How to Comment on one of my Posts

I've got a step by step blog post on how to comment on any of my posts, people are still saying they can't leave a comment. See the blog post by going down through my posts, it's clearly titled and easy to follow, I think the date was March 5th, you just have to click on anonymous

Lost Amid the Noise (A true story of the lostness of self in the teen years)

(NOTE: This is an illustration from Lesson #2 of my book "STORIES," which is a book designed for dads to enable them in bringing their children to Christ through their own stories as they share the Gospel Story.)

I was a Chameleon.

Finding out that I was a Chameleon was not a proud moment.

A Chameleon is a lizard who often changes colors according to the environment he’s put in. I often won  Chameleon’s at Fairs in the 50’s. These Fair prizes were given to those who threw darts well at balloons, or could toss rings around bottles, or could land on a lucky numbers when the music stopped. The Chameleon’s had little gold chains around their necks with little gold leashes with a safety pen at the end, once one the prize giver would pin the Chameleon to your shirt, where you could watch him turn color to match your shirt.
I don’t ever remember one dying on me, but neither do I remember them lasting over a week at home. I loved Chameleon’s because they were so cool, and they announced to all who could see me that I was a winner. But in my wildest dreams I never imagined that I would turn into one.

I was a good, fun loving kid who had a great, fun family and a lot of cool friends. Life was full of laughter and playing, that is, until I got into Jr. High School, it was there that I began to change my colors, and often. At about the age of thirteen I’d began the natural separation from my parent’s all watching eye, it was at this age that bad ideas and bad people started having an influence on me. New people put new, risky opportunities in front of me. At thirteen some cool guys taught me to smoke (a habit I wouldn’t kick for twenty years), a year later they taught me to steal from stores, as well as drink. My grades started falling as my lying to my parents increased; I started getting in trouble at school, as well as with the police.

As a Chameleon I adopted my friend’s thoughts, ideas and habits. I had no identity of my own; I became the type of person I was with, I changing colors and thoughts with no thought to the consequences.  It wasn’t just the trouble that caused me trouble, it was being lost amid all the noise my friends where making. I no longer heard my parents voices when were separated by school and work, we entered a different and sad world my parents and I, I missed them, but this was my new life, they worked, I went to school, I walked home with new influences who afforded me way too many chances at being bad, because I wanted to fit in and be popular, I became a Chameleon who was attached by an invisible chain to the social shirts of my friends. Whoever I hung around with was who I acted most like; the need to fit in with other teens is such an overwhelming pull that not even great family home life doesn’t seem to squash. 

Now all of a sudden in just a few short months I was having trouble with teachers and others in authority,’ fights with other kids, ditching school, not doing homework, which would lead in a few years to arrests, jail, drinking, and even drugs. My new social life even had prison and death as doorways into a, alien world previously unknown, once good friends had now become sellers of drugs, and a few got sent to prison, while three were killed because of drinking, drugs.

Every father, I think, re-visits his own boyhood when he plays with his son. And by the same token, every small boy shares his father’s passions, until puberty interposes the desire to break free, this breaking free has a false face, when a young person breaks free he begins to discover things he thinks his parent never knew. When everything is new to a young person they awesome it must be new, and it seems to him that the newness of experiences is worth the loss of his parents approval, and it is through this loss that a more serious loss occurs, the lostness of self. In our teen years we all sadly become Chameleons, changing ourselves to match our social surroundings, and giving ourselves away under the intoxication of all things new and lustful. Doing homework, chores, going to movies with our parents and playing ball with them suddenly become oppressive in comparison to the freedoms that independence brings.

The terrible thing about teenage freedom is that many of its excesses bring a sort of death, a deadness of the soul, and in some cases a life time death sentence through habits too strong to break. A great emptiness filled my soul, but I couldn’t find a way out, the social pull was too strong and too powerful, being important and included was more important than being a good person, I was lost with no interior compass. I was a Chameleon with no chain to anchor me, these friends started drifting away, people I gave my life away for now became invisible, no one really cared for me, they just cared to have chaotic fun, in an instant it seemed I was alone, with a wasted past and no future, no friends, no goals, everything vanished. I felt like I was naked and thrown out on the street to make my own way in life.

