February 20, 1986

February 20, 1986.

Now THAT seems like such a long time ago.  I was in 9^th grade, and that was my 15^th birthday.

The other day I found something.  It was a birthday card. Ruth and Glenn Hicks had given it to me, and it was printed on parchment paper, and purported to be a "Happy Life Insurance Policy" and it listed all the reasons why I should celebrate and be merry for this birthday and for many more to come.  It insists that despite all the negative things that might be out there, that I deserve to be happy, and that I have the right to pout if I am not.

Less than a month before my birthday the space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff, sending parts of itself down into the Atlantic with great plumes of smoke.  The repeated video footage of the event would imprint themselves on my brain, and to this day I can see the three main trails of debris as they fell toward the water.

On board was the first school teacher to attempt reaching into space, Christa McAuliffe.  I was sitting in English class, and Mr. Ramage, the principle, came to the door, calling out Mrs. Parker, to inform her.  We didn't know Christa, but it didn't matter…

Two and a half months before the Challenger tragedy, I went to school one day.  Dennis, my brother-in-law, came knocking on the door of my agri class, telling Mr. Watkins that he needed to speak to me.  I went out into the shop, where I was told, "James, I don't know how to tell you this, but your Dad is dead."  You know, it took a lot of courage to do that, to be so open and up front with me about what was going on.  I don't know how much he knew of what had happened, but as it turned out, Dad and Ted had gone to do some work that morning, and Dad told Ted that he wasn't feeling well, leaving the tractor and going up to the truck to sit down for a few minutes.  When he didn't return, Ted went looking and found him.

Tiny Goodman, the coroner, said that a team of the world's best doctors probably couldn't have saved him – he had a massive heart attack and his life was snuffed out just like that. I spent a long time regretting that I had not told him "I love you" that morning as we went our separate ways. But really, how could I know?  

I remember the cold, gray November day at Owley Cemetery, where Pastor Bolt of the local Assembly of God, my classmate's father, came to speak.  My uncle Wilbur, more like Grandfather than uncle, and his daughter Sue (more like an aunt than a cousin) were there, along with others in the family, from Mississippi.  I remember Sue laughing loudly at one point.  I appreciated that – as funny as it may sound.  It meant the world wasn't over, despite how I felt.

From November to February was a blur.  I don't remember Christmas at all.  In fact, other than the Challenger I don't remember much of anything about it.  But since I found the card from Ruth, I know I had begun to work for her at the elementary school in the evenings, doing janitorial work.  I did that throughout the rest of high school.

In the years since then, many things have happened.  Glen got his kidney transplant, and it failed, then got another that worked wonderfully, then had his own heart attack that took him away from us.  The last year or so I worked with Ruth, it was just her and I.

After I graduated, I didn't know what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go.  I had some vague notion that I might go to college and become a teacher, but I had seen folks who did that and returned to school way too young, and I thought it needed to wait a while – and besides I didn't really have any goals.

I finally joined the Air Force and after six years in uniform I went to work in the same office that I had just left, but not in uniform any more.  A year later I went to work for another company, doing more of the same.  A few weeks ago, I hit my fifteen year anniversary with that company.  I won't be there for the sixteenth.  But, that's a story for another day. 

I was thinking about that card.  Looking at it this morning, I read Ruth's note, written in her left-leaning script, and thought about how almost 27 years ago, her hand touched the paper and wrote on it… She's gone now, along with Glenn and a few others in my story.

I have letters written to me when I was in the Air Force by my cousin Sue, the laugher, who passed on several years ago.  She was the first I heard say, laughingly, "I'm a poet, and didn't even know it."

I have notes and journals hand-written by my Mom, who has been gone now for almost three years.

These treasures are special, but so hard to look at sometimes.  There's a magic in the written word.  The idea that you are holding something once touched by another, reading words once written by someone whom you cannot see right now.

I am thankful this season for the many blessings I have today, and for the warm and happy memories I have, and oddly enough, for the many hardships that have helped to forge the person I have become.  According to my birthday card, I had at least 1,000,000 (and counting) good wishes for my birthday and for all of the birthdays to come.

And just in case we ever have to face the day when, for one of us, tomorrow never comes, I want you to know that I love you.

Oil Salesman

I am no conspiracy theorist, but something's fishy in Texas (or is it Washington?).

The former president and his right hand man were both oil executives. I am sure it had nothing to do with any decisions they made while in office, but still... The oil industry seems to have a huge ability to influence Washington insiders, to include members of the legislative branch as well as, potentially, the executive branch.

In those years, the government clamped down on anyone's ability to regulate "speculation" in oil prices - meaning with rumors of a possible war in the middle east, crude oil prices can jump through the roof - and even though no supply is cut, the price you and I pay at the pump can rise as much as thirty or forty cents in a week's time... On rumor! And when the war drums start beating more slowly, the crude oil prices bounce back down, yet it takes weeks for the 'trickle down theory' to go to work at the gas pumps.

For a while now, I've had those thoughts - why can mere rumor cause my fuel bill to go up by a hundred dollars or more in a month's time?

Then I started reading some things by the oil industry, who who are still, after all these years of recession, making record profits (we can't control the price at the pump, they say, and we hardly make any money as it is off fuel sales, etc) (Ref the propoganda machine here: http://www.exxonmobilperspectives.com/2011/04/27/gas-prices-and-industry-earnings-a-few-things-to-think-about/ (If you believe them, they're actually LOSING money: "Over the past five years, we incurred a total U.S. tax expense of almost $59 billion, which is $18 billion more than we earned in the United States during the same period." )

Now, the GOP folks in Congress and on the Presidency trail, (whether you're Republican, Democrat, or Independent, it doesn't matter in the end, we're all paying the same price for our gas), are bashing Obama's presidency for "doubling the price of gasoline". My memory may be weak, but it seems to me like it was pretty darn high in the good old days of George W. Bush's presidency, and I was thinking, "How can the price have doubled?"

Someone sent a link to someone's "useless trivia" that showed how much he paid for gas every time he's filled up since 1979. Ref: http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html The charts seem to show a huge spike downward just at the end of the Bush years and going into the Obama term...

