Journey to Sea Tree

Sea Tree - Page One

2011-10-30T19:27:00.001-04:00

This is the first page of my new novel, SeaTree.

A flock of Canadian geese soars between the peaks of McLeod and Greene mountains, dipping over the rolling pastures that dot McLeod Valley. Their silent approach takes them over a small white farmhouse, around a red-and-white bladed windmill beside a matching barn. Wings flare as the flock skims the surface of an irrigation pond. They will rest and feed in the harvested cornfield before resuming their way to the Chesapeake Bay.

A dirt road connects the farm to the one, narrow paved road linking the village of SeaTree with the rest of the state of Virginia. A handful of such farms spread across the valley. Cricket Creek meanders back and forth in a general north to south direction, and along its banks grow pines and oaks and an occasional pecan tree. The lower levels have been harvested of corn, tomatoes, and various legumes, and are now replanted with pumpkins, potatoes, and collard greens. Apple orchards separate fenced pastures on the sloping hillsides. Hay bales are stacked two high in long rows.

Two miles north of the farm, the town of SeaTree drapes over once-verdant hills that are now aglow in autumn’s reds and gold. The town is configured around the village square, with quaint cobblestone streets branching off from the square like spokes on an axle. The buildings are two and three stories tall. Their pitched roofs shed snow and rain and are covered in either red or green clay tiles. Flower boxes filled with yellow and purple mums adorn most of the windows, and each storefront sports a shingle bearing the name of the business inside. If it were not for the free Wi-Fi in the Peek-a-Boo Kilt Coffee Shop and the flat screen televisions in the bar of Christina’s Tuscany Ristorante, one would think they were in midlevel England or Scotland.

The town square serves as an open-air market during the day and an outdoor theater in the evening, as weather permits. Occasionally it is the site of community dances. Once a year it is where local artists and artisans show and sell their art to invited buyers who represent many of the finer galleries, jewelry and retail stores in major cities across the nation.

A mile behind the farm, perched half way up McLeod’s Mountain, a rugged lodge constructed from native stone and timbers commands an impressive view of the valley. The main part of the mansion is almost two hundred years old, but remodeled many times over the decades. And although the view afforded from its vantage point is inspiring; it was not the view that determined its location. Peter McLeod, an explorer and surveyor and friend of former President Thomas Jefferson, built the lodge. It was Jefferson who deeded the valley and 2,000 acres of mountain to McLeod. It was at Jefferson’s urging that McLeod agreed to conceal the entrance to the massive cavern that lies beneath the mountain that now bears his name.

A telescope, mounted in a dormer window on the third floor of the lodge, tracked the path of the geese as they passed above the lodge. Eleven birds in this flock. The telescope swiveled from the pond to follow the movement of a black Ford pickup that crept along the blacktop in the direction of town. Jim MacMaster’s truck. The driver’s arm is just visible as it rests on the doorframe. The constable was making his rounds. It is a beautiful Indian summer day for a drive, and a comfort to know that someone other than the current owner of McLeod’s Mansion was protecting SeaTree’s secrets.
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And this is the first couple of pages of the prequel "Journey To Seatree".

The Greyhound bus belched a puff of blue-gray smoke as it switched gears driving west out of Cumming, Georgia, climbing into the Appalachian foothills. It passed Coal Mountain, then Dahlonega before turning east onto Hwy 115/52. At Piney Mountain it would turn north onto Hwy 75, which runs through the Bavarian style town of Helen - a busy tourist village during the summer and fall. From Helen, narrow and curvy roads led into the North Carolina Mountains. The bus was bound for Asheville where its passengers would board other busses to other destinations.

C.J. got on the bus in Augusta, Georgia. Anxious to leave, she had fidgeted and changed seats three times before the driver closed the bus' door and backed out of the station on Broad Street, which ran parallel with the Savannah River and separated Georgia from South Carolina. She only relaxed after passing through Athens an hour later. C.J. got off the bus in Cumming long enough to buy a soda and hot dog from the grill next to the station. By the time they pulled out, she had finished her meal and dozed off. She did not notice the fiery red and golden yellow foliage that spread over mountain forests as far as the eye could see. She did not notice the bumping and jarring as the bus hit every pothole in the road. It was the jarring vibration of her cell phone that woke her.

Disoriented, she flinched upon realizing someone was sitting next to her. Her hand reached automatically for the pocketknife in her Gortex jacket pocket. She felt movement and looked around her, out the window, and back at the woman sitting beside her. "Bus." she said aloud. Why am I on a bus?" she asked herself. The answer came as the phone vibrated again. When she read the text message, the residual effects of grogginess were replaced by instant fear.

"I told you that you can't run from me. I'm coming after you." She knew he would come, just as she knew she must run. He doesn't know where I am, she thought. But he knows you're gone. He doesn't know how I left, one part of her mind told her. The other told her that Abe knew she did not fly and was too young to rent a car. It was either take a bus or hitchhike.

"Fool!" she almost said aloud. Abe sold drugs at the bus station. Someone might have seen her get on the bus. It wouldn't be hard for him to find out whether she bought a ticket or where she was going. "Think." she told herself. It's an hour by car to Athens, another hour to Cumming....he could catch up to us before we reach Helen at the speed we're going!

Grabbing her backpack from between her feet, C.J. lunged over the woman sitting next to her, muttering "Sorry", before hurrying to the front of the bus where she knelt down behind the driver. "I've got to get off the bus!" she said to the driver, trying to keep her voice low.

"Our next stop is Helen. I can't stop before then." the driver said, glancing at her through the rear-view mirror. "It's only 45 more minutes." he added.

"You don't understand", C.J. said shaking her head. "I can't go to Helen. I've got to get off here." The driver started to protest, but C.J. reached past him, yanked the handle, and opened the door. "Let me off or I'll jump," she threatened.

The cold air flowing through the doors alerted the other passengers who began murmuring and straining to see what was happening at the front of the bus. The driver swerved and crossed into the oncoming lane before correcting the vehicle. "You're crazy, woman!" he shouted. "You trying to get us killed?"

"Let. Me. Out." C.J. said threateningly. "Now!"

The driver could hear the fear and grumbling of his passengers. Better to get rid of this one before things get worse. He pulled the bus over to the shoulder, leaving C.J. very little room to exit between the bus and the guardrail. Fortunately, there were no cars behind him and none in sight. "You're going to get hurt out here in the middle of nowhere," he warned her. Jennifer shook her head and shot him the bird before moving towards the rear of the bus. The driver shot her the bird in return before slamming the door and pulling back into traffic. Blue diesel smoke shrouded her figure as he negotiated the next curve. He would report the incident to the clerk at the next stop just to cover his butt. All it takes is one crazy passenger to upset the whole bus.

C.J. waited until the bus was out of sight. She did not want the driver to know which direction she was headed. She didn't know for that matter. If she went forward, she was going toward Helen and that's where Abe might be waiting for her. If she went backward, she might pass him and there would be no one to help her. Forward was better than backward. She'd take the next road that turned off this one and hope it wasn't a dead end.

Mama's Cookbook

2011-10-22T23:45:00.000-04:00

I don't recall the toys Santa left under the Christmas tree when I was still young enough to believe. I do remember the days leading up to the big day when we would feast on a smorgasboard of exotic foods, like turkey, tangerines, apple turn-overs, brunswich stew, Brazil nuts, and the fruit salad that Mama let me prepare.

My brother and I would fill a two-gallon lard bucket with pecans found under the trees in our backyard. Apples, picked from the mountain orchards of the Blue Ridge, were brought up from the cellar; along with Mason jars filled with snap beans, butter beans, and canned peaches. The Christmas tree would go up, covered in silver icycle tinsel, so thick you could barely make out the glass ornaments underneath. Plastic candles would go in the windows, each with a different color lightbulb. Lighted garland was wrapped around the metal columns on our front porch.

In the evenings, we would sit at the dining room table and watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Miracle on 34th Street", and, my favorite - "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol". We'd use the time to crack pe-cans (not pecahns), walnuts, hazelnuts, and Brazil nuts. Mama stood behind the ironing board pressing the linens for the Christmas table, while Daddy scrubbed the Irish and sweet potatoes we'd grown in our own garden.

Mama prepared the desserts first so that the oven was free to cook the foods that wold be served hot. The graham cracker cake, pineapple upside-down cake, coconut cake, chocolate, pecan and sweet potato pies were stored in the cool, dark closet under the staircase.

We had no original family recipes, except perhaps the fruit salad, which I'll tell you about in a moment. Mama used the Searchlight Recipe Book which she'd ordered form Household Magazine. Today it sits on my shelf along with dozens of other cookbooks. Some of the pages bear stains in the shape of the tablespoons used to hold the pages open to the recipes she wanted to prepare.

There is one stain next to the Ginger Ale Cocktail, a drink we'd serve after the church's Christmas program. The corner of the page is turned down where the recipe for Honey Peanut Butter Fudge is found. Page 160 is stained where a newspaper clipping was used as a bookmark for Water Ices. The advertisement is from 1968, and announces "SINGER presents ELVIS...SEE ELVIS IN HIS FIRST TV SPECIAL! WATCH SINGER presents ELVIS ON NBC-TV...IN COLOR." Elvis was my idol as I was growing up. Mama kept the clipping for me.

The indexes that are curled the most indicate which recipes Mama used the most: Icings and Fillings, Meats, and Pudding.

A pink sheet of notepaper is tucked behind the last page of the dessert section. On it is my mother's recipe for fruit cake. While many people confess they don't like fruit cake, to me the fruit cake is to Christmas what the lighted tree, the mistletoe, and the nativity scene are. In her words, here is Mama's recipe for a Southern fruit cake:

"1 lbs - Negro toes (Brazil nuts)
1 lb - English Walnuts
1 lb - Green Raisins
1 lb - Candied fruit
1 lb - Marsh mellows
1 lb - Graham crackers
1 can of Bordens (condensed milk)
Eagle brand milk
Heat milk in a double boiler then put in marsh mellows and let melt. Then add all to gether and pack firmly in place...in foil paper."

That's all. No oven temperature, no baking time, no prep. Those things were understood by anyone who knew anything about cooking and baking. (Actually, I don't think this kind of fruit cake is baked. There's no batter. The milk and marshmellows must hold it together.)

On Christmas Day the Searchlight Recipe Book would go back in the drawer under the kitchen towels and wash cloths, and the table would be set with linens, placemats, real napkins, and Mama's china reserved for Christmas Day. A platter containing a glazed sugar-cured ham, sliced at an angle and surrounded by slices of fresh tomatoes anchored one end of the table. On the opposite end was a matching platter with a sixteen pound golden-skinned turkey. When carved, the scent of oranges and bayleaves wafted from the turkey. The turkey cavity had been stuffed with whole oranges and its skin had been bathed in a wine-olive oil mixture and topped with whole bayleaves, Italian seasoning, and celery and lemon salts. Thick, brown giblet gravy was ladeled from Mama's white gravy boat over the turkey and mashed potatoes.

Oyster crackers floated in yellow bowls of tomato soup. There were corn fritters in the shape of ears of corn in an oval yellow dish. Blue Dutch pattern serving bowls contained steaming butterbeans, green beans, pinto beans, and brunswich stew, barely leaving room for the congealed salads - one a cranberry, and the other a jellied vegetable salad the kids wouldn't touch.

The sideboard and kitchen counters were loaded down with dinner roles, deviled eggs, collard greens, clam dip, jugs of sweet tea, pies, cakes, pumpkin rolls, cookies, apple turnovers, the fruitcake and my fruit salad. Mama had slaved over every dish, and it didn't matter that it was too much food; none of it would go to waste. But before I could eat the fruit salad, I had to finish enough meat and vegetables to satisfy Mama.

The Southern fruit salad is simle. In a large bowl, throw in bite-sized chunks of slicked oranges, tangerines, apples, purple grapes, canned pineapple chunks, and sliced bananas. Next, add a cup of Duke's mayonaisse, the juice from one can of pineapple, and a cup of sugar. Stir until all the ingredients were covered, then taste. Add more sugar - this is Southern fruit salad. When it's to your liking, sprinkle with a handful of coconut. If you like raisins you can put them in. I don't, so I didn't. Then you grab a cereal or soup bowl, not one of your mother's crystal ice cream dishes, and kick back in front of the TV and watch "It's a Wonderful Life".

Christmas, to Mama at least, was more about family than about gifts. She and Daddy had survived the Great Depression, so material things never had a hold on them as they do on us today. We ate simply all year long. We were never hungry, but Christmas was the one time out of the year when our parents splurged. They did it for the kids, and as we grew older, they did it for our wives and their grandkids. Mama tried to make that Christmas table look like the dishes depicted on the inside cover of the Searchlight Recipe Book. It was how she expressed her love and devotion to her family.

The Juggler

2011-08-15T22:22:00.011-04:00

Imagine yourself as a juggler. You've got all these objects that you're juggling because there's not enough room in your hands to hold them all at one time. Although they're the same size, some are different colors, different weights, different materials; but you're juggling them all at once, treating them the same.

We spend our lives juggling things. The older we get, or the more motivated we become, the more things we have to juggle. One of the things we juggle is our free time. Another is our jobs. Another could be our spouse and depending on how many children we have, there's an object to juggle for each one. We juggle our friends, our dreams and ambitions, our responsibilities, and we juggle our health and our sanity.

There is so much going on in our lives, it seems we spend all of our time putting out fires. Occasionally we drop the ball. There are some things that we can drop and it's no big deal. Others, and it seems the end of the world. With so much to juggle, how do you decide what to drop and what you need to keep going?

Your job is like a tennis ball. You can drop it and most of the time it will bounce back. It may bounce away and you have to chase it awhile, but for the most part, you can keep a job. But what about a spouse or a child? These aren't made of rubber - they're fragile, like a Christmas ornament. Drop these, and there's no fixing them. They're gone for good. You can drop a habit and never have to pick it up again, but drop the trust someone has bestowed on you and you may never get it back.

We've all got the same number of hours in the day. The way we choose to spend our time and the number of objects that we choose to juggle reflect what's important to us. When we keep making room for something new, something else gets less of our time.

We juggle career and ambition and drop that precious little girl who adores her daddy. By the time we turn our attention back to her, she's hanging out with someone who doesn't care about her, and she accepts it because her dad didn't care either. Or, we juggle things - the latest gadgets that make us look cool, and we ignore our health. Before we're eligible for AARP, we're wearing a pacemaker and taking insulin shots.

What's really important? What do we really need to juggle, and which ones should we drop so that we can better handle the ones that matter most? If dropping something will break it, that's probably the ones we need to keep.

When my second youngest child was battling cancer, I was juggling work, marriage, my other kids, my grandchildren, church, my own spiritual growth, my own dreams, living up to what I thought people expected of me, too much personal debt, growing older, and worried about what sort of future I would have if I dropped any one of these things. As a result, my sick daughter had to be self-dependent at a time when she really needed to be dependent upon me. And when she passed away, all the things I thought I was juggling for all the right reasons were simply not worth what I gave up. A relationship with my daughter was as fragile as a Christmas tree ornament; and its loss is something I'll never replace.

Among the many balls I was juggling was faith and wishful thinking. I believed God could heal my daughter, but I wasn't sure He would - or that He had, for scripture says that Christ was wounded for our transgressions and bruised from our iniquities, but that by His stripes we were healed. Jesus spoke about faith the size of a mustard seed that could move mountains, and I never understood it until I confronted the certainty of mortality and the hope it wasn't my daughter's time. I felt I lacked the faith necessary to bring the healing Christ had already accomplished into a daughter I saw dying in front of me. But by not dropping that ball of faith, I was able to handle her death with the certain knowledge that I'll see her again - as I prayed she would be: well, whole, safe, happy.

My dad was 44 years old when I was born. I knew he loved me and that he did the very best he could to provide for his family, but I don't remember a time when he ever tossed me a baseball or came to one of my track meets. We never went fishing or had a dad-son talk about becoming a man. He was too busy doing what men were expected to do in his time. When he wasn't working at the hardware store, he was working in the garden, mowing the lawn, attending deacon's meetings at church or meetings at the Masonic Lodge or the Shrine. Did I need to play catch or have Daddy hold my hand when we walked down the street? I still wonder 'what if'? Would I have spent more time with my daughter if my dad had spent more time with me?

Perhaps it was the lack of intimacy between my father and me, and the example he had set of working hard to provide for his family as his number one priority, but near the end of his life I felt uncomfortable watching a man of such strength weaken until he needed help pulling up his pants. When Mama could no longer care for him and Daddy had to be put into a nursing home, I would go for weeks at a time without visiting because I didn't want to see my father wither away. Perhaps my mother resisted going into a nursing home when we could no longer care for her because she feared we'd forget about her and she would die alone.

These are regrets I can no longer do anything about. I dropped the ball on opportunities to care for my parents after they'd spent their lives caring for me. Most of the balls I juggled during this period were distractions to keep me from facing the loss of my loved ones.

During my 24 years in the Army, I sold out 100% to my career. I took pride in being the best at what I did. My career decisions dictated my decisions for my family - where we would go, how long we would stay, where we would live. During those 24 years, I was married and divorced three times, and had six children. Now, as I approach 60, there are some things I wish I'd not done and lots of things I wish I had done. The things I regret the most are the things that affected my relationships with the people I love the most. No career is more important than your family. What good does it do to be the best and not have someone to share it with?

Now that I'm approaching the winter of my life, I can appreciate the importance of priorities: God, family, others, and self. In any other order, the results lead to regrets. Another ball we juggle is trying to limit life's regrets; but we must be careful that in trying to avoid pain, we miss out on the joy such pain can bring.

The Pin-Up

2011-07-10T21:05:00.008-04:00

When it came to learning about the birds and bees, the only thing I remember Mama telling me was, "Watch out for women. Once you get them pregnant, you're stuck." Daddy never had that talk with me either, so my first introduction to sex education came from 'National Geographic' magazines. It wasn't long before some of my classmates were passing around girlie magazines with close-ups on the topless models. I knew it was wrong to look at these pictures, but no one really told me why except that God was watching and He had forbidden it. My curiosity was greater than my fear of the Lord, and since no one had come up with a better reason than "God said so", I did what most teenage boys did. I learned to hide nude pictures inside the pages of my school books, because I knew my mother would look under my mattress and through my dresser drawers and I didn't want her to find out I looked at pornography.

In pictures more revealing than this one, where young women strike poses only because they're paid to do so, I learned everything I thought I needed to know about the opposite sex. As it turned out, I didn't learn anything, and when I had my own kids, I gave them the same spiel my parents gave me about sex - which amounted to nothing. So maybe here I can teach my grandchildren something that will make their lives better.

Imagine that you had the actual photograph of the girl above. Draw a circle around her face, then another around her chest, and a third one around her hips. These are the three areas that need the most protection. If you will focus on the face inside the circle you've drawn, what do you see? That face could belong to a girl named Katie or Ashley. She's some dad's little princess. Her mom probably drove her to soccer games and put bandaids over scraped knees and elbows. She and her siblings played with Barbie dolls and played make believe dressed in their parents' clothes. Her parents sat through boring and painful piano recitals just to watch their little girl perform - even if her feet could barely reach the pedals and her fingers weren't long enough to cover the keys to create a note properly. No matter how beautiful she becomes, her father will always see her as that 11 year old daddy's girl who dressed like a tomboy and who never left his side. He is torn between pride and fear of the day he has to walk her down the aisle and give her to a man he hopes loves her every bit as much as he does. The hopes and dreams for this girl's future is what motivates her parents to sacrifice and to try to prepare their little girl for a world beyond their ability to help her navigate.

While it's the face that first attracts a boy's (or man's) attention, it is the area between her hips that ignites male passions. The male doesn't see a vaginal canal that leads to the uterus which contains two ovaries that some day may produce an egg that becomes another human being. The male doesn't care that at least once a month this part of her anatomy that they obsess about is dirty as it carries away impurities from her body. Most males don't know that a woman in childbirth is far more beautiful than a woman who simply spreads her legs to satisfy their lusts.

The area around this girl's chest draws almost as much attention from a guy as does her vaginal area. What guys don't see when they're looking at a woman's breasts is what lies behind them - the most important part of any woman, or man. Looking at images like this one, especially over time, imprints on the mind, and on the heart. Most men imagine what they would like to do with this girl, but few give any thought as to what they would do once their passions are sated. When done, most men would try to figure out how to get rid of her until they wanted her again.

Kids - grandkids - when you look at images such as this one, it affects your values and your opinions. It's why when a man has been married a few years, he will think back to the images he's imprinted on his mind and start wondering about all the green grass he's missing outside of his marriage. This mental attitude affects his emotional attitude - his heart. The person that he promised to love and cherish and cling to gradually becomes a nagging ball-and-chain that robs him of any pleasure. He starts to look at other women, and if they pay attention to him, and if they present to him what he used to lust over; this man will leave his wife and kids for another woman. And the cycle will repeat itself because the grass will always look greener. To men like this, women become a piece of meat, a recepticle of pleasure - little more than a tool that can be disposed of at will. Love is not a tool.

When God commanded that a man love his wife and cling to her and she to him, He wasn't trying to spoil our fun. He was trying to show us a better way to live. God's love never tries to hurt us, but to protect us from settling for less than His best in our lives. There are things that nobody but our parents when we're young, and our spouses when we're older should see and experience. There ought to be in marriage images imprinted on your heart of secret things that should belong only to you: The way your wife sits on the side of the tub and bends over to towel dry her hair. The scent and feel of the lotion she smoothes on her legs after a bath. The location of a birthmark or scar; her ticklish spots, or the places where your kisses cause her to tremble. You should know the way she snores when she sleeps and miss her snores when you're spending the night alone away from home. Instead of paying to see something that doesn't belong to you, it is better to wait and let her show you what she's been saving for you alone to see. These images ought to be reminders of what you love about the person you have chosen to be in relationship with. If you find the right soul mate, the memories you'll make will last a lifetime.

Guard what you allow your eyes to see - appearances can be deceiving, and the anticipation is usually more exciting than the actual experience. Guard your virtue - give it to the one you plan on spending the rest of your life with. And finally, guard your heart. Don't let the wrong kind of person break it so that you can't give all your love to the right person.

It's Not God's Problem

2011-04-20T17:55:00.002-04:00

In his State of the Union address, President Obama promised the American people that he would give them an accounting for how their tax dollars are spent. Our society is complex and no one knows where our taxes are going, only that we seem to be paying too much. Recently, the White House released a website where our citizens can go and plug in their own numbers and get an itemized report of where their tax dollars were spent. Check it out here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt

As our economy struggles and it appears that things will only get worse, Americans are turning to prayer out of desperation. We can’t seem to learn the wisdom of turning to God before we make bad decisions and thus avoid desperation. But, God is not obligated to provide for wants that we’ve turned into needs.

Many Americans are proclaiming the end-times as the cause for all the wars, corporate corruption, lack of morals and character, and all the ills that seem to be threatening our lives. I suggest that we’re just harvesting what we've sown.

People ask “Why is God letting me go through this?” And the answer is, “Because you got what you asked for.” For generations now, Americans have turned to the government for sustenance rather than to Him. Every time we’ve told our representatives we wanted something, it’s come with a price tag in the form of taxes.

We demand clean water; our politicians say “I can provide that”. We demand highways so that we can travel and conduct business and they say, “Sure – no problem.” We demand safer working environments, and the government legislates the workplace. We demand protection from danger from enemies foreign and domestic, and our government supplies a military and police/fire protection. We demand a minimum wage and the government requires businesses to pay more, so the cost of payroll causes prices to rise for everyone.

We want the elderly and poor taken care of, but not out of our wallets - let the government provide for our seniors and the impoverished. We don't know our neighbor well enough to lend him our chain saw when a tree falls on his house, let him call FEMA for help. We don't have time to monitor our kids' activities, the government must screen movies and rate music for us.

We demand healthcare, and the government gets to decide what your life is worth and it tells you what to put in and on your body. We demand compensation when we are injured or feel slighted, and the government forces businesses and individuals to purchase insurance to cover lawsuits. We demand the right to parade our sexual preferences or our racial and cultural differences – things that have nothing to do with our character or our worth, and the government writes laws banning hate-speech. We demand the right to not be inconvenienced with unwanted pregnancies, and the government funds groups like Planned Parenthood. We demanded an income in our retirement, and the government gave us Social Security. We demanded medical care when we’re retired and have no health insurance –and the government gave us Medicare/Medicaid.

If we can’t get what we want for free from the government, we steal it, and the government provides prisons and guards. We demand the right to buy houses we can’t afford and the government guarantees the loan with taxpayer’s money. We demand the right to have what we want now rather than wait until we can afford it, and the government regulates how much interest the credit card lenders can charge you. We demand equal opportunity, and the government forces businesses to hire employees based on affirmative action rather than qualifications. We demand the right to a free education and the government tells us what can and can’t be taught to our children. We demand that our kids be able to go to college even if their grades aren’t worthy, and the government provides student loans and grants.

Worse, even if you don’t want the government involved in any of these things, your tax dollars are funding them. You may be employed, but you’re paying 4.4% of the costs for those who don’t work. You have always worked to support your family, but 10.7% for those who can’t or won’t. You don’t mind the 26% spent on national defense, but you do mind the 1.7% spent on aid to foreign countries.

America has gotten what we’ve wanted, but it’s cost us more than it’s worth. We are paying for things we never benefitted from, and we’re passing along to our children and grandchildren a debt that they can’t afford to pay. America has been selfish. We were not satisfied with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness –we wanted more. We ignored our founders when they warned about giving government too much power or about entering into entangling alliances that serve us no useful purpose. We ignored the fact that they were dependent upon the Creator for the foundation of our nation, and their prayers for our continued success, and we allowed our government to be everything to everyone.

Now we turn to God and expect Him to ignore what we’ve demanded all these years. We expect Him to help us choose the right lottery numbers or give us an idea that will make us wealthy. We want out of our circumstances; but we don’t want to let go of the things that are keeping us enslaved.

Whether God chooses to come to the aid of any of us is up to Him. We chose to put our trust in compromisers and power seekers. God just let us have our way. We have no right to expect most of the services that our government supplies, but if we’re going to demand them; we’ve got to pay for them. If we don’t want to pay for them, let’s get rid of them. It’s not God’s problem, it’s ours.

Why the Fear?

2011-04-10T22:28:00.004-04:00

The bike you see above belongs to Pastor David Smith. He has donated his bike to raise funds to help a ministry to the homeless that he started about a year ago in Durham, North Carolina. It's a beautiful bike, and it means something to David; but he's willing to part with it if it helps us feed, clothe, and most of all - share Jesus with hurting people.

It's late Sunday night,the end of a long and emotional weekend. We began on Saturday helping David and a wonderful group of volunteers with Meet Me At the Bridge. The weather was cloudy and a bit cool, and the weather prevented a lot of the regular guests from showing up for a meal or some clean clothes. Still, the worship music and the message were wonderful. My first tears came during one of the worship songs, an old one we used to sing when I was a child in church.

I talked with one of the homeless who shows up to help sort clothes...or rather I talked at him. His name is Dan. Dan's on the small side. His beard is graying, but he's clean and dressed in clothes suitable for the weather. Dan once worked for a business for more than 20 years. I suppose they paid him under the table due to his poor hearing. They never took out social security or offered him a retirement plan; so when the company closed down, Dan suddenly found himself jobless and homeless at the age of 52.

Dan walks a lot. He's tireless. Sometimes he's helping the homeless in Durham and sometimes he's in Raleigh. The Bridge has come to depend upon him to let us know who needs help and who might be looking for something they can sell to support their habit. I mentioned that I talked at Dan, because I didn't know until today that Dan has a serious hearing problem. He read my lips as we talked about where he was from. He spoke about telling other homeless people about coming to the Bridge for help. Dan told me that some of them wore the same clothes for a week at a time, and he'd tell them that there were clean, good clothes if they'd only come down to the park to get them. He talked about people needing to take responsibility for themselves, to keep themselves clean, to have some pride even if they didn't have a roof over their head.

As we were packing up to leave, I found a nice leather bag laying next to a hedge. I took it to some of the other volunteers to see if they knew who it belonged to. Pastor Smith was heading our way when one of the volunteers called out, "Does anyone know who this belongs to?" David nodded and said that it was his. He kept his iPad and minnistry tools in it. However Dan, because he can not hear well, only saw the volunteer holding up the bag and said, "Man, I could sure use that bag!" Without hesitation, David turned to Dan and said, "Brother, I brought it just for you." Dan quickly moved the few items he had in plastic Wal-Mart bags into the leather bag, gave David a hug and went on his way. That bag probably cost him more than $50, but it was just a thing God gave him so that he could bless someone else. I don't think anyone noticed the tears in my eyes. That's the kind of man David is.