When I was a teenager I didn’t know Christ, my parents didn’t know Christ, nor in fact did I ever know a single teenage person who knew Christ. Freedom and independence was our teenage religion, while chaos and bad habits became our spiritual clothes. A question I asked myself, almost too late, was how did a good kid become so troubled and lost, and why after so many years of folly did I escape, when so many of my friends didn’t.

It wasn’t until Jesus Christ came into my life that I found myself and was able to stop all the chaos and madness that being a Chameleon brought into my life. It was through God that I found my moral compass, my inner being and my direction in life. It was at this time that I was able to stop all the noise the crowd was making, and when I did I heard God, it was this great moment that I stopped being a Chameleon and became Dick Worthington, child of God. My inner voice which naturally knew good from bad, was lost at thirteen and stayed lost until I was thirty, which was hampered by the teen social noise.  

I wouldn't gain my inner voice back until I'd been married and had three children. This was my life's dividing line, before Christ I was a Chameleon hoping that the next person I became attached to would make me whole and happy, it wouldn't be until Christ that I was able to find the "me" that God had created me to be.

We are all created special, but it isn't until we become like Christ that we'll ever realize it.  

“STORIES”

·         Dad, share about your teenage years, where you ever a Chameleon, if so explain how it happened and how it affected you.

·         Youth, share if you have ever felt like a Chameleon, what are the influences out there that you face every day?

·         Discuss the following verses as they relate to God’s desire for our present and future lives as it relates to us being held captive by Chameleoness: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity. Jeremiah 29:11-14

A Winter in Russia

A Winter in Russia

As a struggling writer, or better put, a struggling want to-be writer, I’m told to read great writers, especially descriptive ones. Right now, at this very second,  I’m sitting at the Mission Viejo Library, it’s 12:53 on Thursday, March 24, 2011, and I’ve settled back down to my writing desk having just come back from lunch at Berkley Dog restaurant. I had two Louisiana Hot Link Sausages with fried eggs on top, along with Russian mustard, as well as Spicy Maui Onion mustard's, along with a Diet Coke. I ate the two dogs in quick fashion; not quick from hunger, but because I didn’t eat the dogs buns.  By the way, not eating bread makes all meals wonderfully light and amazingly quick. I ate them with a plastic fork and knife, eating dogs with a fork and knife was an amusing curiosity to the Berkley Dog staff, eating with an audience is unnerving, it’s too much concentration, eating with onlookers diminishes flavors.

While eating I was reading Owen Matthews “Stalin’s Children,” a tale of three generations of one family living in Russian from 1920s-2005, the reason I’m reading this book is twofold, first I have a vested family interest in Russia, which is my second county by heart attachment, the second reason is because Owen Matthews is a genius at descriptive writing. The Library has become my writing office and it’s here that I’ve been writing my book “Stories,” and writing always requires breaks from writing, breaks are needed whenever a fog arises in the writers mind, there is no schedule for this fog, it just appears, walking around causes a small breeze to usher out the fog.  So wandering the isles is a breeze creator, reading quick stories from magazines, headlines form newspapers, or looking over the substantial free movie DVDs also helps to increase to lift the fog. A side benefit in these wanderings is discovering more books to read, a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon Fyodor Dostoevsky, six copies have been checked out for the last two weeks, but today after lunch I’d been informed that Fyodor made his way back, so I checked him out.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic “Crime and Punishment,” is a book I’ll start reading today even though I haven’t finished “Stalin’s Children,” Dostoevsky’s book is THE standard of descriptive writing, in it he describes Russia, especially St. Petersburg where my family lives, supposedly in a stunningly vivid detailed arrangement throughout the novel. I can’t wait.