Then I found a more official site for gas prices that confirm these charts. Suffice it to say, in June and July of 2008, regular unleaded gasoline was averaging around $4.00 per gallon:

2008-Jun
06/02 3.932
06/09 3.979
06/16 4.007
06/23 4.002
06/30 4.027
2008-Jul
07/07 4.051
07/14 4.054
07/21 4.005
07/28 3.896

With a presidential election just around the corner in 2008, I will note that from this high point, gasoline prices just kept dropping. This may not have been affected by politics, but if the oil industry folks wanted 'their man' to win, then they COULD have done something to appease the very restless voting public. Unfortunately, so many people were getting laid off left and right and the economy was a shambles, for a variety of reasons, and 'their man' lost anyways... But that's okay, because all the way through December, gas prices just kept dropping:

2008-Dec
12/01 1.790
12/08 1.681
12/15 1.648
12/22 1.635
12/29 1.590
2009-Jan
01/05 1.672
01/12 1.772
01/19 1.832
01/26 1.813

On January 20, 2009, President Obama was sworn into office. December ended with gasoline prices at $1.59, and in January, remained in the middle-upper $1-$2 range, but was already drifting upward again.  Now Representatives McConnell and some Presidential candidates are bashing Obama for the doubling of prices - when in fact, those prices haven't yet hit the Bush-era prices as seen in mid-2008.

Now that another big election is just around the corner, you've got folks pushing rumors of war, and speculators again driving up the gasoline prices... It seems that even as our economy improves, the gas prices are moving upwards again (trying to break the momentum for political reasons? Maybe not, but... maybe).

It's about time that reason prevails. I am NOT a big fan of government interference and regulation - but there are times in every industry where people will manipulate numbers to get what they want. I for one would recommend that we educate ourselves on what causes these problems.

I found a pretty good writeup on it here. I do not endorse any views they represent, but if you look you can find even more information elsewhere:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-speculation-raise-gas-price.htm

If you follow this article through to its conclusion, it gives a good insight into the problem and what has/has not been done to curb it.

An exerpt:

By betting on the price outcome with only a single futures contract, a speculator has no effect on a market. It's simply a bet. But a speculator with the capital to purchase a sizeable number of futures derivatives at one price can actually sway the market. As energy researcher F. William Engdahl put it, "speculators trade on rumor, not fact" [source: Engdahl]. A speculator purchasing vast futures at higher than the current market price can cause oil producers to horde their commodity in the hopes they'll be able to sell it later on at the future price. This drives prices up in reality -- both future and present prices -- due to the decreased amount of oil currently available on the market.

Investment firms that can influence the oil futures market stand to make a lot; oil companies that both produce the commodity and drive prices up of their product up through oil futures derivatives stand to make even more. Investigations into the unregulated oil futures exchanges turned up major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. But it also revealed energy producers like Vitol, a Swiss company that owned 11 percent of the oil futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange alone [source: Washington Post].

As a result of speculation among these and other major players, an estimated 60 percent of the price of oil per barrel was added; a $100 barrel of oil, in reality, should cost $40 [source: Engdahl]. And despite having an agency created to prevent just such speculative price inflation, by the time oil prices skyrocketed, the government had made a paper tiger out of it.

President Obama and some lawmakers are reviving the notion of oil price oversight/curbing speculation - but of course they are being blocked on almost all fronts. There's some folks making huge money off these oil speculation games... (at our expense).

What if the speculation has to do less with the rumors of war and more to do with the attempt at getting rid of the ones who would curb it?  (ie., ruin any recovery to the economy and you can oust the incumbent).  Maybe... maybe not.  But it's an interesting notion.

Regardless of that, I suggest you take the time to write your public officials and recommend that they look into the issue of oil/gas price manipulation through speculation. 


If enough people start to push it, someone will notice: 


http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

One final thought:  What would YOU do if the price of gas dropped by $1 or more? If you spend $200 a month in gasoline now, what would you do with the $50.00 that you saved?

Creation

Whatever happened to Creation?

We have become accustomed to, conditioned to live a Reactionary lifestyle. The holidays are coming, so I must make great amounts of tasty food. I have great amounts of tasty food, so I must eat too much. I ate too much, so now I must diet.

It seems like a simple example... but it is typical of how many of us live our lives, day-to-day. This thing happened, so I did that. A reaction. A new door appeared, so I went in. It can be a good thing. A new job opened up, so I applied. My sister turned 50, so I sent her a birthday card (errm. I'm only a few months late with that!!!).

Whatever happened, though, to Creation?

I have learned to have a mix of reaction and creation. In this modern world, there's no way to avoid chain reactions. Someone posts a "Hello" on Facebook, and you reply. Someone pokes you, so you poke back.

But Creation, in my terms, means having Vision. A Master Plan. Or maybe, it doesn't.

I picked up a camera and went out into the world and took some photographs. It was a reaction, yes, an escape from the mundane, from the stress, but it was transformed into something more. Something in me sought out some place to share the one or two photographs that had particular meaning, to me. Particularly my photo "Heaven's Light", a rural church at sunset. When I found that place to share, I posted the photos in a public forum.

Within moments, I had two new 'friends' who liked the photos, and commented on them. One of those friends dropped off the radar after awhile, the other, is still one of my best friends. Over time, more and more connections were made, essentially because of one photograph that I took. It was a reaction, at the time, but also a creation. It was "stopping to smell the roses" or see the sunset, as it were.

Eventually, through the personal encouragement of my friends, my family, I decided to compile my photographs into a book. It took over a year, off and on, with a wild, mad final rush, over the last couple of months. But I did create the book, with no particular feel for what I'd do once it was done. I just had this burning, craving desire to create Something Good.

I haven't ordered any of the books now, in a couple years. But while I did, I sold all I ordered. More than a hundred, all told.

Reactions... I showed the "photo" that started it all to a friend. She said that she knew someone that would like it, and called her up. The Someone liked it and wanted a copy. I had one printed and took to her. She liked it so much that she wanted a copy of the book, as well, sight unseen. So I brought her a book, but told her that I'd sell it to her full price, only she could give me $5 less and donate the rest to the church, that was featured on the cover.

Next thing you know, she called me back and asked how many more of the photobooks did I have? I said, 3 or 4. She said she had pending orders for 7 but if I needed to order more, hold off... A few weeks went by and when we talked again, she had sold several more. I ordered some more - and in all, through her, I sold 28 books, with a $5 each donation back to her church - which was met dollar for dollar by a church organization, and the church took the $280 earned, and paid for some much needed furnace repairs.

The Holiday-Food-Diet reaction chain didn't do much.. but mixing Reaction with Creation works wonders.

I got my start in photogaphy back at Mount Ida High School as a photographer on the yearbook staff. Truth be told, I'd always been interested, I'd gotten my own camera at about 11 or so, and just kept taking photos.

