that is facebook (hooray for back to back abyss usage). seriously though, facebook is an abyss in the truest sense of the word. it could go on forever, we know not how deep it goes or what is looking back at us when we gaze into it.

one of my new friends (i find it a bit disconcerting that people i've known for years are only now friends) asked me in the subject of a message "whatever made you do it?"

well, in short, my grandfather was dying.

i bet that is a bit of a unique reason to join.

for the last five years, at least, people have been doing everything they can to convince me to join. i resisted. calling it an abyss, a vacuum, a hoarder of time and consumer of life, i would not join.

for the last couple of days, i've been waiting, calling home to find out if William Bedi, Sr., my grandpa had passed away. he had a very bad stroke, was given a few hours to live and stretched it into a day or two.

to be in a foreign land, sleeping in a room alone with 30 empty beds adds to a bit of helplessness. perhaps in a period of isolation i longed for a bit of a connection with those back home. i don't know. that is probably the shrink's explanation and it has merit.

whatever the reason, i could not sleep. i could not rest. i could not get the pending answer to the question i kept asking.

i called late last night here in new zealand, early in the morning in the states of the day i had just lived. he had not passed. so i reclined back into my bed, assuming that when i woke i'd get the answer.

twenty minutes after we hung up, i would learn this morning, grandpa took a final, peaceful breath.

somewhere in the inbetween, the threshold between those two calls, i joined facebook for unknown reasons except that i needed to do something. i was tired of staring at the bottom of the bed above me. today, after i finish this, i will type a eulogy of sorts.

my heart is a bit confused. it feels great joy, because grandpa walked closely with the Lord and is now in His arms, where he has wanted to be as all followers do. it feels great loss, because he is gone.

the heaviness, the pressure i feel deep down is from that wrestling. the joy and the hurt are coming to terms with each other. once the joy wins over, which it will "in the fullness of time," i'll praise God in joy.

for now, until time and God do their works, my praise will be met with a little hurt for the loss of a life well lived. perhaps this is more complete worship. it is worship which embraces life in totality.

there is your answer. this is the "whatever" that made me join facebook, the abyss, the vacuum, the hoarder of time, the consumer of life and monopolizer of my email.

return from technological darkness

for the last couple of weeks i have been in countries with pretty beaches and striking mountains. the south pacific is a little bit, just a smidgen, kind of, really beautiful. i’m not even a fan of beaches and the ocean freaks me out a little (too much unknown- see james cameron’s the abyss). even with the subdued fanhood of these essential island elements, i cannot deny that these islands have been some of the most impressive places i’ve ever seen.

before you interject, yes, the vistas and views here are much more breath-taking than the ghettos of moldova. you can argue with me all you want to on that point.

i spent a week in the solomon islands with denzel washington. truthfully, it was really slow goings there. denzel, eddie that is, was an awesome man. he was the leader of ywam in the solomons. but eddie had a lot on his plate or, more appropriately, his plates. that being said, we did a lot of waiting. i read three books, all fantastic. but any week i am able to read three books is a week i probably didn’t get much done. i loved spending time with eddie and his family but it was a really hard week for writing.

i’ve learned that i am not a journalist.

i don’t like writing other people’s stories. i love hearing them. but in the space between my ears and my fingers there is a disconnect. the things i’ve tried to write feel contrived to me. they might be okay and i might be hyper-critical of my own writing. but i think for the most part the stuff i’ve written has sort of, well, sucked. i’ve not been happy with it.

the things i’ve written for myself have been much more rewarding. but those things will hardly see the light of day. i’ll keep them for later. God has been speaking to me, showing me things and explaining questions that have been plaguing me for years. i am grateful for that. missing home, friends and family for a small while is something that i’m willing to endure for answers.

answers, i love.

sorry, yoda just wrote that last sentence using the force. nonetheless, it is fantastic to understand. sometimes it is confirmation, or fresh perspective or simple words that do it. whatever it is that brings that insight, that allows you to grasp a bit of truth is so valuable. truth can be revealed in so much.

this past week or so was spent in the cook islands. this, my good people, is the most beautiful place i’ve seen on this trip yet. i’ll do us the favor of not trying to explain it. it’s just real perty.

i spent the week filming a missions conference. for the entire week i was known as the film guy. what the people did not know was that i had little to no idea what i was doing. the hardest challenge was not falling asleep.

we stayed in a hostel. this means that we were in a large hall with mattresses lined on the floor. we were crammed in, right on top of each other. sleep was attainable only because of exhaustion. the norwegian man next to me was an odd snorer, just abnormal and non-rhythmic but gave one heck of a cuddle- evidently it is common for norwegian men to cuddle at night in pacific islands (this is what halvard told me).

after the conference we moved to the ywam base which is still under construction. my new bed is a mattress of two inches thickness. to continue the trend of my ancestors and family everywhere, i will now utter a traditional bedi chant: oh, my aching back.

but it has been a good stay. a stay full of L&P and amazing people (click on l&p if confused). i don’t have the time to tell of it. i’ve already written too much. so i’ll bid you goodbye. i’ll leave for new zealand tonight at 1am. in fact i’ll publish this there. i’ll be keeping my eye out for hobbits and various sorcerers. Godspeed.

no more kangaroos, after this

my glorious and illustrious run in australia comes to a close today. we'll be heading to the airport and from there, the soloman islands- which denzel washington has promised to be hotter then vanuatu. i will get a picture of denzel for all you ladies and andy, excuse me, andrew bedi (perhaps denzel washingtons biggest supporter due to denzel's extremely diverse acting roles).

the trip is very tiring. we are always on the go, always on the move. the second you get comfortable at a place, when you have become comfortable with the people you've just met is the same second you are getting on a plane and probably not seeing them again.