Since I’ve been to Russia twice and listened countless times to my daughter’s descriptions of Russia in winter, I thought I’d share the section from Owen Matthew’s book I just read at lunch, which describes the Russian winter that his family experienced as well as he himself when he came back to Russian to live as an adult journalist.

“Winter in Moscow comes down like a hammer, crushing out light and color, beating the life out of the city. It closes overhead like a pair of musty wings, enveloping Moscow in a cocoon, cutting it off from the world. The city begins to look like a black and white dreamscape, disorientating and subtly disquieting. On the streets steams of huddled figures hurry through pools of dirty yellow light before disappearing into doorways or the Metro. Everything becomes monochrome, the people in black leather and black fur, the city swathed in black shadows. In the underpasses or in shops, the only places one sees people in bright light, faces are pale and strained and everything pervaded with the wet-dog smell of damp wool. The skies are dirty gray, low and oppressive.

Every winter I spent in Moscow I had a sense that the world was closing in on itself, shrinking into a state of siege behind double-glazed windows, taking shelter in the fug of state-provided steam heating, and that we were powerless in the face of this overwhelming force of nature, fragile, unable to do anything but accept our lot.

Like my father must have done, I found Russia not just another country, but a different reality. The outward trappings of the city were familiar enough-the white faces, the Western-style shop fronts, the neoclassical architecture. But this European crust only sharpened the sense of otherness. Instead of reassuring, the distortion of the familiar was even more disturbing. Moscow felt as surreal as a colonial outpost on which some distant master had tried to transplant grimly imperial architecture and Europeans fashions. Underneath all the affectations the city’s heart was wild and Asiatic.”

Could you write a description of your city through the seasons, try it; the outcome may make you more alive in the place you live. Despite Owen Matthew’s heavy description of Russia in the winter, he loved her even more because he observed her vividness’s.

Observation is a form of centering on the “Otherness’s” of life, “Otherness’s is healthy medicine.

PERSPECTIVE

What sets you off?

What trips you up?

What undoes you?

Why does what makes your day, week, month, year, and life miserable, not affect someone else?

Why doesn’t a bad thing affect everyone the same?

 Why do some people leap off of buildings, or get a divorce, while others going through the same stuff become stronger and better?

Why are some people bitter and others better?

If life offers us all the same bad porridge, why are some bears better bears, while others become bad bears?

Why is one hair in your soup too many, while one hair on your head is not enough?

Isn’t the development of our attitudes a matter of perspective?

For my leisure reading I’m reading Owen Matthews book “Stalin’s Children” which is the true account of three generations from one family who lived in Russia during the 20s all the way through 2005. Owen Matthew is the grandson whose grandfather, Boris Bibikov, a dedicated Red Army officer, was killed by Stalin’s “Purges,” which saw ten million other good Russians killed by the madness of Stalin’s paranoia, Boris’s  wife Martha, was also accused of being an opposition member against Stalin, and was put in prison for eleven years, leaving their two girls, Lyudmila, age 4, and her sister Lenina, age 12 to be ripped from her arms and taken to one of the thousands of Stalin’s orphanages. The two little girls would face years of extreme abuses, isolation from each other, never to see their father again, nor able to see their mother until many years after her freedom.

Lyudmila would contract a life threatening case of tuberculosis in one of her many orphanages, this sicknes would ravage her body for the rest of her life, causing a sever limp. Lenina would become little Lyudmila’s mother until she too was taken from her sister. Owen Matthews studied reams and reams of documents, interviewed survivors of the purges who knew his family, as well as interviewing the two girls (his mother and aunt), their husbands, and his grandmother Martha. His story is a detailed account of the horrors, deprivations, beatings, near starvation's, and conscript work these two children endured during Germany’s attacks on Russian and their lives under Stalin.

To read through Owen Matthew’s docudrama makes one feel sad and puny, putting yourself into these children’s shoes seems unfathomable while sitting in a Starbucks, drinking my Vinti Misto, listening to Coffeehouse Rock, with climate controlled temperature. Could I have been as strong as these too little girls, how would I cope if I were there parent? Reading this book is an exercise in shaking my head and my spirit.