But as an adult, I didn't like spending money on film, so it fell by the wayside. A neighbor lost her husband due to a heart attack, and I started mowing her grass, because it was way too much for her alone. When she finally settled the estate and was getting ready to move, she gave me a camera as part of the thank you for helping. I didn't want payment, but appreciated the gesture. I took the digital camera and took some photos, and loved it so much I bought a better camera. And the rest, as they say, is history. There's a lot of Reaction in this story...

But the Creation is good, too. In addition to the old church getting much-needed repairs, the book opened other doors, as well. One old farm, featured in the book, I titled "home". It was an old farmhouse and barn that has always stuck a chord, deep within me... It's nestled near a mountain, cozy, inviting, feeling like "home".

Turns out, when Robin (now my wife), saw the photo, and saw the caption, it certainly meant something to her, as well... For it was her Grandfather's farmhouse. He's gone now, and the farm is owned by someone else, but there's still that deep current of "home-ness" that connects us, and always has connected us, even when we did not realize it.

If I continued to live Reactively, then I'd never have known. We would never have been. Creation is more important today than ever. Be reactive - you can't help but be, we're all human. Transform the Reaction with Creation and you never can tell what Wonders may be discovered.

Be still. Listen, not so much with your ears, but with your heart. Find a quiet place to grow. To be. To create.

Economic Stimulus Plan

This is just some ramblings... I may work toward getting numbers documented and sources quoted, and submit it to some major newspapers...

It is my feeling that the "Occupy" movements across America recently rightly focused attention on big banks, Wall Street, and corporate executives, not to mention many government policies which seem to favor the top 1% of rich people and totally ignore the little guys...

And the Democrats and Republicans can't seem to agree on stimulus plans, or debt reduction, or anything else these days.

And President Obama is rightly trying to promote job growth and revenue growth... But it's not enough.

Do you want to know what can be done to reduce corporate expenditures, offsetting increased taxes on the rich and assisting the 'common man' at the same time as corporate America, potentially creating new jobs, creating much more cash flow, with almost no government intervention, no extra money being spent by the government?

Consider this headline:
Chevron Announces $7.8 Billion in Q3 Profits, 2011 Profits for Big-Five Oil Companies Hit a Staggering $101 Billion


While driving across the country this past Thanksgiving, I observed a wide range of gas and diesel prices, and considering how much I spent, it got me to thinking...

If I average 25,000 miles driven per year, at an average of 25MPG, and an average cost of $3.50 per gallon of gasoline, then my annual fuel expense for the year is 1,000 gallons or $3,500 in gasoline.

A 10% cut in the cost of the gasoline (to $3.15 per gallon) would reduce my annual cost to $3,150.00 – a savings of $350 dollars, which could be invested in other things.

Small fries… the payroll tax has potentially saved me more this year.  But it’s something.

And on our recent jaunt from Pennsylvania to Arkansas, we spent several hundreds of dollars in one trip to go see family.  I saw gas prices vary as much as fifty cents per gallon in a 200-mile range – the lowest I saw was $2.89 per gallon near Roanoke VA, while at home it was $3.39 per gallon.

Saving a bit on gas (the $2.89 fillup was great, saving me about $8 on one fillup!!) would probably convince me to take more vacations, so my spending, albeit only saving $350 in a year, would potentially go up by my eating out… so the 10% savings in cost up front would change my $350 in savings into perhaps, say, $1000 spent (in more travel, eating, hotels, etc).

Still small fries.  So what?  I save $350 but I am convinced to spend $1000… sounds silly, but it works.  It’s what makes the economy grow.

According to http://quickfacts.census.gov there are approximately 309,000,000 people in the USA as of 2010.  There are approximately 113,000,000 households in the US.  If only 10% of those households avereaged a $250 a year savings on fuel and spent just that savings and no more on other things (more travel, etc), that would be an injection of $2,825,000,000 into the economy.  If they were like me, they’d spend more than the $250 they saved, so potentially the 2.8 BILLION dollars spent on things other than fuel could be doubled, or tripled in its returns.

It’s just an example, for sure. 

But what about all those trucks stops across America, that are averaging $3.80 to $4.10 per gallon of diesel.  True, I don’t use diesel.  But Wal Mart does.  So does Target.  And Costco, and Big Lots, and Hobby Lobby.  What would a 10% reduction in fuel expense do there?

If my 10% savings produced 3-fold return in economic stimulus, what would their savings produce?  Really, if a company spends a million dollars in gas in a year (most of the above probably spend billions), and could save 10% on that cost, then they’d have another $100,000 to invest in something else.  What if they spent that on more goods to sell, or on R&D to create better products for consumers, or more simply, what if they passed the savings on to the consumer (Yee-haw!!), or what if they hired a new employee or two?

It might just be that a few new jobs would be created.  It might just be that I’d go into the store and buy a few more things (more interesting products, lower prices, etc).

Forget tax breaks for corporations OR consumers… Convince (by mandate if necessary) the Big Oil guys to do some profit sharing – by returning our pump prices to more reasonable amounts.  A 10% cut at the pump is NOT enough, but it’s a start, when the only people in this economy making record profits is Big Oil.

Dimpling

The word of the day is dimpling.

In particular, Apple Dimpling.

This is an action word (ie. verb).  It is the act of creating dimples.  Apple, in this case, is an adverb.  Dimpling is the verb.

Some of us were born with dimples, but a surprising majority were not.  No fear, though, for apples are near.

Kids roam the streets of America, hurling apples at unsuspecting friends and foes alike.  When they strike the face, in particular the cheek (a rather cheeky thing to do, if I say so myself!), they sometimes leave a depression, a lasting depression right there on the surface of the skin, near the edges of one's mouth.  Thus is born, the apple dimple.

The kids who roam the streets in packs, hurling apples?  They are called apple dimpling gangs (I think there may have been a Disney movie at some point about them).

My Favorite Color

Until recently, in fact, until today, I suppose I had no favorite color. If I preferred anything, it might have been some shade of blue… but really, colors are overrated. I have a dark green shirt that I prefer to wear to work, I’d probably have picked dark blue for a car, but I am happy with red. They are all just colors. None of them have any particular meaning, to me.


I was thinking a little bit about the divisions in our world. Everyone talks about right and wrong as if they were polar opposites. In a binary world – there are only two options. Off, or on. Right, or left. Democrat, or Republican. Black, or white.