i may or may not have much time in the next couple of weeks for updates. we're going to the sticks, the island version. i'll do what i can to update things.

i also need to keep a low profile for a while. the australian government is none too pleased about my underground kangaroo fighting empire i've spent the last weeks growing. typical. why has everybody got to hold you down?

i have had some really good conversations and have seen some really amazing things. i simply don't have the time to get it down. but if you are concerned that this blog will become only about kangaroos and the underground fighting circuit i am caught up in, don't worry. my love for kangaroos will not die, but will be dormant as i leave this majestic land.

warning: contins graphic images

sometimes things seem to just fall into place. God just smiles upon you and gives you something you will always remember. yesterday was one of those times.

i had just finished doing some web-based research on the kangaroo (i.e. looking up video's of them fighting things on youtube). discussing it with some of the locals, i was sad to say that i had never even seen one.

they kept telling me how many kangaroos they had seen, about how they are everywhere. " where are they all hiding then? if there all over australia, why have i not seen one yet?" i was becoming a tad indignant. i've been in australia for two weeks and i hadn't seen a single kangaroo.

then we hit one with our car.

i saw it hopping on the side of the road. it was adorable and awkward all at the same time. then it hopped its little self right under our speeding car.

-what was that?
-i think it was a kangaroo.
-is it dead?
-i think so.
-that's the first kangaroo i've ever seen.
-should we turn around and have a look?
-absolutely!

we pull a quick u-turn. a few minutes later, our driver was pulling the dead kangaroo across the street. we mourned the loss of the creature. then we began taking pictures.

okay, maybe we didn't respect the sanctity of kangaroo life. but i couldn't resist getting a picture like this:

for the record, the smiling gentleman (named pisa) holding the kangaroo was the one that killed it. we then moved it off the road to avoid the certain possibility of future cars from running over it. evidently this happens quite a bit because kangaroos are attracted to the lights of cars. i'll add the following to my research and findings about the kangaroo:

in a fight between small kangaroo and car, kangaroo loses.

it is obviously kind of sad that the car ended up killing the kangaroo. but if you're going to see a kangaroo for the first and possibly only time, might as well make it memorable.

courtesy of australia vol.1

courtesy of australia vol.2

courtesy of australia vol.3

never in my life, did i think that i would love fighting kangaroos as much as i do. it brings me such joy to see these creatures fight, throwing punches, wrestling, standing on their tales and kicking each other. it is odd, because i normally hate fighting.

i believe that if the world would fight its wars with kangaroos, we would live in harmony due to the unavoidable laughter and happiness kangaroo feuds bring.

i also find it odd that these golfers continue with their game, almost oblivious to the event taking place. it leads me to believe that australians have grown weary of seeing kangaroo fights. it must happen all the time if men can simply ignore it.

you're having a party...... kangaroo fight.
you're getting married..... kangaroo fight.
taking mail to the post office..... kangaroo fight.
birthing a child..... kangaroo fight.

and so on and so forth. in fact, just behind me a kangaroo fight has broken out.

finishing a blog post...... kangaroo fight.

i've got to go. i'm laying down a significant amount of coin on a kangaroo the locals simply call "the inflicter."

the what

recently, i finished reading a book by dave eggers: 'what is the what,' about the life of one of the 'lost boys'-achak deng- from sudan and its war, born a year after me in 1983 and ending a horrific 22 years later in 2005 killing millions and displacing even more . i highly recommend it if your looking for a good long read with substance and heart.

yesterday in an australian k-mart, i was sitting with a man from nigeria having a chat. a dark, thin security guard possibly in his early 20's walked up to us. his gaunt frame and appearance was almost exactly what i had imagined achak deng's to be. he looked much like the image on the book's cover. he was one of the lost boys, i was sure.

after a while, my friend and i were able to get him to confirm my suspicions. 'jon' was from sudan and was settled here outside of brisbane. we had a brief conversation, all of us aware of the depth it could have contained, and he went back to his duties.

the whole time i felt a guilty connection with him. having read the story of achak deng, i felt i knew a part of what jon must have gone through. there was so much he had to tell and neither of us had the time to converse.

it was as though, through jon, God was reminding me of the book's reality and of the fact that there are countless numbers of people forced through outrageous struggle by things completely beyond their control. people like jon and achak deng have experienced things that people like me have no way of understanding.

books, like egger's, and stories help, much like pictures. but pictures and words rarely represent their subjects in fullness. this became totally evident when i saw the sydney opera house last week.

never in my life did i expect to be impacted so much in that place, by that place. i could have stayed in the harbor for days being comforted by the scenery and the sounds. (fitting that the only piece of music i heard while by the opera house was 'let's get it on' covered by a band at a local bar) pictures and words don't prepare you for that type of encounter, they can't.

in the effort to listen and tell somebody's story or an attempt to capture a moment in a picture we can share a small portion of reality. it is God only that can truly comprehend and understand it in every way. God connects our souls to these things. He speaks the truth of the matter into our depths, into our gut. moments of understanding and clarity in matters is great grace.

i feel like it is God in us that can only truly connect us to each other and to the moments we are in. we are in His world, His creation. Only His presence allows us to see the truth, because God is the Truth.

there are some things you have to encounter. tozer says "it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth." we must engage our lives, our experiences, our thoughts and actions with the Heavenly Father for them to grow in truth.

this is, to a degree and in part, my answer to the question that is begged but not answered in the title of egger's book, taken from a story told within it. it is that great unknown, that thing only God can answer because only He knows what the what is.

"set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God." col 3.2-3

the what is about thinking above, about seeing the hidden life, found only with Christ in God.