The stunning thing about Lyudmila and Lenina is not that they survived, but that they survived so well. Owen Matthews tells of thier racked bodies, physical deformities and hardships unmanageable, but which did not alter these girls’ happy dispositions. Too little girls that faced a mountain of obstacles with a mountain of tears only to come out with such great happy outlooks, but how is this possible when they saw limps floating in the rivers they played in, dead bodies as flotsam passing them as they picked berries for the starving soliders, mass herding from orphanage to orphanage, years in a hospital with the worse medical help one could ever see, but none of it deterred them from happy adult lives. Even in their adult years after being reunited after Stalin’s death, they saw more terrible times, three days after Lenina was engaged to her handsome, Red Army husband, she learned that he had his leg amputated by saw after his car hit a road mine on the way back to his outpost. The would be married for almost forty years and when asked about her husbands amputated leg she couldn't recall which leg it was.

Lyudmila was Owen Matthews’s mother, Lenina his aunt; he offers this explanation as to how in the face of unimaginable hardships these two girls remained upbeat, positive, and happy, “…these two little girls somehow remained happy, positive and trustful throughout their life probably due their perspective, they saw so much destruction, death, mayhem and despair which others had to face, they felt blessed to be together, and to have survived while others didn’t. Life for them could have been worse, so they took the beatitude of trials as blessings for personal development, what doesn’t kill you will only make you better."

Each one of us will either be a victim or a victor from our experiences.

Everyone will go through the test of fires, no one is excused, living on a broken earth will constitute experiencing a bucket full of sorrows.  We can either make lemonade that others want to buy, or suck on soar lemons that others will want to avoid.

Whining is not dining.

I saw a man with no legs and thanked the Lord for my shoeless feet.

I thank God for my era, my location, my day, my opportunities and for all of my blessings.

Counting blessings is the perspective man needs to survive.

Counting blessings is the nectar God sucks off, it is the sweet aroma that makes its way up to His throne and which releases his love into our hearts.  This is the cause and effect of our faith.

“Spirituality”

 A few mornings ago, Carol and I were having our morning devotions reading a chapter of Romans and a chapter out of Philip Yancey’s book “I Was Just Wondering,”(Yancey has remained my favorite thinker). The morning’s chapter was entitled “Dastardly Deeds of Deflation,” in which Yancey proposed the idea that words retrogressed over time instead of progressed, he called it a relentless deflation over the centuries, an overwhelming pattern of words leaking away their meaning over time.

Take silly. Nobody wants to be called silly, it means fatuous, ridiculous. Ironically, the original Anglo-Saxon word meant one who was happy and blessed with good fortune. Similarly, the word idiot started out as a respectable derivative of a Greek word describing a person peculiar in a proper sense, meaning private and nonconformist. Eventually, the word became so peculiar (another deflated word) that no one wanted to be an idiot. Or consider sincere. Scholars believe that this word drives from sculptors’ use of the Latin phrase sin cera, meaning “without wax.” Sometimes a deft worker of marble would use wax to patch over unsightly gouges or scratches in his finished work of art; a flawless, honest work that needed no such makeup was called sincere, without wax.

Dallas Willard in “Renovation of the Heart” writes about spirituality, another leaking word in today’s world, Christians are always evaluating their spirituality, as well as other peoples, “Am I very spiritual, is he very spiritual, I’m lacking spiritual focus, or, his sermon lacked spiritual depth.” But is Spiritual a Christian word, and what exactly does it mean, or more importantly what did it mean at its conception, and has it been deflated over time?

Traditionally, many religions have regarded spirituality as an integral aspect of religious experience. Many do still equate spirituality with religion, but declining membership of organized religions and the growth of secularism in the western world has given rise to a broader view of spirituality. There has also been a growth in the scope of use of the term "spiritual."

Did you notice the deflation? “…but declining membership of organized religions and the growth of secularism in the western world has given rise to a broader (deflated) view of spirituality.