For a long time, I lived in a gray world. Sure, there were lots of shades of that gray. But it was black, and white, and when you mix them, you get gray.

Somewhere in there, I discovered a rainbow. Imagine a world with no color. Just varying shades of gray. Years may go by, and you see all the details of your world in great clarity, you aren’t blind. But everything is black, or white, or somewhere in between. Then one day, you wake up, and there’s a rainbow. Imagine the awe, the surprise and wonder.

What can it mean? It’s something beyond comprehension. I wouldn’t have missed color because I never knew color existed. But what happens when you spy a rainbow, however fleeting that glimpse may be? It would turn your world upside down. You have discovered new - something that you never even knew existed.

But there’s a problem. A rainbow is not a color. Or is it? Actually, it is. It is light, as viewed through a prism. A million little prisms, a million little raindrops each acting as a prism. And black, or darkness, is simply the absence of light, of color.

I remember some of this from science class, and from art class, years ago. But all of that was just theory. Now I’ve discovered that it’s real.

From a grayscale world to a rainbow world. From the relative absence of light, to the reality of an abundance of light. Where darkness has its place but it doesn’t drown out all else.

Now, if only those right and left-oriented people, those politicians, the people too concerned about absolute right and absolute wrong, that believe it’s black and white, if they could only see the rainbow, they might come to realize that it’s all good. We do NOT live in a black and white world. Black and white DO NOT EXIST. Black is the absence of light, and white is just light that includes all the colors of the rainbow.

If they’d get off their duffs and quit worrying about ones and zeros, get out of their tunnelvision and grayscale economies, they might realize that it’s not worth all the bother and fuss and hype and they might learn to just BE. They might learn that it doesn’t have to be right or left. Black or white. Democrat or Republican. It’s ALL good. At least, there is some good, in all.

Imagine a world where the politicians would quit bickering about black and white, and take a breather, and look again at the rainbow that’s all around us, and see that there are other solutions to their problems besides infighting, back-stabbing, bickering, shouting. It isn’t about ones and zeros, it’s about 2’s, 3’s and 4’s, and A’s, B’s, C’s.

Roy G. Biv would understand. It’s all good.
 
BTW, Light (aka the rainbow) is my favorite color.

It's All Good

I am not an overly 'religious' person, in some ways of meaning... I believe that people are smart enough to follow Good for Good's sake, and Good will take care of them.  Good and God in this way are interchangeable, to a degree.  If you do Good, God will take care of you.  This doesn't mean that you have to be a goody-two-shoes, but you really should at least follow your own conscience. 


We've been studying Meister Eckhart, who was ex-communicated from the Catholic church for heresy, shortly after his death a few hundred years ago... Many of the things he said and did were contrary to the powers-that-be of the day... and made people angry.  He talked, as a priest, to the ordinary folks in their own tongue... In ways that they could understand... He said things like that they could find God within themselves...The Church didn't like that - their path was through the priest...

And truthfully, we can all look for God "out there" but .. he's "in here", and has been all along...  If we can't find Peace, how can we find Him?  If we can't look in the mirror and say I love you, I respect you, how can we expect Him to look at us and say those things?  I am not saying He wouldn't - I am saying that at some deep level, we believe that he couldn't or wouldn't.  I lived with it for years... He was Out There somewhere, and I couldn't even see myself, so how could He see me?

We have to set aside the concept of looking for that person or thing that's over there, invisibly watching us from the sofa, and take a few quiet moments and look deep inside our own selves.  Most of us are scared to death to do that, but hey - if you believe in the Man, you believe He doesn't make mistakes... and if he made You, then You are one of his perfect creations...  And if you are, then you can find some part of Him down in there - even if somehow life's buried it under many layers of 'stuff' that you may never hope to wade through.

When I grew to the point that I could look in the mirror with some semblance of self respect, I began to see the Good in me... that is, the God in me.  (side note - I am not a God... just an ordinary human... I am referring here to the spark of divinity that is present inside of us all - the good center of our soul that we bury very deeply underneath all the layers.  (Yes, Shrek fans, I AM an ogre)).

Anyhow, I am going off on a tangent, which I occasionally do.  I wanted to quote something from one of his sermons:

It is my custom to say - and it is a fact - that every day we shout and plead in the Lord's Prayer:  "Thy will be done!" - and when his will is done, we grumble and are not pleased with it.  Whatever he does, we should be glad, and those who are will always live in peace.  Sometimes you think or say "Ah - but it would have been so much better otherwise," or "if that hadn't happened, this would have turned out so much better."  As long as you see it that way, there is no peace for you.  You must take everything for the best. 

My son and I had a chat a week or so ago about 'something bad' in his past.  I made reference to what I supposed it might have been... and he said he couldn't believe he had made such a horrible mistake.

And I have this vision of a life that goes along, in a humdrum fashion, little ups and downs, but essentially neither good nor bad:

This could be called 'drifting along'.



Then one day when we least expect it, the nose-dive occurs:

Something happens to take us down a few notches... It could be our own fault, or someone elses, or no ones... but none of that even matters.  It is what it is.  It is life.  Life happens...  And usually, for a reason, even if we don't understand it.

So sometimes this 'Crash Boom' period may go on for hours, days, months, even years... We slowly but surely climb out of this pit... And if we earnestly try to do so, we'll be finding ourselves, maybe rather suddenly, in a new place:















As I told my son... If he hadn't done the 'crash boom' and learned a lot of stuff along the way, he'd never have reached the place where he is today.  He's still got a long ways to go, but then so do the rest of us.... But what happened then was then, it isn't today.  In his situation, that was past history.  It was dead.  Today is what today is.  Dwelling on the past accomplished nothing... Looking ahead to the future is practical.  But Being in today, with it's ups and downs, accepting that it isn't all your fault or anyone else's... it's just LIFE.  Part of being human.

That's what it's all about.  Accepting that "It's All Good."

Proactivity

I wrote this in the van the other day... waiting at the school for someone to come out... I had to search for a piece of paper, and settled upon a paint chip-type paper from Home Depot where we had been looking at paints... It was written around the margins of a table of different type of paints - I should scan in the original.  I went all the way around it by the time I finished.

These thoughts are raw and unfinished... Reflections on past and present and my own life experiences. 

There's something here, more to be said... but for now I'll say what I wrote there, in the cold car.

Living Reactively vs. Proactively.