David once pastored a church of several thousand; but about a year ago he felt that God was calling him to do something completely out of his comfort zone. He has a doctorate degree and has spent a lot of time as a traveling speaker. David lived in a nice house, drove expensive imports and wore a Rolex. Those things are just about gone now, but David never asks for help for himself. He has no income and takes no collection...not that the homeless have anything to give. Day after day, David walks the streets of Durham, earning the trust of the homeless, and trusting God not just for his ministry needs, but his own as well.

Today we had our semi-monthly meeting of volunteers. As busy as David is, he likes to bring his volunteers together to talk and joke as well as plan the next meal or opportunities he sees for Meet Me At the Bridge. David knows that many people are compassionate, but very few are passionate enough to sacrifice their time and resources indefinitely, so he's building a spiritual family so that we can continue to meet the needs of people that Jesus cares about. David is soft-spoken and gentle. Everything he says points towards God's love for us. His FaceBook posts are always uplifting. He's given just about everything he owns to be able to do what he knows God has called him to do. David lives by faith, not knowing where the resources and the help might come from - but he knows what God called him to do.

I say all of this because I want to ask you for a couple of things. First, Dan needs a good hearing aid. We can find someone who will fit it for him, but we can't afford to buy one. Dan deserves a hearing aid. He's a precious man.

Second, I want to ask you to make a donation in return for a raffle ticket with a chance of winning David's bike - a limited edition 1996 Harley Davidson Bad Boy. Notice that I emphasized it's a donation. The bike is great if you happen to be the one who wins it, but more importantly, your donation is going to help people like Dan - many of them veterans, some with addiction problems, some with mental issues. Our purpose isn't to come up with a bunch of programs - there are many of those available. Our purpose is to let hurting people know that God loves and cares about them.

Would you consider donating $20 to help David and Meet Me At the Bridge? If you will, we'll enter you into the raffle. Donate $100 and we'll send you six tickets. You can contribute on our website: www.meetmeatthebridge.com. Just enter "Bike raffle" in the note field. You may not care about a motorcycle, and that's fine. We have no corporate sponsors or government assistance. Everything comes from the pockets of the volunteers. We could use some more volunteers, or we could use your financial support. Dan is just one example of the people helped by Meet Me At the Bridge. There are hundreds that need our help.

Today, as we sat outdoors eating together and enjoying the beautiful weather, David mentioned that all of the revenue streams we've had seem to have dried up. So, what does all of this have to do with fear? Well, as I've tried to sell raffle tickets or ask people to donate, I'm getting a lot of excuses. The economy is awful, and many people worry about their jobs. They have a lot of personal debt that causes stress. Many are at the point that their charitable giving now goes to help their immediate family. There is a sense of hopelessness and fear in our nation, even among the faith community.

Fear immobilizes. Fear interferes with creativity. Fear keeps us from taking risks. Fear is a sign that our faith is in crisis. Courage is not the absence of fear - but the will to do something in spite of fear. I'm looking for some courageous people who can see beyond your circumstances and recognize God's plan for David Smith and Meet Me At the Bridge.

$20 is a lot of money to risk on a chance to win a bike. You can buy a quarter tank of gas with that much money, or go to a movie by yourself. It might buy your lunch for two or three days. May I suggest that you're looking at this the wrong way. $20 will buy enough bread to feed 60-80 people. $20 will buy enough pasta to feed 100 homeless men and women. $20 will buy toiletries for five homeless people. $20 will buy a pair of sneakers for someone who's using cardboard to cover the holes in the soles of their shoes. $20 is a lot of money, especially when it's given away.

To thank you for your $20 donation, we'll send you a chance to win that beautiful bike pictured above. Would you tell your family and friends about Meet Me At the Bridge and ask them to help. If you don't ride a motorcycle, you could sell it. If I win that bike, I'm giving it back to David because he's willing to give it away. Some of you could become sponsors of Meet Me At the Bridge. A few people giving $20 per month goes a long way. David might not ask you to help, but I will because I love David and I love what he is doing.

Thank you for reading this long post. I can't describe to you what it's like to be part of Meet Me At the Bridge, and to be around Pastor Smith and my own pastor and his family as they minister to the poor and homeless. It certainly has provided perspective in my own life. If you're local to the Raleigh/Durham area, please come out and volunteer with us. If you know of a hearing aid that could help Dan hear again, please contact me here, on FaceBook or David at the MMATB website. And please, help us sell all of the raffle tickets and raise money so that Meet Me At the Bridge can continue to feed, clothe, counsel, and disciple the homeless in Durham. "Fear not, says the Lord, for I know the plans I have for you...."

The Ant and the Contact

2011-04-02T17:26:00.004-04:00

I read this story elsewhere but wanted to share it with people on my blog.

Brenda, an amateur climber, was almost halfway to the top of a huge granite mountain. She had stopped for a breather on a tiny ledge, but as she rested there, the tension on the safety rope caused it to snap in her face, dislodging one of her contact lenses.

Desperately she searched the small ledge in the hope that it had fallen close at hand. Brenda was at the point where it was almost as far back down as it was to the top. She didn't want to quit, but she needed her contacts to see clearly. After an unsuccessful search, Brenda decided to press on rather than waste all that effort already put into the climb.

Climbing was difficult with her impaired vision. Brenda fought panic and fear until she reached the top. There, a fellow climber searched her clothing and hair in hopes of finding the missing contact. As tough as the climb had been, going back down was equally frightening, so Brenda prayed.

Brenda thought about the scripture that said 'The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.' The beauty she had expected to see at the top was instead blurry. She thought, 'Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.'

When she felt calm enough to begin the descent, Brenda continued to pray for her safety. Finally, on a trail near the bottom of the cliff they passed another party of climbers on the way up. One of the climbers shouted out, 'Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?'

Brenda was stunned. How did they know she'd lost her contact lens? It turned out that the only reason they had spotted it was because it was seen moving slowly across a twig on the back of an ant. What are the odds that someone would have noticed an ant had it not been on that twig at the precise time they were passing?

The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told
him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, 'Lord, I don't know why you want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what you want me to do; I'll carry it for you.'

This is a true story, and there are many lessons we can learn from this story. Perhaps chiefly among these lessons is this: We don't always, in fact we seldom, understand why we're stuck carrying the loads we are shouldered with. We can't see any potential for good, and often our burdens are heavy and heartbreaking. We can complain and ask God to remove the circumstance from our life, or we can accept our burden and say, "If You want me to carry this load Lord, I will."

Another lesson is that even when you don't sense the Lord moving in your life, He is. I can imagine that contact lens fluttering hundreds of feet down the side of that mountain only to land where it would never be found; but God saw where it went, and even before Brenda prayed, He sent that ant as an answer to her prayer. The ant couldn't eat that contact. It was heavy, it was awkward, but God used what was available to get the help to the person who needed it.

God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. He is our source of existence and our Savior. He keeps us functioning each and every day. Without Him, I am nothing, but with Him...I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)

Becoming a Ditty-Bopper

2011-03-16T08:15:00.001-04:00

"Action is the real measure of intelligence." - Napoleon Hill
"Private, you're behind every student in this class. If I don't see some improvement soon, I'm going to kick you out of my course and recommend you be sent to the Infantry and to VietNam." (I left out the expletives in this 'pep'-talk, but feel free to use your imagination.) As I stood at attention before the senior instructor, my fists were clenched and tears of anger and embarrassment blurred my vision. It was bad enough to be cursed at by the sergeant, but to listen to the giggles from the junior NCOs present in the room was worse. Fortunately, my fellow-students were wearing headsets and could not hear the chewing out I was receiving.

For three weeks I had struggled to learn the sounds of Morse code characters. Although I had exceptional test scores on my vocational aptitude tests, the only low scores I had were in the area of foreign language - yet here I was trying to learn what was essentially another language - even though the vocabulary was limited to three distinct sounds: di, dah, and dit. While the rest of the class had learned the Morse alphabet, I continued to struggle. Little did I know at the time that the instructor's pep-talk was the motivation I needed to succeed; or that I myself would become a Morse code instructor one day.

I returned red-faced to my seat and put the headphones back on; but I could not concentrate on the sounds I was hearing. I fumed over the way I'd been called out and determined right there to get out of this class as quickly as possible. That night I lay in my bunk, listening to classmates dream about Morse code. "Di-dah. Alpha. "Dah-di-di-dit. Bravo," and so on. We spent the first hour every morning reciting this code and it became so repetitive that we'd dream about it at night, verbalizing the code in our sleep.

We had a nick-name for students of Morse-Code: Ditty-boppers. We had a habit of tilting our heads or using one hand to hold the headset tighter against the ear to better hear the sounds coming through the radio. In class you'd look around and see heads bobbing back and forth as students found the rhythm of the code - thus ditty-bopping. Back in the barracks, we'd talk to each other in Morse code: "di-di-dah-dah-di-dit" meant "What's up?" We cursed in Morse code. Some of us made the pilgrimage into Boston one weekend and paid homage to Samuel Morse by urinating on his grave. In a way, we were being brainwashed.

In order to learn Morse code you have to be young - meaning that you can't already have your mind filled with distractions like family, responsibility, etc. You must also learn to use a certain part of your brain. When you hear a sound, your mind instantly associates it with a character on your keyboard.

The morning after the sergeant chewed me out; I went into class and passed two lessons. The sounds started making sense to me. The following day I caught up with the rest of the class. Within two weeks I was so far ahead of the rest of the class that they cut my class time to two hours per day. I ended up graduating four weeks ahead of my class along with the previous class and was promoted to Specialist (equivalent to Corporal). Then I was selected for additional training because they needed replacements in Asmara, Ethiopia. The requirements to pass the course were to be able to copy twenty words per minute of Morse code. The requirement for assignment to the spy station in Asmara was twenty-five words per minute. I was copying thirty-five words per minute. Of the eighteen replacements needed, only nine of us would qualify. While the rest of my class was ordered to service in Viet-Nam, the nine of us headed to North Africa.

It was in Ethiopia that I met my first wife. She already had a son by another American soldier. Because he was of mixed race and parentage, he had no rights and no protection by the Ethiopian government or its society. I adopted him and brought him and his mother to the United States, where he now serves in our military. I used my ditty-bopper skills under the American consulate in Berlin, Germany during the Cold War, intercepting Soviet and East Germany radio traffic.

That over-weight, foul-mouthed Sergeant didn't teach me Morse-Code, but he did teach me to hate failure. Whenever I made mistakes after that, I made sure that they never had reason to chew me out for the same thing a second time. As a result of that painful experience, I became a Radio-Teletypewriter instructor at Fort Gordon, Georgia; and later I became the Army's authority on personnel records. Adversity is a great teacher. Although I have not used Morse code in the past thirty years, I still remember it. My kids get a kick out of asking me to 'Say something in Morse code, Dad!"

Mama's Hands

2011-03-09T09:11:00.002-05:00

The first photo is a 3x3 black and white photograph of my mother holding me in her arms outside the rear of our peeling white clapboard house. I’m a chubby baby of about six months. Mama is 40 years old. Her dark brown hair is permed and she’s wearing a dark dress, so it must be a Sunday.

The second photo is of my mother holding my grandson as she’s sitting in her recliner. Josh is lying in her lap. He’s just a little thing, but Mama is 91 years old and lacks the strength to hold him in her arms. Mama’s hair is snow white and thinning, and her pink scalp is visible in places. Yet what I’m drawn to most in this photo are Mama’s hands. The fingers are long and thin. The knuckles and joints are protruded, and there is evidence of the arthritis that has pained her for the past twenty years. The backs of Mama’s hands are covered in age spots and thin blue veins; they are dry like parchment paper and almost translucent.

Mama is touching Josh’s face with the tips of her fingers, and I suspect she’s marveling at how smooth and soft his skin is. I imagine here that she is remembering touching my own face a half century earlier. "Where has the time gone?" she thinks. Perhaps we both know that she won't be around to see Josh start school. Somewhere in between, I’ve given her six grandchildren to hold; my brothers have given her seven more - but perhaps in this moment, her mind is on her own babies – five in total: Roger is the oldest, then James and John - twins who died at birth; next there is me, and eighteen months later, my youngest brother, Ray. If we weren’t enough children to raise, Mama and Daddy adopted two brothers and a sister from the orphanage rather than allow them to be split apart in other foster homes.

Mama was the oldest of twelve children. When she wasn’t laboring in the tobacco fields, she was helping her step-mother raise her brothers and sisters. How many diapers have those hands changed? How many spoons has she held to feed her loved ones? How many hours has she spent washing and ironing clothes, kneading dough for biscuits, sewing clothes and quilts for her family? When Mama had her own children, she milked a goat to feed Roger because he couldn't keep cow's milk down. She raised chickens, skinned rabbits and squirrels because it was the only meat they could afford to feed the family.

Mama’s hands smoothed the linens on the communion tables – linens she washed and ironed; she poured the juice she sliced the communion bread in service to the Lord. Her hands held the Bibles and Sunday school books she read and taught from; and they wrote out the tithe checks no matter how much she needed the money for groceries and prescriptions. Those hands scrubbed floors and walls to keep her home clean. They planted flowers and vegetables, shucked corn, shelled beans, stirred pots, and twisted canning jar lids. Mama’s hands bathed us, buttoned our clothes - clothes that she had sewn herself, and tied our shoes. They bathed and shaved my father after his stroke, and they took care of her sister who suffered from Alzheimers and emphyzema. Those hands were constantly in motion doing what God created a mother’s hands to do.

In the end, I was holding Mama’s hand as she slipped into a coma. Three days later, I was holding her hand when she passed into eternity and took the hand of Christ. My own hands are showing signs of aging. I only hope that my hands will reflect my character as well as Mama’s hands reflected hers.

Who's To Blame?

2011-01-25T07:48:00.002-05:00

It didn't take 30 seconds after the shootings by the madman in Arizona before people started placing the blame on everyone and everything except the shooter. We are a world of irresponsible and illogical humans. Jared Loughner himself plead not guilty despite numerous eye-witnesses and video footage capturing the murder of innocent people. He may be complicit in the murders, but both he and certain members of society want the guilt shared with Sarah Palin, Christians, Tea Partiers, Loughner's parents, friends, the authorities, classmates and even the gun itself.

If blame is to be laid on anyone and anything remotely connected with acts of evil, then let's blame....

The pencil for mipselled words.
The car for drunk drivers.
The spoon for making Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Hawaii for not producing a valid birth certificate for our President.
The hammer for smashed fingers.
The parachute for skydiving accidents.
King James for authorizing an English version of scripture that no one can agree on.
Thomas Edison for the high cost of our electricity bill.
Ray Kroc for America's obesity.
The school teacher for failing grades.
The coach for lost games.
Minoru Yamasaki for those who died in the World Trade Center.
God for allowing evil to start with.

Of course, if we're going to blame people and things for the way they were misused by others, we ought to give credit to those people and things that have done good.

The pencil for it's contribution to literacy, math, and art.
The automobile for making it possible to commute to our jobs and to visit loved ones.
The spoon for feeding starving children.
Hawaii for romantic vacation destinations and the popularity of Spam.
The hammer for driving nails that hold homes together.
The parachute for giving soldiers the ability to attack behind enemy lines.
King James for a poetic and accurate translation of ancient scriptures.
Thomas Edison for not having to use lanterns and candles to light our homes...and so much more.
Ray Kroc for the Ronald MacDonald House and hundreds of millions in charitable giving.
The school teacher for educating our children, and us.
The coach for inspiring teamwork and teaching life habits that lead to success.
Minoru Yamasaki for designing the tallest and largest office building in America which in turn employed thousands of Americans in hundreds of businesses.
Finally, we need to give God credit for giving us brains, even if we don't yet know how to use them.

When I make wrong or stupid choices, the responsibility lies solely on me. It's not the bank's fault that I'm in debt; it's my own greed. It's not the creditor's fault when I'm behind on my payments; it's my character that is in question because I promised to repay money they advanced me. It's not my employer's fault that I don't earn what I think I'm worth, it's mine for not doing the work that earns the wages I want and expect. If my kids struggle in school, it's my fault for not being more involved in their homework or finding them the help necessary to succeed academically. When I stand before God, I do not have to give an account for the wrongs of others, but I do for my own. He will not accept my passing the blame on others for my own sins...and I'm tired of hearing others blame me because I'm a white conservative Christian male and fall into their catch-all fault depository.

Can America's Rich Solve our Poverty Problem?

2010-11-05T11:54:00.003-04:00

Recently I've been in a discussion with some friends from the wrong political party about whether taking the money from the wealthy and giving it to the poor will actually eradicate poverty in America. I thought that using sound logic, in the form of math, would demonstrate the error in their thinking. No such luck. But after spending so much time researching the facts, I thought I'd post it here for more open-minded and logical readers to consider.

Facts:
According to Forbes Magazine, there are 385 billionaires in America. Their net worth (not income) is $12.93 trillion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, there are 2.5 million millionaires in America. This includes the 385 billionaires mentioned above.
The combined net worth of all millionaires (including billionaires) in America is $32.7 trillion.

According to statistics on the Internet, anywhere from 14-16 million Americans are unemployed.

The IRS collects about $2.4 trillion a year in taxes, after refunds. (IRS.gov)
The top 1% of wage earners pay 33% of the taxes collected. ($792,000,000,000 annually).
The top 5% of wage earners pay in 53% of the taxes collected. $1,272,000,000,000 annually).
The top 10% pay 65% of the taxes collected. ($1,560,000,000,000 annually).
The top 25% pay 83% of the taxes collected (taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org) $1,992,000,000,000 annually).
The top 50% pay 96% of the taxes collected (IRS). ($2,304,000,000,000 annually).
The bottom 50% of wage earners pay 4% (IRS). ($96,000,000,000 annually).

According to a study done by the University of Michigan, 32.3 million Americans (including children) live in poverty.
Poverty is defined as $11,161 for a single adult; $14,361 for a couple; $14,787 for a single parent.
Included in this figure are college students and retirees who work part-time, (but no numbers were available.)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 2.2% of Americans are chronically living in poverty.
Out of the 32.3 million Americans in poverty, 675,867 are chronic (never move out of poverty).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 307,212,123 people living in America (including children)
There are 117,538,000 households in America.
There are 99,270,000 people employed in America.
These employed people earn an average of $49,777 annually. (real median income)

According to the Small Business Association, about 44% of the jobs in this country are created by small business. The other half are employed by major corporations.

According to www.taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org, the cost to businesses for compliance to the federal income tax was $148 billion. (just throwing that in since corporate taxes are included in the $2.4 trillion the government takes in every year.

A true story. My daughter, who is 19 years old, recently quit college so that she could find a full-time job to help pay her bills. She currently works 30-35 hours per week at a restaurant in Garner. Her best night to date was $105 this past Sunday. On Monday she made $15.00. On Wednesday night she made $13.00. Her typical Friday/Saturday income is about $60 for the two shifts. Her average week she might earn $150.

Laura’s rent is only $150 per month. She shares a home with four room-mates. Her auto insurance is $75.00 per month. Her share of utilities is $40 per month. Laura’s disposable income for food, clothing, gas, prescriptions and necessities is about $335.00 per month. I contacted the Wake County social services office to see if Laura qualifies for any assistance until she can find a job that produces more income. According to them, she might qualify for $118 in food stamps per month. If Laura continues to earn the same amount and receives the $118 per month in food stamps, her annual income will be around $9,216.00 – assuming she doesn’t take a vacation or get sick. My daughter falls into the poverty category.

Now let’s assume that the government decides that the ultra-rich people in America – the billionaires, need to help Laura and the other 32.3 million Americans living in poverty. They start with the billionaires – all 385 of them, who’s combined net worth (not annual income) is $12.93 trillion dollars. When you take everything that the billionaires own – homes, cars, jewelry, investments, cash, etc and divide it among the people who are living in poverty, Laura’s “fair share” of that wealth is $400,309.60, putting Laura in the top 5%. That’s every man, woman and child currently living in poverty in America. The 385 former wealthy Americans are now the only poor people in America. Sounds like a good trade-off.

If every one of those poor people were frugal and only spent the national average of $49,777 annually, that money would last them about 8 years. If they’re really frugal and only spent $15,000 a year (just above poverty, but not enough to receive assistance), they would be able to survive for about 27 years…assuming there is no inflation and the cost of living doesn’t go up. Those that survived – because that’s all they’d be able to do on $15K – would again fall into poverty. The smart ones, like my daughter who is bright enough to finish college, would likely find some gainful employment after using that windfall to pay for her college expenses. Those who are not so bright will probably blow through the $400K in a matter of months and will be worse off than before they had the money stolen from the wealthiest Americans.

But there’s a problem. The taxes once collected from the top 1% of Americans would decline by 33%.. or about $792 billion a year. The IRS would be forced to increase taxes on the rest of us to make up for that difference. With only a little over 99 million Americans working, that deficit would cost each one of us an additional $8,975.52 per year. But that’s not fair! Why should the rest of us pay another $9K per year in taxes? Tax the rich – the millionaires (since there are no more billionaires in America). At this point no one is living in poverty any longer, but there are still as many as 16 million Americans unemployed. Their unemployment will soon run out because the government cannot afford to continue to pay them.

Here we go again: Subtract the $12.93 trillion already stolen from the former billionaires from the $32.7 trillion net worth of the millionaires and you’ve got $19.8 trillion remaining. These are the top 5% of wage earners in America. Let’s take all the net worth of the millionaires (not just their income, but everything they own) and distribute it among the unemployed. Now, those poor jobless people get a windfall of $1,237,500 each. But no one needs that much money. Let’s be fair and divide it among both the employed and the unemployed. At this point, we would each get $171,177.63. If we’re frugal, we can make that money last as long as 11 years @ $15K per year.

Oh no! We’ve solved the poverty problem in America for a decade or so, but now the IRS has a shortfall of another $540 billion per year. The revenue coming into the government for things like national defense, interstate commerce (the only Constitutional obligations of the federal government) has taken a fatal blow. They cannot pay for education, research and development..not to mention pay the interest on the national debt of $413 billion annually. Unless the U.S. pays the interest on our national debt, foreign nations will call the notes due and national parks and other federal and state lands will be seized to satisfy the debt….but before we get to that point –

Because the corporations that hire more than half of our workers are owned by the people in the top 5%, those businesses are filing bankruptcy and as many as 45 million Americans have lost their jobs by year two. The small businesses that once depended upon the large corporations and their employees to keep them in business begin to fold as well. The IRS finds that it cannot collect taxes and lays off the 16,000 new employees hired by this administration and the other agents as well. The government shuts down, as does Wall Street as there are no investors either. Within a matter of 12-15 months, the United States becomes one of the poorest nations on earth. All infrastructure, such as military, police, fire, EMT, CDC, the Department of Transportation, Department of Energy and all other agencies send government employees to the unemployment office, which has been closed down too because there is no money to pay any government employee. Foreign governments buy land and homes for pennies on the dollar, or foreclose to recoup loans secured by our property on behalf of our government.

Churches and charities are unable to continue their work and millions suffer. Hospitals cannot obtain life-saving drugs because the pharmaceutical companies have gone out of business. Doctors and staff are not getting paid, and creditors are demanding payment for student loans, medical equipment and malpractice insurance. Law suits have sky-rocketed as people seek any revenue still remaining. Ironically, lawyers are still in demand, but they’re having to settle for bartered goods in lieu of cash.

On a good note, we no longer have an illegal immigration problem. Illegal aliens have found it impossible to earn, (or steal), and have returned to their native countries. Tragically, our enemies have no trouble crossing our borders and use this opportunity to set off dirty bombs in some areas. Gangs have taken over most of America and fight radicals who muscle in on their territory. Innocent Americans suffer at the hands of thugs and foreigners; and from neighbors who are desperate for even a scrap of food. Those who fled to the mountains thinking they could hide from the law breakers discover that they are safe nowhere. Armies of gangs burn, rape, and pillage their way across our once beautiful nation. Not a seed is left to plant for future crops. Thousands die daily from starvation and violence. America dissolves into chaos…all because some thought that the rich did not do their fair share to help the poor.

There is no Utopia. Socialism and Communism have never worked in any culture. Greed for what belongs to someone else only makes us poorer. Far better to learn to live within our means than to demand rights that do not exist. It is morally wrong to desire to take what belongs to someone else.

Every Daughter Should Be a Daddy's Girl

2010-08-09T07:17:00.006-04:00

I have this photo of Jennifer when she was about 8 years old. I would soon turn 40. Of all of my photos of Jennifer, I suppose this one is my favorite. It's one of the few of the two of us together. I'm not fat and actually look much younger than my age at that time; and Jennifer looks happy - even proud of her dad.

This past weekend, we drove Laura Lee home to the apartment she and Jennifer shared in Delaware. It was so strange to be in the room in which Jennifer passed away. An eyeglass case, drawings by the kids taped to the wall and refrigerator, the mass of tangled wires where Jennifer connected just about every appliance in the apartment to one functioning outlet....the side of the bed where she slept, her red polo shirt on the chair I had given her. I thought that if I focussed really hard, perhaps I'd sense her spirit lingering there, because I know she wasn't ready to go as soon as she did. Instead, I felt the burning of my eyes, the urge to sob, and the hole in my heart where my daughter should be.

We said a quick and tearful goodbye to Laura and headed home, driving west to avoid Baltimore and Washington traffic. The Maryland countryside was beautiful, clean, and green. Chris Tomlin played softly over the car cd player. Pam dozed for a little while, and as I drove, my mind was drawn back to that photo from 1991; and to that impish and beautiful face smiling at the camera. Some might think that smile reflected pride in her dad, but I know that she was proud of herself for getting her way. She had my attention. Jennifer craved attention, and if she couldn't get it through her charm, she would settle for negative attention. On this occasion, she and my former wife battled for my attention, and she won. Her step-mom was gracious enough to allow her the victory and snapped this picture; and now it is my favorite photo of Jennifer. It's a picture of her before the cancer, before the drugs, the streets, the physical and mental abuse; before she had to ride the special bus to school and before the doctors decided she needed to be medicated to pay attention in class.

In the car, I talked silently to God and asked Him to assure me that Jennifer was safe and with Him. What happened next could be considered wishful thinking and self-deception, but I kind of think it was similar to what the apostle John experienced on Patmos. I believe God opened a portal between His Spirit and mine and allowed me to see Jennifer as she is now.

It only lasted a few seconds. In my mind I could see God sitting on a bench. No streets of gold or huge throne, just a bench in front of a gray or whitish wall. He looked like paintings I've seen of Jesus, but I suspect He donned that image so that I could see Him. God's - or Jesus' face was looking down. In his lap lay the head of a young woman. She appeared comfortable laying there in the Creator's lap. His finger twirled a lock of curly light brown hair. She was wearing a shimmering white dress that clung to her figure - no doubt an expensive fabric. Her skin was more golden than tan, and her face bore a striking resemblance to Jennifer's face in my picture - only a bit more mature.

I don't know if Jennifer could see me or not, but she suddenly sat up. Then she stood up facing me. As though seeing herself for the first time through my eyes, she turned to God and exclaimed, "I'm pretty!"

"You're beautiful." God corrected. She was.

She twirled around a few times, her dress flowing with her; her shoulder length curls bouncing off one another. The dress was knee length and sleeveless. Jennifer wore no shoes. Her calves were muscled and her arms were taut and strong. Neither thin, but especially not heavy, she appeared every bit an athlete. There were no tattoos, no circles under her eyes, no swollen ankles, no need for sunglasse to hide her pretty brown eyes.

"I feel so strong!" she insisted, spinning around again. Indeed, she looked as though she could leap great distances and run as fast as a cheetah. "But Father, why do I look so young?"

God reached out and touched her face near the corner of her eyes. "Because here there are no hurtful words that will cause you to cry; no pain to wrinkle and crease your flesh. Here you are safe and there is nothing to fear. Your old body began to die as soon as you were born; but this body is eternal - as I intended from the beginning."

Jennifer bent down and hugged the Father. She kissed Him on the forehead. Then she leaned with her hands on His shoulder and turned her face towards mine and smiled. "I love you Father. I love my Daddy too, but I'm glad to be here with my real Father."

The vision started to close now; but I heard God say to Jennifer before the portal closed completely, "I'm glad your're finally home too. Every daughter should be a Daddy's girl."

Jennifer never was a daddy's girl here. Oh, she was loved by myself and by a couple of other men whom she called "Dad" - because we treated her like a daughter; but she didn't really have a daddy here who devoted the time to her so that she could lay in his lap and know that she had his undivided attention. She had dads who would offer wise advice and who would worry about her and come to her aid when she needed help; but she didn't have a daddy that listened to her dreams or told her how beautiful she is. Jennifer knew that we loved her, but we couldn't take away her pain or ease her fears or protect her from evil - not like her Heavenly Father can. I'd like to think that I would die for her, but I could never raise her to life again, or give her a perfect body, a sound mind, a joyful spirit. She deserved those things. And God is right: every daughter should be a daddy's girl. Especially the Jennifers in this world.