Last week I’d walked to the Mission Viejo Library (about a mile from the house) to write, when lunch time arrived I walked across the street to a Tie/Chinese restaurant where I could take my time reading James Bradley’s “The Imperial Cruise,” a book on the dastardly deeds of Teddy Roosevelt and his terrible legacy of white Anglo-Saxon racism around the world, which we are still feeling the effects from, if you like history this book will stun your preconceptions of our country.

The restaurant had three wooden tables outside. The day was startling beautiful, full of warmth, smells and sights, the surrounding green hills, Saddleback Mountain, a river bed, and the tree lined streets were punctuated by a story book breeze, sitting outside was my choice except for two loud women sitting at one of the end tables. I went inside and it was worse, louder and more crowded, I chose the other end table hoping that the breeze would blow the women’s words away from me, reading takes concentration, and voices penetrate reading decorum, this is of course why library’s have a silence policy.

I ordered Satay Chicken with no rice and a glass of water, simplicity is strengthening. The breeze and the women were not accommodating, one was young, the other her mother’s age, the mother type had her back to me but not her voice, and she was loud and opinionated. She was a prototypical “trying to hard older women” who can be seen in hippy hangouts across America, her hair was died coffee barista red, with steaks of black, it was cut short like a man’s, I sensed hostility, on the back of her neck was a Chinese script tattoo, she had a man’s thin tank top with no bra.

Her personage was as unavoidable as her pontification.

Reading became impossible.

A spectacle was center stage.

The coffee barista was postulating about her spirituality, I strained for any Christian semblance, but Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, and some form of Taoism was her spirituality. The women started disagreeing over Yoga positions as well as they’re benefits to one’s soul, the younger was as strong, and as opinionated as the older, and sincerity shrouded their table like a satin table cloth. Then another woman, whom the younger one knew, came over to their table, she also was a spiritual woman, she taught Buddhism and Yoga someplace in the city, the three got into it, the red/black hair lady got up and started doing Yoga positions in the parking lot, the Yoga teacher countered, voices arose to articulate they’re expertise’s, the tattooed one was the most ardent, all three got up in order to help their articulations. Suddenly the three High Priestesses of spirituality had developed a parking-lot church.

I looked down at my Satay only to realize it had vanished, I suspected observant befuddlement as the cause, being lost in thought can make people drive right by their off ramp without knowing they have been driving for some time.  

The etymology of Spiritual: “…Original usage in English mainly from passages in Vulgate, where the Latin word translates Gk. pneuma and Heb. ruah. Distinction between "soul" and "spirit" (as "seat of emotions") became current in Christian terminology.”

The dastardly deeds of deflation has now made spirituality every man’s truth, political correctness is the new police, Christians don’t dare enter into parking-lot debates, every man’s spiritual thoughts are acceptable, all that is, except the Christians. Mention Christ in public and you won’t gather a church; you’ll gather a lynching mob. Everything is acceptable except the original.  

I walked back to the library full from lunch but empty, watching people deflate the truth of spirituality is demoralizing. There are now billions of spiritual experts covering every form of thought, their observers shake their heads, and head home with a resolve to just mow their lawn, mind their own business and  leave spiritual life to the fringe people with red and black hair, tattoos, as well those Christians who look like me.

Marriage Tip #8 “Glass Houses, First Stones, and Logs”

The other day, well a lot of other days, I was driving down a street, a thousand streets, when I saw the most irksome thing ever, a person honked their horn at a another car going to the store, school, work, church, hospital, Pizza Hut, or the hardware store, whatever, the honked at person made a driving mistake, and had the wrath of the offended to deal with.

This was not a little horn honking that is often used to warn another, or in some extreme cases, letting another driver in line, this was an endless middle finger of sound penetrating the offender’s very soul.  This was a, "I caught you stealing from children horn honking, this was someone getting caught in the act of stealing from a Nun." If I hadn’t witnessed the incident myself I would’ve thought a terrible thing had occurred rather then just the run of the mill, million times a day, driving mistake, a mistake, not an intentional, a mistake, not an on purpose, but a mistake.