Years of reacting to life events can leave one spent, utterly exhausted, in emotional or financial ruin.  Taking steps to live a proactive lifestyle can have many varied returns - chiefly, Peace.

Correcting the mistakes of the past is often painful and arduous - but in doing so, you (and all those whom you touch) can reap the rewards.  The trick to this lifestyle "change" is to take steps.  MOVE!!!

At times it will seem like you are taking one step forward and then two steps back - but you will be moving!

And keep track of what's going on in front, around, behind you... Take off the blinders.  If you can't change it, at least acknowledge it - that's the most important part.

At this point, I quit writing.  The margins on the paint card were covered and it was time to drive away.

I suppose the point of this rambling is pretty obvious... but I'll say that it is all too easy to get into a 'reactive' rut... Getting out is harder than it would seem.  As an example, I've spent the last two years paying every extra dime toward debt.  I haven't bought camera stuff...  I haven't bought computer stuff - except parts for my son's computer (that he paid most of).   I am using an old, old TV.  I have bought some shoes, in the past month or two - a 9.99 clearance K-Mart and a nice pair of hikers and Kohls that was half off... I've bought a couple of pairs of work pants and a few months ago I replaced some jeans that were ripping at the crotch. 

Compared to a year and a half ago, my monthly budget for dining out is half what it was then, and now I feed 4 to 6 whereas then it might have been mostly me, at lunchtimes... What do I have to show for all this?  Well, leading up to it, I started tracking my pennies... I figured out where every time was spent... after doing this for 2 or 3 months, I realized those two or three trips a week out to eat at lunchtime because I was too lazy to pack was adding up.  Sure the Buffalo Chicken Salad at Santos pizza with a drink is only  $7.20 with tax.  Or a $2 meal at Taco Bell is $2.30 with tax.  Or $5 or so at Wendys... But spread over a month's time, along with the occasional 'family outings' I was spending too much on those things.

I also started tracking how much I pay in interest every month, on debt... that one's interesting... and it is this subject that started this ramble... over a lot of years my household racked up a ton of debt.  Mind-bogglingly huge amounts of it.  To the point that in 2006, we had a house payment (balance of $121,000), a car payment (balance of $10,600), and a bit of other unsecured loan/credit card debt (about $65000).

I did not get there alone... I had a decent job but we spent way more than we earned... there were years where my paycheck was the only income - but we lived as if we made three times as much as we did.  I wrestled with the debt companies, and lowered interest rates where possible... but at that point, the three credit cards from Citibank were each charging more than 30% interest... Around $25,000 in Citibank credit cards...  That was about $625 in interest just on those three accounts every month.  We'd make a minimum payment and find the balance went down by $5.

I finally quit paying till they negotiated payments... then paid for a couple of years at 9.9% interest... Finally all the other debt caught up with us in 2008 and gas went up to almost $4 a gallon and income dropped... We quit paying the Citibank cards altogether... I figured I had paid them many times over anything that had ever been charged to them.  By the time they were charged off there was a bit over $18000 left on them.

I don't recommend this for other people, but at the time we risked losing our house... We had no money... When I separated from my then wife and took the lion's share of the bills as my own, I caught up everything and started paying them on time every time... except Citibank... they were dead.  I had no interest in paying them a dime, ever again.  I paid my debt down by over $20,000 in the past year, and managed to get some money into a Health Savings Account in case any future medical emergencies come up.  I paid off a zero interest orthodontics account, an almost 30% interest credit card, an American Express card that was in a bad way… a credit union loan (that I then replaced with a car loan after I remarried – the only new debt I have – a lower interest, lower payment, lower balance loan).  Early in that time, I withdrew money from my 401k and took a huge tax hit, but caught up the house payment, and later I paid off a 401k loan and then took a new one (borrowing from my retirement account means I pay money back to me instead of a bank).  I did everything I had to do to get rid of the beast… that nasty burden of debt.

Today I only have the house payment, and the two car payments, and the remaining smallish balances on a Discover and Dell account.  I have and need no other credit.

And, unfortunately, the skeleton in the closet – Citibank.  They’re evil.  The corporate giant that believes when people can’t pay their bills, you must punish them and make them pay even more.  Squeeze every last penny out of them.  I am lucky though, my accounts were at 35% and more in interest, but some people have had even worse experiences (ref this article that describes a customer paying 54%).  The government had to “bail them out” because too many customers like me defaulted… after paying hundreds of dollars per month for many, many months (two of the three accounts dated back to 1993). 

But here I am… home mortgage interest rates aren’t quite still at all time lows, but they’re still low compared to when I got my mortgage.  I have two bedrooms and a family room to finish downstairs, but little money each month to spend on it so after 8 months of marriage, my stepdaughters still have no bedrooms to sleep in each night.  I decided to pursue a refinance application.

I have a VA loan on my house, which makes refinancing relatively easy, although not particularly cheap (there are fees involved)... There's enough equity in the house to get some cash back... One ‘gotcha’ that they gave me was that Citibank had to be paid off. 

This is where one step forward feels like two steps back… I’ve worked so long and hard to pay down my debt, but here I go, looking to run it back up again.  I consider Citibank dead, but sooner or later they’ll come back to sue me or something… Or my kids will need student loans and we won’t be able to get them because of that.  So I am going owe more on my house than I paid for it ten years ago.  The end result:  Hopefully, I’ll have a house payment and two car payments.  The three Citibank accounts paid, the Discover and Dell paid.  The minimum house payment will be less than on my current mortgage, thanks to the reduced interest rates – but the 16 years left on the original mortgage will now be 30 again.  Evil Citibank will be gone… purged from my life for good. 

And at the interest rate of the new mortgage, if instead of paying my new “normal” monthly payment, I pay the amount I now pay to my current mortgage, plus the additional amount that I currently pay to Dell and Discover (which adds up to a hefty house payment BUT NO MORE THAN I PAY TODAY), the loan will be paid off in just under 15 years.

--- So in my prior reactive life, I’d be paying many thousands of dollars a year in interest and fees… In my newer proactive life, I am finding myself in better financial condition.

This ramble seems all about finances… but this story is only symbolic… symbolic of something much deeper. 

It is a lifestyle thing.  The sickness that was our finances was mirrored by the sickness in my soul.

Live within your means.  Pay the mortgage first, the car payments second, and everything else, then buy food and gas.  Yeah yeah yeah.  All well and good.

But it means nothing.  It’s just numbers. It’s just numbers. 

Down under it all, there’s a transformative change going on, one that may take a lifetime to complete.  I have found my soul, and my anam cara.  I have found that living is worth it.