Jennifer's Butterflies

2010-08-03T20:44:00.005-04:00

There's a story behind these pretty crocheted butterflies. A dear friend from our church, Lea Eaton, wanted to do something for our family after Jennifer passed away two weeks ago. Lea is a cancer survivor herself, and has been a constant source of prayer and encouragement for Jennifer after Jennifer moved in with me over four years ago.

Lea works part-time at the y (until recently the YMCA but now just the 'y' - small letter y) and was thinking about Jennifer while she crocheted these little butterflies, which she'd intended to pass out at Jennifer's memorial service this past weekend. The deal is, once you accept one of these butterflies, you're supposed to carry it in your pocket; and every time you pull it out, it is supposed to remind you of Jennifer. It works - every time I empty my pockets, or every time I reach for my keys - the butterfly is there and I think of my daughter. Sometimes it feels as if Jennifer is nearby. It's a comforting experience.

Lea has a heart for hurting people, so when she met a young woman a few days before the memorial service who was distraught with worry about her mother's health, Lea thought "I'll bet Jennifer would want me to give one of these butterflies to this daughter." So so did. Then she gave one to a little girl who just needed someone to talk to. And another to a man who was contemplating suicide. Before the week was over, Lea had given out as many butterflies to hurting people as she did at the memorial service.

There is no shortage of wounded people in this world. What Lea began out of love for Jennifer has opened doors for God to bless dozens, and potentially thousands, of His children. It is a small thing to hold, but a huge blessing when you realize that God does see what you're going through. He sees, and He cares, and He wants to heal our worries and sorrows. Jennifer's butterflies are an immediate reminder how close God is. They also remind me where Jennifer is - with her Heavenly Father.

A Daughter's Faith, Her Heart, and Her Passion

2010-07-31T16:43:00.019-04:00

Four years and three months ago, doctors gave Jennifer three months to live. God gave her the three months, and four more years; and for this I am very grateful Though the past two weeks have been filled with sorrow and more questions than answers, I've not once had to ask God the "Why" question. The why is apparent. It's been a looming reality for more than four years. Why is seldom the correct question. The question that I must deal with and that every person who knew Jennifer must deal with is "What now?"

This blog will become part of the biography that Jennifer wanted me to write so that her two sons, Joshuwa Bradley and Mikil Lucus (sorry about the spelling but that's the way they were spelled on the birth certificates), would know how much she loved them. At seven and two, their memories will be few and incomplete. Even those of us who had Jennifer as part of our lives will begin to forget, or choose to forget, the tragic, yet extraordinary life of Jennifer McGarr.

As I assembled the slideshow for yesterday's memorial service, and as my wife - whom Jennifer referred to as her 'real' mom, printed photos for the collage we would display next to her urn, I struggled to comprehend how a child with such innocent eyes could witness so much evil in her short lifetime. Even more extraordinary is how Jennifer allowed those events to shape her personality but never to harden her heart. She remained until the end one of the most generous and loving persons I've ever known - even if all she left behind were a couple of cell phones and a laptop and two boys whom she had to trust to the care of her mother while she tried to get well.

I am so grateful for those four extra years that God allowed Jennifer. We may never know His purpose for doing so, but I believe we can expect to see His hand at work because Jennifer was available and willing. Had Jennifer not survived as long as she did, Mikil would not have been born. We don't know what God has purposed for Mikil, but He needed Jennifer, as sick and scared as she was, to be Mikil's mother.

Had Jennifer not survived longer than the doctors had predicted, she would not have met Laura Lee - whom Jennifer refers to as her wife. Jennifer - who was abused by so many men - found the love she longed for in the heart of another woman. That Jennifer struggled with what her faith teaches about same sex marriage in no way negates the love Christ has for her. I view Laura Lee as an act of mercy God allowed into Jennifer's life. I also view Jennifer as an act of mercy and love that God allowed in Laura Lee's life.

We may never know how those four extra years God gave to Jennifer have affected others. It was during those four years that my relationship with my daughter from my first marriage began its reconciliation. Jennifer and her brother resolved some of their differences they had with one another. My brother and I began to grow closer again. In just the past two weeks I'm beginning to see how God used Jennifer to reconcile families. It was because of Jennifer that I met my wife Pam; and it was Jennifer who became her closest friend on this side of the country.

Jennifer was so much like me: stubborn, profane, tactless, opinionated.... but at the same time, she forced me to confront my prejudices and my worldview and see things from a different viewpoint. Perhaps she learned something about herself from me. I do know that Jennifer loved me very much. I believe she was becoming more trustful of me after a few years of seeing that I was not out to hurt or to use her. While God was working changes in lives because of Jennifer, He was working in Jennifer's life as well.

The theme of Jennifer's memorial service is what helped me cope with the loss of my daughter. It's something she told me over and over again when she asked for help and I couldn't provide it: "Don't worry about me Daddy. I'll be OK. God will take care of me. He always has." Two weeks ago, four years and three months after she was sentenced to three months to live; God decided that Jennifer had done enough during those extra years He gave her. His plans for her are perfect and good. She is now at home in the only home she could call her own. She's free from pain, free from fear, free from people who would harm her and her loved ones, free from hurtful words, free from being taken advantage of, free from a broken heart over the broken relationships in her life, free from a confused mind. Free. And she's with a Father who can give her everything she needs and more than she could ever have wanted.

Jennifer possessed childlike faith in Jesus Christ. She struggled to follow scripture, but she trusted its Author. Her wounded heart was still able to hold all her love for her children, and for her family, and for people who, like her, were wounded and rejected. Everyone who knew Jennifer knew that her passion was Joshuwa and Mikil. It was for them that she held on as long as she could. Though the past two years she could only talk to them for a couple of minutes over the phone, they consumed her every waking minute.

Jennifer's body was a canvas dedicated to what was important in her life: pictures of the boys, a cross, her grandfather's initials; Woody, an angel, a penguin, a rose.... "Daddy" and "Mommy", with the initials of her wife underneath, and a quote from Tupaq "Chill and let my Father do His work". The pain from the tattoo needles soothed the pain from cancer and in some strange way helped focus her mind on the things that are eternal.

So here we are. The memorial service is done. Extra copies of the slideshow have been made for family and friends. The busyness is over, and all that's left is to watch for what God does with Jennifer's legacy and to write her story. If you were Jennifer's family or friend and you have stories or recollections you'd like to incorporate into her biography, please send them to me. You can respond here to this thread, or you can email them to me at "lmcgarr@nc.rr.com". It's going to be painful in places, unbelievable in others, embarrassing and funny and hopefully uplifting. I have some recordings that Jennifer made, some notes she kept from her counseling sessions, some memories from what she told us, two or three wills as she kept changing her mind about how she wanted her belongings shared, some photos of her at a young age and some from the past four and a half years - but few from the remaining two-thirds of Jennifer's life. If you have photos or memories, please send them to me.

It's going to be a journey of discovery - about Jennifer and about who we are. Things kept in the dark will be brought into the light so that healing can take place. Healing or justice - or both.

Dear Jesus

2009-09-22T07:46:00.003-04:00

This morning I pulled into a parking space at work and sat in the car for a few moments before going inside the office. I was reluctant to leave the solitude of my car for the distractions of the office. As I sat looking out the window at woods distorted by rivulets of rain water flowing down my windshield, I said a quick prayer: "Dear Jesus, please help me to know you as my best friend."

On the ride in to work this morning I was thinking about the past 57 years and how much has happened. Yesterday I turned 58 years old. So much has changed in my lifetime, yet some things have barely changed at all. For example, my perspective on Jesus has been for most of my life as a bearded man in robes who endured a cross for my sins about 2,000 years before I was born. I understood He loved me and wanted to restore the relationship between His Father and mankind; and I knew that His Spirit was sent to us as our personal Counselor to help us live the 'Christian walk'; but He's always been more Savior than brother to me, too holy and busy leading more obedient and passionate Christians to spend time hanging out with this worldly disciple.

It's only been since reading books like "The Shack" by Paul Young, "He Loves Me!" by Wayne Jacobsen, "What's So Amazing About Grace" by Phillip Yancey, and "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore" by Jake Colsen that my eyes and heart have been opened to how much Jesus wants a personal relationship with me. Far from the dry pages of scripture, these books have revealed to me what Joseph Scrivens sensed 150 years ago when he penned "What a Friend We Have In Jesus." While Scrivens' message focussed on trials and temptations, he understood that Jesus was the kind of friend who was willing to walk with us anywhere if we'd just invite Him into our circumstances.

Prior to reading books like those mentioned above, I came from a legalistic, literal background, and I was afraid that if I read and accepted something that wasn't verbatim what is found in scripture, then I was risking my salvation. I'm learning better. Perhaps the book that has most affected my perception of God has been "The Shack" - a story about Papa - the Father disguised as a beautiful black woman; Sarayu - an almost physical Holy Spirit, and Jesus - the brother who loves to wrap His arms around you and lead you on walks through the woods and across waters. The Shack and these other books have challenged my understanding of what I've been taught about God for most of my life; but they ring true and because of the God they reveal, I feel as though I've found the door that allows me to have an intimate relationship with Him.

Paul warned us about telling people about God's grace and Jesus' sacrifice and then loading them down with legalism - putting them back under the bonds of the Law. The Shack succeeded in presenting the God who got saved between Malachi and Matthew. We no longer need to worry about a schizophrenic God who wavers between holy justice and conditional love depending upon our performance. Papa is not the God who takes out His wrath against mankind on the person of Jesus, His only Son. Papa is the God Who keeps a constant vigil for every lost child and who picks up His robes and runs to embrace those who come to their senses and admit that His ways are better than their own. Jesus is not the unfortunate victim of an angry Father and a sinful world who went to that cross reluctantly, begging for God to come up with another solution for saving humanity. Jesus charged directly at sin, risking His own life to save those whom God loves passionately. As Wayne Jacobsen, author of "He Loves Me!", points out - only Jesus could hold the Father's passion and the weight of all sin upon His person and bear it until the Father's passion consumed sin.

When you really understand what Jesus meant when He said that He came not to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him might be saved; you understand that God doesn't want to punish you for your sins, He's not angry at you for failings, He's not uncomfortable with your filth and scars or your low self-esteem; but He's passionately in love with you. If you understand His love, grace, and forgiveness, you no longer need to appease Him out of fear of hell; you're free to love Him. Papa doesn't want servants, He wants relationships. Religion serves, love fills the emptiness in our hearts, and allows us to see God the way Jesus spoke to us about in scriptures.

And so this morning I asked Jesus to come be more than my Savior, but to help me know Him as the friend He has always been to me. I know that as I spend more time hanging out with Jesus, I'm going to start seeing the world not through my distorted viewpoint, but through His. I may have to let go of my alter-ego, Bubba BiGot Jr, III and become a new creation in His image.

Some things change slowly, but I'm grateful that God doesn't leave us like He found us. We could 'what if' our past decisions for eternity, but thank God that He never stops coaxing us towards Him. If, occasionally, I slip up and say or do something nice or out of character for me; just know that it's Jesus putting His hands over my soulish mouth and speaking through me. And if at some point I become this totally cool and loveable guy who everyone wants to be around - just know that He's almost done with me and it's time to go Home.

I Love You Daddy

2009-08-18T06:24:00.002-04:00

This morning, I dropped my daughter off at the airport so that she could fly out to California in the hopes that the doctors at Berkeley can help get her cancer into remission. Tomorrow morning, my baby girl leaves for Appalachian State University to start college. And this past weekend at Myrtle Beach, I was able to spend time with my youngest son and his fiance.

Perhaps the thing that means to most to me is to hear the words, "I love you Daddy." Too often they're said in parting, and since we don't know if we'll get another chance to express our love for one another, it's important that those words are said.

This week is particularly tough because for my two daughters, life is about to change immediately. In a few months life will change for my son. They know that I love them, but I don't know if they understand how proud I am of them. My son has found a beautiful bride to partner with and their lives, like those of my daughters, will take it's own course. Finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with is a wonderful and necessary thing. We weren't created to live for ourselves. I'm proud of him for committing himself to such a fine young woman who loves him back.

My youngest daughter, the baby girl who's been my constant companion every weekend since she was three, is now going to college so that she can learn how to help other children. She's grown way too fast. She's beautiful and smart and has a gentle heart under that tough facade she puts on around others. When she's with me, she likes to cuddle, and when she's able to sleep, she looks too young and innocent for the world she's about to enter. And as much as I want to protect her and keep her near, I love her too much to stifle her and hinder her potential to be all that God created her to become.

My other daughter, the one who's in stage 5 cancer, she's amazed and humbled me with her strength and endurance. When she was little, if something was hard, she would quit. Now that she's fighting for her life, she's not quitting. In spite of constant pain and debilitating drugs, she gets up every day glad to be alive. Three years ago the doctors gave her three months to live. She's still defying death, even when the reports all come back negative. She calls me several times a day, saying "What's up, you good looking man?" She shows so much appreciation for every little thing that I and anyone else does for her, for she understands that nothing is fair or deserved in this life. Every good thing is a blessing from God. This daughter has two boys of her own, and she misses them so much she cries herself to sleep each night thinking of them. She can't afford much on her small disability check, but she's always trying to find something for the boys. She'll do anything, and has done some questionable things, for them. Most of all, I'm proud of her gentle and giving heart. I'm going to write a story about her life and tell about all the obstacles she's had to overcome. My prayer is that she will be around to see it published.

Life hasn't gone the way I thought it would when I was growing up. Squandered opportunities and 'what-ifs' could haunt me to an early grave; except for knowing that everything I've done hasn't been pointless. I've got some great kids who love me in spite of the failed relationships that brought them into this world. My biggest regret is that there are three more children from my first marriage who I allowed myself to lose touch with. I've missed out on their journeys from children to adulthood; but I'm sure that I would have every reason to be just as proud of what they've become as I have in my youngest three. I can't ever hear "I love you Daddy" from my oldest children, but I can honestly say that I love them.

I pray for my kids. I'm getting worn out early in life. The time for playing catch or wrestling on the floor is past for me. Still, whenever I hear them say, "I love you Daddy", I'm drawn back to the time I could hoist them onto my shoulders, or tuck them in and tell them not to grow up too fast. I want to be a Daddy for as long as I possibly can.

Father's Day

2009-06-19T12:54:00.002-04:00

Sunday is Father's Day and on Saturday I'm going to see a daughter I haven't seen since she was two years old. Now she has two children of her own. I've six children and seven grandchildren - only two of whom have ever met me. By all rights, I haven't been the kind of father you see depicted on a Norman Rockwell painting. I tried to do right by my youngest daughter, but it's been a tough and shameful road.

As I think about the ideal human father, I'm drawn to Joseph, the father of Jesus. He married a woman in spite of the shame her presumed infidelity brought upon him. He loved her and protected her and her son from those who would kill them. Joseph took his family to another country to protect them from Herod and he took a child that wasn't his as a son and brought Him up as his own. Joseph didn't own much, but what he had, he shared with Jesus. He taught him a skill that provided a profession for the young man. Apparently, Joseph made sure that Jesus was schooled because Jesus' knowledge and insight impressed scholars, even at a young age. Probably, Joseph talked to Jesus about responsibility for himself and for his mother and siblings.

We don't know what happened to Joseph - how long he was around, how he died, etc. But we do know the character of the son he raised. While Jesus was fully God, he was also fully human. He learned how to walk, then talk, then to use both hammer and scripture with purpose. Before Jesus died, He charged John to care for his mother, probably just as Joseph charged Him to care for her before he died.

Joseph was not well-known. Although his wife is revered today, Joseph is mostly forgotten. All we know about him is that he did the right things, never seeking a reputation for himself. Joseph's legacy however is the Savior of the whole world. Not bad for a poor carpenter from Bethany.

I've fathered some great kids. Although I wasn't around much in their lives, they are still my legacy and I'm very proud of them.

America's Founding History - In their own words

2009-06-09T08:40:00.001-04:00

My friend, James M. Pratt, has assembled the collection you see above so that we all might educate ourselves about our nation's purpose.

This past weekend, my family took a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It's a favorite destination for anyone east of the Mississippi. Normally it's difficult to find a vacancy at a hotel from June until November in Gatlinburg. However, we noticed that every hotel/motel in the area had a vacancy sign lit. The economy is just one indicator that our country is in peril - but it's a big indicator because it's a reflection of our confidence in our government and in the businesses that provide the jobs and the security we all desire.

Already many politicians are lining themselves up for a run for President in 2012. Partisianship has never been more prevalent. While the politicians rant and rave and blame one another for America's woes, Americans react with fear and anger. We can't believe that we elected these people to serve us; we thought that the government worked for us; we thought we lived in a republic - government by the people, for the people, of the people. We used to. I remember when we did.

The vision that our founders had for America is not the vision shared by our leaders today. To be sure, there were disagreements among our Founders about the best form of government for a free people. We didn't arrive at our Constitution overnight. It took decades to come up with our founding documents, and those were based on thousands of years of study - as far back as Plato and Aristotle. Millions have served to protect the founding principles of our nation; over a million have given their lives for the cause of freedom.

Inside those documents are the solution to America's problems today. Understand them and it doesn't matter what party you belong to. America is bigger than any party. The economy was a factor preceeding and during the Revolutionary War as colonists rejected the high taxes imposed on the people by a government that neglected the people. We can learn from past experience, so I encourage everyone to get your collection. Just click on the link above.

I think you'll also enjoy James' latest blog post about WWII veteran Howie Beach and other D-Day veterans. Check out http://www.jmprattcom.blogspot.com/.

Crap & True Confessions

2009-05-07T11:21:00.007-04:00

When you were growing up, did you envision your life turning out the way it did? Or did life take you on a ride through the ghettos and bypass the country clubs? When did you realize that your life was beyond your control?

Life isn't fair. Murphy is omnipresent. If you’re lied to enough, eventually you’re going to believe a lie. Good people suffer injustice, and the rights of criminals are protected by law. Even in this land of opportunity, most people never rise above mediocrity and their only footnote in history is an obituary. And that's just talking about everyone else!

I don't live in a mansion and life hasn't always been easy. Still, I've been around long enough to know that there are things that money can't fix: things like death, loss of trust, stupidity, and the government. If money could fix those things, Oprah could stay thin, Rosie O'Donnell wouldn't be paranoid, the Catholic Church wouldn't waste money compensating the victims of perverted priests, and the trillions of dollars thrown at welfare wouldn't result in more people in poverty today than ever before.

I myself came from very humble beginnings. Out of five sons, only three of us survived birth. Out of ten million sperm, I won. I’ve often wondered what I’ve missed out on had another sperm gotten to that egg first. Maybe I'd be able to sing, play the piano, paint a fractal, cure a disease - heck, I'd just like to learn to swim, but my legs and arms won't both move at the same time... Don’t get me wrong, my parents were great, but I turned out a shithead - at least in my own mind. I’ve lived for the moment. I’ve taken the smoothest route at the time - only to pay dearly later on. I’ve given up too quickly and compromised my dreams by settling for second or third best. In addition to learning survival skills, I’ve learned to wear a facade - to pretend that I was in control of my own destiny. Actually, I avoided risks; which resulted in missed opportunities. Shame became my constant companion and I’ve devoted a lot of time trying to hide him from my friends and family. I developed other skills to disguise my shame: loyalty, humor, and the ability to teach others how not to be like myself.

Not that I’ve needed help. Life throws us curveballs too. A storm can come along and destroy your home; a better qualified person can take your job; a deadbeat friend or relative can drag you down with them. Loved ones die and leave you with a hole in your heart that can't be filled. Life is full of crap, and often life gets tiring.

Skills acquired in life can, and often are, cruel protectors. Shame can keep us from knowing the difference between a values statement and an observation. My wife can say "It's time to cut the grass." but what hear is "You're a lazy, worthless slug, and I wonder why I ever married you!" What my wife meant was that the grass needs to be cut, but my own opinion of myself caused me to hear something else completely.

Yet, in spite of all the crap that comes our way, there is a brighter side to life. There is this thing called hope. It's a God-thing that often defies logic and reason. And where there is hope, there is an opportunity to learn and profit from our mistakes.

I've learned that self-discipline is a work of the flesh that keeps me from living in the grace of God. I’ve discovered that facts change depending upon my perception. I've also learned that people who tell the truth don't have to remember anything. There's a lot of freedom in being transparent, which may explain why there are so many depressed people in the world today.

There's something else I've learned: a seed grows well in crap. In fact, crap provides the perfect environment for a seed to grow into something beautiful. God uses crap to bless our lives with. An unplanned child from a broken marriage might become a daddy's girl who brings him great pride and joy. Cancer can destroy the body of a loved one, but it can't kill their spirit or prevent a miracle in the form of a beautiful grandson. Bankruptcy may destroy your credit, but you’ll find that in losing your possessions that they no longer possess you. Acquaintenances may turn their backs on you when your facade crumbles, but it's then that you discover who your real friends are.

Everyone you meet has crap in their lives. Most want the same thing you do: to be loved, valued, to count for something. Maybe you've seen someone who's going through so much crap that you're thankful for your own. We're told to get our crap together; so maybe that's what we ought to do. With all the crap in this world, surely there is enough of us to turn it in to something wonderful: a home for the homeless, a shoulder to cry on, or a cause to donate to or volunteer for.

Life’s crap can be a blessing in disguise. It may stink while you’re going through it, but without it, you can’t grow. If you’ve got crap in your life now – rejoice! Grow something!

No one is alone

2009-04-23T17:37:00.004-04:00

A young man ended his life today. Though we'll never know what went through his mind in those final moments, it was an act of hopeless finality . We do know how it's affected his friends whom he reached out to just before committing the act.

I don't know if this young man understood that there was still something worth living for. If he hadn't turned his phone off after that last text, he would have quickly found out that his friends were on their way to help him. Some called 911, some jumped into their cars, and some kept trying to get him back on that phone. They all hoped and prayed they would not be too late. Now they are left with the undeserved feeling that they were too late and had done too little.

I'm certain that most parents of this boy's friends are as horrified as I am; for regardless of how we felt about this young man, we know that his death is affecting our children, and we are afraid for them. We can't understand the hopelessness and depression our children are experiencing. To us, they have their whole lives ahead of them - the chance to go farther and become more than we've accomplished in our lives.

If I could say one thing to my daughter and her friends as they mourn the loss of their friend it would be this: You're not in this life alone, no matter how it might feel at times. You are loved with a passion that would cause any of us to lay down our lives for you. You are the best thing we've ever done - you have inside you the best your mom and dad could offer.

If we've been so blind to not see what you're going through, please forgive us. We might come home exhausted and stressed from trying to make it from one paycheck to the next and not realize that you need us to pay as much attention to you as we do to our jobs. We may have left you at home to be supervised by a television; or if we've watched TV together, we may have only conversed during station breaks. Forgive us.

It is natural to want to place the blame for this young man's death on someone or something: depression, drugs, the education system, the government, the church, the media and televion and video games and unemployment....anywhere but accept our responsibility.

I met this young man briefly one time and don't even recall his appearance. Yet, he was important to my daughter. They were friends. If he was important to her, he should have been more important to me. They rushed to try to save him but were too late. Now they sit together, broken hearted and hurting and alone, and the parents are trying to give them space to grieve. I think that we should be there with our children, letting them know that they are not alone, that they are valued and loved and needed. I called my daughter and asked if I could come over to her friend's house where the kids are gathering but she said no, that she was OK, really and for me not to worry. But I do worry, and before I let her go I told her I love her and that I'm here for her no matter what. She's never alone in this life. I'm her dad, she's my purpose in life. I'm praying for my daughter and her friends and for this young man. I pray that as a parent that I'll be more attuned to what my daughter is experiencing and that she will always feel like she can turn to me when life just seems too hard. We're in this together.

I didn't talk to her about God and that He's there with them as they mourn. Hopefully they will remember that He's their first and best hope. At least they've been taught that. I just pray that it's real right now.

Maybe if there is one good thing that could come out of the young man's death, it's that those who loved him will understand that what he's done to them is not something they would wish on those they love. Life is but a vapor and gone too quickly; but how precious is every soul.

This evening my daughter posted a note to her friend on Facebook. He's not here for her to tell him that she loves him. She's still trying to save him, but barring that, her most heartfelt desire is that he'll find the peace there that he couldn't find here. His friends could use some of that peace too.

Faulty Worldviews

2009-04-19T16:41:00.003-04:00

"Thoughts are often lies we tell ourselves". Rick Warren - pastor, Saddleback Church.

Have you ever wondered what the world was coming to, especially with all the bad news you see and read about today? How is it that the citizens of the most powerful, benevolent nation in Earth's history is so completely divided and at odds with itself? How is it that we've strayed so far from the ideals that made America great? How is it that we can't seem to find even one person who has a clue how to fix the problems now facing our nation, and the world? How is it that our neighbors and co-workers define America differently than us? How is it that one Christian can vote Republican and another vote Democrat when the core principles of each party are the opposite of the other?

Rick Warren suggests that all behavior is based on our system of beliefs. We act according to our beliefs. What we think is what we do, even if that act is self-destructive and illogical. Every time we make a decision, at that moment we believe it is the right thing for us. The way we look at problems and determine the solutions to those problems is our worldview. "Your worldview is the set of perspectives, values, and convictions that you believe to be true. It is the foundation of your life." (Rick Warren) Rick goes on to say that not everything we believe is true; that we "pick up false and faulty ideas from culture, friends, parents, books, movies, music, the media, and many other imperfect sources that we're not even aware of."

I've long wondered how a Christian could vote for someone on the Democratic ticket. I'm sure there are Democrats who wonder how a Christian can vote Republican. It's seldom about the candidates themselves, and more about the core principles each party stands for. Could it be, and I think it must be, that neither party is based entirely on truth?

Os Guiness, author of "The Case for Civility; And Why Our Future Depends On It", says that the reason we have faulty worldviews is because we've been taught lies about truth. We're taught that truth is dead, or that there is no such thing as truth; that we're all just accidents, so truth is irrelevant. Even so, what is it that victims of injustice desire the most? "Justice through truth - and if not justice, then at least truth...Without truth there can be no justice and no reconciliation."

Our society has embraced an idea of tolerance and relativism - that says that we affirm that all views are equally valid. America has passed laws, called hate-crimes, should someone vocalize or act in a way that others interpret as judgmental or intolerant.

As a Christian, I choose to believe that the God described in scriptures is real and that the scriptures themselves are true. Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." There is liberty in truth; there is bondage in a faulty worldview. So how do I know what is true?

Besides the truth revealed in the Bible, and in nature, I can also know the truth because it is in my heart (conscience). I know right from wrong. I know that killing babies is wrong, just as I know that ignoring the poor and needy is wrong. I may choose to go along with an abortion for convenience sake, or hold on to my money to feed my own family; but my conscience will tell me I was wrong. But there's another way to know the truth; and that's by comparing my ideas with the way the world really works. Truth conforms to reality; and I can test my worldview by asking the following questions:

1. Where did I come from?
2. Why is the world such a mess?
3. Is there a solution?
4. What is my purpose?

Can Darwinism fully explain where I came from? Some may think so, but where are the intermediate fossiles that link mankind with animals? When has science ever created a new species? What are the odds that so many different life forms would exist, let alone come from one dead source? To me, intelligent design makes far more sense.
And if there is a Creator, then the idea that life is purposeless and nothing matters must give way to the knowledge that God gives all human life sanctity, value, meaning, and purpose.

Our culture rejects the idea of sin, and places the blame for all the world's ills everywhere but upon ourselves. Society teaches us to deny our responsibility for evil. We make excuses for those who commit evil. On the other hand, people ask, "If God is real, then why is there so much evil in the world today?" By implication, if God is sovereign, then every sin calls into doubt God's knowledge of what is best; so all we can do is to live the best way we know how. The problem with this worldview is that we cannot consistently do good. We can do good things, but we can't be good. Try being good and see how long you succeed. The only answer that makes sense is that Christ has overcome sin and that if we'll simply confess that we're incapable of being good (tell the truth), then He will forgive us. If you've ever been forgiven for a wrong you've done to someone else, you know what that freedom feels like.

The world is looking for salvation in all the wrong places: politics, the law, education, pacifism, economics, psychology, etc. If you've done harm to someone at some point, you probably know what guilt feels like. In my life it's spelled GUILT. Guilt has played a big part in my worldview. How does your worldview handle guilt? How can we reconcile all the wrongs every person has ever done so that we can live in a world free of guilt? The only worldview that offers a solution to this is redemption through Christ; first with God, and then in all our relationships. Not that all of our problems will go away; but through grace we can accept God's will for our lives. Because we've received grace, we cannot deny God's grace on others. We must learn to see others as God sees them rather than through our faulty worldviews...which is hard for me because I'm a bigot and I'm getting old and cranky and it's hard for an old dog to change.