Here’s the rub of the honking, the honker has committed a thousand mistakes while driving, but he became incensed when another person did the same thing he’s done, over, and over, and over, and over, and for crying out loud, over again. Wow, people like this are the most irritating people on earth because they are willing to cast stones while they themselves have been caught with their pants down in public a gazillion times. But, oh, no brother, don’t ever think for a moment you can get away with a mistake in front of Orlando the offended.

Don’t you all feel the same as I, haven’t you seen this play out a hundred times in front of you, aren’t you a little frustrated with why people lambaste people for the very things they have done themselves?

This same frustrating thing takes place a gazillion times in marriage. Why do we get so angry, frustrated, undone, and hurt, when our mates do something offensive, intentional or not, when we have done the same thing ourselves, over, and over, and over, and over and over, and for crying out, loud over again?

Jesus told us if we are without sin then we can throw the first stone, no one did, but we do, pretty interesting stuff, what makes us not see ourselves before we start heaving the hard stuff? Jesus said before you take a splinter out of someone else, check the log in your own eye, in other words don’t. Sometimes we forget our own vulnerability and "throw stones" at other people in the form of criticism. A person might remind us that we too have our own faults and weaknesses by saying "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones". Example: "Look at what time it is... you are late again!" Answer: "Hey, how often are you not on time? People who live in glass houses should not throw stones."

What causes someone to be critical & intolerant of others? People who are overly critical of other people are usually very unhappy themselves and are simply projecting that onto everyone else they come into contact with. Here are some common emotions that cause some people to be overly critical:

• Being frustrated with their own lives
• Jealousy of others
• Having unmet goals
• General unhappiness
• Anger
• Self- loathing
• Feeling taken advantage of by other people
• Feeling unlucky or cursed in some way
• Inferiority complex
• Lack of self-confidence

So now what?

• Think before you speak – the next time you open your mouth to criticize someone or something, take a moment and really think about why you want to criticize that person. Is it them that has the problem, or is it more to do with you?
• Re-frame –  if an overly critical thought crosses your mind, try to think of something nice about that person to counteract it. It will make you feel better and could improve your feelings towards that person. This is very helpful, especially if the person is someone you love!
• Improve your self-image – if you are unhappy with your life, why not take active steps towards changing it, rather than blaming others for your situation? Exercise, take up a hobby or revamp your wardrobe – do anything that will make you feel good!
• Exercise and nutriton - exercising and eating well will enable you to be the best possible version of yourself you can be. Exercise increases the production of endorphins which will make you feel better and you’ll be less likely to criticize others. 
• Check you “Love Bank.” Marriages, like banks have deposits and withdraws, if you mate has put in a thousand dollars of help over the week, then when they take a fifty dollar withdraw (do a silly or hurtful thing) then realize that they haven’t bankrupt you. Just like at the bank, there is still money in the love bank. Get over the tiny withdraws and count the money in the bank.

FORGIVE!

Marriage Tip #7 “Help, I’m Being Held Hostage by My Heritage.”

Born Again.

Transformed.

The Old is Gone.

The New has Come.

Set Free.

If Anyone is in Christ, He is a New Creation.

What Counts is the New Creation.

We Are Born of the Spirit.

He Saved Us by Rebirth and Renewal by the Holy Spirit.

I’ve got a few question to ask, why don’t any of these scriptural truths, and a thousand Biblical others like them, have any impact on Christians today?

Why is Christian divorce equal to the worlds?

Why is Christian family dysfunction at an all time high, also equal to the worlds?

Why does Christian tithing equal the average annual giving of Atheists?

Why are there more Christian victims then victors in the 21st century, than there were in the 1st century?

Why is Christian church leadership (Elders & Pastors) at all time destructiveness, with strife, egotism, and Alfa Dogism taking a front seat to civility, unity, compassion, patience, support and Christ-likeness?

Why?