I go to church, unashamed to look Him in the eye.  I sing when I feel like it, which is often.  I have learned to skip.

I have friends, true, deep, lifelong friendships where before I isolated myself behind walls of ice.


I love.  I live.  I breathe.  I feel.


I AM.

Matthew's Thorns

Editor's note:  I started writing this back in November, then got busy.  Jose aka 'Twomedicineman' prodded me because I haven't posted a blog in a while - and I remembered this, sitting unfinished on my laptop.  So here I am, picking up where I left off... 

This past weekend, we had a spiritual retreat, a “silent” retreat in which the folks participating are not supposed to talk from Friday evening till church at 11 Sunday morning.  This is the second such retreat I’ve been involved in, and, like  the first, there were some awakenings within.

Set the stage… Last Sunday evening, Pastor Bob met with us to give us a background…  It is a reading, a parable, from Matthew 13…

"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

So Bob told us to consider these words, and then… don’t do the obvious – “Which ground am I???”  but instead consider that “I am… all of them”.  And what percentage of us are represented by  each one of us these things?  We were given fifteen or twenty minutes of quiet time to ponder this, to meditate, as it were... and then came back as a group to share (if we so desired) our thoughts on the subject.

For me, my initial short-term reaction was to quantify these things within me… Where I am today, but also, where I was, say, five years ago.  Some of the things, to me, meant things totally different than they did to other people…. We have the will and the freedom to interpret things our own ways… I won’t tell you what my answers were.  That isn’t important.  What is important is that the good things are growing once again inside of me.  (But why don't YOU share your thoughts, if you care to..)

Other people in the same group had very thoughtful answers, but so different from my own.  Obviously, the ‘fertile ground’ is the place for growth, and what grows there can produce “a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.”  But what signified ‘good soil’?  Or for that matter, what in our daily lives can be signified by the path, or thorns, or rocky places?

I would highly recommend this exercise… Take some quiet time, ponder it, think about what it means to you.  Quantify it… what percentage of you is fertile soil, vs. the other alternatives?

Back to this weekend’s retreat…  I had my camera with me and kept finding myself drawn to the oddest of things.  Like a thorn on a wild rosebush, with a bit of vine curled up next to it.  I took a photo of it, a macro closeup.

Thorns of a rosebush

Thorn of a rosebush with a little tendril of vine, complete with shadow!

There were other things I kept finding myself drawn to… But mostly, at that moment, thorns.

Funny thing is, I saw an ‘apple’ (or something that looked like one) stuck up in amongst some thorns in what appeared to be a locust tree…

Apple-like 'fruit' up in the tree... there were a couple of them, but I am not sure what kind of tree it was.

More thorns - definitely a locust of some sort.

I saw red berries, interspersed with thorns…

Hawthorn, I think?

There are those thorns again… all over the place… Much like the song, Every rose has its thorn.

But roses are beautiful, you say, and thorns are ugly.  I say, thorns are NOT ugly – they are a part of the natural beauty of the landscape. Much like life, there are things that cause us pain, but they can be accompanied by the roses, as well.  Sometimes we have to pay attention to what we'd ordinarily ignore to truly appreciate what we have.  That maybe doesn't make much sense, but I know what I mean.

So then… what of our parable?  It talks of seeds falling amongst the thorns (as if that’s a bad thing, and perhaps, it is… but the thorns CAN be nice…)  I won't continue my thoughts, here, now... but if you comment enough, and leave enough feedback to show me that someone is interested in the subject, I'll follow up this post with another one... delving into my initial reactions and answers to the problem posed... and then my very different reactions and thoughts that were reached at the end of the retreat.  

But that'll wait for another day... for now, I hope you've enjoyed sharing my 'thorns' with me.  :)

Heart of Stone

Editorial note. I am not sure when I wrote this, but I am thinking it dates back to around 1990 or so. I rather think this was around 1991 or 1992 after I'd been in the Air Force awhile and was getting homesick. It was a single sit-down writing exercise, with no point to it to start with, and as such, is not very fluid, or flowing... And if I were writing it today, I'd change wording here and there, fix grammer, make it better... but in the end, the conclusions I came to in my expression still hold true. I'll leave it exactly as I wrote it, except to allow Word's spell corrector to fix a few mistyped words here and there.

Take it for what it's worth... Ponder it. See how much stone YOU have left in your heart, in your life.

For crying out loud. This has been the fourth time this week that a cop has pulled me over. The first time was for a broken tail light. Then came two speeding tickets. What this time?

Well, here comes the cop. This doesn’t look good. With a name like Butkowski, and the size and demeanor of Rambo, it looks like I’m in trouble.

He says I ran a stop sign. He didn’t think it was too funny when I assured him that I would stop twice next time. So far this week’s tickets have totaled about four hundred dollars.

Well, like the guy on the radio is singing, I’m in between a rock and a heartache. If I don’t pay the tickets, then I’ll be stuck in jail. And I definitely don’t have the money. Not that much, anyway.

I guess it has been fun around here, but it is time to move on. I believe I’ll leave tomorrow and head for home. It has been about seven years since I’ve been back.

Pamela won’t understand why I must go. She’ll insist on paying for the tickets, but what she doesn’t realize is that that will cure the symptoms, not the disease. I’m homesick, and I’ve been awfully restless for a long time.

I wonder what Mom is doing today? I’ll have to call her and find out when I get home.

Pam is putting out her laundry. I might as well tell her now that I have decided to move on.

I knew that she would be upset, but I didn’t expect her to start crying. It might be a cruel attitude to have, but I guess life is full of heartache so you might as well give some as well as receive.


Well, I’m all packed up and ready to hit the road. Pam waves goodbye as I pull out. I begin to have second thoughts, but there’s no turning back.

I have now been driving for ten straight hours. I guess it’ll take about three more to get home. All of a sudden, this big tanker truck pulls into my lane, forcing my pickup into the guardrail. It was horrible, like a meat grinder. Needless to say, there’s not much left of me. I am dead, but as I now realize, that is only a technicality, as I can do more now than ever before.

I saw Mom today for the first time. What I mean is, on this side of life you see people as they really are, not as they appear. I never knew Mom was so beautiful. And some of the people I always really looked up to are no better than the ones who I always knew were bad characters. In fact, they are lower than low, because they have fooled so many people while the average bad person is at least honest about it.