Our concepts of freedom, the rule of law, and limited government come from the scriptures. It's how civilized man agrees to limit his own desires for the common good. We consciously or subconsciously desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves because we feel insignificant in the scheme of life. That's not how God views us though. He created us on purpose for a purpose. Our challenge is to discover that purpose and fulfill it. This morning in worship service one of our members commented that he'd 'just like a clue about what that purpose is.' I've often felt that way and fretted about whether I've missed what God wants me to do. As my wife also pointed out this morning, it's not about what God wants me to do, it's about what He wants to do through me. See how there's a difference from that viewpoint?

God called us to fulfill the Great Commmission: To love God with everything we are, and to love others as we love ourselves. Sounds simple, but it's not easy. If you view God as holy and sovereign, then you would probably obey God out of fear. I didn't know how to love God until I read "The Shack" by William P. Young.

I find it hard to like, let alone love, a liberal. If I pray for one, it's more likely to focus on God's wrath upon him than it is God's blessings on him. But a scriptural worldview tells me that every person is important to God, and if that person is important to God as much as I am, then that person ought to be important to me.

Before my pastor went to New Orleans to help families rebuild after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes and lives, I was of the opinion that they deserved what they got by ignoring all the warnings to get out ahead of the storm. Then Jimmy went down and worked on the homes of some ladies and those statistics suddenly had names; and because of Jimmy's excellent blogging, those names had faces and they had stories and they had worth. Through Jimmy's eyes, I saw people I cared nothing for as God sees them. That's how I learn to love others as I love myself.

My worldview is not perfect. I'm a fundamental Christian born in the South who loves my country with a passion. I can turn a blind eye to my daughter's faults, and I can ignore the faults of the people I am in relationship with. I can find fault with people who have a different worldview than I have - because I've not walked in their shoes or been forced to make the decisions they've had to make. The only place I can get a worldview that is based on reality is in the scriptures. I can compare my viewpoint with that of God's and if mine is different, then I know mine is the one that is wrong. I believe that scripture is inspired and protected by God, so based on that viewpoint, I choose to believe the nature and person of the God described inside. The only way that I can know God's solution and purpose for my life is to study the scriptures and to let them guide me through this journey.

People that know me probably think that I'm doing a lousy job being what I believe. I agree.

Anyone Want to Move to Texas? I Might!

2009-04-18T13:21:00.001-04:00

"Gone" Barack Obama

2009-04-18T13:16:00.001-04:00

Is America a Christian Nation?

2009-04-08T08:27:00.006-04:00

Recently our President, Barry Obama, made a statement to the international community that America is not a Christian nation. His statement has created much controversy. Here's my opinion:

Barry is correct - America is not a Christian nation. We used to be. Anyone who has read the writings of our Founding Fathers can see the influence that Christianity had on the development of our form of government. John Adams wrote: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

I listened this morning to radio talk hosts debate whether America should be a Christian nation or whether there has only been a movement over the last 30-40 years where religion has tried to affect politics. The truth is that the religious right hasn't been trying to assume control over our government, we're just responding to the attempts by 'liberals' to remove God from our government. Christians are simply protecting the freedoms of religion that our founding fathers intended. When I was growing up, my parents lived out their faith in all aspects of their life. It's been my generation that has compromised and apologized and demonized Christianity until the very term no longer stands for morality and goodness and love.

If one can separate his faith from his politics, he has no faith - only a religion. Our character reflects our faith. Perhaps that is the problem. We are a generation of compromisers who are willing to push God aside so that we can live our lives on our own terms. Again, Obama was correct - America is not a Christian nation. If we were, he would not be in office. The faith of our Founding Fathers was evidenced in their character and their vision for America. Conversely, the lack of character and the vision of our leaders today reflect the absence of faith in the God upon whom our nation's principles were founded. And if our elected officials lack the moral and ethical standards of their predecessors, so too have those who sent them to office.

Eighty percent of Americans claim to be Christians, yet over half of American voters voted for a candidate and a party that believes it's OK to murder babies, steal property (imminent domain), impoverish the constituents through taxes and welfare programs (Democrats have succeeded in keeping an entire segment of Americans - through second and third generations - in poverty and indebted to them through various welfare social programs); who want to remove God from our schools, businesses and national monuments...the list goes on. Black ministers stand in their pulpits on Sunday mornings vigorously urging their congregations to vote for a political party to ensure their sustenance rather than relying upon God to provide it. This is not the actions of a people who believe in God. If we believe something, we act accordingly; otherwise it's an opinion subject to whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.

In America today, people who consider themselves Christians are just as likely to commit adultery, become addicted to pornography, abandon their spouses and children, have an abortion, and break the Commandments as much as a person who is not a Christian. I myself have been guilty of choosing my own way over God's way. I'm a product of my culture, and I know that it becomes very hard for others to distinguish my actions from those of a godless person. I have compromised my faith at the altar of 'self' and have been part of America's turn from God. If I have any claim to Christianity, it's that I know I've been wrong; and in knowing the difference between right and wrong I'm fearful for the direction away from God that America is taking. For certain, God has not turned His back on America; America has turned her back on Him.

There is much fault to be laid at the feet of fundamental Christians, of whom I consider myself one. We focus on a God of justice and pay lip service to the God of love. We desire justice more than we desire to serve one another. If we practiced what we preached, fewer Americans would feel compelled to rely upon our government. If we were more willing to care for our fellow man, we would attact people to Christ. If we had real faith when confronted with problems bigger than our ability to solve, we'd not surrender our freedoms to the government in return for their taking responsibility for us, but we'd turn to God who has the heart of the king in His hand.

George Washington wrote: "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."
(George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789) He went on to say, "The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes. Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting an inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other." (George Washington, fragments of the Draft First Inaugural Address, April 1789)

Our founders understood human nature far better than we do today. We have everything to lose if we ignore or deny the importance of faith in God in our private lives as well as in our government.

The Southern United States of America

2009-03-31T09:14:00.004-04:00

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, 1780

Some historians believe if the South had won the Civil War, that the United States that we know today would not exist; that we would probably see two or three smaller nations separating Mexico from Canada. Novelist William W. Johnstone wrote an entire series of stories about the aftermath of a global war that left the United States in shambles and how a band of patriots carved out their own part of America to defend so that they could live according to the vision of our founding fathers. The Soutern United States consists of patriots; the liberals take the northeast; and criminal gangs get the west coast in the "Ashes" series envisioned by Johnstone.

In the SUSA, every able bodied citizen is required to work. Every citizen is armed and serves as part of the militia. Laws are few and are based on common sense. There is no welfare state. Widows and orphans are cared for by their neighbors. Justice is quick and certain. Every citizen can read and understand the laws. Lawyers are not in high demand. Lawsuits are not allowed. Crooks are 'invited' to leave, after making restitution. Those who do not agree with the form of government agreed upon by the majority are also encouraged to leave. What you have left are a people truly united in purpose.

Every citizen is allowed to practice their faith as they see fit. Parents are expected to parent their children so that the State doesn't have to. Caring for the environment means that you use only what you need and leave the rest for future generations. Education is required - with great concentration on learning the way the government works and an equal education on how to defend it. Public office is a sacrifice. It doesn't pay well. Only those who care deeply about serving their nation are asked to serve; no one runs for office - it's unseemly and self-serving to do so.

Alliances with other nations are not entered into lightly, so that the SUSA doesn't get involved in disputes that put their own nation at risk. But if attacked, the SUSA responds quickly and without regard to unilateral approval from other nations. Gangs are put down fast and hard.

The media is expected to report the truth, nothing more. An accurate weather report is preferable to an editorial opinion. Celebrity is over-rated. Every citizen is entitled to privacy. Libelous and speculative accounts are treated as an assault upon a citizen with prison time as punishment. Prisoners earn their room and board; it's not a fun place to be.

Visitors from other nations are free to visit, but if they want to stay they've got to prove their good intentions by serving in the militia for at least four years, during which time they undergo extensive background investigation and constant supervision. Promotions in the military are based upon experience and performance, not upon political appointments or social status.

The citizens of the SUSA are fiercely independent and protective of their own. Character is paramount. Loyalty, honesty, and courage are expected of all. Bad character is punished. Mistakes are forgiven, but not forgotten.

I beleive there are many Americans who would choose to live under SUSA rather than under the government we've allowed to control us today. I would. And should America ever split geographically, I hope that the conservatives claim the warm, fertile lands of the South where we can create for ourselves a simpler lifestle; one that permits the time necessary to commune with God and live according to those ways more conducive to liberty and selflessness.

Getting Unstuck

2009-03-27T09:27:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, when my youngest daughter was about 12 years of age, money was a bit tight as Christmas approached and I struggled to come up with something special for her Christmas gift. I decided to write her a story - something she could keep over the years that would remind her of the good times we've had as she's grown up. I also wanted to include some fatherly advice that would help her avoid some of my mistakes.

That first story was about a talking pelican named Peter. We had made a trip to the Outer Banks that summer, and I thought that including something we'd shared would make the story more real to her. 2003 had been a particularly trying year for us. My mother had just passed and it would be our first Christmas without her. Peter's job was to help my daughter deal with our loss, so he told her the story of Oscar the oyster and how this special crustacean used something that caused him much pain to create something of great beauty and value - a perfect dark blue pearl. Peter's goal was to focus Laura's pain on the good memories she had of her grandmother. It was cathartic to me as well.

The next Christmas, Laura's story was about a talking brown bear who taught her that courage was doing the right thing in the presence of fear. That summer we'd gone to the Smoky Mountains, so John, the talking brown bear, was a natural way of reminding Laura of our trip.

Three years ago I was struggling for an idea for Laura's stories. She's growing older and reading at a much more sophisticated level than I could write. I came upon the idea of a sequel to the novel I've not yet written - a story based on a dream I had several years earlier. This story was different because it was more of an action/adventure story and I had to be careful not to write myself into a corner by giving away too much of Sea Tree before it's actually written. "Beyond Sea Tree - A Smoky Mountain Adventure" turned out to be bigger than I at first thought and became a trilogy. The next year she got the second installment at Christmas, but because I was working two jobs most of last year I was unable to complete her story in time for this past Christmas. I've had to promise to give it to her for her graduation this January. Laura said it had better be extra good for having to wait eighteen months for her finished story.

The problem is that I've been stuck. Not one page has been written, and graduation is only nine weeks from now. The first two installments were simple narrative with no fatherly advice that Laura can remember me by. Only last night did the glimmer of an idea come as to the message I want to leave with my daughter. The past couple of years have been a bit stressful for my baby girl. She's reached the point where she's realized that her childhood is just about over and she's not sure she's ready to become an adult. She's stressing over whether she will get into Appalachian State University so she can be with her best friend Erin. I certainly hope she gets in, even though we still don't know how we're going to pay for her education. If my daughter is going to leave home however, I want her to be with her best friend. Erin is the kind of friend every parent wants their children to have.

What fatherly advice should I give my daughter at this point in her life? It must be relevant, and most of all, truthful. Here's what I came up with: It's not enough to say that things will get better, that tomorrow will be brighter, that what she's experiencing today is just a phase she's going through. The truth is that good things don't happen by accident. We live in a broken world. Kindness and charity are a decision, not a natural response to what life throws our way. Love is a gift. By limiting our own desires and by submitting our wills to someone or something besides ourselves, we consciously make this world a better place than we found it.

I could go on to say that if Laura wants to really live her own life, she needs to not simply hope for the best - that things will work out in her favor. No, if she wants good things to happen for her, she's got to do things that attract those dreams she has for herself. Simply letting life happen and reacting to it is a waste of our precious time. She doesn't want to end up in stuck with a life that is repeated too often by far too many: get up-go to work-go home-go to sleep-get up-go to work-survive until the weekend-it's over before you know it-back to work.

That's where I've been most of my adult life. Like a hamster on a wheel - running as fast as I can and getting nowhere fast; with no reward other than graying hair, deeper wrinkles, and less energy to maintain the pace. What I want to do in the final chapter of Beyond Sea Tree is to make sure Laura doesn't get on the wheel that goes nowhere. The good things we dream of aren't on that wheel. She's got to go find them.

So now I've discovered how her story will end. I've only to put it on paper. I'm getting unstuck. Once this story is behind me, I'm free to work on one other old project - a self-help book I wrote and published that never sold. This time I'm going to rewrite and publish it online for free. Money is still tight at Christmas. Maybe by giving away what I do have I'll make room for something better. In the end, I hope the stories both written and lived, will tell a tale worth remembering.

The 5,000 Year Leap

2009-03-20T08:20:00.002-04:00

America is in the middle of a crisis and it's easy to be overwhelmed with all the bad news coming at us. We're made to feel that we have no control over what's going to happen to us; and we're spending a lot of time blaming someone else. That time could be better spent doing the things we can affect. The good news is, there is a plan that will solve most of our problems. It's not a new plan; it's the original plan - one that took 5,000 years to learn. It's as relevant today as it was in 1776. The problem is that too few Americans know the plan well enough. We can do something about it - we can educate ourselves. And once we know there's a different path than the one we seem hell-bent on following; we can do some specific things that will turn the nation around. Not only that, but we will positively affect the entire world if we go where the Founders pointed us. Give them to your teenagers so that they will learn the truth about what made America the greatest nation on God's earth. The 5,000 Year Leap is probably the finest treatise on the formation of the United States that I've ever read.

Amazon and other online outlets have been flooded with orders for Dr. W. Cleon Skousen's book, "The 5000 Year Leap". Recently, Glenn Beck promoted the book on his 9.12 Project program. People ordering the book from Glenn's site and directly from Amazon are complaining that they're not getting the updated, official version of the book as shown on Glenn's site.

James Pratt recently secured the rights to publish Dr. Skousen's book from his family. This version, the only official version, is only available at www.usconstitutioncoach.com. You need to get this book. There are plenty of copies available at the link above.

I follow James' blog (link on the right). James writes about the things that are important and relevant in my life - and I think in the lives of my friends. His personal story is inspiring and provides hope in the potential for every human being. I encourage everyone to start following James Pratt. He's got some great stuff planned for the near future. For now, start with The 5000 Year Leap, and if you really want the ultimate U.S. history collection - order the U.S. Constitution Coach Kit. Once you own these resources you'll be among the few who truly understand the miracle that is America.

SFC Tart and Other Heroes

2009-03-17T08:41:00.007-04:00

There's a guy on Facebook who started a group - Soldiers Aren't Heroes. He's catching a lot of flack, deservedly, from Facebook fans. I signed up for the group to get his hateful post removed from Facebook, not because he doesn't have the right to express his opinions, but simply because he's wrong. People have this notion that they have the right to do whatever they want, but that's not true: we only have the right to do the right thing. Man may make laws that permit people to do the wrong thing, but these laws are secondary to natural and spiritual laws, just as the law of aerodynamics doesn't negate the law of gravity.

I spent 24 years in the Army. These were my most productive years so far - but I'm not done living yet. Although I never fought in battle during those years, I did serve with combat veterans who are indeed heroes in my book. While stationed at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, I served with a Medal of Honor winner; a former Marine sniper who had served three tours in VietNam before switching over to the Army and volunteering for his fourth tour.

Our Command Sergeant Major was the youngest CSM in the Army at the time, also having served multiple tours of duty in combat. I was in the Sergeant Major's office changing some light bulbs one morning when a Major walked in and demanded something silly and trivial. CSM Sinkata looked at the Major and replied, "Sir, with all due respect, get the hell out of my office." The Major was shocked and angered and marched into the Brigade Commander's office to complain about the Sergeant Major. After listening to the Major, the Colonel looked the Major in the eye and said, "You heard my Sergeant Major, get the hell out of my office too."

I served as a Platoon Sergeant in Bravo Company, 252nd Armor in Schweinfurt, Germany - the cesspool of the 3rd Infantry Division, in the early 1980s. Of all my tours, this was the worst. We were only 30 miles from what is now the Czech Republic and were always in the field either on alert or training. Our barracks were in terrible shape. Most rooms had no doors. Our motor pool was usually a mud puddle, and our compound was surrounded by beet fields. On days when the wind was blowing across our barracks, the farmers would use manure spreaders to fertilize their fields.

The only bright spot during my year in 252 was Sergeant First Class William Tart. SFC Tart was tall, thin, and surly. He had no real friends, but he had the respect of senior NCOs and officers. Many times we would be ordered to do something stupid, for no other reason than because a general was going to be visiting or some BS reason. More often than not, Sergeant Tart's platoon would be tasked with some particularly odious detail, probably because the staff and command knew that SFC Tart would get it done. He might not like it. He might tell you what he thought of you and your stupid ideas, but when it came down to it, SFC Tart followed orders. When he stood before his men in formation to give them the bad news, it wasn't coming from the First Sergeant, the Platoon Leader, the Commander, or someone else: the orders for his platoon came from him.

Sergeant Tart's men didn't like him. Neither did the men in other platoons. They didn't know that he stood up for them and that he often was able to get his superiors to listen to his advice, thus making their lives easier. I was the only NCO that Sergeant Tart felt comfortable talking to, probably because he knew I was missing my family back in the States as much as he missed his. SFC Tart carried a picture of his family. He worried about them, especially during that time when President Carter was in office and the military pay had been frozen for three years, gas was rationed, inflation and unemployment back in the States was in the double digits. Here we were thousands of miles away from our families, unable to do more than send our paychecks home so our families could survive. The way that Sergeant Tart chose to deal with his worries was to immerse himself in his work and to be the best platoon sergeant he could be. He might not have been the most personable leader in the Army, but he was the most professional that I served with. He cared about his men as much as he cared about accomplishing his missions. SFC Tart's men were the most proficient, most professional of any platoon in Bravo Company...or the battalion for that matter.

There are other soldiers that I served with who impressed me with their courage, loyalty, and professionalism. Most I can't even recall their names. There was Sergeant Joseph Vickers, with whom I'd sit and play chess during the middle of the night while monitoring Soviet radio traffic from the basement of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. There was Captain Wilbur A. Curran, the finest commander I ever served under. A former pilot in VietNam, CPT Curran was one of those laid-back officers the men loved. He promoted me to Sergeant. I still have the photo.

CPT Curran was succeeded by CPT Lester Crapps, the worst commander I ever served under. The man was fat, but he could run the daylights out of us. CPT Crapps had no personal life, so he spent his making our lives miserable. As is the way in the Army, CPT Crapps messed up, so much they had to move him up so they could keep an eye on him. I think that's the way it works in a lot of government positions.

Darren What's-his-name on Facebook claims that soldiers are not heroes; that they are stupid and don't know what they are fighting for. But I've been there, and I know otherwise. Soldiers fight wars to win the peace. Soldiers don't fight for politicians, not even for the President. Soldiers fight for something bigger - our nation and our liberties. You won't see tears running down a soldier's face because he's proud of who's in office; but you will see tears when the flag passes and the National Anthem is played. A soldier will risk his or her life because he knows that his team mate will risk their's. A soldier will snap a smart salute when he passes a superior, but his arm will rise slowly, linger on the brim of his cap, and lower ever so slowly to his side when he presents the flag to a widow or a mother who's lost her son in battle. A soldier will not leave a fallen comrade, and will do everything within his power to avoid harming the innocent. Unless one has served, they cannot know the sense of pride a service member has in being part of a team, of serving a righteous cause - freedom over tyranny - no matter where it rears its ugly head. Just getting up and putting on their boots every day is more than most Americans are willing to do; so yes - soldiers are heroes.

Quotes from the Sages and Modern Thought

2009-03-11T12:42:00.006-04:00

1. “Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

2. "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State." - James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 25, 1788 - considered the 'father of the Constitution'

3. "With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." - James Madison

4. Thomas Jefferson's prediction: "The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield."

5. "There is in the nature of government an impatience of control that disposes those invested with power to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations. This has its origin in the love of power. Representatives of the people are not superior to the people themselves." - Alexander Hamilton - Federalist Paper No.15, 1787.

6. "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison - 1788

7. "I place economy among the first and most important of republic virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." -Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, 1816

8. "The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson

9. "Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrants." - James Madison

10. "Judge the future by the past." - Patrick Henry - 1736-1799

11. "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none." - Thomas Jefferson, 1801 inaugural address.

12. "America... well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force... She might become dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." - John Quincy Adams; Address, 4 July 1821

13. "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all... The Nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest ... Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world." - George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept. 1796.

14. "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." - Thomas Jefferson

15. "No legislative act contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representative of the people is superior to the people." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 78.

16. "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." - John Quincy Adams, 6th President of USA.

17. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." Alexander Tyler (When the thirteen colonies were still a part of England, Scottish Historian/Professor Alexander Tyler wrote about the fall of the Athenian republic over two thousand years previous to that time. NOTE > some have questioned the source of this quote, and that the last name was 'Tytler', not Tyler)

18. "On every question of construction (of The Constitution), let us carry ourselves back to the time when The Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson

19. "A small leak can sink a great ship." - Benjamin Franklin

20. "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke 1729-1797

21. "Aided by a little sophistry on the words 'general welfare', [they claim] a right to do not only the acts to effect that which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think or pretend will be for the general welfare." --- Thomas Jefferson 1825 to W. Giles.

22. "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul." - Mark 8:36

23. "No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence." - George Washington to James Madison 1789.

24. "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
"Thomas Jefferson - letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802).

25. "...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing." - Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

26. "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson

27. “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” --Thomas Jefferson

28. "It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder." Frederic Bastiat's famous economics book The Law, published in 1850

29. "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." - Mohandas K. Ghandi

30. "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln ??

31. "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato 429-347 B.C.

32. "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt (1759-1806)

33. "Trust but verify" - Ronald Reagan, U.S. President, 1980-88

34. "The only proper purpose of government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of government are: to protect you from criminals; the military, to protect you from foreign invaders; and, the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law." - 'Atlas Shrugged', by renowned philosopher Ayn Rand, 1957.

35. "The decline of great powers is caused by simple economic over extension." - Paul Kennedy 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers - economic change and military conflicts 1500-2000'

36. "Government is best that governs least." - Henry Thoreau, in 'Civil Disobedience' -'people should not permit governments to overrule'

37. "Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens against crimes against themselves or their property. When government -- in pursuit of good intentions -- tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of innovation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player. It is my view that what is important is cutting government spending, however spending is financed. A so-called deficit is a disguised and hidden form of taxation. The real burden on the public is what government spends (and mandates others to spend). As I have said repeatedly, I would rather have government spend one trillion dollars with a deficit of a half a trillion than have government spend two trillion dollars with no deficit." - Milton Friedman, Noble laureate

38. "The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. Both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists." - Ernest Hemingway - 1899-1961 - Nobel laureate Literature 1954

39. “By adopting programs to redistribute substantial amounts of income, a nation guarantees that its government will become more powerful and invasive in other ways.” - Robert Higgs

40. "It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." - Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945.

Ronald Reagan - The Last of America's Great Visionaries

2009-03-11T08:46:00.004-04:00

"There can be no question that Mr. Reagan was one of the greatest visionaries since Lincoln to occupy the presidency of the United States" - December 4, 2000 - by Steven G. Calabresi, a professor of law at Northwestern University and National Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society.

History, unless it is rewritten, will record Ronald Reagan as the exception to more than a century of mediocre Commanders In Chief. As George Washington set the moral bar after which no other President has been able to attain; so Ronald Reagan set the economic and patriotic bar that no President since him has even approached. Certainly we are a nation divided against itself as greatly as it was during Lincoln's tenure; and our economy has retreated below that of what Ronald Reagan himself inherited.

The Reagan era was:

1. The first era in 50 years that the private sector share of the economy was not reduced by government expanding its share of the economic pie faster than economic growth. In fact, government's share was reduced for the first time. Reagan believed that government was part of the problem, not the solution to America's problems.

2. Federal social spending ratios stopped rising, and fell, for the first time in over 3 decades. Lyndon Johnson's social programs, aggravated by Carter's ineptness and reluctance to make hard and necessary decisions had Americans facing double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and double digit mortgage rates prior to Ronald Reagan taking office.

3. The early 1980s was the first interruption in the rapid up-swing of federal regulatory activity spending in 2 decades. In fact, during the 1980s, spending declined in real terms - - only to resume its fast upward pace in the 1990s.

4. Taxes were reduced by large amounts, and the economy expanded together with a new climate of competition and regulatory burden reductions. This resulted in higher employment, which in turn provided greater revenue to the government.

5. A decade of declining real median family income was reversed to the upside. In 1978, I purchased my first home - at a 24% interest rate. When rates dropped under President Reagan and I refinanced, my disposable income increased by 16%.

6. Double digit inflation and interest rates were eliminated as mentioned above.

7. Debt increased due to lack of congressional spending cuts following tax cut approval, but debt ratios were higher 9 years later. Still, when President Reagan left office, the debt ratio was 54% compared to 71% under President Clinton.

8. International terrorism was faced head-on. While nations like Iran and Libya thumbed their noses at President Carter, they saw in Ronald Reagan someone willing to stand up to them. The Soviets found out that Reagan was not only able to build a larger missle defense system but was willing to use them in defense of our nation.

9. The Evil Empire was brought to its knees, without increasing the defense spending ratio, ending a 40-year cold war. I served in Berlin, Germany during the Carter years. Berlin was the spy-capital of the world then. Anytime Americans visited East Berlin we were shadowed by Soviet and East German military. 110 miles behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviets in East Berlin were brazen. On one occasion, they informed us that they would fire a dummy round into our compound to prove how powerful they were. As stated, a round fired from over 20 miles away landed on the 40 yard line of our football field. Our mission was not to defend Berlin should an attack come, but to destroy intelligence before the enemy could get to it. We were expected to hold off an attack for no more than 30 minutes before being overrun. A decade later, Ronald Reagan had the Soviets tearing down the Berlin Wall and the nation of Germany reunited. This was preceeded by the mighty Soviet army being forced out of Afghanistan by freedom fighters supported by American weapons and money. Ronald Reagan was not afraid to tackle those who prey on the weak or who threatened democracy.

10. A 2-decade slide in voter turnout and citizen trust in government was reversed, only to collapse to new lows in the 1990s. Ronald Reagan won by embarrassingly wide numbers in both elections. That record was only reversed in the last election as unprecedented numbers turned out to vote, not so much for President Obama, but for change that would hopefully improve the lives of angry and frightened Americans. So far that change has not been positive.

During the last election, many candidates - even those on of the opposite party evoked Ronald Reagan in an effort to appeal to the American voter. Regardless of party, Ronald Reagan was respected and loved by Americans for his positive attitude, his humor, his great ability to communicate, his steadfast focus on defeating communism, and the way he treated everyone around him. People knew that Ronald Reagan cared about them and about America. He had confidence in the people and in America's potential for good in this world.

We need another Ronald Reagan...but he, or she, has yet to step up. Perhaps that's as it should be. George Washington reluctantly left retirement three times to serve our country - each time because he knew that someone had to lead. We must be careful to not lightly entrust our freedoms to those who wave their hands most frantically for the position. Let us look towards that person who's vision in not based on their ideals but on America's founding principles of smaller government, more liberties for the citizen, to live within our means rather than indebtedness, who will protect our nation and represent America abroad as the apex of civilization where free men and women cooperate for a greater good.

Glorifying the Father

2009-03-05T09:40:00.002-05:00

My favorite blog is Woodshavings, written by my friend and pastor Jimmy Chalmers. Jimmy has been down in New Orleans helping families rebuild their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Jimmy posts daily updates on his blog, keeping the rest of us informed on the progress and telling us stories about the human beings behind the statistics. Recently Jimmy has had the priviledge of working with groups of teenagers who forego their spring breaks and senior trips to do something far more important - helping others. In spite of all the doom and gloom we hear on the news today, there's good things happening, and they are being done by the generation who are inheriting the mess my generation is leaving them. There is hope for America when our young people can grasp what our politicians cannot - that serving others, not having authority over others, is what makes America great. The work being done in NOLA today is being done by volunteers, not by the government. Most of those volunteers are there because they want to serve God. Long after the people of NOLA have given up hope in our government, they can still hope in the Father, who continues to send help their way in the form of pastors and tradesmen and teenagers.

Then the Father blesses those who serve by using the people of NOLA to serve them. Mrs. Phillips and Mrs Holloway and so many grateful recipients of God's army of volunteers turn around and cook for those who came to help. They give God thanks for His provision, they tell their stories so that the rest of us can know the faces behind the statistics.

Together, they all paint a picture of the love of God for His children. He doesn't mind sharing the spotlight with us, but what a wonderful way of inspiring hope where there is none, a sense of accomplishment where there's doubt in our purpose, and love when we think we're in this world all alone.

I'm certain that Jimmy is going to return to his family and friends a changed man. He's been a vital part of what God is doing in people's lives. It's for this time and this place that Jimmy was created; and he is giving his life so that the Father is proven real and relevant and involved in our circumstances. This is the type of cooperation I believe God intended between us and Him; so that whatever is done in Heaven is done here on Earth.

