Paul and the Mountain
Several years ago, knowing I would probably never hunt again, I decided to give my shotguns to my sons. So on Christmas morning, with all our family opening gifts in our living room, I went downstairs and gathered my .410, 20-gauge, and 12-gauge. When our son Paul saw me coming up the stairs he announced, “This is either going to be a very warm family moment or a profoundly tragic one.”
That line was classic Paul. His perspectives always bumped the scenes of life just slightly askew. Paul is the most asymmetrical person I’ve ever known. Built like a refrigerator, his large frame encased the delicate and curious heart of a child. Some people couldn’t get past the fridge. Paul knew that; you could see it in his eyes. But then his tilted humor, his gift for absurdity, went to work, pushing attention away from himself.
As laughter warmed the room, the real Paul would emerge. His voice had a magical and musical pitch; even at 43, you could hear a child’s excitement in his phrasing and intonations. Words just tumbled out of his mouth. As the velocity increased, his words began to dance with laughter, spinning faster and faster. Then it all became a waterfall… words and full laughter and sometimes tears cascading down over everything and everyone.
Paul loved Chinn people, places, stories, and legacies. So it was almost predictable that Paul and his sweet Libby chose the Chinn farm in Kansas for their 07-07-07 wedding. From the time they rode away, they seemed like a long and happily married couple. Like most couples, they had that private language of looks and sighs and shrugs. But theirs was very eloquent.
Paul just filled all his familial and friendship roles, especially as Libby’s husband, our son, and Eddie and Amy’s brother. But “uncle” is one of the most enduring images of his life. I will always see him fishing with Nathan or playing parlor games with his nieces. To hear the shrieks of laughter from that table would make anyone feel better about everything…from terrorism to termites.
Many years ago Paul taught us much about communicating with God. When Joanne or I stood over his crib, gazing at our beautiful baby, his face would light up and he would search our eyes and jabber…long “messages” and excited laughter with clapping hands. Then he would move into serious, seemingly very sober, babbling. I often wondered what mysteries that little boy spoke to his mom and dad. I don’t know, but I know he helped us to see that we didn’t need to pray in formal or religious language. Bubbling heartsounds are just fine.
Paul didn’t like religion, politics, bees, or cabbage. He loved reading, writing, the Denver Broncos (after the Redskins broke his heart one too many times), fantasy football, fishing, parlor games, gaming and movies. His knowledge of movies was encyclopedic and he was a fine (and prominently published) film critic.
To Paul, films were frequent channels of prayer. He loved and often read the Bible, but he also heard whispers from the other side in movies.
His favorite film was Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Paul was five when it came out. From his first viewing, and throughout his life, he was gripped with the story of Roy Neary, a good man captured by the image of a mountain.
As Roy followed the image inscribed on his heart, he met others who bore the same image. They were all drawn together around their search for the mountain. In the end, they all stood together on that mountain. And there, Roy stepped aboard the craft that would take him away from his wife and family and all that was familiar on his journey to another world.
Early in the morning of October 11, 2015, Paul Chinn also stepped beyond a familiar and loving society of family and friends, into the eternal care of His Creator.
His death, from a heart attack, is deeply painful to all those left behind. But his departure also reminded us that he belonged to God before we ever knew him. And he now continues his life just beyond our senses and somewhere on that mountain that he saw and searched for. Paul Chinn now belongs fully and only to the One Who gave him life.
And he would not return to us if he could.
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