THE COMING OF LIGHT

Light - visible illumination...
            the coming of clarity to the mind...

It was not yet dawn this morning... The sky was steel gray that was very softly luminescent from the moon that was obscured by a cloudy overcast, no stars.  I watched out my window to observe the creeping approach of daylight.  I did not expect to see any sunlight in the tree tops.  As the light intensified under the steel gray sky and details became clear I noted a brightness at the very tops of the trees...  Sun light in the topmost twigs of the branches.  I continued to watch as the light crept down the trees from top to lower branches.  I continued to watch as the brightness of the sun light oozed down the trunks of the trees and then across the windows of my den from which I was observing...  First it was just light, somewhat brighter than the gray of the dawn but not real sun brightness, just diffused daylight...  Then the sun broke through the clouds at the horizon and the brightness was intense, magnified, beautiful...  And it illuminated my den and all the area around me.

Many times in my life I have watched the coming of day.  One from inside the Evergreen tree where I slept while hitch hiking because there was no traffic to catch a ride...  That was a miserable night of chilling cold and fitful sleep.  Sometimes it was from a hiding place in the woods as I waited for the movement of deer or squirrel.  Sometimes it was from a hiding place while I waited for the movement of the human prey I was hunting...  For a few weeks it was from the partaking of PT in Basic School before and during the dawning of the day...  Sometimes it was from a patrol car, many times, in many different places, sometimes alone, sometimes with a patrol partner...  Sometimes it was on a walking beat on the resort strip left over from early the night before.  Sometimes it was from the beach while we conducted the investigation involving the body washed up on the sand...  Sometimes it was from a staging point where personnel came and went to and from assignments to enforce the peace after a riot. 

Sometimes it was from the window of the high floor of a hotel where I was attending a training program.  Sometimes it was from the crest or shoulder of a mountain where I had gone to greet the day in prayer and solitude.  I have seen the coming of day in many variations from locations too numerous to recount and in conditions far too numerous to fully describe...  Once in a while it was across a stark white field of snow and/or ice...  Sometimes it was because I wanted to be where I was.  Sometimes it was because duty dictated I be where I was.  Sometimes my heart had driven me to be where I was to find an answer or a revelation.

One such incident happened while I looked out across a valley to the James River.  As light broke the grip of the night it was clear all the way from where I was on the mountain to the opposite mountain across the fields, railroads, highways, river and valley.  As light broke through the darkness, another activity began...  The river began to give off a mist, first thin and wispy, then it thickened and covered the river...  The mist became a thick, white fog and obscured the river, expanding slowly but steadily until the fields and river bottom were covered...  The fog continued to expand and thicken until the valley was covered with a thick cotton-like cloud and it expanded right on across everything between me and it until it covered the house below me and all of the valley...  All I could see was the white, the mountain tops across the valley and the mountain top behind me. 

Then the whiteness arrived at my location and obscured everything in front of me...  Ten feet away it split, passed by me on each side, and came together again behind me.  There I was, in a grassy spot on the side of a mountain surrounded by a wall of white on all sides and above me but totally clear for about ten feet all around me...  But I was not alone...  I looked in the grass around me and there were tall stems with blooms on the top...  I examined the blooms and every one of them was different...  Within the blooms I found live creatures going on with their lives doing what they were created to do...  I looked deeper in the foliage on the ground and found it teeming with an ant colony going about daily business of living , gathering, storing, guarding and protecting...  I pondered upon the things I had seen and watched in those early dawn moments...  That morning I did not see the sun for several hours but I received it's light for the day from above the fog...  By mid-day the sun burned away all of the fog.  Also, I received light from the Son that gave inspiration and clarification.

The Bible says, "In Him we live and move and have our being."  What I had just witnessed was the visual reality of a Scriptural Truth.  The all enveloping fog represented HIM as He revealed Himself to me in my search for connection with Him.  First, in my life, I saw nothing, but I did desire to see.  As I sought to see He let me observe the things He wrought in the natural realm to whet my desire to find the One who put it all together.  As I followed the trail of my discoveries and sought for still more discovery, He led me to a clear place where I met a man who had the beginning of the knowledge I sought in connection with Him.  Like the open place in the fog I was living and moving and having my being, all the while surrounded by Him but not yet knowing how to be connected with or in Him.  My detailed observation of the life around me confirmed to me that He had definitely been here.  Then He provided the connection when I came to the condition of being in a spiritual position like the literal one when I was surrounded by a fog and needing one clear, distinct answer...  The answer for the connection I had sought for so many years to connect with Him.

I do not remember a time in life that I did not know He was...  I just did not have the familiarity of a connection with Him.  Three distinct times He called me to respond to Him during my childhood but no one around me could tell me how to respond and make connection.  In my life, He was like the fog I observed coming from the river to the mountain and eventually enveloping everything around me but not me personally...  Remember the ten foot clear pocket around me.  In that pocket I was given the revelation of life going on as it was created to go on.  All created things except me, or us humans, were doing what they were created to do including plants, animals and the atmosphere around me...  But I needed something more...  I needed to look and see... And find HIM. 