Glenn Beck - 9 Principles to Believe In

2009-03-02T12:16:00.002-05:00

Glenn Beck, one of the brightest, courageous, and honest reporters in media today has been studying our founding fathers and has come up with 9 principles upon which we can turn America around from our country's socialistic policies. Follow the link above and if you agree with Glenn, then email him your picture. Do it today!

God bless America.

Old People Are Out of Touch....Not!

2009-02-26T08:42:00.005-05:00

By my senior year of high school, I thought I'd figured out the course of my life. It was the middle of the hippie generation and Elvis had been relegated to the 'oldies' and the Beatles were experimenting with LSD. I assumed that my education had provided me everything I needed to know to succeed in life, and that the advice and admonitions of my parents and other adults were no longer relevant to my generation. After all, man had already walked on the moon; when my parents were my age they were still riding in horse and buggy. The big vinyl records my parents bought had been reduced to more mobile cassette tapes that could be play in cars or boom boxes. Technology had made obsolute the world my parents knew, and the rules that worked for them no longer mattered in the modern age of my youth.

Fast forward thirty-nine years: I'm 40 years older than my youngest child - just as my parents were in their 40s when I was born. The math I learned in high school is being taught in middle school today. I struggled to learn how to use a typewriter, and elementary school kids are typing on computers and wiring electronic devices for their parents. Where I was taught two years of a dead language, my daughter has learned four years of Spanish - a good thing since there's so many Hispanics in our country today.

My daughter can argue (not that she has, but she could) that the values and experiences I had growing up are no longer relevant to the world today. She can assert that her world provides nuclear energy, computers that calculate at light-speed, cell phones, the Internet which makes it possible to communicate with people on the other side of the world, missle defense systems, satellites that can bounce television signals or can zoom in and find a mountain goat standing on the side of the Himalayas. Where we only put a man on the moon, there's now a space station orbiting our planet. People today can text and twitter and blog and webinar, and never have to affix a stamp and wait on snail mail.

My parents wouldn't recognize the world I live in today. It has advanced so far in my own life time. But here's the thing: My generation didn't build the rocket that took the first man to the moon. We didn't invent the cassette player or electric guitars or any of the modern conveniences that I enjoyed.... It was my parent's generation that created those things! And the things that my daughter takes for granted today were built by my generation, not her own. Every generation has created so that the next generation can enjoy more from life than what they were given.

Who knows what great advances in technology lie ahead for my daughter's generation? What she will learn, given time and experience, is that the principles that guided man to the moon, to the space station, and ultimately to space colonization are relevant to every generation. It is vision, courage, compassion, love, faith, discipline - those intangible things that are inherent to human beings created in the image of our Creator, that makes us always relevant to all humanity. Certainly greed, hatred, pride, jealousy and lack of compassion are present in all generations, but even children know the difference between right and wrong. By choosing to limit ourselves and putting others first, we accomplish great things that improve the world. Conversely, by seeking power over, and ignoring the needs of others, we make the world a more terrible place.

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments upon which mankind would live in relation to Him and to one another, one of those commandments was this: Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, so that thy days shall be long upon this earth. God said that His wisdom is passed from one generation to another, and that man's longevity on this planet is assured only if we tap into that wisdom.

It is incumbent upon the next generation to determine what they will do for future generations. They can choose to go it alone, but they do so at their own peril. After all, I love my daughter and I want her life's experiences to be better than my own. I can live without ever traveling beyond the earth's ozone, but I leave her to reach for the stars. Like my parents, and the generations before, I pray for God's wisdom for myself and my children and for future generations.

Down on Main Street

2009-02-23T08:24:00.004-05:00

My father ran a hardware store in downtown Oxford. On one side of his store stood a pool hall and on the other, Jones Drug Store. Across the street was Morton-Sherman hardware, a slightly larger and better-lit store than my father's, and both owned by George Morton. Both stores had their own loyal customer base. Morton-Sherman attracted the tradesmen - painters and carpenters; Morton's drew the farmers. I often recall my father hefting one hundred pound sacks of feed onto each shoulder and walking it out to a farmer's pickup. Dad believed that service was included in the sale.

During the winter, when there were no crops to tend, those farmers who knew the guitar or banjo or autoharp would spend the days around the coal-fired pot bellied stove, playing bluegrass and spitting into empty coffee cans. My dad could play with the best of them. Customers were seldom in a hurry and the store was often full of people enjoying the music.

Some days, when things were really slow, my dad would pull out the barrel with the checkerboard and he, in grey work shirt and a farmer in bib overalls would slap the board, mumbling "King me". Dad always played the red checkers and won more than he lost.

My father dropped out of school in the fourth grade. He was needed on the farm. He grew up with a love for the soil and an appreciation for the farmer. Dad learned math on his own. He maintained a ledger in which he wrote how much seed, fertilizer, and canned goods he loaned out to farmers on credit. At harvest, the farmers would sell their crops and come pay their bills. If my dad knew they'd had a tough year, he forgave much or all of the debt. That's how he and other businessmen treated their friends and neighbors when I was growing up.

Saturdays were the busiest days at the store. My brother and I would walk the four blocks from our house to the store. We'd look at the candy jar and our dad would nod his OK for us to take a peppermint or horehound stick from the jar. Sometimes we'd help out by weighing and bagging nails or filling glass jars from the molasses barrel. Usually my father would give us movie money for a matinee at the Orpheum Theater. If there was any money left, we'd buy bubblegum, candy and comics at Roses Department Store. Across the street from the Orpheum was the fire department and the court house. In front of the court house was a news stand called The Blue Dot. The Blue Dot was run by a blind man. As children we were always amazed that he could make change from paper money just by the way it felt.

Oxford's downtown consisted of one block of stores on Main Street, another block of stores on College Street, and two blocks running horizontally in either direction from Williamsboro and Hillsboro Streets. The east end of town was anchored by a couple of service stations, one a Texaco and the other Esso; the west by a Chevy dealership. To the north was the Methodist church, and to the south was the First Baptist Church. In the dead center of town were two barber shops - Basement Barber Shop where I got my first haircut, and City Barber Shop where the good barber worked. Within those six commercial blocks were businessmen, bankers, judges, deputies, and ministers, and all knew each other by first name. Six days a week, these people passed each other with a wave or finalized a contract with a handshake and a promise; they tipped waitresses, checked the oil and washed windshields, fed parking meters, rang up sales and wrapped packages.

On Sundays, downtown Oxford was quiet, except at the Methodist and Baptist church ends. Awnings were rolled up and the blue law enforced as the townspeople worshipped and rested from six days of labor. Those were truly Happy Days for me; simpler, friendlier times when my dad made a decent living for his wife and sons. Certainly things weren't perfect back then, but people like my dad lived as good a life as they knew how. The lessons I learned have stuck with me and I strive to live up to my dad's example. I wish my children could experience the childhood I enjoyed.

Hope For Our Young Generation

2009-02-22T19:37:00.003-05:00

A week ago Friday, 17 year old Danny was playing basketball with his dad. For perhaps only the second time in his memory, Danny won. His dad boasted that that would be the last time Danny beat him. It was. The following day, Danny's dad passed away.

A few months shy of graduating from high school, Danny found himself planning and paying for his father's funeral. He chose the music, found a pastor, and made the arrangements. On Saturday, Danny eulogized his dad, referring to him as his best friend.

On Sunday, Danny visited with us in Creedmoor at The Carpenter's Shop, which meets at Jon & Jill's Restaurant on Main Street. He listened to Jimmy talk about using our God-given talents to help others, as Jimmy has been doing for the folks down in New Orleans. Following church, Danny came over to our house for lunch. I'm very impressed with the character of this young man.

Danny recently joined the N.C. National Guard and will ship off to Ft. Benning, Georgia for basic training in June, followed by advanced training in air traffic control at Ft. Rucker, AL. Danny hopes to attend college so he can become an Apache helicopter pilot. He chose the National Guard because he wants to be close to home to help his mom raise his two younger brothers and a sister. Chances are that in a couple of years Danny could find himself serving in Afghanistan or wherever his country needs him.

When he's not in school making good grades, Danny is working sometimes two jobs to help provide for his family. When his father passed, Danny stepped up to the plate in spite of the pain of his dad's loss. Danny is a young man of excellent character and courage. He is already on his way to becoming a good leader.

Danny gives me hope for America's future. He understands sacrifice and duty to family and country. He doesn't demand someone else bear his burdens; he mans-up and does his best. I'm proud to know this young man and I pray for him, that he will realize his potential for making his part of the world better.

I Know Ma Ratts!

2009-02-20T08:20:00.004-05:00

Relatively few Americans today devote attention to preserving and protecting the democratic principles we take for granted. Like the frog who's slowly boiled to death in a kettle, Americans are being lulled into accepting more and more government control over their lives. Each successive generation surrenders personal liberties in exchange for not having to preserve them. In my own lifetime, America has gone from the greatest force for good on this planet to a nation of ineffective, lazy socialists. As a result, there is a rise of evil regimes torturing and killing millions of innocents because they no longer fear the United States. We must reclaim our national virtue and morality and lift America back to its place of significance in worldly affairs, but first we need to reeducate our own citizens.

We begin with an understanding of the principles upon which our Founders based their vision. These great men and women rejected the European theories of government and believed that a free citizen could create prosperity for himself and for the nation. In our Declaration of Independence, the Founders declared that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --"

The Founders then went on to identify those rights in the Bill of Rights. It was their intention to provide equal rights for all; but what does it mean when they say that "all men are created equal"?

They understood the difference between equal rights and equality. It was their intention to provide equal opportunity, but not to expect equal results. Take for example our nation's policies on education: We provide, at tax-payer expense, a free secondary education for all (including non-citizens). Granted, there are disparities in the quality of the teachers and the way the school systems divide up the funds, but overall, every child is given the opportunity to learn the basics of what it takes to succeed in life. Because some students do not put forth the same effort, they don't make the same grades as those who put forth more effort. Equal opportunity, but not equal results. Where our school systems fail however is when we lower the standards so that under-achievers can have the appearance of success. In an effort to be sensitive to some, our educational system has stifled the potential of all. America's educational system stacks up poorly behind less affluent nations, and we've lost many high-tech jobs to other countries as a result.

In fact, I believe that failures in our schools can be linked to the quality of the leaders we're raising up. Our Founders were all men who read and studied philosophy, theology, and politics. They were learned men who understood human nature. Our politicians today were taught by the radicals of the 60s and 70s who wanted to trade democracy for an unrealistic utopia. Where our Founders learned from history, our leaders today are taught revisionist history. Our education system has also failed to produce visionaries like our Founding Fathers. Our politicians today spend most of their time blaming the other party and the rest of their time taking more and more taxes to pay for things the government was never intended to be involved in.

The current efforts of the President and Congress to 'stimulate' our economy is another example of where our public servants fail the American people. President Obama believes that it is permissable to take from the more successful citizens and redistribute it to the less productive. Our Founders believed, correctly, that every citizen is entitled to equal rights but not equal possessions. It has been proven over and over that some people can lose fortunes and regain them while others can gain them and turn right around and lose them. What was important to the Founders is that every citizen be afforded the right to pursue prosperity for themselves and their kin. When the government decides to penalize the entrepreneur to subsidize another class of citizen, they violate the law by violating the rights of the affluent. Some may think that's OK, that the wealthy (a subjective term), can afford to lose (have stolen) their possessions and money; but when the government is given that sort of power from the people, they can choose to exercise that power over all citizens. This is why it is important for all citizens to protect and preserve our rights by voting out the greedy and power-hungry politicians.

Alexander Hamilton said that "Inequality would exist as long as liberty existed...It would unavoidably result from that very liberty itself." Our Founders understood that the citizens "cannot delegate to the government the power to do anything except that which they have the lawful right to do themselves". (Dr. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap) It is illegal for my neighbor to take something from me simply because he doesn't have it. So too, it is illegal, according to our founding documents, for the people to expect the government to take what is not theirs and give it to someone else. This is communism, and it hasn't worked in other nations - which is why so many foreigners attempt to immigrate to America.

Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and now President Obama have advanced the welfare state philosophy in violation of their oaths to protect and defend the Constition of the United States. Our Founders never intended for the government to have power over helping the 'less fortunate'. Responsibility lies with the individual citizen first, then with the family, the neighbor, the church, the county, and then the state. No federal authority to provide for the welfare of our citizens was granted or deemed necessary - yet every four years politicians win elections by promising the people what it does not have the legal right to give; and they deliver by stealing from other citizens.

Get Into the Pool

2009-02-17T10:38:00.004-05:00

The following must be credited to Louie Giglio, associate pastor of North Point Community Church.

In my studies of America's history, I've been introduced to ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things. Some were unwilling, some believed passionately in a cause, some were in the right place at the right time - or the wrong place at the wrong time. The thing is, that out of hundreds of millions of Americans - citizens of the greatest nation ever on planet Earth, only a tiny fraction have stood out.

We've made heroes of people who've accomplished something in life. Americans used to look up to Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Alvin York. Today we look up to entertainers like Mylie Cyrus and Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps. See the difference?

Well, I've heard of someone who gained fame not for being the best athlete, but for being the worst in their sport; but in my view, he's a hero. Eric Moussambani, a native of Equatorial Guinea, was given the opportunity to participate in the 2000 Olympic Games. Only eight months earlier, Eric had never swam. He learned in a 20 foot hotel swimming pool - not the regulation 80 foot pool. On the day he was to compete, Eric found himself in the last heat. There were only two other competitors; one from Niger and the other from Tajikistan. Both of these swimmers were disqualified for false starts. Only Eric stood poised to dive when the buzzer sounded.

At this point, Eric could have looked around at all the fans and tried to explain how he'd just learned how to swim a few months ago. He had seen how fast the swimmers were in the previous heats and knew that he had no chance of beating any of them. He could have made excuses and tried to prepare the fans and judges for what he knew would be an embarrassing performance, but Eric didn't do any of these things. He simply jumped into the pool - he didn't dive like the other athletes, but jumped - and he started dog paddling his way to the other end of the pool. Eric moved his head back and forth as other swimmers had done, although his head remained above water the entire time. When he got down to the end of the pool, he didn't do a nice flip and push off for the return leg, he grabbed onto the edge of the pool, caught his breath, and started swimming slowly back to the finish line.

By the time he was half way back, Eric was struggling. Even members of the media were removing their jackets and preparing to jump in to save him from drowning. But Eric pressed on, paddling his way to the finish line in one minute and fifty three seconds, a minute and four seconds behind the winner. Pieter van den Hoogenband.

When Eric finished his lap, he had the biggest grin on his face. The fans and media were cheering for him. A few laughed at his efforts and remarked that he should never have been there. One reporter wondered if Eric's home town of Malabo even had a pool if this was the best they could send to represent their country. Yet for Eric, he set his own personal best record and the national record for his country. Most importantly, Eric jumped into that pool and finished what he had started. Four years later, Eric had dropped a minute off his time, but was denied entry into the 2004 Olympic games because of a visa mistake. Still, his name will go down in history; not for being the best at what he did, but for doing his best with what he had.

In a culture that is enthralled with celebrity and with being close to exceptional people, how many of us choose to jump into our circumstances and give it our personal best? We are, afterall, human beings, not has-beens.

We were created to be passionate about life. Specifically, we were created to be passionate about God's life and our relationship with Him. The disciple Peter lived, ate, and learned from Jesus, but he's remembered most for walking on water. Sure, Peter sank when he took his eyes off of Jesus, but Peter understood that Jesus had something he wanted. He wanted to experience Christ, so he got out of the boat and into the sea. We should all desire to live above our circumstances and experience life as God created us to share with Him.

We should all be like Enoch of the Old Testament. Enoch was seventh in descendance from Adam and all before him had lived into their sixth, seventh, eighth and even ninth centuries. Enoch's son, Methusulah, lived longer than any other man since Creation. Enoch, however, only lived a little over 300 years - a young man in ancient times. But scripture tells us that Enoch walked with God for three hundred years. Enoch had an intimate relationship with God. He talked to God, walked with God, he spoke to his people for God, and scripture tells us that one day God took Enoch - he didn't die, God just hugged him a little closer and Enoch woke up face to face with his Creator.

Most of us cannot picture ourselves being so devoted to God that He just reaches out and takes us home, body and all. We can't even imagine walking on water like Peter or caring for thousands of lepers like Mother Teresa. We might know a lot of facts about God, but perhaps we've never experienced Him personally.

However, we can do what Eric Moussambani did - jump into the pool and give it our best shot, with the knowledge that at the other end of this life is a reward with a Father who's been waiting for the opportunity to give us a hug and a high-five for finishing our life's race.

Founders

2009-02-17T08:01:00.006-05:00

Recently I've been studying our founding fathers; those men who envisioned and equipped America to become the greatest nation on Earth. They were remarkable men, and women; yet at the same time they were ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times. These patriarchs of our nation came from diverse economic and social backgrounds, yet they worked together to create a better world, and there is no doubt that America has been part of the best human experiment man has ever undertaken....despite the apologists who wish to rewrite our history.

I have often imagined living during the formative years of this nation. I envision there was a lot of excitement and passion for the cause of liberty. I ask myself, could I stand steady in battlefield formations as cannon and musketballs shredded the men on either side of me? I can only imagine the agony of marching barefoot along roads that consist of frozen, muddy ruts, or facing starvation and disease as part of an ill-equiped army. What motivated these people to risk everything for something they'd never experienced? What prompted farmers and merchants to set aside their livelihood and follow men like George Washington against a better organized and experienced enemy?

Certainly there have been great Americans since our country was founded, yet their achievements have been individual rather than for the collective good. We've benefitted from Thomas Edison's inventiveness and Henry Ford's business savvy, from the philanthropy of Andrew Carnagie, the invention of powered flight by the Wright brothers, the prose of Emerson and Longfellow...and the list goes on - but none of these risked as much for so many.

Certainly, there are no great visionaries leading our nation at this time. They try to tweak and improve on the foundations laid by others, but the mark they leave in this life will pale in comparison to the likes of our Founding Fathers. There is no shortage of pride and confidence in our public servants today, but what is missing and what the Founding Fathers had, was courage and faith. Courage to do the right thing regardless of the consequences, and faith in the Creator and the wisdom found in His Word.

Many of the things that our founders feared would threaten America's liberties are being borne out today as Americans surrender our freedoms in return for comfort and not having to be responsible for something greater than ourselves. Fortunately, there are a relative handful of Americans who understand and appreciate the sacrifices of our Founders and who themselves are willing to risk it all to preserve the Republic. We are on the brink of the next American Revolution where men and women will debate, exhort, and reason among themselves, and fight - if need be, to reclaim the vision that was America. It is possible that these patriots will be looked upon by their own countrymen as law breakers and extremists, but they must try and restore the principles upon which democracy really works. Otherwise, America's greatness and the good it means to the entire world will soon be a thing of the past.

Freedom vs Democracy

2009-02-16T16:56:00.002-05:00

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." President John Adams, Oct 11, 1798.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." President Thomas Jefferson. "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

"There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent an sudden usurpation." President James Madison. "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"Posterity--you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." John Quincy Adams

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom -- go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!" Samuel Adams

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." Patrick Henry

"The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.' He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation...." Francis Scott Key

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." Thomas Paine

"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn - founder of Pennsylvania

"By removing the Bible from schools we would be wasting so much time and money in punishing criminals and so little pains to prevent crime. Take the Bible out of our schools and there would be an explosion in crime." Benjamin Rush - signer of the Declaration of Independence.

"There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing." Daniel Webster"I shall stand by the Union, and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole country...in all I say, and act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and Truth's. I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal consequences.What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man, with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and constitution of his country."

"The brief exposition of the constitution of the United States, will unfold to young persons the principles of republican government; and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion. Noah Webster

Of the 56 men that signed the Declaration of Independence, those closest to the British forces paid the most dearly for signing the treasonous and illegal Declaration of Independence. All 56 signers faced death by hanging.

Francis Lewis had his home and estate plundered. His wife was captured and brutalized, later dying from the effects of bad treatment.

William Floyd and his family were unable to return to their pillaged home for seven years.

Philip Livingston was forced to leave his family and died alone in 1778.

Lewis Morris and family spent the entire war in exile, their vast estate and fortune destroyed.

"Honest John" Hart left his dying wife and 13 children behind, hiding in caves and forests. Years later he returned to find his wife's grave, his 13 children gone. He died alone, a broken man in 1779.

Richard Stockton was brutally beaten upon capture, and mistreated in prison. He died in 1781 a despondent 51 year-old.

Robert Morris lent his vast fortune and credit to the cause. He died broke in 1806.

William Ellery had his home and property looted.

Thomas Lynch Jr. sought vacation to aid his failing health, dying in a shipwreck.

Thomas Heyward, Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton lost their vast fortunes while in prison. Mrs. Heyward died while her husband was imprisoned.

Thomas Nelson Jr., despite failing health, served as a commander in the militia, and spent his personal fortune on the cause. At the battle of Yorktown, he ordered his own home destroyed by cannon fire while it was occupied by the British.

Abraham Clark was notified his two sons were captured and being brutally tortured while in prison. The British offered Clark his two sons freedom if he would renounce his signature on the Declaration of Independence. With a heavy heart he answered, "NO."

A Life of Significance

2009-02-11T07:16:00.003-05:00

My friend and best selling author, James Pratt, has a great post on his blog where he relates the story of a homeless man he met and befriended. Go to the link above or to www.jmprattcom.blogspot.com and read 'About Life and Camelot, Cory and You'.

Then, go to my pastor and friend, Jimmy Chalmers' blog and read about his experiences as he helps families in New Orleans. Jimmy chronicles a month out of his life that he's devoted to helping victims of Katrina. www.jchalmers.blogspot.com.

Both James Pratt and James Chalmers lead lives of significance, and the world is a better place because of them. These men are the sort of citizens our Founding Fathers envisioned Americans would be.

DloggieBloggie

2009-02-02T12:15:00.002-05:00

Check out my new blog with a view from a canine perspective.

Born Again American

2009-01-30T14:42:00.004-05:00

Here's where I am politically right now. Click on the link above to hear the song and make the pledge.

Just a workin’ man without a job
It got shipped off to China via Washington, D.C.
And I know I’m nothin’ special, there are plenty more like me
Just the same
I thought I knew the rules of the game
I stood up for this country that I love
I came back from the desert to a wife and kids to feed
I’m not sayin’ Uncle Sam should give me what I need
My offer stands
I’ll pull my weight you give me half a chance

I went up to a congressman and said to him “you know
Our government is letting people down”
He said he’d need a lot of help to buck the status-quo
I said there was a bunch of us around

I’m a Born Again American, conceived in Liberty
My Bible and the Bill of Rights, my creed’s equality
I’m a Born Again American, my country ‘tis of me
And everyone who shares the dream from sea to shining sea

My brother’s welding chassis at the plant
He’s earning what our granddad did in 1948
While CEOs count bonuses behind the castle gates
How can they see
When all they care about’s the do re mi

It’s getting where there’s nowhere left to turn
Not since the crash of twenty-nine have things been so unfair
So many of our citizens are living in despair
The time has come
To reaffirm that hope’s not just for some

The promise of America’s surrendering to greed
The rule is just look out for number one
But brace yourself ‘cause some of us have sown a different seed
A harvest of the spirit has begun

I’m a Born Again American conceived in liberty
My Bible and The Bill Of Rights
My creed’s equality
A Born Again American, my country ‘tis of me
And everyone who shares the dream from sea to shining sea

It’s clear my country’s soul is on the line
She’s hungering for something that she lost along the way
The principle the framers called upon us to obey
That in this land
The people’s will must have the upper hand

I felt the calling once before and took a sacred vow
And faithful to that vow I have remained
I hear the calling once again, my country needs me now
And to her cause I have been re-ordained

I’m a Born Again American conceived in liberty
My Bible and the Bill Of Rights, all people living free
A Born Again American, my country ‘tis of me
And everyone who shares the dream
From sea to shining sea
And everyone who shares the dream
From sea to shining sea
A M E R I C A

My Grandson

2009-01-12T13:46:00.002-05:00

That cute baby in the photo on the right is my 9 month old grandson Mikil Lucus McGarr. (Don't blame me for the spelling of his name - it sounds like some sort of disease if spoken quickly). He's the son of my daughter who is battling cancer.

Mikil is what we consider a miracle baby. Perhaps a more appropriate name would have been Miracle...but I got no sayso in the naming department. Mikil is a miracle baby because he endured nine months of chemo and radiation treatments. Two injections intended to cause a miscarriage failed as the doctors tried to protect my daughter's life. On top of all that, his mom smoked the entire pregnancy - for her nerves. He wasn't given much of a chance by the doctors; and those who thought he could make it to full term suspected that he would be born retarded (such a nasty word - only fit for liberals).

Mikil was born with jaundice and with undeveloped lungs. He stayed at the Duke neonatal ICU for two weeks before they could take him off oxygen and allow him to go home. He's a fighter though and is doing extremely well now. He wants to be held by his mom most of the time, and he's not too thrilled around males, but the family is very happy he's made it into our world. God has plans for little Mikil and we're blessed to have such a beautiful child in our lives.

News To Kick off the New Year

2009-01-06T18:11:00.002-05:00

The year is young and most of the news is about the poor economy, failing automakers, the uproar over "Barack the Magic Negro" song, and Al Franken becoming a Senator. You know our country is messed up when people like Franken are in office.

In the past couple of days I've learned that the same people who predicted in June that the ice caps in the North Pole would melt are now startled that the ice there is thicker now than it was in the 1970s - just six months later. After visiting Nebraska at Christmas, I can tell you first hand that there's no global warming there.

The state of Washington is having a hard time clearing snow from the roads because they've decided that salt and brine are too corrosive and might endanger the Pugeot Sound. Meanwhile, police cars and garbage trucks are having a hard time climbing the hills - so much so that the trash sitting on the curbs and sides of the roads now makes parts of Washington state look like our third-world neighbors to the south.

A bit of funny news today comes from Wicomico Church, Virginia, where a six year old boy who missed his school bus went back inside the house and grabbed the keys to the family's 2005 Taurus. He drove about six miles, passing cars and making a couple of 90 degree turns before running off the road and hitting a light pole. Rather than cry about his boo-boos, the boy got out of the car and started walking to school - he didn't want to miss breakfast and PE. Police report that the boy learned to drive by playing Grand Theft Auto and Monster Truck Jam. Now that's funny. Perhaps not to the parents who were charged with child endangerment, but compared to the stupidity of our government, it's down right patriotic. The boy took responsibility for himself; he didn't call the school and demand the bus turn around to pick him up; nor did he expect someone from the school to bring him his breakfast that his parents had already paid for. Who says kids can't benefit from video games?

A couple of weeks ago, WPTF talk show host Bill Lumaye reported that North Carolina is considering using GPS devices in automobiles to track our mileage so they can tax us at the end of the year for the use of our roads....as if we didn't already contribute when we bought gas at the pumps and paid for our license tags. Not only would these GPS devices keep track of our miles, but if we were to speed a little bit, the person monitoring the GPS system could send us a speeding ticket in the mail. Talk about Big Brother! The other alternative being kicked around is to use the mileage from the previous year's inspection to the new year's inspection and tax us on that. How many of us drive out of state sometime during the year? Should we pay for the miles we drive on somebody else's roads?...or don't North Carolinians already pay more than most other states when it comes to gas taxes? I'm liking that kid's spunk more and more. He'll make a great governor some day.

I think I'm going to start collecting all the stupid news and put them in my book. I should have enough material by February at this rate.

PowerThink

2008-12-15T16:16:00.006-05:00

My friend James Pratt is a best-selling author who has written several novels as well as some nonfiction. James is also very passionate about America's history and its future. Recently James launched PowerThink.com with his friend Mark Kastleman, author of "Success Through Power Thinking". Their goal is to empower their readers with access to some of the world's greatest collected works.

I ordered "American Freedom Collection" recently and was overwhelmed by the inclusion of so much historical fact in one place. Here's a sample of what I received in the American Freedom Collection: Over 60,000 works including:

Presidential Papers (120,000+ pages, Over 100 Volumes) Supreme Court Collection, 1000 decisions (1793 - 1997) U.S. Congress Collection (17 works) Documents and Histories (42 volumes - 16,000 pages) National Party Platforms (1840 - 1996) Constitution Reference (19 works) Western Civilization (11 works) Founding Fathers (12 volumes) Quotes Collection (12,000 quotations).

James and I both share a love of our country and we want to preserve our freedoms for our children and grandchildren. The best way to preserve our freedoms is to be educated about what our founding fathers intended for America. You're not going to find this information in public school today. Our kids are being taught revisionist history that leaves out much of the information included in the American Freedom Collection. Unless we teach them the way our government is supposed to work for us, they are going to grow up thinking it's wise to exchange freedom for government control over their lives.

Every parent, college student - every American citizen - should have access to the information in the American Freedom Collection. James has put it together on CD for only $15.95 - less than a third the cost of a text book. Scripture says that 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge'. The same could be said of our democracy unless people become knowledgeable and act responsibly for America's future.