Here’s my thirty year in the ministry guess at the why questions:

People don’t trust Christ’s truths as much as they do their feelings and emotions, to them, one is real, the other is Idealistic, one is the engine that runs their actions and reactions, the other is Biblical euphuisms once tried, but now discarded. Christ is antiquity, and the now is the new ruler of the kingdom.

Marriages are filled, filled, filled with emotional heritage captives, you know the kind, the ones that say something like…“My Family Screwed Me Up,” “They knocked me down and I can’t get up,” “If you knew what my_ _ _ _ _ _ _  did to me, you’d understand why I’m unhappy and why I’m making my marriage my personal garage, stuffed full of my old family junk.” There is a new T.V. program called “Hoarders Gone Wild,” which shows the terrible damage hording junk has on a person’s life, but that type of hoarding pales in comparison to the damage done to the captives of “heritage hoarders.”

I get it, I get it, all of our parents were sinners, but don’t we have a new father, who has articulated to us our true value as a human beings, if true, why are we so keen on letting sinners define who we are, why don’t we let God define us?

I think there is something oddly attractive to having a scape-goat for our behavior, you know, a default button for us when life gets dull or tough. And parents are the best default button of all, who could argue with us, parents have become the new, Satan, who are all powerful, and able to bind us to sin forever.

What we need to become victors is to align ourselves to the ultimate victor, “The” overcomer, the one and only, Christ. Yes indeed, we are built to be overcomers just like Jesus, we can chose to be victims or victors, he’s done the work, all we have to do is to apply his principles to our marriages and follow him in the details of the faith, pretty easy really. No fuse, no muse, just a little step to the right.

Easy stuff really, just treat others and ourselves like Jesus would…today, not tomorrow, just…today, not even today, just for an…hour, well not really an hour, just a few…minutes, well, not really minutes just the…seconds before us. Can’t we be perfect for a few seconds? If someone came to you and said they would give you ten million dollars if you would make your marriage the greatest it’s ever been today, would you do it, could you do it? Of course you could and would, so if you can do it for money, then that means you can do it. Nike said “Just Do It.” Go ahead, just do it, it’ll be worth millions.

Really people, why doesn’t Christ work? Has his abilities waned over the years, are his truths less truthful in the twenty-first century, than they were in the first century? Maybe Jesus a liar, or just a kidder.

Are you a born again Christian, who’s having problems in your marriage? Are you pulling the “Family Card” out of your sleeve in order to win? Come on, drop the hoarding, and take you finger off the default button, give love a chance.

Are you being held hostage by your heritage? I am, you see when Christ gave me a new Father, a new brother and savior, and a new all trusting spiritual companion for guidance, I too become captive to my heritage…the new one, you know, the one that works, the old one sucks.  

Leaving Comments on WorthWrting

I think I've figured out why so many of you couldn't leave a message. On my Kona blog I had put as a choice under the comment box as one of the profile choices "Anonymous," the others were google accounts, wordpress, etc. Some people have google so they've been able to leave comments, but now anyone should be able to leave a comment if you chose anonymous as your profile choice.

IT IS EASY: At the bottom of each of my of my posts is a comment area, click on that and it will open a text box, write your comment in the box, then under the box it has a "Comment as" box, it will say "select profile", click on that and it will give you options, go all the way to the bottom for anonymous. Once you chose anonymous than simply click "Post Comment" bar below.

BUT...if you chose anonymous would you please give your name within your comments, something like "Dick, this is Jane Doe, I really thought your post was the most brilliant thing I've ever read, in all my under grad work and Doctorate work, I've never been so enlightened, you are simply the most brilliant writer I've ever come across." Something like that would do.

Once you leave your comment it will be posted next to the article for everyone to see, so, if you want to leave a hurtful comment, but you don't want me, or anyone else to know who you are, don't leave your Jane Doe. Anonymous, or your name, will appear at the top of your comment...you can see how others have done it, I've left a few short comments to test it out...