I have also learned a lot about myself. I am not an entirely clean person myself. I have experienced degrading thoughts at times, but now I know that that is only normal. Very few people are perfect in every way, and those few people are very special.

I am a long way from that point, but I hope that people like me for being me, not for my money or possessions, of which I have very few.

Louis L’amour, one of my life-long heroes, I have met up here, and yes, he is still writing books!

The Earth is a lot different from what any mortal man could ever imagine. All of these religions and even the new age movements, are spreading a certain amount of good throughout the Earth, but there is not one true religion. All I can say is, live your life by letting your conscience be your guide. If you do not follow your conscience, then you are nothing. Literally.

Every lie you tell, at least when it goes against the grain, or every other act which you know is wrong, but do anyway, each thing chips away at your soul.

To best describe it, imagine a block of stone, one foot square. Every person is born with this object in their heart. Some people, at an early age, have other folks chipping pieces of stone off the block. This is parents who demoralize and abuse their children. Many of these children do not have a chance, for by the time they are adults the block is only about one inch square.

On the other hand, the block can grow. If someone who has a battered and beaten block of stone finds someone who accepts them and loves them, then sometimes the outside love adds mortar to the block, often making it better than it ever was before.

When you hear the term “Heart of Gold” applied to a person, then that person usually has a figurative block that is at least 10 inches square. Although everyone starts out with an even foot square, as the newborn innocence wears off, some of the stone rubs off. It is normal.

Some people, very few people, have absolutely no stone left in their hearts at the deathbed. These people are lost, as only good passes beyond the grave.

A vast majority of others, myself included, reach this place with at least a small part of their identity washed away. Only the good that was in them remains.

Repost: Bicycle Safety

Originally Posted October 5, 2005, a time when I had realized that things in my own life needed to change, but when I was 'stuck' and unable to make those changes. Things are good... We need not regret the past, we need to concentrate on shaping a better tomorrow.........



One of the most confusing things, as a parent, is teaching our kids about "right" and "wrong". It is easy to say, if it goes against the 10 Commandments, then it is wrong. But, is that enough? No, in this world, we have many rights and wrongs. Like "white lies", where you tell someone something to protect their feelings. Strictly speaking, is it right or wrong to say, "Well, it isn't so bad....", when you really don't like it?

On a more personal level, with children, is winning and losing. It's good to win, and bad to lose. But, at the same time, it seems like some kids win all the time, and some kids lose all the time. Truthfully, no one wins ALL the time, at everything, but, sometimes it seems like they do. So, how do you tell a child who has lost, yet again, that it is all right? That losing can be a good thing? That they did the best they could, and everything is going to be okay... Through their tears, their pain and humiliation, they do not want to hear this. How can anything be "right"?

In Scouts, we had a state police officer come and give a safety lecture and demonstration. He talked about bicycle safety. It's pretty apparent why helmets are a good thing, even common sense. But, how do you explain to a child, that when you're walking up the road, you should walk on the "left" side of the road, instead of the "right" side? But, when you're riding a bicycle, you must obey vehicular laws, and ride on the "right" side, and not the "left" side?

The reasons for this are that when you're riding, you are, in effect, on a moving vehicle, and subject to the laws that apply to moving vehicles. On a bicycle, you should stop at stop signs, use a turn signal or hand signals to indicate which way you are turning, etc. Also, it would be dangerous to top a hill on a busy or even remote street, and meet oncoming traffic while riding your bike. But, when you're walking, you need to be able to see ahead of you, so you can get out of the way, in case someone is coming toward you.

It all goes back to safety first. There are times, while walking, that we will cross to the right side of the road, like on a blind curve or hill, where no one can see what is coming, and people drive too fast, causing dangerous conditions for the walker. In general, however, we follow the law and walk up the left side of the road, and as cars come toward us, we move to the edge of the road, and they tend to veer toward the middle, and all is well.

Going back to "rights and wrongs", to explain bicycle and walking safety to my kids, I tried to make it as clear as possible. "When walking, right is wrong, and left is right. But, when riding, right is right, and left is wrong." I think they get it.

In life, how do we so clearly explain things? Often it is just as hard. Our greatest way of teaching our children is by setting examples. Therefore, they see us doing something, they deem it acceptable, and do the same things. So, if we shout a lot, the kids will tend to shout a lot. If we complain a lot, the kids will tend to complain a lot. If we pray a lot, the kids will tend to pray a lot. If we wear smiles on our faces every day, our children will tend to wear smiles.

But, what happens when it seems like everything is wrong? Like when you're in a race, and you lose? You hold up your head, and say "Congratulations" to the winner, and life goes on. What happens when you're in a situation where there are no winners? When something ends, like when their Grandfather dies, perhaps? How do you tell a child that there is any "right" in this? You say, "Grandpa is in heaven." but is that really very meaningful to a child? He has just lost his best friend.

I suppose we could distract them, by teaching them bicycle safety...

But there is no "right" anywhere that will bring back something that is gone forever. And this is one of the hardest lessons to learn, as a child or an adult. You can pretend that everything is "right" and just continue to go on, pretending, forever. But, to fix the wrongs and make them right, means to truly come to accept that some things just are not "right". Then you must not only accept this awareness that they are not "right", and cannot be, but also become aware that life goes on. There's a future there, that each and every one of us contributes to. And that if things are not, and cannot be "right" the way they are today, then it's our job to build a better tomorrow. For when everything else is "wrong", there are still "right things" inside of us.

Through faith, hope, and love, we can each help to bring about a better tomorrow. No matter how bad today is, there is always hope for tomorrow. If we have faith in ourselves, and in the world around us, even God, then we can work to make a better tomorrow. And through companionship, though love, we can strengthen the faith and hope inside us. And, maybe, despite the "wrong" of today, we can reshape tomorrow, where we'll wake up and find "right" in our world.

Happy Birthday Kate

Happy Birthday Kate!!

Spent several hours in the ER last evening with Miss Kate. She's great... hurting a little from 19 stitches, but otherwise okay. She was getting off of something and an old empty aquarium was below her so she put her foot on ... err.... through it...

The really cool thing is (well... okay, nothing's too cool about getting hurt the day before your birthday (Today is Kate's birthday - be sure to wish her a Happy Birthday!!)) she remained calm and level headed through it all. And there were some nasty cuts - the glass got her from both sides. But although it looked bad, it wasn't deep enough to sever arteries or anything... The only time she really got upset was when the doc shot her up with the anesthesia (and even then she didn't over-react.. but she sure told him about it!!) I am proud of my girl's way of handling it... And glad Ms. Robin was there when it happened (and glad I was only about 5 minutes away). She kept everyone calm and got the foot unwedged by pulling the glass away on one side so she could get her leg out of it on the other side. Robin's daughter called me and I got my giddy-up go in gear and got home fast, and we turned around and went back to the ER within a couple minutes of getting there.