Check out the "American Freedom Collection" and other works at James' website: http://PowerThink.com. Parents and students may also want to purchase "The World's Definitive eBook Collection" or the "Absolute Principles for Raising Successful Children" series.

I Hate Haters of Hate Speech

2008-11-26T14:59:00.003-05:00

The recent flap at NCSU over 'hate-speech' graffitti on the Freedom of Expression Wall is causing me to put on my bigot hat...again. And that's OK, I'm comfortable as a bigot. It's a lot less stressful than pretending to like or care about miserable people with fragile egos.

Sure, what the students wrote on the wall on election night is hate speech. But so is Jeremiah Wright's sermons for the past twenty years. If anyone hates, he does. I'm just as bothered over his 'Not God bless America - God damn America' remarks. The Reverend William Barber, the state's NAACP president, wants the students expelled from school and charged with hate crimes. What crime? Are our thoughts now illegal - whether they're spoken or written?

The only difference between the NAACP and the KKK is that the former wear suits, the latter wear sheets. The NAACP is led by hateful, past-dwelling ministers and the KKK is led by Democratic Senators and Congressmen. There is more racism today that there was in the 50's when I was growing up. The reason is that black 'leaders' keep their citizens focussed on the past and coming up with excuses for their failures; and the government wants to keep an entire segment of our citizens in poverty so they can stay in power.

A recent episode on TV focused on the difficulties that a trans-gender female-to-male had finding acceptance in his community. Why do we have to accept people simply because they are different from us? Does a parent in that (wo)man's community have to teach her kids that it's OK to hang out with someone who doesn't know who he/she is, simply because the law says we can't discrimiate against she/he?

Can any hate speech, non-discrimination, equal rights law override my feelings of discomfort and distrust when I have to sit beside a Koran-toting Middle Easterner on the airplane or ride the subway with a gang of Bloods or Crips in my car? At what point do I stop trusting my instincts and give anyone who has ever been victimized by someone else the right to blow me up, shoot me, stab me, rob me and threaten my family and my country?

Common sense and reason are fast becoming a thing of the past; as is our freedoms. The next generations are being brainwashed into believing wrong is right, good is bad, truth is irelevant and justice is only for the whiners and losers?
For examply, did you know that the dictionary has changed the definition of n****r? It used to be someone who was shiftless and lazy, mean and stingy. Now the word means: Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a. a black person.
b. a member of any dark-skinned people.

2. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.
3. a victim of prejudice similar to that suffered by blacks; a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised."

Excuses, excuses, excuses. I long for the day when people said what they meant, even if it meant a fist in the face for your remark. Today they want to destroy you for exercising your freedom of speech.

Now on Facebook

2008-11-20T11:30:00.002-05:00

OK, I'm now on Facebook. Maybe I'll get on Twitter once I figure this one out.

Been married about two and a half weeks and still happily married!!

The Honeymoon In a Nutshell

2008-11-12T12:46:00.002-05:00

Pam and I were married on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008. We spent the night at the Crystal Key B&B in Newman Grove, Nebraska. On Monday morning, we got up early, packed the car and met Bernice (I love this lady) at the bowling alley for breakfast. After breakfast, we went by Pam's house to clean it before leaving. The plumber came by to winterize the pipes while we wait for the house to sell.

I was sad as we drove out of Newman Grove. The people there are really special. They had done so much for us preparing for the wedding and wishing us well. I'll especially miss Bernice and Alta. As hard as it was for me, I can only imagine what leaving was like for Pam. Her family, everyone she knows and loves is in Nebraska.

Most of the day was spent driving to Hannibal, Missouri. We stayed downtown in an old brothel - the Lula Belle B&B, right next to the Mississippi River and a train track where every hour a train would pass and blow it's whistle outside our room. I'm sure they thought it was funny, but we were not amused. Our room was above a restaurant and boasted a heart-shaped jaccuzzi tub and a toilet separated from the bed by one narrow partition. We had to turn up the TV volume when we had to use the toilet - but we did have a good view of the train track from the window next to the toilet...and the tub was nice, if loud and powerful. It shot jets of water two feet higher than the tub.

On Tuesday morning we toured the town, climbing to the top of the hill Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer played on in Mark Twain's stories about the Mississippi River. We also visited Molly Brown's birthplace (closed). She was the feisty millionaire aboard the Titanic when it went down (played by Kathy Bates in one movie).

The weather was perfect our entire honeymoon. After leaving Hannibal, we drove south to St. Louis where we toured the St. Louis Arch and the museum under the arch, Gateway to the West. Around dusk we headed out of town and stopped at a Best Western - the nicest motel we stayed at on our trip. That night we talked and decided that it was too ambitious to try to include Memphis, TN in our trip. The next morning we woke up and ate breakfast at Crackle Barrel (for the second time), consulted our atlas, and chose a route southest towards Nashville. Little did we know it would take most of the day to get there.

We drove through Missouri and entered the lower part of Illinois in the town of Chester. Chester is known as the home town of Popeye the Sailor Man. It was a cute town. Being the home state of our new President-elect, we were surprised to see a lot of McCain/Palin signs in yards. A tiny building in downtown Chester was the local Republican headquarters...a sad place the day after the election.

From Chester we drove further into Illinois and came to Metropolis - home town to SuperMan. A giant steel replica of Superman stood at the back of the courthouse, so Pam and I paused for pictures and to visit the Superman museum/souvenir shop. After leaving Metropolis, we passed through Kentucky and made it just outside of Nashville after dark.

Thursday morning we visited the Opryland Hotel and Conference Center in Nashville. It was decorated for Christmas and looked beautiful. The place is huge! Opryland Hotel is the largest non-casino hotel in the world. We're going back to stay at the hotel at our first opportunity. Lunch was at Finney's Pub, an Irish pub inside the convention center. We also took the riverboat tour of the hotel and learned about the Presidential suite where Dolly Parton likes to plop down $3,500 a night to stay there.

We wanted to see the Grand Ole Opry auditorium and museum, but it was closed. So was the General Jackson paddlewheel boat. Just our luck. We got married at the wrong time...

We did visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rhyman Auditorium where the Grand Ole Opry got it's start. I wasn't too impressed with the Hall of Fame, but the Rhyman was great. We had our picture taken at the microphone where Minnie Pearl and Johnny Cash once stood. After touring the Rhyman, we had ice cream in a downtown Nashville store and walked past dozens of bars with loud bands and the occasional street performer.

We left Nashville around dusk and drove to Sevierville before stopping for the night at another Best Western. The following day we drove out to the Odom farm - original settlers in the Gatlinburg area. We spent most of the day walking up and down Gatlinburg streets, enjoying lunch at an Italian restaurant and fudge from one of the many fudge shops in town. We also visited two Thomas Kinkaid galleries. After that we drove back to Pigeon Forge and located Dollywood after driving around forever looking for it. Dollywood was closed - no surprise - but we drove around the ticket booth and followed the road to the front gate where employees were decorating the park for Christmas. Pam and I snuck in and took photos. It would be nice to go back and see the Christmas shows, including a 4D version of Polar Express.

Late Friday afternoon we drove up on the Gatlinburg bypass and took photos of Mt. Leconte rising above the town. Then we drove the scenic route from Gatlinburg to Cherokee. Clouds were low by the time we reached Newfound Gap and we drove down the back side of the mountains in a cold drizzle.

Cherokee was dead. We stopped at one of the cheezy souvenier shops and I wondered what my parents thought when they brought my brother and I there when we were kids. Cherokee is a fairly depressing tourist trap, surviving mostly on Harrah's casino on the east side of town.

We continued on Friday night to Maggie Valley. I had hoped to stay at the Heart of the Valley motel, but it was - you guessed it, closed. My dad had intended to buy the motel when I was about 10 years old, but someone got there first with a down payment. It was a dream of mine to grow up in the mountains, playing in the streams and exploring caves. Heart of the Valley was a cool place to have grown up. Instead we stayed at some place I forget and had dinner at Logan's Bar next door. The 12 oz ribeye steaks were good and they were only $9.99.

Saturday morning we rose early and headed to Asheville to visit the Biltmore. The place was already crowded and we had a timed entry into the house of 10:45, an hour wait. We took photos outside and then spent the next two hours tourning the house. It was just decorated for Christmas and there were probably about 30 Christmas trees scattered throughout the house. Down in the old kitchen area, the staff had built a cale model gingerbread Biltmore. The windows were opened, allowing the delicious smell of the gingerbread to filter throughout the basement. I've always liked the staff quarters and kitchen/laundry areas best.

We had lunch at the stables next to the mansion and later visited the winery for a wine tasting. Actually we stood in line for an hour, took one sip of wine from the first glass, and decided to leave. The line waiting outside the winery was probably three hours long by then. I'm conservatively estimating that the Biltmore took in over a million dollars last Saturday. The staff is very efficient, passing 180 visitors through the front doors every 15 minutes at $54 a pop for adults.

We left Asheville and headed east for home. It took us six days to cover the 1400 miles from Newman Grove, Nebraska to Creedmoor, NC. The weather was perfect, the country in between is beautiful, and now we're trying to settle two households into one home; making adjustments for my kids and for Pam's furniture due to arrive tomorrow.

I'll find a way to post more pictures online. You have to see to appreciate how wonderful our honeymoon was. Pray for us as we start our lives and build our dreams together. It's going to be a wonderful journey.

It's Official

2008-11-07T23:20:00.005-05:00

Our wedding cake! 11/2/2008

Friends in Nebraska

No rice...but plenty of leaves!

Bed & Breakfast in Newman Grove, Nebraska

The happy couple - appearing live on stage at Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN.

Obama's Legacy

2008-10-22T10:41:00.002-04:00

Should Barack Obama win the election this November, I will not lose any sleep over it. In fact, I will pray for him and for our other elected officials. Most of all I will pray for America, because regardless of politics, we do live in the best country on God's earth.

I'm a staunch conservative politically, but there is little to be excited over this election - other than Governor Sarah Palin. But if polls are right, Obama will squeak by McCain and become America's first black President. Obama may not want to be labeled as a 'black' President, but indeed if he's elected it won't be because of his qualifications but because of his color. He is a novelty to some, a hopeful change in Washington for many, a cause for millions. Some in his own party won't vote for him because he's black; most of his party is black, so they will. (89% of black Americans supported John Kerry in the 2004 elections).

The way he performs his duties as President will be filtered through many lenses. Should Barack Obama perceive himself as a servant of all Americans, he will become a sell-out to many Afro-Americans and at the same time ensure that the Democratic Party remains the largest political party in America. However, if he caters to his biggest supporters, the legacy that Obama leaves will reflect not only on himself, but on blacks as a race.

How we process our identity says a lot about who we are. Obama claims that he was led to the Lord and discipled by Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Disciple means 'reproduce yourself'. What did Jeremiah Wright reproduce in Barack Obama? Martin Luther King dreamed that some day a person would not be judged on the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I don't know if America is there yet. Black 'leaders' and the Democratic party have much to lose if that day ever comes. Obama can either be an inspiration to black Americans, or he can be like his mentor and flame racial hatred and further divide our nation.

I do believe that Barack Obama is concerned what kind of legacy he will leave behind, both personally, and as America's first black President. I think he will not risk being treated poorly by history. At the same time, Barack Obama - a professed follower of Christ - has repeatedly voted contrary to biblical mandates. He will give an account to God some day for the way he led the greatest nation on Earth. And as voters, we must give an account for how we entrust our future to leaders who oppose those mandates.

Our faith, if we have faith, cannot be entrusted to political parties but to Godly leaders who value His values, who love His people. There is no place in America for racial hatred, especially in churches and in the offices of our elected officials. America needs change, and I pray that Obama will at least begin the process of reuniting our nation. It is a difficult task for any man or woman, regardless of race. His legacy can be greatness or failure, divinely led or spiritually dead. We should all pray for divine greatness. His term will either unite America or insure that a true conservative wins the next election.

Go Palin/Gingrich in 2012!

Prayer Request from Pastor Rick Warren

2008-10-17T15:21:00.003-04:00

Below is an email I received from Pastor Rick Warren about his daughter-in-law Jaime who's battling cancer. Her story is much like my own 25 year old daughter's battle. Please pray for Jaime and for Kay, Rick's wife who also has cancer.

October 17, 2008

Dear Saddleback Family,

Kay and I, and our entire family are deeply grateful for your prayers for Jaime and her battle with a brain tumor. Below is a brief report of this past week along with the scripture verse I've focused on each day. Thanks for sharing this burden with us. You might want to save these verses for when YOU need them.

SATURDAY

Jaime was hospitalized for blurred vision, instability, and headaches. A CT Scan revealed a massive tumor at the base of her brain.

"Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer." Psalm 94:19 (Living)

SUNDAY

My 25 year old daughter-in-law, Jaime, (Josh's wife) is facing her second life-threatening health crisis in less than two months. Seven weeks ago, Jaime went into labor five weeks early. They discovered the baby was in the breech position and an emergency C-section was ordered because the baby's heart rate began to drop. Cole was not breathing when he was born, and it took great skill from the medical personnel to resuscitate him.

MONDAY

A day for testing. The MRI revealed a very serious and complex vascular tumor and hydrocephalus. There is debate about the type of tumor and much concern about the best procedure to use.

"God will shield you with his wings! They will shelter you. His faithful promises are your armor. Now you don't need to be afraid of the dark any more, nor fear the dangers of the day; nor dread the plagues of darkness, nor disasters in the morning." Psalm 91:4-6 (Living)

TUESDAY

After getting 3 professional opinions on the nature of the tumor, we've moved Jaime to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The UCLA chief of neurosurgery has taken Jaime's case because of its risk and complexity. An angiogram today provided more information but because of the tumor's location and connection to vital blood supply, doctors are unable to perform a procedure they hoped to do before the surgery.

"The righteous do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them. They are confident and fearless and can face their foes triumphantly." Psalm 112:6-8 (NLT)

WEDNESDAY 10 AM

Jaime was just rolled into the operating room for her 16 hour brain surgery. We now know the premature birth and emergency C-section of Cole likely saved Jaime's life. She could have died pushing in a normal delivery. What we often think is a problem (at that moment) is often a protection.

"Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord is the one who goes before you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor forsake you." Deut. 31:8 (NLT)

WEDNESDAY NIGHT 11 pm

Hour 13 of Jaime's surgery. We are told the tumor is tangled with all of the nerves on the left side of her brain, pushing its way into the brain. We are praying that Jaime's life will be spared, the tumor will be successfully removed, and there will be no damage to her eyesight or permanent loss of movement.

"The prayer that is said with faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will heal that person." James 5:15 (NCV)

THURSDAY 6 AM

After almost 20 hours, Jaime leaves the operating room. She'll now be in recovery for several hours. She may sleep for a couple of days due to the strong anesthesia given.

"When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." Isaiah 43:2 (NLT)

THURSDAY 10:30 AM

VERY BAD NEWS. A post-op CT Scan shows that Jaime is bleeding internally and building pressure on her brain. This is life-threatening, so doctors must go back to the operating room, reopen the wound, find the cause of the bleeding, and stop it. This will take another 4 ½ hours.

"We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help." 2 Chron. 20:12 (NLT)

THURSDAY 3 PM

The second surgery stops two areas of internal bleeding. The doctor frankly discusses the possible long term damage.

"Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will listen to their cries and comfort them. Psalm 10:17 (NLT)

THURSDAY 5 PM

Josh just got to see Jaime for the first time in 32 hours. It was only 30 seconds but she opened her eyes. She is on a breathing machine and can't speak but can move all four of her extremities. The next 24 hours will be extremely critical. Our family is all worn out too.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 (NLT)

FRIDAY AM

Please pray that Jaime will have a full recovery, with no long-term complications. Pray that her life will be an example of the truth that God's purpose for our lives is greater than any problem we face. Pray the doctors and nurses will be touched by the witness of her life.

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matthew 21:22

"Pray that our Lord will make us strong and give us peace." Psalm 29:11

"Pray for us that God will give us an opportunity to tell people his message." Colossians 4:3

"I pray that God will take care of all your needs with the wonderful blessings that come from Christ Jesus!" Phil. 4:19

"As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you." 1 Samuel 12:23

"This is my prayer for you: that your love will grow more and more; that you will have knowledge and understanding with your love." Philippians. 1:9

I love you and I'm grateful for you.

Rick Warren
Saddleback Church
Purpose Driven Network

Early Voting

2008-10-16T11:17:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day for One-Stop Voting in North Carolina. I went by the Creedmoor City Hall on the way to work this morning to cast my votes. I'll be on my honeymoon on election day and will have other things on my mind.

I was surprised at how many people were standing in line waiting for the doors to open. In a way, it's a good thing that people are more involved this election than they have in the past. I'm not too thrilled with either candidate for the Presidency, so this election for me is more about our leaders closer to home than Washington D.C.

If what I saw this morning continues throughout the election cycle, Barack Obama will have succeeded at getting out the votes in my state. John McCain seems to be losing support as the 'moderate' Republicans go over to Obama because Sarah Palin is more conservative than they like. I like conservatism. I like Sarah Palin. In four years, she's getting my vote; and I think she will win - because with either McCain or Obama, we're getting four more years of the same mess. People will be ready for a real change in 2012.

I've decided not to buy into the doom and gloom this year. I'm getting married and we've determined that our future is going to be bright in spite of talk radio and CNN.

Regardless of who's in office, I've done my civic duty and voted. Most importantly, my faith is not in a political party, but in God. If Christians will call on Him, regardless of which political party they belong to, our nation will become better than we've ever been.

Get out and vote - it's the least you can do. Just remember, it's "In God We Trust". God bless America.

Weekend Trip

2008-09-29T13:43:00.006-04:00

My daughter Laura and I took a trip to the mountains this past weekend. It was a chance to reconnect and do what we used to do before I started working two jobs. Laura needed some time with her dad and we both needed a break.

Saturday was a washout. We went to Blowing Rock,
http://i33.tinypic.com/2s94pic.jpg
before heading on to Boone and then on to Grandfather Mountain.

On Sunday the skies were sunny so we went to Chimney Rock and Lake Lure.

It was at Lake Lure that we enjoyed a boat tour of the lake and learned some of the history and lore of the area. The guide stopped our boat in the middle of the lake and pointed out an island in front of us, nicknamed "Millionaire Row". It was named not because the properties cost over a million dollars - all of the lakefront lots are over $1M. The island was called "Millionaire Row" because of the million dollar view the owners enjoyed.

While sitting there in the middle of the lake the guide informed us that there was 85 feet of water beneath us. Directly beneath us was a church and a cemetery in a community once known as Buffalo, North Carolina. It seems that when the dam was constructed back in the early 1900s, the small farming community near Buffalo Mountain was inundated. Divers went down several years back and reported that many of the windows in the church still have their glass, and that the bell is still in the bellfry. The water is below freezing at 85 feet and everything is preserved the way it was back almost 100 years ago. The divers did find an old truck, called an REO Speedwagon (I thought it was a rock band). They used baloons to float the truck to the surface. The upholstery was shot, but only one tire was flat. When they hooked a battery up to the engine, the magneto fired; so they decided to restore the vehicle to working order. The truck was painted fire engine red and "Buffalo Fire Dept" was stenciled on its side. It was really a farm truck, but they thought it was cooler to turn it into an old fashioned fire truck. It now appears in local parades.

Another legend has it that some nights residents claim to hear the sound of a church bell ringing. The guide pointed out the first house built on the lake, long before the dam was built and the water level was known. The owner guessed where the water would rise and built a small house and dock. Today the water sits at the bottom of the dock. Back then there was nothing within miles of the settler. He rowed supplies in by canoe and walked up the hill to construct his house. I'm sure there were many evenings where there was nothing but dark sky, dark mountains, and dark water surrounding him. It must have been chilling to sit on his porch at night and hear the sound of a distant church bell.

Chimney Rock park and Lake Lure are about 3 hours from Raleigh; about 22 miles south of Asheville, NC. It is a beautiful area. Someday, when I've struck it rich in the lottery, I'm going to build a house on that lake and sit in my boat in the middle of the lake listening for that church bell.

The Preacher and Satan

2008-09-15T08:51:00.002-04:00

He's wearing a long-sleeve blue shirt with white tab, black pants, and a baseball cap. Above his heavy beard, his skin is bright red from sitting in the sun all day. It's the same place he's sat for the past two weekends - the intersection of Ten-Ten Rd and US Hwy 401 in Garner. He sits in a folding chair, surrounded by cardboard and plywood signs, the most prominent - the one he wants everyone to see if they read none of the others - reads, "Preacher. Need job to help family survive. NOW!" On a sheet of plywood he's taped pictures of his family, the reason he's willing to make himself a spectacle if that's what it takes to support them.

Around his neck is a large wooden cross. It usually hangs on the bedroom wall, but scripture tells him to take up his cross and follow Jesus. That's why he's here. He knows he's called to preach the Word to the lost. People are dying and going to hell; someone has to tell them about Jesus.

A couple of months ago he was laid off from a job that barely supported his family. After the initial shock, he perceived it was a move of God preparing him to enter into the ministry and fulfill his life's purpose...but that was weeks ago. The rent hasn't been paid, there's practically nothing in the house to feed his family of six, and if he doesn't come up with some money soon they're going to turn off his electricity.

He's put out all the feelers at churches in the area; none need an associate pastor or there's no room in the budget to pay for one. God must want him to plant a new church...but where are the people coming from? Maybe if he stands on the corner of a busy highway, God will send the people to him. So he stands there in the late summer sun, sipping on a large sweet tea he bought at the McDonalds directly behind him. Maybe today is the day. He's not hearing God speak specifically, but this is just God's way of testing him to see if he's faithful. "I'll show Him how serious I am about serving Him." the preacher thinks. "I can suffer this heat; and when God does show up with my reward I'll have a story to tell my grandkids about." That's what he thinks at 10 in the morning, before the temperature starts creeping up and hundreds of cars pass him with barely a glance; and those that look stare at him like he's a freak. "A Jesus freak, that's me." be tells himself.

By mid-afternoon the doubts begin to creep in. He tries to rebuke them, but they keep coming. Unseen, Satan has stopped by to revel in the man's misery. "Maybe I should help him come to his senses." Satan muses. Leaning in to whisper in the preacher's ear Satan speaks in a voice that sounds remarkably like the preacher's own. "Did God really say that I was going to preach, or did I miss Him somewhere along the way?"

"Of course I'm called to preach. It's what I've wanted to do since I was saved. People need to hear my story so they will have faith and trust Him for salvation."

"But what if I'm supposed to go out and find the people instead of waiting on God to lead the people to me?"

"I don't have time to build relationships. My family is going to starve if I don't get a job soon!"

"Maybe it's not about me. Surely God will take care of my family even if I can't."

"No! God gave me my wife and He gave me our children. I'm the man. It's my job to provide! As long as I'm seeking the Lord with all my heart, He's going to take care of us. I just need to wait on God's timing."

"Maybe I missed God's timing. Maybe I should have applied for some jobs just in case."

"But if I'm working, I don't have time to find a job as a preacher. I'll end up in the same situation I was in before - depending on man rather than on God."

"But look at all these people driving past me. Surely some of them are Christians. Maybe even a pastor or a deacon. Somebody has to be tuned in to what God is doing and will stop. Not one soul has even offered me money....not that I'd accept it. God will provide."

"Times are tough for everyone. I know people care. They're bound to be praying for me, even if they don't stop and help."

"But why did God have to send Hurricane Gustav at this time and drive up the price of gas so that people who might have helped now have to use that money to fill their gas tanks. Doesn't He care about me and my family? Couldn't He have done this later?"

"There are some people who are in a lot worse shape than me."

"But there are many, many more who are better off. Godless people who have stolen my inheritance. Damn them!"

"I wonder what people think when they see me? Can't they see I'm on fire for God?"

"Or do they see me as some wierdo with a stupid wooden cross hanging around my neck, wearing the same clothes I've worn every time I've been out here. And what kind of people would be attracted to me? Probably the ultra conservatives, less educated, someone older; people who live frugally. They probably don't earn a lot and they won't want their pastor living high on the hog if they can't live that way."

"But all I want is a living wage. I've got a big family to take care of."

"This isn't what I promised my wife when we got married. I'm not setting a good example for the kids, especially if I can't buy them clothes and shoes. If my wife wasn't home schooling, things would be far worse."

"God! What am I supposed to do? I'm trying to listen and obey. Please God. Have mercy on me and my family. Please don't make them suffer for my sins God. Tell me what I've done wrong so I can repent and be forgiven. Please help God!"

The afternoon sun sinks behind the trees on the other side of the road. Less than a quarter of a mile away in either direction are two thriving churches; but the preacher is all alone. God is silent. The preacher looks at his watch and sees that it's time to leave. He promised his wife he'd be home by seven thirty and that he would bring the family something for dinner. The preacher folds his chair and grabs a sign and takes them to his car, then returns and gathers the other two. They fill the back seat of his old car. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out his money. Six dollars. Not near enough to feed his family; so he searches under the seats and in the glove box for loose change. Nothing.

The preacher collapses into the front seat of his car. "I'll have to go home empty handed." he ponders.

"But I promised my wife something for dinner. I was sure someone would stop and help me on a Sunday of all days!"

"I can't go home without something for the family. I wish I'd never bought that drink earlier. I could have brought a jug of water from home. That was $2.00 that was wasted. No wonder God isn't speaking to me. I can't even steward the little I have."

Satan grins. "He sounds just like me now." he thinks. Seeing the agony in the preacher's face, Satan knows he's got the preacher where he wants him. Just one more push. Leaning very close and imitating the preacher in the most pitiful of voices, he whispers, "I guess I will have to beg and see if someone will give me food for tonight."

The preacher's eyes swell with tears as he attempts to hold back his emotions, but they come anyway. "God, why are you doing this to me? I'd don't know what else to do. How am I going to share the Good News if all I do is struggle all my life? Where's the victory you promised Lord? I don't mind sacrifice, but where's the peace you promised? Do you really know what we're going through. Do you care? I've staked everything on you because I thought you loved me; but now I'm not so sure."

The preacher weeps until he can't cry any longer. Satan sits back and laughs at the pathetic creature. "Go beg, you dog!" he shouts. He laughs again as the preacher opens his car door. "Go ahead and beg. I'll be here when you get back so I can rub it in some more."

Preacher walks slowly, hoping that God will perform some miracle at the last minute so he doesn't have to beg for food. There's only two people in line, but the preacher waits until they've gotten their food and sat down before approaching the cashier.

"Yes sir. What can I get for you today?" she asks cheerily. Easy for her to be cheerful, she's got a paycheck the preacher thinks.

"Uh, is your manager in?" he asks. "I can't believe I'm doing this." he thinks at the same time.

"Yes sir. I'll get her for you."

"Lord, give me the words to say because I've never begged before." the preacher prays.

The manager walks up and asks what she can do to help the customer. The preacher explains how he's lost his job and that he's been looking but nothing is working. He tells her that his family is hungry and asks if she can give him some food - any thing extra that they might be ready to throw out - that he can take to his family. She sees the pain in the man's eyes, his sunburned skin, the sweat stains on his blue shirt from where the cross has hung. Normally she would say she's sorry but she can't help him. Regulations prohibit her from giving away leftovers. But he's a man of God. How can she deny him? What would that say about her?

"You just tell me what you want and it's on the house." she offers.

Preacher tries to protest. His pride still battles against his need to take care of his family. He offers her the six dollars. At first she tries to get him to keep it, but he insists so she relents and tells the cashier to take care of the customer. He orders from the value menu and the total comes to a little over seventeen dollars. He declines the offer of sodas. They can drink water at home, he tells them.

"Thank you so much for this. May God bless you. I'm going to come back tomorrow and repay you by working this expense off." he promises.

"That won't be necessary, sir." the manager replies.

"No. I'm not a pan-handler. I pay my debts." the preacher argues.

"There's nothing wrong with mercy and grace is there?" the manager asks; though she has no idea where that came from.

The preacher hesitates for a moment; his eyes fill with tears again. "No, nothing wrong with that. Thank you so much!" he says.

Leaving the restaurant, the preacher is torn by shame and gratitude. He places the food on the front seat, starts his car and heads home.

Unseen is the passenger in who's lap the bags of food sit. It's not the same passenger who was there earlier. This passenger rides along quietly for awhile, looking lovingly at the man. "I know you can't hear me." He says. "The enemy has you so confused you wouldn't recognize my voice if you could. But that's OK. I'm here. I know. I care. You don't have to hear me or beg me to keep my promises. Everything is in hand. What I've started, I'll finish - even if it's nothing like what you think I'm doing. I love you Preacher. I'm not going anywhere."