I was close but I needed to ask, seek and knock...  Which I did and found the man with the explanation and through his explanation made the connection I had sought... Then the fog lifted in my life the same as it lifted in that day after I saw the information I had been put on the mountain to receive.  This relationship with HIM is so valuable to me because HE went to great lengths to reach me, teach me, guide me and connect with me
even when HE could not find anybody close to me to give me the answers I sought.  He prepared another man and led me to him...  When I met him I handed him a bible and asked him to show me what I needed in relation to God...  I sought the knowledge he had...  I knocked on the door of opportunity as he presented it to me and my wife and life took off into a great adventure in HIM that has not stopped since that day in March of 1968.  Monday the 8th is the anniversary of my meeting that man who introduced us to my Eternal Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and I became a new, different man...  42 years!

I have witnessed the human being in every condition imaginable in the length of my life and career.  I have had awakening experiences as I have worked in all of these circumstances.  Many have said to me that the same things I saw, when they dealt with them in their lives, caused them to conclude He was not there, not interested or did not exist.  I cannot fathom that a person can watch a sunrise, a sunset, or even study their own hand and still conclude that there is no Master Creator...  And since I always knew He existed...  I desired very early in life to find out how to contact Him.  There was never a conscious time in my life that I denied that He existed...  It was just a knowledge I always had and I find the Bible says we come into this life with that knowledge already part of us.  We can deny it.  We can eventually make it to seem dead in us.  We can fight against it...  Or we can search until we find the answer for ourselves and put it to use.

A lot of people do search but most of them give up because they cannot find enough to keep them interested.  Most of these who lose interest have tried to re-invent the wheel in that they avoid looking into the resources of history and already available knowledge sources.  Some even have great interest but quit when no one can give them quick clear answers that satisfy their desires.  They just do not find the right sources...  And they quit too soon.

When I started to look, I looked where I thought He out to be available.  I asked those who were supposed to know.  They did not have answers that could help me make connection because they were not connected themselves.  I worked in engineering.  Math, solids, gravity and principles are dependable and predictable...  They are orderly.  I expected God to be orderly and found after meeting Him that the Bible says He is a God of Order and not of confusion.  All I had gotten from those who were supposed to know was that they were confused or they just did not know. 

After 15 years of not finding the answers where they were supposed to be available, I became a Law Enforcement Peace Keeper with the Virginia State Police.  Law and Order fit right in with my discoveries in engineering.  The only variable I learned very quickly was the human factor...  They were not always predictable.  My experiences with life in that profession led me to more revelations that caused more seeking but still no contact.  Eventually, after five years of that experience of seeing more things to confirm that He was still busy with human lives, I left that position and began a more intense search... 

A very short time later, March 8th, 1968, I found the man who could give me the instructions on how to make connection...  Connection began a new course to get to know Him intimately that still continues today after 42 years of seeing, studying... hearing, listening, learning, doing... gaining knowledge and experience...  sharing what I have learned and know with those who want to know...  praying over life, death, babies, children, teens, adults, elderly, family, friends and strangers...  Blessing, baptizing, performing marriages, anointing the ill, comforting the frightened, encouraging the depressed, burying the dead...  Walking through this life in all circumstances of my own and others to do what I can with what I have where I am and leave the rest to God or whomever else is responsible...  And if need be I would do it all again tomorrow but I would like just one adjustment...  I would like to make that connection sooner so that I could have made more things better than I did when I did not know what I know now.

Military personnel are dying in Afghanistan and still occasionally in Iraq because of the human factor of unpredictability...  Law enforcers are killing themselves in traffic crashes more often than they are being shot by others because we push the laws of speed, motion and predictability...  Sometimes we push a little too far...  The world still does not want to understand who we are, what we do nor why we do it...  Politicians are trying to kill our great nation from within with socialism that most of us have told them we do not want...

There has never been a time in which the demand upon all Peace Keepers has been greater than it is today for the Peace Keepers on the field at home and abroad... NEVER!!! 

We as a world...  We as a Nation...  Are standing at a most crucial point of time...  The wrong choice will bring more death and destruction...  The right choice will deliver us into greater Peace and Prosperity...  But it has to be the peace that is within the human heart as well as the peace in life around the human.  Peace Keepers are the most valuable and most needed ingredient in all of what transpires, even more so now than ever in the past.  The 2nd most needed ingredient is the participation of all citizens in the governing decision making process...  Peace Makers also have to be working with and behind the Peace Keepers in order for it to work and last...  Greed has to be overcome before nations will be at peace among themselves.  Most of the world is tempted daily with the three things Satan tried to use on Jesus...  Those temptations are hunger, safety and power.  These are the powers that drive crime, wars and killing but mostly it is the desire for power over others that drives crime and wars the hardest and most unyielding.  We get caught up in that grinding action of people and nations wanting to gain power.

Saddam Hussein and Alqueda, representing radical Islam, wanted power over all Iraqis...  The Taliban, representing radical Islam, wants power over all Afghanis...  Both eventually want all power over all the rest of us.  Add Iran and Hamas into that mix.