The important thing is she's all right... Happy Birthday Kate... I love you!

Betrayal

So I went to my first Maundy Thursday church service last evening. It was interesting - held by candlelight at tables in the large Sunday School room instead of the sanctuary.  A ritual celebrating the Last Supper.  There were readings, and hymns... One of the companions of Robin and I, someone I've gotten to know somewhat over the past few months, was reading along with the liturgical response, and singing the hymns. When we got to the story of Jesus' betrayal, and a hymn was sung about "I am the betrayer... I have betrayed thee."

She seemed to stumble a bit there, as, admittedly, I did.  It was a reference to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas and the abandonment of him by the rest of the disciples.... But it was sung in the first person... implying that the singer IS the betrayer.

Neither she nor I get too caught up in the details of the "Jesus Story".   I have read most of the bible, probably 80-85% of it, so I have a good understanding of the stories and history.  But there's so much more to Good than reading the words, or The Word, as some call it.  Regardless of that, we do attend church most Sundays and worship. We're lucky enough to have a pastor who reaches beyond the words to try to bring the Message to life.

It's not about all the technical details. There are "inspired" stories throughout the Old and New Testaments that were written by human beings. And centuries later, translated by other human beings into new languages, including English. Many people use the King James translations as the One True Gospel... It was written in the 1600's, and commissioned by King James of England. To quote one source, "James gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy."

Interestingly enough, politics played a huge role in that translation of the Bible. And know what? It DOESN'T MATTER. No matter which translation you use, the Golden Rule is still the Golden Rule. The story of the Good Samaritan is still the story of the Good Samaritan. It is not about the words, it is about the Message.

For example, we could spend weeks or even months discussing Revelations... and unless we are living in a world where we do Good Things because we live in fear of some future action against us if we sin, then it's all pointless. It's good to understand the book, to read it, but in the end, if we focus too much time and energy on it, then we have wasted a great deal of ourselves on this pursuit.  We need to live right because it's the right thing to do.

I'll say again, "...unless we are living in a world where we do Good Things because we live in fear of some future action against us if we sin, then it's all pointless."  All the studying of the technical details of what may come to pass in the future is pointless.  My opinion... Just my opinion.  You should know the story and have a grasp of what it means, but in the end, we must strive to live right for the right reasons.

Think about that for a minute. IF we are living Good Lives because we are forced to do so by our fear of Hell, or because God wants us to, or because doing so will earn us all the milk and honey and mansions of heaven, then we've missed the boat entirely. What we need to do is to live the Good Life because it is the Right Thing, not for some reward or punishment.

Those things are there, yes... but inside each and every one of us is a little voice, a voice of reason, a voice of conscience, the voice of the Divine, that if we will listen, if we can free ourselves from the distractions of our world, and disentangle ourselves from the cages of words that the church and the bible and society have built around us.. If we can do good things because they are the right things to do, then we're on the right track.

And the Bible and the Church are great places to start. They are a roadmap to a Better Place. But if we keep looking down at the road beneath our feet, then we'll never be able to see up ahead to where we're headed. We need to forget for a moment where we are and just BE.


And then there's Maundy Thursday. Why is it that we tend to stumble when we say, "I am the betrayer, I am the one who betrayed you."? Think about it.

Since this is a somewhat biblical essay, let us return to the roadmap of Christianity, the Bible.

In Romans, there's a section that discusses right and wrong and those who are strong or weak. In effect, it says, "If you are strong in faith, and you believe that it is okay to eat meat or drink wine, then do so. It's okay - you aren't sinning if you do so. But if your brother, your neighbor, is weak in faith, and feels like it is wrong to eat meat, or drink wine, and does so anyways, then he IS sinning. Don't judge him for being different. But if you, in your actions, lead him to do something that in his mind is wrong, then you are wrong, too."

Romans 14:1-4

1 Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2 One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4 Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Romans 14:13-15

13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14 As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15 If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died.

Romans 14:19-23

19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. 22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

And most importantly:
Romans 14:17

17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Why is it that we tend to stumble when we say, "I am the betrayer, I am the one who betrayed you."? Think about it again.....

I have only given some exerpts of this sermon from Paul. But there are a few object lessons here. One of them is to quit judging others. Really. What another person does is between that person, and his Creator. YOU have nothing at all to do with it. That person will make mistakes. You will, too. In the end it's between them and God.

We all want to live good lives. We all want to be better people. But have you never gone against that little voice in the back of your mind, and done something that deep down inside you thought was wrong? Did someone say, "C'mon, do this..." and you did it, even though they thought it was okay, and you thought it was bad?

If you did, then you betrayed your Inner Voice. That Whisper of the Divine that can guide you through right and wrong.

I have been there, and done that. It isn't always a fellow person who leads you astray. Sometimes, we have two Inner Voices... You have the Divine that says, "Do what is right, do what is healthy, do what is Good..." and then the voice of the Profane, that says, "It's okay... everybody does it."

At some point or other, we have all listened to the Profane, whether that was an inner voice, or the voice of our Brother or Sister or anyone else in our lives.

It is not for us to judge the other for the faults that we imagine them to have. It is not for US to judge anyone. We must learn to do for ourselves, to Be for ourselves. To strengthen our own faith in ourselves and the Divine. To search for Peace and Joy. "..it is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness.", or as I prefer, Right.

Do it because it is Right for you. Period. By all means, guide your friend, be there, but do not become the person who makes them stumble because your standards are different than his.


Why is it that we tend to stumble when we say, "I am the betrayer, I am the one who betrayed you."? For me, it's because I don't want to be the betrayer. I also don't want to be the betrayed. But at various times in my life, I have found myself in both roles. I am Human.


One of the most important life lessons I have learned can be summed up in this short phrase, "He was a good person in a bad place." Remember, when you find yourself realizing that you have been the betrayer, or the betrayed... You are Human.
 
Chances are, the other is, too. It does not make either of you a bad person. Just a good one in a bad place. The important thing is to look forward, look ahead, to a better place. Find the path to Peace, and Joy, and Right.

And feel free to sing along with the hymns, even when they make you uncomfortable.