The Man Who Predicted 9/11

2008-09-12T15:00:00.004-04:00

Last night, on the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America, the History Channel ran a one-hour documentary on Rick Rescorla, the head of security for Morgan Stanley bank in the World Trade Center. A couple of years ago I read a book about him and Daniel Day Hill - Heart of a Soldier by James B Stewart. The two men were former mercenaries who joined the U.S. Army during the VietNam war. If you saw the movie, "We Were Soldiers" starring Mel Gibson, these two men were officers in the company pinned down by the Vietnamese at Ia Drang (although they weren't mentioned by name in the movie so the producers wouldn't have to pay them royalties).

Rick Rescorla was referred to by some in the VietNam war as the best recon officer in the military. He learned much of his craft while a mercenary in Northern Rhodesia and Cyprus. Following the war he went to work in New York at the WTC and was there during the attempted bombing by bin Laden years before 9/11/2001. Following that attack, Rescorla began to petition the city and Port Authority to adopt tighter security precautions. His friend, Daniel Hill, a security consultant for the government by this time, told Rescorla that it was almost impossible to defend the WTC from attacks from the air. Because of the congestion around the Manhattan area, our Air Force could not fire on an unidentified aircraft that close to habitation. Escape, rather than prevention was the only realistic response to such an attack. Rick had Daniel help him draw up a plan to keep safe the people under his protection.

For the most part, Rick's pleas fell on deaf ears, so he took it upon himself to create an emergency evacuation plan for Morgan Stanley. Employees were drilled over and over on how to quickly exit the buildings and where to go should an emergency occur. Many thought Rick was nuts and overly cautious.

When the planes hit in 2001, Rick's evacuation plan was put into action for real. Despite the police and Port Authority telling people to remain where they were until help arrived, Rick made sure his people got out of the building, saving almost 3,000 lives. Then he went back inside to help people who weren't his responsibility. The last he was seen, he was on the 10th floor going stairwell to stairwell making sure peole were leaving. A few minutes later the South Tower crashed in around him. His body was never found. Rick was 62.

Rick Rescorla led an amazing and exciting life, and he died doing what he spent most of that life doing: protecting others. Most of us lead unextraordinary lives, Rick lived an exceptional life and left behind a legacy. If you didn't get a chance to see the special, there is supposed to be an encore presentation on Sunday night. The DVD is available at the www.history.com store for $24.95 or from Amazon for $29.95. Never forget our heroes.

Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!

2008-09-08T11:31:00.002-04:00

I became an Elvis fan at a young age, but my parents wouldn't let me buy his records until my 13th birthday when they gave me his 'How Great Thou Art' album. My side of the bedroom when I was growing up was filled from wall to wall with pictures of Elvis. I'm not gay; Mama just wouldn't let us stick pin-ups of women on the walls (but I did have the poster of Raquel Welch in '1,000,000 Years B.C.') upstairs in the pool table room.

Last night I sat on the living room floor and inventoried and boxed up my Elvis records. There's a guy in Apex who's interested in buying them. Those records have survived three divorces and 24 years of military service. I used to say that I was going to have my Elvis records buried with me when I die...but since I'm going to be cremated I don't want to ruin perfectly good vinyl.

Boxing those records up was bittersweet. Sweet because I remember playing every one of them. I used to know the words to every song in the order they appear on the album. My Girl Happy and Girls! Girls! Girls! album covers are the most worn because I played those over and over again. Somewhere along the line someone has stolen a few of my albums. My King Creole and I Got Lucky albums are gone. I had a Sun record that my brother sold while I was stationed overseas. I enjoyed looking at the pictures on the back of the album, especially if the co-star was Raquel Welch (Roustabout), Ursula Andress (Fun In Acapulco), and Mary Ann Mobley (Girl Happy & Harum Scarum). The movie soundtracks are forgettable for the most part, but the women were almost always beautiful (except for Barbara Stanwyck (Roustabout) and Carolyn Jones (King Creole)

It was from Elvis that I learned to say "Yes Ma'am" and "No Ma'am", which won me "Most Courteous" in my senior year of high school. I wore pink shirts and black trousers to school, which should have won me "Best Dressed".

I can still remember the stereo console with the turntable, radio and 8-track tape I purchased with my own money as a teenager. I'd stack five or six of Elvis' records on the platter, crank up the volume, and sing along with Elvis. When I was shipped off to basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC, Elvis' step-brother, Billy Stanley. I would stand up in the back of the deuce-n-half on the way to the rifle ranges and sing 'Wellll, Well, Well, Well, Well, Wellll, I gotta woman, way across town, who's good to me, oh yeah! Said I gotta woman, way across town. She's good to me, oh yeah. She's my baby, don't you understand? I'm her loving maaannn, Well, I gotta woman, way across town, she's good to me!" just like Elvis. Now I can't sing like him anymore, but I can do Elmer Fudd singing Love Me Tender.

I really hate to have to sell these records. There are 80 albums and 26 of the 45- RPMs and 1 78-RPM EP (extended play). They're worth more than the $750 price I put on them. In fact, if I take them home tonight I won't be disappointed. I hate to think that I hold on to any possession too tightly; for after all, they're just things, and I haven't had a turntable in over twenty years. Still, it's not so much the music as the memories I don't want to let go of. I'm not the Elvis fan that I used to be, but he's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Visiting the Folks in Nebraska

2008-09-03T11:43:00.007-04:00

I flew out to Newman Grove, Nebraska over the Labor Day weekend to visit my fiance and to prepare for our November wedding. Newman Grove is a tiny farm town of about 800 citzens, located about three hours west of Omaha. I'd never seen such large cornfields and granaries in all my life. Corn, soybeans, alfalfa and beef are the sources of income for most of the residents in the Newman Grove area.

Pam and I attended marital counseling on Saturday morning. Pastor Ken Purscell gave us four personality tests to see if we're compatible. I think he was surprised just how much we'd talked and how well we knew one another. We have the gender roles already worked out - we're sharing responsibilities. It was a fun morning getting to know Ken and going over the wedding ceremony.

Saturday afternoon we visited Pam's parents and siblings. They live a few miles down a well maintained gravel road about a half hour from Newman Grove. Her parents are gracious, quiet people. The first thing Pam's mom said to me was a plantive "It's a long way", meaning the distance from Nebraska to North Carolina. They didn't ask me a lot of questions; not wanting to pry, and satisfied that Pam knows me well enough for us to marry. They simply want the best for their daughter. The Doughty's are a strong family. They take pride in their children and grand children - often traveling to watch the grandaughter play volleyball or a grandson's track meet.

I sat on the front porch and soaked in the view of the sun setting over the family farm until Pam's dad started grilled burgers. Then I hung around him for awhile so he wouldn't feel alone, but I don't think it was a problem for Mr. Doughty. The only thing he asked me is if I was a football fan. The Corn Huskers were playing Western Michigan in Lincoln, and half the state was there to watch the Huskers win 47 to 24. The game was pay per-view, so we listened to the game on the radio while we ate.

We drove the trucks out to the 'back 40' with Pam's dad to turn off the irrigation pump and to see the family camping area next to the river. The Doughty's farm over 400 acres, just the two of them. There's been a drought this summer, so they've been in the fields quite a bit repositioning the irrigation pipes. It's hard work for a young farmer, but these two never complained. They've created a comfortable home with a beautiful view of corn and soybean fields. Our dinner came from the garden. The beds were covered with quilts made by my better half. The bathroom sported an oversized clawfoot tub, and there's a chicken house out back ready to receive a new brood of chickens. Pam's sister dropped by with her grandson, who wanted to camp out so we erected a tent in the front yard. The doors aren't locked at night, so if he got cold or scared he'd be able to come back inside. At eight, he knew how to make an ax out of a piece of broken flint, a stick and some duct tape. Pam's brother brought along his son and daughter with her boyfriend. The teenagers were as quiet and polite as the adults were.

On Sunday we attended the United Methodist Church, a beautiful country church in Newman Grove. Reverend Purscell presided over a sermon from Romans 12 about being transformed by a renewing of the mind. Pam and Ken sang a duet, "I Can Only Imagine". After church we all went to the City Cafe for lunch. Many members of the congregation are seniors; but these seniors are much healthier than seniors in North Carolina. They've worked hard and lived well all their lives, and they enjoy meeting and 'gossiping' with one another. 'Old' to them is someone in their upper 90's and there's some around who are over 100.

Sunday afternoon Pam and I drove to Humphrey for a picnic with her co-workers. There was a good turnout. The food was fabulous. It turned out to be a surprise wedding shower. Pam's friends were so thoughtful. They gave us a little cash and some gift cards so Pam wouldn't have to pack up more stuff for the move. Then we played 'Battle of the Sexes'. The ladies cheated, and the guys did surprisingly well; it ended appropriately in a tie.

On Monday we packed some of Pam's things and threw away quite a bit of stuff. Bernice, one of the nice ladies from the church invited us to dinner. The only place open on Labor Day was Newman Grove Bowl. The bowling alley only allows bowling and smoking after 7:30 PM. Before that, you can come in and eat and drink coffee, but no smoking.

Tim, the owner, brought us prime rib sandwiches as big as the plate. He's quite a character. He refers affectionately to Bernice as 'dumb ass', who smiles and scribbles on his order pad so he has to tear it off and start over. On one wall is a sign that claims, "This is not Burger King. You do not get it your way here. You'll take what I give you and damn well like it." The bowling alley is where the locals come to eat breakfast in the morning and to drink coffee in the afternoons. They don't serve sweet tea in Nebraska, but you can order a pop (Pepsi). The check for three meals came to just over $18.00. Bernice was not too happy that I wouldn't let her pay for it; so she made us come back for breakfast on Tuesday morning so she wouldn't 'owe' us anything.

There is a stong sense of pride and loyalty in rural Nebraska, whether it's over a football team or the family farm. If you break down on one of their roads, the next car to pass by is expected to stop and help, because the closest house might be three or four miles away. American flags fly everywhere. The few Democrats share similar values with Republicans. Neighbors help other neighbors. Were it not for the cold winters, Nebraska would be a great place to live.

As beautiful as the state of Nebraska is, with corn fields that stretch to the horizon, where the sky meets the ground rather than the treeline; it's the people of Nebraska that make it special. Southern hospitality may be a thing of the past here, but in our heartland are people who respect one another, who stand by their neighbors, who love and serve our country, who are passionate about God, family and football; people who are soft-spoken, gentle, determined, and hardy. I'm gaining a wonderful family and good friends, so I hope that Pam finds people here who are just as loving and supportive as those she leaves behind.

Cleaning Out the Cabinets

2008-08-28T14:11:00.005-04:00

I was cleaning out the kitchen cabinets one evening this week. My refrigerator is just about empty since it's only me at the house for the time being. I found two cases of canned goods in the garage I was supposed to donate to charity last winter but now they've suffered through the summer heat and I have to throw them away. Inside my kitchen cabinets, I checked the dates on the cans to see if any are out of date. Most are; some expired back in 2005. Now my cabinets are empty.

Some of the canned food that I threw away came from when I moved into my house four years ago. They belonged to my mother. Somehow it didn't feel right just tossing away the cans she had bought with her social security check. Mama never liked to throw away anything. She kept the Country Crock butter containers to freeze the brunswick stew she made every year at Thanksgiving. Baby food jars held nails and screws and nuts. Dinner wasn't really planned; it was whatever cans Mama would open. We might have eggs, meatloaf, canned green beans, canned turnip greens, and canned candied yams for supper. Whatever was left over went into the refrigerator for the next day.

Growing up, Mama kept a can to hold the coins people paid her for sewing for them. That's how she made extra money. It never went to buy her something, usually it went on material to make our school clothes. She and my father grew up during the Depression and both had learned how to get by on little and to waste nothing. She sewed her own dresses and our shirts and shorts.

Mama also had a spit can. She dipped Society and Sweet Rose snuff when I was growing up. When snuff became too expensive for her, she switched to Beech Nut chewing tobacco. I really hated that spit can. Between her snuff and my dad's 'chaw', we were always knocking over somebody's spit can. Maybe that's why I never bothered with tobacco.

I didn't know it back then, but there were times we were struggling financially. Sometimes, the milk man would leave a quart of milk and two quarts of butter milk for Mama's biscuits; and sometimes we had powdered milk. We only had meat once a week growing up, with the exception of some fatback that seemed to go with anything. We had Kix and Cheerios growing up, but most often we followed my dad's lead and and ate chunks of loaf bread in milk with a little sugar sprinkled over the top. There was also rabbit and squirrel; sometimes pig tails and pigs feet (I never ate those). Once in awhile Mama would fry up a can of beef tripe. I didn't know what tripe was, but it was fun stretching it out like mozzarella cheese. About the only thing I refused to eat was chitlin's, and liver. Whatever we had to eat, I thought that everyone ate the same way so I never felt deprived or ashamed of our social standing.

I guess my mom was eco-friendly by nature. She learned from necessity, not from celebrities. In her latter years, my mom shrank from a size 14 to a size four. Her eyes clouded over and she couldn't see to read or sew anymore, but she could feel her way around the kitchen and find what she needed. She knew how far back in her cabinets she had hidden her purse, or a handsaw, the insurance policies, or the Claxton fruit cake.

Sometimes a simple can of Pocahontas Pure Corn Hominy can bring back memories. The older I get, the more memories I have. Hope I can hang on to my memories until I can once again see Mama and Daddy. Some day Laura will be cleaning out her old dad's cabinets. I hope she finds something to remember me by. Maybe a can of Pam olive oil shortening spray....

Ad Sense

2008-08-26T09:28:00.002-04:00

At the bottom of my blog you'll see a box with links to various ads. It's called Ad Sense and apparently it identifies what I write about the most and then tries to lure people to commercial websites that are 'supposedly' related to my interests. It's supposed to be a way to earn money on our blogs, though I doubt many of us do.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get you to click on any of those links. I was looking at them and they all are 'Christian' based ads. There's even one titled Money Prayer that promises $500 in four hours or four days. If I understand the concept right, it seems that I've lost focus of what I started this blog for. It was intended to help me get in the habit of writing so I could finish my novel Sea Tree. Somewhere along the line I started writing about my faith and that's where this blog has gone.

Sea Tree is not a Christian novel. The central character is a former pastor turned police chief, a man who struggles with the good and evil inside him. His role as police chief parallels his former pastor role as a protector; but his dark side seeks justice. Mercy is not his spiritual gift.

There are other characters who are less than Godly. There will be some profanity. Sea Tree will be real, even if it is a fantasy. There will be romance...because I'm a romantic guy despite what my pastor's wife thinks. There will be violence, just because. There will be discussions on politics, religion, maybe even about movies, because I have my own opinions and I can say whatever I want in my own book. That my central character has a picture of Ronald Reagan on the wall of his office rather than G. W. Bush or whichever liberal wins the 2008 election, is a reflection of the values that character shares. There will be some of me in every character. Maybe I'll find out something about myself that I didn't know.

Jesus at Petra

2008-08-21T13:41:00.002-04:00

I'm enrolled in a writing course which I hope will help me turn Sea Tree into a story people will want to read. Part of the course involves writing our own story. There's no way I'm going to finish Sea Tree in six weeks, so I though I'd write a back-story on one of the central characters in the novel. At the end of the course I'm going to post the end product online and ask friends and family to review it for me. This will be the first introduction you'll get to Sea Tree. It should set up the main character so that you'll understand him better once he appears in the story.

The name of the back-story is 'Jesus at Petra'. In a couple of months I'll post the story online for you to read. The link will be www.jesusatpetra.blogspot.com. There's nothing there now. I'll post the link again here once the story is done.

Here's the synopsis of 'Jesus at Petra': A burned-out pastor invites Jesus to visit his church, but when Jesus actually shows up one Sunday the results are nothing like he expected.

Stay tuned....

Politics and Religion and the News Media

2008-08-19T14:32:00.004-04:00

This past weekend, Rick Warren and Saddleback Church hosted a civil forum for John McCain and Barack Obama. The event was carried live on CNN. Last night (Monday), Rick Warren was on Larry King Live to discuss his thoughts on the interviews and the controversy surrounding John McCain's absence from the 'cone of silence'.

What I enjoyed most about this forum was how Rick Warren kept the tone civil. Neither candidate spoke harshly about the other. Each was given a chance to tell America who they are and what they stand for. Rick asked important questions that believers ought to ask from those who wish to lead us. But most importantly, I think that Rick was able to show America that these two candidates, as opposite as they are, are not the evil persons you hear about on talk radio. He knows both candidates as friends and he treated them with respect. I took away from the forum a new picture of each candidate. Of Barack Obama, I saw an intelligent and thoughtful man of great courage, to come before an audience he knew to favor his opponent. My impression of John McCain is that he will lead from his heart, rather than his intellect. I respect both candidates more now than before Rick Warren's civil forum.

I've also found that if I'll turn off talk radio and if I don't listen to those political analysts who try to tell us what the candidate really meant to say, that I'm less prone to anger and hatred. I think the same thing is true whether you're listening to Rush and Sean or to Tom Joyner and Al Franken, or whether you watch CNN or Fox News. The people who report on, and who spin these candidates, are worse than the person they want to defeat.

I want to thank Rick Warren for showing us how to keep civility in a civil forum. His credibility allows him access to the most powerful people in the world, and I believe that that is what Christians ought to be fostering rather than fear. After all, the hearts of the kings are in the hand of God. God doesn't want His children to live in fear of the person in office of even the most powerful country on earth. Nor does He want us to depend upon our government to meet our needs - that's His job.

Prophesy and Astrology

2008-08-15T09:42:00.002-04:00

You've seen the ads from psychics and astrologists promising to tell your future - for a fee. You may have grown up in a church that believes that God still speaks to His children through prophets. Both are mysterious, though the church is quick to point out that psychics and astrologists are witches and pawns of Satan intent on leading you away from the Lord.

I've been exposed to both, though the psychics and astrologists tend to be very general - not like the lady in the link above who promises specific times and events soon to occur in my life. She seems sincere, but if it's really vital to my future to know this information should she withhold it unless I send her $60? What if the lack of this knowledge ends up killing me?

A few years ago a prophet spoke at our church. He said he had a vision from God where he was standing on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, looking out at Europe. At first Europe seemed to be prospering with lots of ships loading and unloading at the ports, trucks and trains hauling goods back and forth. Then pieces of the European continent began falling off into the Atlantic. Greater chunks fell leaving Europe devastated. The pieces that fell into the Atlantic created a giant tidal wave that swept towards the United States. The prophet watched as the wave rose as high as the clouds and seemed about to crush him until God spoke to him and told him to move into the shelter of a huge building with columns. The wave broke over the US shore, over the building where the prophet sought shelter. In its wake were destroyed homes and businesses. The damage was far beyond what the government could hope to rebuild.

Troubled, the prophet asked God why He had shown him this vision. God explained that a huge economic storm was coming (this was about 5 years ago when the prophesy was given). Europe, which has been thriving under the European Union, would see their prosperity shatter almost overnight. The result of the EU fall would have sweeping impacts on the U.S. with a magnitude almost as severe as it had on Europe. Then God explained about the shelter in which He had protected the prophet. The shelter was the Church. With the government unable to help the citizens, those who are in the Church will rise to meet the needs of our countrymen. People will be forced to look to the Church for help because only the Church has the resources they need. The end result was that God would be revealed and glorified before the world. However, God cautioned the prophet that he must warn us (Christians) now so that we will be prepared to survive and serve. We must distance ourselves from debt; we must not pour our money into bigger homes, more expensive cars, or waste money on movies like Tropic Thunder, Step Brothers, and Pineapple Express.

The front page of today's Wall Street Journal talks about the first cracks in the European Union economy. The Euro is down; they are feeling the same pressures we are with housing and job woes. Is this what God prophesied just a few years ago? More importantly, are we prepared to survive the storm?

The astrologist predicts that there is a 103 day period in my near future in which many opportunities will present themselves that, if I take advantage of them, will turn my finances around as well as improve my love life. I'm getting married in 79 days, so my love life will definitely improve then. I've assumed that our finances would improve too because we'll be supporting one household rather than two. Should I send this lady $60 to find out specifically what I should do and when to look out for the opportunities? Should I assume that the prophet's word is coming about - which is the sign of a true prophet?

The Church has presented God as mysterious, and tells us that His ways are not our ways. Astrologists would argue that God created the cosmos for a reason, not just to give us something to look at at night. Jesus said that if you've seen Him, you've seen the Father; but even His disciples had trouble understanding his teachings. God has used an ass in the past to help someone. He uses prophets today. We can't put Him in a box and say He wouldn't use an astrologist. So you tell me, should I spend that $60 on my personal prediction or should I buy $60 in lottery tickets?

Amway Churches

2008-08-13T08:55:00.003-04:00

Let me be clear up front that I love Amway products and Amway people and even those Amway motivational tapes I bought every week. It's the business end I struggled with. I also love the Church and Christians, but I'm not so crazy about the organizational aspect of Christianity. Both have similar strengths and weaknesses.

I joined Amway three times, the last time in its new face as Quixtar. I could recognize a distributor from a mile away, just like I can pick out a military man even though he’s wearing civvies. I've been in the same church that have undergone three transformations, first as a broken Southern Baptist church, then as a purpose driven church, and now one that's only purpose is our relationship with God and one another. I can usually pick out other Christians, though usually I’m looking for those who I believe appear to live more Godly lives than my own.

I miss the big Amway functions where thousands of the faithful turn out to celebrate the success of others in the business. I miss the members of our church who have split away to do their own thing; far more have left than have stayed. The loss of relationships has been painful. Hurtful things have been said on both sides. Both sides have thought they were justified before God, thus the other side has to be in rebellion and estranged from the Body of Christ. So sad that we play those games with one another.

One of the things I hated most about Amway was sponsoring new distributors. The thing I dislike most about the church is witnessing. I used to hate being recruited by distributors who couldn’t recognize that I was already one of them. I still hate when another Christian gets in my face and asks me, “If you were to die today, do you know where you’ll spend eternity?” As if they can’t look at me and see Jesus! I didn’t want any part of that person’s business or their church if they just saw me as another mark.

In Amway it's a numbers thing - you threw as much mud on the wall as you could and worked with what stuck. All you need is six, who can get six, who can get six (sounds demonic doesn't it?) In Church it's about numbers too. The bigger your numbers, the more your collections, and the more programs you can offer, and the more ministry opportunities you can make available to the congregation. In Amway we had our own lingo for those who couldn't see what we saw in the business: "Some will. Some won't. So what? Who's next?!" In Church we have our lingo for those who don't recognize the opportunity we're offering them: "Lost. Heathens. Unwashed." In Amway if you quit the business you were a ‘loser’. In church if you quit the church, you were a ‘backslider’. In Amway, anyone could be successful if they wanted it bad enough. In the Church, anyone can be saved, but they have to qualify for membership.

In Amway, if everyone on your team is doing what they're supposed to - buying from your own business, books, tapes and functions - you're the best of friends. In church if everyone is in lock-step with the church's articles of incorporation and by-laws and the mission's statement, and if you show up every time the doors are open, then you're counted among the chosen. But let a distributor balk at the price of a box of soap and all of a sudden you're a liability. Let a member of the congregation question the decision to go with cubed ice over a crushed ice machine and you've got a 'situation'.

The point I'm making here is that often we lose sight of our purpose for being part of an organization or system. Often we invest so much into the system that we feel obligated to protect our assets, and that thing becomes more important than our dreams or our God. We find our identities in the organization and measure our worth by the approval of others; but buck the system and watch out! It is easier to get out of the system than it is to get the system out of you.

Former Amway distributors who left under less than friendly circumstances often go off and find a new product to market. They'll say it's "Just like Amway; only better!" Christian churches will split and the people will go off and create a new church and believe it is better than what they left. It becomes a competition, and in competitions someone has to lose. Most times people will rejoice in the failures of the old organization. Oh, they might walk up and hug you if they meet you in a public place, but behind closed doors they're lying about you in order to make themselves appear to be right. Sometimes the people you were closest to will cross the street to avoid you, or snap at any attempt you make to be civil with them. It's about competition and being right. It's about worth.

When Amway morphed into Quixtar, it was promoted as the ultimate network marketing model out there. When mega churches began to decline and home churches began to gain more popularity, it was a movement of God. Nothing has changed, we're still playing the same game; we're just calling it something else.

The Church has taught that God sent His Son to become sin, and to suffer and die on that cross for our worthless souls. Sure Jesus loved us enough to die for us, but we're left wondering about the Father's love if He would do that to His own Son. If He hates sin that much, how disappointed and angry must He be every time I sin - which is several times an hour when I'm awake. Some of my dreams would fall under the sin category, especially the ones I don't want to wake up from.

The truth is, both Jesus and the Father loves us so much that they cooperated together to destroy sin so that it has no power over us. God makes no requirement of us, but made His own provision by taking our sins upon Himself and dying in human form so that we can experience the reality of His Kingdom.

Churches that preach the Word have seldom gotten it right. It's not about us conforming to a set of laws in order to be worthy of Christ's sacrifice; it's about Jesus, who never felt the need to compete or even to play their game. His Church isn't an organization or a building; it is a relationship between us and His Father. We don't need a system to confirm our worth. Before we were born, before Jesus died on that cross, before Creation itself, God found us worthy to be loved.

Unlike Amway which will someday become obsolete, the Church will last forever. But the Church as we know it today will bear little resemblance to the Bride Christ will return to claim. He is looking for those who love Him because they know Him.

I suppose I should close by saying that I’m exactly where I should be in a church relationship. That’s not to say that everyone else’ model is wrong, or that we won’t end up at the same Cross. This is simply where God has me right now. The Carpenter’s Shop hasn’t been for me another team to belong to, but a relationship with people who love Jesus and who don’t try to get me to conform to their system. We’re free to grow as fast or as slow as we allow God to invade our lives. We don’t look at one another and wonder how we can benefit from someone else. We see each other as fellow travelers God has joined because He loves us enough to never leave us. It is much easier to love others when you're not competing with them.

Grandfather Mountain

2008-08-12T09:19:00.005-04:00

It's only the middle of August, but the temperature in Butner was a chilly 58 degrees this morning. The skies are blue, there's little humidity - it feels like a perfect fall day. The weather made me want to continue west rather than turn east towards work this morning. On the drive in I daydreamed about spending the day in the mountains, Grandfather Mountain to be specific.

At 9:30 in the morning, it's a bit cooler at Grandfather than here: 49 degrees, with a stiff breeze making it feel much cooler. Its shorts and sweatshirt weather on top of the Old Man.

The Mile High Swinging Bridge was constructed the year after I was born. It was originally made of wood and, true to its name, would sway back and forth as people walked from one cliff to the other side. In 1999 the wooden bridge was replaced with a steel bridge. It still sways a little, but the big difference is the sound of the wind passing between the metal slats and cables. It sounds as though the bridge is singing. The truth is, the bridge is just nature's vocal chords; the song is in the wind.

As a child I remember visiting Grandfather and still recall my mother's nagging to my father about how close he was to the edge of the narrow road that leads to the top of the mountain. Even now the road twists and turns back on itself and you need good brakes if you're going to come back down safely. But it's a beautiful place and one feels closer to God on that mountain. On one trip, my parents brought along my nephew Rudy. Rudy was always a handful, kind of like my daughter Jennifer. Mama wouldn't walk across the swinging bridge, but my father guided us boys over. After awhile we came back over and Mama asked "Where is Rudy?" We assumed he'd crossed back over before us, but Mama was at the end watching for us and assured us he'd not come across that bridge. My brother and I ran back across the bridge, pausing just long enough to see how far out we could spit. We found Rudy sitting on the edge of a rock, his feet hanging out into space. The nearest treetops were hundreds of feet below him. Where my parents would have used words to coax him back from the edge, my brother and I simply grabbed him and drug him back, then proceeded to hit and stomp him for scaring us so badly. Didn't he realize that if he'd fallen to his death that our vacation would be over and we'd have to go back home? How stupid could he be?

Nowdays there's a wildlife habitat at the base of the mountain for visitors to enjoy. One can watch otters, deer, eagles, and even black bears in their natural habitats. The black bear is the mascot of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. There's one lucky male bear at Grandfather. His name is Kodak. The rest are females: Gerry, Dakota, Flower and Smoky in the large habitat and Elizabeth, Carolina and Punkin in the small habitat. Punkin is the oldest at 25 years. Some bears in captivity can live as old as 30, but the life expectancy for bears in the wild is only 3-5 years because they are a hunting species.

We've enjoyed the Highland Games in July where grown men wearing plaid skirts see how far they can toss telephone polls and boulders. http://www.gmhg.org/ Nearby is Linville Caverns and a couple of gem mining places where you can 'pan' for gold, rubies and emeralds. A little bit down the road is Valle Crucis, home of the original Mast General Store. http://www.mastgeneralstore.com/history.cfm.

The last time I visited Grandfather was on Father's Day in 2006. I arrived around 9:30 in the morning. In the summer you want to arrive before 10 or after 3 because of the crowd. I had lunch at the restaurant next to the wildlife habitat and left at 1 PM. When I exited the gates, there was a line backed down the road trying to get in.