The criminal wants power over the victim for whatever reason...  Control, property, money, personal pleasure...  My Bible says that is the cause of all wars between individuals and nations.  My Bible says the Peace Keeper and the Peace Makers are the human forces put into this world to stop these entities from gaining power over anyone else and they are given the tools to stop them if they will not stop... 
The Authority of God to use mind, strength, heart/spirit, Law and weapons to make a peaceful world for the peaceful, law abiding people and to stop the unlawful/not peaceful actions of the wrongdoers by legal, lawful means if they will submit and by forceful means if they will not submit..

We need to know who we are, why we are and we need to know we have the right guidance and direction as we function.  More deeply than any other time, we also need to know that the destructive element is out on the field with us and will appear at inconvenient and unexpected times to try and eliminate us from the powers that keep life livable.  We are suffering too many casualties on the foreign fields and on home fields.  We are dying too often in car crashes without wearing our safety (seat) belts.  We are being ambushed in places where we have not experienced ambushes before.  Our people are killing one another far more often than is comprehensible or imaginable.  Many of our cities have areas that are battle grounds...  And it happens in rural areas also.  The Spirit of God is available to guide those of us who will seek His guidance and assistance as well.  There has been no other time where we have had greater need of His guidance and assistance.

Learn and re-learn proper procedures.  Practice as often as possible in the use of tactics of both mind and body.  Learn to see what others do not see.  Learn to feel what others are never sensitive to.  Train your senses to pick up every alert.  Move as safely and deliberately as possible in all circumstances.  Learn not to carry over the stress of one incident into the next incident.  Learn that it is more important to arrive at the location to which you are dispatched than it is to move too swiftly and not arrive at all...  Then someone else has to handle your assignment and come to take care of you as well.  Wear your seatbelt and proceed cautiously.  My seat belt has preserved me in many situations...   And it keeps you under the wheel so you can concentrate upon control of the vehicle.  I have been slammed into a number of times (never my fault) and never injured in the collisions.  Seat belts do save many lives of Peace Keepers!!!

My Commander-In-Chief and I are acutely aware of all of the dangers and circumstances facing you each hour of duty and in other places as well.  We will always do our best to gain your attention if we can so that we might help to preserve you, keep you alive, well and functioning optimally...  And help you in any other way that we are able.  WE MOST DEEPLY APPRECIATE YOU NOW AND ETERNALLY!!!


"BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!"  ALWAYS be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary.  Take the very best care of you as you care for and about others. See to the strength and well being of your spirit as well as all the rest of you.  Your spirit must be strong for you to be successful.

Call or write if I may be of any service... Or if you just want to encourage me... Feedback encourages all who write... It helps to know we are reaching someone who reads the message.

No changes to report in relation to my daughter, Donna.  She is still progressing well and no new problems with the wound.  Last week it had gone from over 8 inches deep, when we started the treatments Feb. 1st, to about 3 inches deep and it had no necrotic tissue nor any of the fluid the necrotic tissue secretes.  It is looking most beautiful.  Thank you for your prayers, care concern and support.

As it has always been... So it still is!!!

"VICTORIOUS WARRIORS WIN FIRST...
AND THEN GO TO WAR,
WHILE DEFEATED WARRIORS GO TO WAR FIRST...
AND THEN SEEK TO WIN."  Sun tzu

Training and practice are everything!
Without them, the best results are not obtained!

ONLY LIVE PEACE KEEPERS SEE THE VICTORY!!!
THEY SEE IT ONLY BECAUSE OTHERS HAVE MADE THEIR ETERNAL
PAYMENTS OF SWEAT, BLOOD, TEARS AND LIFE FOR THAT VICTORY!

WITH THE DEEPEST OF APPRECIATION AND RESPECT...
BE BLESSED (A CONDITION TO BE ENVIED)...
BE SUCCESSFUL... BE SAFE...
[My injunction to be safe means doing all you know to do as you do your job... it means
doing the best you can with what you have where you are using all your faculties to get
the job done well and with good results conquering evil and keeping or restoring peace...
it does not mean to avoid duty and honor... it does not mean to cower or allow anything
to hinder you in the process of duty according to rules, law and ethics...  it means that if
the demand takes your earthly life you destroy as much evil as possible in the process. 
That is my definition of being safe... doing the best you can and leaving the rest to God
or whomever else is responsible... being best employed for the sake and protection of all
the things and people that we hold dear.]

I represent, write for... and give the credit to:
God the Father (my Commander-in-Chief),
Jesus Christ the Son (the Eternal Captain of my life) and
the Holy Spirit of God (my Eternal Teacher, Keeper and Guide).
In Christ I live... with Him and for you I serve...
And I rejoice that you are there whether you are Christian or not...
For God, Country and the Peace Keeper...
D. R. (Don) Staton, Chaplain to Peace Keepers,
Surviving Peace Keeper,
Virginia State Police Alumni,
RETIRED Police Officer Virginia Beach Police Dept.,
Senior Chaplain and Administrative Chaplain VBPD,
DCJS Certified Police Instructor,
Community Service Officer (Traffic Safety) VBPD
Blackwater Alumni
757-431-2190, chpln1@verizon.net
3709 Beacon Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23452
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