I would really like to hear from you, thanks for being part of my blog, God's blessings, Dick

Pants on the Ground, Pants on the Ground

One of the fun programs on television is “American Idol,” it is filled with drama, talent, bizarreness, luck, divine guidance, dreams and nightmares come true depending on the contestants. It is as they say in the business “great T.V.,” but it is the bizarreness that most attracts me, last year was a classic. A homeless black man who went by the name of General Larry Platt, who in his sixties, was bizarre enough to make it in front of the three judges and cameras, everyone, including Larry, knew he had no chance, merely due his age, but this was “great T.V.”, so when the judges finished talking he began to sing the soon to be viral hit classic “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, nothing but fools with their pants on the ground.”A clothing line soon followed, as did bumper stickers, tattoos, as well as making the “View,” and the Minnesota Vikings lockeroom as a fight song.

The other day I walked about a mile to the gym Carol and I belong to, I’m working extra hard to lose weight for my upcoming double knee replacement surgery, so working out and dieting have become an obsession, withing my regular workouts I’m also doing a lot of pre-surgery conditioning to strengthen my core, legs and upper body, so walking to the gym every once in awhile only adds to the effort.

On my walk home I decided to make a detour off the streets and walk Mission Viejo’s Country Clubs very private cart paths, this felt less naughty because it had rained for days and I knew no one would be out playing. The sun was beating faithfully though windows in the abundantly powerful clouds, full of white and substance, the air was cool with a gentle breeze keeping your senses alert.  I had a hooded sweat shirt, short workout pants, a tank top and nothing but time.

As I walked the steep cart path along the first hole (Actually the 15^th) on my walk, I was under a canopy of Fir, Birch and Eucalyptus trees, when the hole turned right, the 15^th green appeared surrounded by beautiful white sand traps. The contrast of the dark green trees, the light green grass and the white sand traps assaulted my senses.

I walked slower.

I walked once again up more steepness (yes, my knees hurt), I came to the sixteenth tee box, from on top you could see down two hundred yards to the green and sand traps below, walking down the steep cart path was painful, but my gate slowed more due the scene then the pain. When I finally arrived at the last tee box, which was a hundred and fifteen yards to the green, I noticed the very steep slope of grass that cascaded down the remaining hill, with no one around I lowered my body down on the slop, laying out flat with my head back staring at the hole in the sky with its penetrating sun beams.

I was in heaven. A golf course, a beautiful skyline, birds flying as if choreographed, an invigorating breeze, lying down, praying, thanking, thinking, and remembering my family who loved the game of golf. My mind wondered from my youth to my future.

I was alone but surrounded by joyful, pleasant thoughts, I became more thankful to God. As I soaked in the sun, I heard something, I lifted my head a little and cocked my ear, nothing, or was it something, I almost laid back down but felt a presence, I rolled onto my stomach and peaked back over the edge to the tee box, there it was, a human teeing up his ball, which would shortly be flying directly over my head. I arose slowly because of my knees hoping all the while that the man was one of those kibitzing golfers who took a lot of time to address his ball. He was.

I finally made it my feet and walked sideways as far as I could before he hit the ball, I angled upwards to get out of his sight (golfers hate people in their vision while hitting a golf ball), he didn’t notice, he didn’t speak, was it his voice I heard, was it just sounds he made getting his clubs. He had to be a member and members don’t like citizens on the golf course, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me. As I watched him hit and walk down towards the green pulling his golf cart, I became aware that perhaps he never saw me.

Weirdly, as he walked away out of sight so did the sun beam. My time in the sun was over.

As I walked very slowly home, I realized that my pants were soaked, and my smile felt permanent. I knew that for a few moments I stole ultimate joy from the day, I thought about being too busy to see these precious moments.

As I walked home with squishy pants, I couldn’t help thinking how mad my mom would’ve been if I’d come  home with dirty, wet pants, all I needed was to have a frog in my pants to cap off the moment.

It isn’t often that nature captures your youth, and when it does you need to savor it. I made a vow to spend more time with my pants on the ground, it only takes a few moments, but if you put your pants on the ground it will be priceless.