Next summer my wife will be able to experience Tanawha, as the Cherokees used to call the mountain. We're dreaming about opening a bed and breakfast in the mountains. The Linville area sounds like a perfect place.

Maybe I should get a job as a travel agent.

Butterfly Kisses

2008-08-11T10:47:00.003-04:00

My youngest daughter is a rising senior this year. In two weeks she will begin the 12th grade; nine months later she will be old enough to vote and on her way to college. Where has the time gone?

She almost wasn't here. Though her mom and I disagreed over abortion, I would have caved in since my wife felt we needed more time together before having a baby. But God stepped in and created something beautiful that has blessed our lives tremendously. Even though we ended up divorcing, Laura's mom and I have made it a point to love and raise this precious gift as best we possibly can. Soon our job will be over, though neither of us will ever stop being her parent. We can both say that she has made our job a lot easier because Laura has been an angel to raise. Some friends might not think so, but we do.

Since my daughter was 4 years old, she's spent just about every weekend with me. Shortly after separating from her mom I recall standing in line at Wal-Mart or at the grocery store with Laura sitting in the shopping cart chatting up the people in front or behind us. "My mom and dad are divorced. I live with my mom, but I stay with my dad on the weekend." Too much information, but what could I do? She was the apple of my eye, my link to sanity in a life I had no control over.

Before our divorce we spent a Thanksgiving in Nags Head. It was there that Laura sat on Santa's lap for the first time. Although she was deathly frightened by clowns and a bit unsure about Barney, she felt safe with the guy in the red suit and white beard. When it was her turn, Santa asked Laura what she wanted for Christmas. Her reply brought tears to my eyes and I turned with pride to look at the other parents as she said, "I want all the kids to have some food and a place to sleep." The previous Christmas we'd taken her to a charity event for homeless children. Though still in her stroller, Laura remembered seeing those children from various shelters in the Raleigh area. I shouldn't have been surprised at her memory however because Laura remembered all the songs and lines from all of her favorite Disney movies. Many times I've looked at her and wondered if she really isn't an angel disguised as a little girl.

At five, Laura was wiser about church than many adults are. Rather than sit through a boring sermon and pretend to be righteous, Laura would stay in the nursery by herself and color. We had no teacher during the sermon, but Laura was content to stay by herself until I came to get her. The only time she ever left the room on her own was in the middle of a service where the preacher was telling the congregation about his visit to the doctors to have his chest pains checked out. No sooner had he told us than Laura opened the door to the sanctuary and walked in holding a picture she'd drawn. She didn't look for me or acknowledge the congregation in any way, but went up the steps to the pulpit and handed the pastor her picture. Then she turned around and walked back out the way she came. Everyone giggled at how cute she looked. The pastor stood looking down at the picture for a moment and then held it up for us to see. It was a picture of a heart. The pastor said, "God truly speaks through His children. Here he's used this little girl to tell me there's nothing wrong with my heart and I could have saved myself $700 if I'd just trusted Him." That was just another instance that my baby girl has made her dad proud.

Her mom and I have been pretty protective of our daughter, something she's just now starting to rebel against. There have been some bumps along the way: she's required stitches three times in the same spot because she would break her fall with her chin rather than her hands; she's been trampled by a horse; she was running and, not paying attention, turned around just in time to run face-first into the corner of a post - that split her cheek open and left her looking like she'd been in an automobile accident. There was a time when we missed her one winter morning. There was snow on the ground and it was freezing outside. We searched the house, under the cabinets where she liked to hide and eventually looked outside. I finally caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. Laura was up in the tree line chasing a rabbit wearing only her pajamas. I ran after her and just caught her two steps from the road. She received one of the handfuls of spankings she would get for scaring the heck out of her mom and me.

As Laura has grown, she and I have had many opportunities to get away and have some fun times. We've done Busch Gardens to death but still love going there. We've driven down to Orlando for Sea World and driven back in one weekend. We've enjoyed Tweetsie Railroad, Ghost Town in Maggie Valley, and Cherokee NC; Gatlinburg, TN; she's skied at Massanutten, VA; and we've spent a glorious week at Myrtle Beach, SC. Our furthest adventures took us to Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas. For thirteen of her seventeen years, Laura has been my constant companion; even if all we do on a weekend is to go to the movies or play video games at Game Frog in Northgate Mall. We've been invited to Thanksgiving and Christmas at my pastor's home for as long as we can remember. We've been inseparable until I took a part-time job at a theater last Thanksgiving.

For years I've picked Laura up on Friday after work and dropped her off at school on Monday morning. Kissing her goodbye was always hard. As I drove away every week I'd pray the same prayer: "Father, bless Laura. Keep her safe, healthy, and close to your heart. Change me so I can be the best dad I can be." Every night I'd call to check on her day and the world wouldn't seem right until I knew she was safe at home and looking forwards to being with me again on the weekend. Her mom has been great for allowing me to have her as often as I have...even on Mother's Day weekends.

Now things are changing. In a few months I'll have a new wife. Laura will stand in as a bridesmaid at her dad's wedding. She wanted to give me away too, but the pastor said that he's going to ask my ex-wives to do the honors. A few months further down the road and my baby girl will be off to college and her own life. Right now she wants to go to Appalachian State with her best friend Erin, and get as far away as she can from her overly protective parents; but that depends on whether she can get scholarships. She will probably marry some guy who doesn't deserve her, despite her objections to being tied down and having children. At her wedding they will play "Butterfly Kisses" and I'll cry like I've done every time I've heard that song. No matter how old she gets, I'm always going to remember Laura as that little girl with the boyish haircut who held my hand when we walked, whose kisses were special because she was the only one who would kiss me, and who checked me up when she knew I was talking BS. She is God's gift...one I've got to love enough to let go.

Knowing Laura, she's going to come see her dad often. If she doesn't, Pam and I are moving in with her.

James Michael Pratt

2008-08-08T14:21:00.003-04:00

For whatever reason, Blogger won't let me save James M. Pratt's link to his blog in my blog list, so I'm posting it here and hope you'll drop in and see what James is all about: http://www.jmprattcom.blogspot.com. James' newest book "As a Man Thinketh...In His Heart" is in print and available on Amazon. I posted an article on this book back in April, so scroll down there and see why this book had such an impression on me.

James is not only my favorite author, he's been a good friend and has been encouraging me to write Sea Tree. What has impressed me most about James is that he is so much like the characters in his books. James is a man of integrity, vision, humility and courage. Despite several best sellers, James has gone through four years without an income while he's worked on "As a Man Thinketh...In His Heart", a screenplay for his novel, "The Last Valentine", and starting up a new company with Mark Kastleman, Power Think and Power Think Publishing. During that time, James lost his mom and experienced other tragedies that would have caused many of us to give in to despair. His faith has inspired me as much as his encouragement has. When a best-selling author takes the time to respond to your emails and who treats you with encouragement, honesty and respect as James does, you've found a friend. I hope you'll visit James' new website: http://www.powerthink.com/index.php. Come September you'll find lots of ebooks at great prices, many free.

Enjoy.

Randy Alcorn

2008-08-08T13:22:00.002-04:00

Although my favorite writer has to be James Michael Pratt, followed by Nicholas Sparks, perhaps my favorite Christian writer is Randy Alcorn. His book, "Edge of Eternity" was my first incursion into Christian fantasy (as opposed to Christian fiction). EoE does in words what "The Masterpiece - A Toymaker's Dream" did in music and dance.

"Deadline", a detective novel, has been turned into a screenplay with Chuck Norris playing the main character. Don't know if it will ever make it to film, but the novel is great. As with James Pratt's screenplay for "The Last Valentine", Hollywood often takes the story so far away from the original that the two are unrecognizable. I hope that "The Last Valentine" and "Deadline" get the same thoughtful treatment that Nicholas Sparks' "Message in a Bottle", "A Walk to Remember", and "The Notebook" received.

Randy has several non-fiction books in print as well, probably his most popular, "Heaven", earns him lots of radio and television interviews. Check out Randy's blog at www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com.

On Prayers

2008-08-06T08:47:00.004-04:00

Our church, The Carpenter's Shop, meets in Jon's Main Street Diner in Creedmoor, NC. We're a small group - 17 if my daughter and grandson show up. Occasionally some friends will drop by and once in awhile a visitor. Those who don't know us that well leave thinking "Well, that was different." We don't have an order of service, praise music, an offering collection or even a sermon. What we do is we sit around and discuss some scripture and talk about what's going on in our lives. We are a church of friends.

Usually, Jimmy will welcome everyone with something like this: "It's so good to see you all. Thank God you survived another week and chose to be with us today!" Then Jimmy will ask if there are any prayer requests. We'll pray for my daughter's cancer, for a neighbor of Jimmy's parents who's having some tests run next week, for high school and college exams, for Jon's business, Jimmy's business, the family of a high school student who lost their dad recently...whatever is on our hearts. Once in awhile someone will ask for personal prayer, often for sickness and we'll obey scripture by gathering around that person and the laying on of hands in prayer. We'll simply believe that it is God's will for His children to be whole and leave the healing up to Him.

A couple thousand years ago, Jesus was sitting around with His friends, perhaps around a meal. It was only a few weeks before He would endure the cross and Jesus was more than a little troubled by what lay ahead. Still, Jesus was always more concerned with others than with Himself and He wanted to teach his friends (disciples) about prayer; so he asked them concerning his upcoming crucifixion, "Should I pray and ask the Father to save me?" Probably everyone around the room nodded in the affirmative; that sounds like a reasonable request and it's what they would have done if they were about to be tried and persecuted. Perhaps a part of Jesus wanted to ask His Father to save Him too. He would offer that prayer later, but tonight He wanted to teach His friends something about prayers. Jesus knew why He was here, for He said to them, "No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!"

Jesus had the same choice we do, to pray a 'save me' prayer, or pray a 'glorify God' prayer. We've all prayed those 'save me' prayers, asking God to get us out of our circumstances; and we've been disappointed when our prayers seemingly weren't answered. We know God can cure cancer, we know He loves us, so why did He not do as we asked? Didn't Jesus say that we could ask anything in His name and God would answer our prayers? Why then does God not answer prayers that are asked in faith and hope by His children?

Perhaps the answer lies in the example of Jesus. In the Garden, Jesus again asks God to save Him from his circumstances, but as He did with His disciples, Jesus adds, "Yet not my will, but Thy will be done." Jesus knew that the best thing that could happen to Him was if God was glorified in His circumstances.

God doesn't get much glory when things are going well for us - when we're healthy, our finances are in order, our marriage on good terms. We assume it's because He's blessed us for our obedience. But let us be beaten down to the point when there's nothing we can do to save ourselves and God comes through in the nick of time and all of a sudden we're praising God. When things occur in life that can only be attributed to God and not to our own power or someone else', then God gets the glory and the world gets to see a loving Father who cares so much about us that He would allow His Son to die so that we don't have to.

What I've learned from Jesus' prayer is that I should pray concerning my son's foreclosure on his first house - Father, glorify your name in that situation! Father, glorify your name in my daughter's cancer! Father, glorify your name in my marriage, in my job, in my weakness, in my dependence upon You! May you be glorified as I trust you have a better plan than my own. Even when I don't see how my circumstances can bring you glory, Father, have your way; so that your name may be glorified and so that the world will know your love through my circumstances.

Many will say to Me in that day....

2008-08-04T08:25:00.003-04:00

For a long time I've felt uneasy about that scripture in Matthew 7 that says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Who are these people who've fooled themselves into believing they had a saving relationship with Christ and how does that reconcile with Romans 10 which states, "9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Which is it?

A recent uproar among some fundy Christians over a photograph displayed inside Abercrombie and Fitch was the subject of yesterday's sermon...one in which we packed up and drove to the mall to see what the fuss was all about. (The photo is on the sidebar.) I'll let my pastor provide his take on the reaction of some Christians to this picture. You can read his blog here once he gets around to it: http://www.jchalmers.blogspot.com/

My dilemma is this: should all Christians be equally upset over what some Christians perceive to be sinful? What about the Christians who aren't offended? Are we counted among those whom God will cast aside because our level of righteousness doesn't measure up to God's standards, or even to the standard of other Christians? Or is this really something that we should be devoting so much attention to when there are more pressing problems we could be addressing?

I grew up in a fundamentalist church. We were taught that anyone can come to Christ as they are and that they can be saved by grace regardless of their past. That's fine so far. But after about 15 minutes of salvation, we spring the bad news on the new convert: Your ticket is punched, but if you want to please God you've got to follow this list: join a church, get involved in a discipleship program, tithe, get rid of the tattoos and nose rings, burn your rock and roll CDs, quit your job at the liquor store, marry the woman you're shacking up with, attend our Addiction Recovery program so we can get you off drugs; and oh yeah - we need you to work in the nursery for the next four Sundays.

Most Sundays we heard messages that contained about 2 minutes worth of grace, love, and trust, and 58 minutes of "Thou shalt nots". So it's not surprising when a Christian father is incensed when he and his family are exposed to A&F's 'art'. He probably feels like he's serving God and that it is his mission and ministry to protect shopper's eyes from this blatantly sinful sexuality that has nothing to do with the pants the store wants to sell their customers. Christians are always looking for causes to prove their righteousness. But what Jesus says in Matthew makes me wonder if we're just fooling ourselves. The truth is, righteousness doesn't produce relationship; relationship produces righteousness. Earlier in Matthew 7 Jesus says, "13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because[a] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." Can it be that our efforts to please God miss the mark and we're not on the same path to eternal life?

Jesus didn't come to save us from Hell; He came to reveal His Father and to offer us a relationship with our Creator. We were going to Hell anyway, but Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms....come and follow me...I am the Way". So although our goals might be similar, our motivations for being Christian are entirely different. If we do not want a relationship with our Father beyond a get-out-of-Hell-free ticket, and whenever we need His hand because we tried to manage our lives under our own power - then is that a saving relationship or does it get you in the line with other goats? If we're unwilling to surrender our agendas for God's agenda, if we trust ourselves more than we trust Him, do we having saving faith?

Simply obeying some commandments and separating ourselves from the rest of the world is not enough it seems. He isn't interested in slaves, but sons and daughters. If I wake up every day and ask Him to bless my plans for the day, I've missed the relationship. I must wake up and seek His plans for my day. I must trust Him to be there when I don't sense His presence. If He doesn't give me the answer I hoped for, I must know that He has a better way and that He is motivated by love for me. As I surrender my control and learn to trust Him - because He has never failed me and He never will - I find that I've grown to love Him and to really see Him as my Father.

So when I view God as my loving Father, I don't go where He doesn't want me to go, or get involved in behaviors and activities that come between my relationship with my Father. I'm not trying to earn His pleasure; I'm simply enjoying His alternative to my own way. I know that as I trust Him more, that He's going to challenge me and take me to places I'd never have risked going without Him. The gate may be narrow and the road may not always be smooth, but at the end is a seat at the Father's table and a room He's prepared especially for me.

What Was God Thinking?

2008-07-31T10:10:00.004-04:00

Several people were sitting around a table at Jon's Main Street Diner talking about their faith. One says to the others, "The issue is obedience. God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of one tree and they couldn't even obey that simple command. It's about OBEDIENCE, plain and simple." The others nodded in agreement; but is it really that simple?

I don't know about you, but I think the top three questions I might have for God when I get a chance to ask Him about this grand experiment called Creation would be:

1. Why did you create that tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; or why didn't you plant it on the opposite side of the globe rather than right there in the Garden?
2. If you wanted that tree there, why didn't you do more than simply tell them they would die if they ate it's fruit? Why didn't you tell them that it would destroy their trust in you; that it would destroy their relationship with one another; that disobedience would result in so much pain and that their descendants would hate them for messing up what would have been a perfect world?
3. (And this is one that, even if God chose to answer, it would make no sense to us and would simply have to be one of those only He will understand.) Was it worth it? Was Adam and Eve's disobedience worth the millions, even the billions, of lost souls condemned for an eternity in Hell?

Your burning questions may differ from mine. I'm no biblical scholar - don't want to be one. I'm sort of a jack of a handful of trades - master of none. But I do wonder what the world and what my life would have been like had Adam and Eve not screwed up.

While I have no satisfactory answer to the last question, I can kinda wrap my mind about a possible scenario that helps to understand the first two questions. Why was that tree in the Garden to start with? The answer raises another question: Was obedience God's ultimate desire from humans? I think there is abundant evidence in scripture where his motivation wasn't our obedience but our affection and our trust - which sort of answers part of question #2.

If God's primary purpose for the tree had been to command our obedience, He must have known up front that fear of the consequences of disobedience (or fear of the Lord) wasn't going to be enough to stop Adam and Eve from taking that first bite. True, neither Adam or Eve had ever learned about fear or death so it was probably an abstract notion to them; but notice how Lucifer uses the truth to deceive them. He told Eve that they would not surely die (the lie), but that they would be like God and know good and evil (the truth). They had had only good experiences with God and it was not wrong to want to be like God, there's no sin in that. But what Lucifer succeeded in doing was to plant a seed of doubt about whether they could really trust God or was He keeping something from them so that He could always be greater than they? At that point, Adam and Eve decided to eat for their own benefit; and as a result, they did know good and evil - that they had been deceived and that God had been right telling them not to eat that fruit.

That leads into the second question: Why didn't God tell them why it would kill them and what the consequences were for the billions of their descendants? Perhaps the answer here is that God wanted their trust so much that He allowed them to betray His trust in order to gain it back. More than that, God wanted their love, not just their obedience. Love and trust - those were God's motivations for creating Adam and Eve. Perhaps only by knowing evil would humans really know goodness. Only by doing it our way could we truly learn to trust God's way.

At first blush, we'd have to say that mankind failed the experiment, if that's all this life is. As far as the third question - was it worth all those souls in Hell because He chose to create that tree?...it's hard for us to reconcile the depth of love God has for every person and His desire that all be saved for a relationship with Him, with the unfathomable consequences of Satan's deceit of mankind. Do I care if Satan burns in a hotter corner of Hell than someone who never got the chance to even hear about Jesus Christ? No - for that soul is someone God loved just as surely as He loves me, or He loved David, or Abraham, or even His only Son.

I think of my older brother who passed away a couple of years ago. He knew about God, but I don't know that he knew Him enough to have a saving relationship with Him. Because I love my brother, despite all his flaws - and they were many, I don't want to think of him being tortured where Satan and truly evil people are. I don't know that Roger is separated from God for all eternity because I never truly knew his heart. But I do trust the heart of my Creator who wants me to call Him Father, who's Son wants me to consider Him as my brother, who's Spirit was given to me freely when I simply asked for Him to come live inside me and to help me learn to love and trust God more and more.

I am no better than my brother, no more deserving of salvation - but I have to believe that it was not simply a matter of fate that I chose to accept God's free gift rather than going with my own plan for my life.

I still struggle with the notion that some choose to turn down His offer of an eternal relationship; and that many more never had the chance to even learn about Jesus Christ and, as we're taught in church, now are eternally separated in a place of hopelessness and despair. Yet I go back to what I do know - that God loves me enough to come to earth to show me the way back to Him. He's met every need I've ever had; He's carried me through life's interruptions when my own strength wouldn't suffice; He's been gentle in His corrections; and He's given me so much more than I could imagine attaining on my own. Little by little I'm learning to trust Him, and as I trust Him I come to love Him more. You can't betray the love of someone you really trust; you can mess up, but you keep coming back because you know they love you and that they will forgive you and welcome you back; and there's no place you'd rather be. What was God thinking? He was thinking of me, and of you, and all who would come to love Him, because He is Love.

War on Wasps

2008-07-30T09:48:00.005-04:00

Twice in the past few days, I've been assaulted by large wasps inside my house. I fear these two incursions into my safety zone is a prelude for a mass attack at some point in the future. I have yet to determine their point of insertion into friendly lines, thus a full-scale inspection of the perimeter is in order.

On Saturday evening, while lying in bed talking to my fiance, a large paper wasp (I ascertained its nature by gathering intel online) flew through my line of sight. Immediately, adrenaline enabled me to roll off the bed and crawl through my bedroom door, closing it behind me to trap the enemy and to escape an imminent threat of being injected with venom from its ovipositor - originally designed as a tube for the laying of eggs but reengineered to hold toxins designed for defense and to kill their prey. Twenty-four years in the Army prepared me to defend myself from this airborne assault.

With a sick daughter and a baby in the house, I knew I couldn't simply allow the infiltrator to remain until it founds its egress the same way it got in. Ruling out a broom, which was too flimsy to deliver a killing blow, I opted for a shoe. I cautiously reentered my bedroom, closing the door behind me. All the while, I'm talking to my fiance on the phone - apprising her of my situation in case reinforcements or medivac needed to be called in. Finally I spotted the wasp on the corner of my book case. I struck it with a might blow that caused books to topple over. The wasp, much larger than most I've seen and obviously on some sort of growth hormone or steroids, simply shrugs off the blow and leaps into the air, circles the blades of my ceiling fan and aligns itself on approach in retaliation for my drawing first blood. As it flies in deliberately and slowly, I knock it down in mid-air, demonstrating great hand-eye coordination for someone of my advanced years. It slams to the floor, stunned and angry. I can hear it buzzing; so I bend over and deliver six solid blows. At this point, I observe that the enemy is unable to fly, but is still mobile. As it begins to crawl in my direction, I wonder what it will take to kill this fiend. So I gather all my strength and call on God to help me. I said, "In (slap) the Name (bam) of Jesus (pow)(boom) die you @*@&#&#&*%!" My fiance is cracking up on the other end of the phone.

I sit back on the bed, sweating from exertion. The wasp moves again, though clearly broken. I shake my head, just as Apollo Creed did when Rocky Balboa wouldn't stay down after been repeatedly knocked on his keister. But although I respected the wasp's strength and tenacity, I knew that it was behooving of me to end this stand-off and protect my loved ones, and so that I could go to sleep without leaving one eye open in case this wasp had regenerative powers like David Banner. I took the point of my shoe and pressed it as hard as I could against the wasp, pinning it to the floor, and held it there until the wasp had time to suffocate. I watched until I saw another wing flicker, pounded it until the wasp's body split in two. Then I brought in the vacuum cleaner and sucked up the corpse, then removed the vacuum to the Florida room in case it was bionic like Lindsey Wagner. For only female wasps can sting.

I thought that the first attack was simply the result of a door left ajar too long, but this morning, as I was getting out of the shower, another large wasp flew within inches of my face. I leaped back into the shower, closing the door behind me, but quickly realized that I had three feet of open space above the door through which the wasp could attack. I realized that I could not be in such a confining space.

This time the wasp had caught me in a more precarious predicament. I was naked. Naturally, the first thing I did was to bend over and place a hand over my privates. I knew I could survive a sting to any other part of my body, even to my face, but a sting to my privates would probably be fatal. After all, the wasp's stinger was tiny and its target was perhaps a thousand times larger - or at least I'd like to think so.

Apparently the wasp was wary of me and kept its distance. Perhaps it was the mate of the one I'd slain in combat a few nights previously. Or it could have been the same wasp brought back from the pit of hell to finish what it started. Eventually, I was able to slide by the wasp and rush out the bathroom door, closing it behind to trap the wasp inside. This time I thought I needed the additional reach of the broom so I headed for the laundry room to retrieve one. I'd just started opening the door to the bedroom before I remembered I was naked, and wet. Grabbing a pair of shorts from a chair, I quickly put them on and got the broom. With my privates at least partially protected by cloth armor, I cautiously reentered the bathroom. The wasp was crawling around on the light fixture. I waited until it flew past me and landed on the mirror. It's a wonder it didn't crack when I struck it hard enough to turn over my shaving cream and mousse cans. The wasp, obviously as strong as its predecessor, shrugged off the blow and flew over to the window blinds to recover. At that point I decided that brute force alone wasn't going to rid me of this thing, so I opted to deploy chemical warfare in the form of TileEx Soap and Scum Remover. I followed that with some Clorox mold remover. The fumes almost made me pass out, but fortunately the wasp too was overcome and fell into the tub. I immediately turned on the hot water and grabbed the wand, drowning it for several minutes. Then I followed this with more Tilex and Clorox. I took a respite to shave, all the time watching for any sign of movement. After shaving, I used the corner of an envelope to scoop up the wasp and carry it over to the toilet where I flushed it down the toilet to make sure it was dead. For safety reasons, I closed the lid just in case it was able to find it's way back from death again. The smooth sides of the toilet would prevent it from scaling its walls. At this point, I needed another shower because I'd worked up a sweat. I also thought it couldn't hurt to flush more water down that drain and carry the demon spawn as far away from my house as possible.

It seems as though the chemical weapons are the most effective defense against this enemy. I will be stopping by supply channels, located at Wal-Mart, to obtain some wasp and hornet spray, Sevin dust, moth balls, ant and roach baits and anything else I can use to defend my family and home from invaders. If these precautions don't work, I'm going to call in the professionals; because I'm too out of shape to keep running from these darn bugs.

Time & a Legacy

2008-07-29T14:10:00.003-04:00

Last night I attended the visitation for a friend and former National Guard soldier, Charlie David Hobgood. David was 53. Of him, his wife said that he loved his family and he loved the National Guard. Another fellow soldier remarked that David would do anything that you asked of him and never asked for anything in return. He had a weak body, but a good heart. That's a pretty good legacy to leave behind you. David was a character; he would bring to annual training a footlocker full of National Enquirers and Hustler magazines. In his laundry bag would be at least two gallons of Jack Daniels that he'd purchased with his "J, D" money. Any bill that had a J or a D in the serial number went in his pocket for his favorite drink; the rest went to his wife to pay the bills. I'll miss David.

I stood outside the Gentry-Newell Funeral Home in Oxford waiting for other old friends to show up, but they didn't. While I waited I looked across the street at the campus where I attended school from the first grade until I graduated in 1970. Also visible from the steps of the funeral home was the end of the street I'd grown up on, Forest Avenue. It was hard to beleive that a half-century ago I would ride my bike over those same cracked sidewalks on my way down-town to the Orpheum or to my dad's hardware store, Morton's Hardware. As I marveled at how fast time has passed: fifty years when I played on that street, twelve years since I'd retired from the National Guard and last seen David, twenty-seven years since I've last seen the children from my first marriage....I realized that most of my life is behind me...just not the best part.

Thinking back to my youth, I recalled my parents and how they worked hard, sacrificed for my brothers and me, and made sure that we had everything we needed growing up. We weren't one of those overly affectional families. My father worked hard six days a week and would come home and work the garden until dark; go to bed and be back at work at 6:30 the next morning. My mother kept the house, took in sewing and helped relatives put up tobacco in the summers.

If I had to sum up my parents in a couple of words, I guess I'd say that my father (Daddy) was strong and generous. I've seen him hoist two 50 lb feed bags on his shoulders and take them out to the back of a farmer's truck. I've seen him grab a hammer off the wall behind him and chase a knife-wielding robber down the street and cathch him in front of the court-house and beat the hell out of him. I was scared at the time but it's funny thinking back on it. I've also seen him write off a farmer's debt to the store when their crops didn't turn out, and I've ridden with him many times to take vegetables we grew in our garden to the homes of widows and elderly people.

My mother wasn't as outgoing as my father. Where he was witty, she was shy. Two words that would describe Mama are, devoted and cynical. Perhaps I got my own brand of sarcastic humor from the two of them. Mama complained about everything, but she wouldn't quit on people, especially her kids. I never had a birthday party growing up because Mama was too shy to invite people into the house, but many times she would squeeze a little money in my hand that she'd earned from sewing or washing other people's sheets and tell me to go see a movie. Other times I couldn't go out of the yard and if I failed to respond when she called me, a switch was waiting when I got home.

My dad earned $65 a week back then, yet we had a least one vacation every year, often two; he drove a fairly new vehicle every couple of years, and we never went hungry or without clothes for school and church. Mama said it was because Daddy tithed regularly. She also would scold us when we complained about not having something we wanted that my dad worked hard and that he could buy that scratchy, one-ply toilet paper, but instead he bought the good stuff for us - so be grateful!

Like most teenagers, I couldn't wait to grow up and get away from home, even if it meant responding to my draft notice and giving them two more years if they'd train me in military intelligence. My parents never stopped being parents however. When I came home in the early 1970s to the still segregated South with an African wife, they opened their home and let her stay with them while I sought a home at Ft. Bragg. When I was stationed in Berlin, they surprised me for my birthday by flying in. Neither had ever been on a plane, let alone crossed the ocean to another continent. Having no car, we walked or took the bus everywhere we went, pushing strollers because by then there were two children. By the time there were four, and a different wife, my parents made regular trips to Augusta, Georgia to visit us. Mama always insisted on cooking and Daddy always snuck a $50 or a $100 bill in my pocket before they left.

That's something I didn't really think about until last night looking down my old street. My parents always wanted to be part of my life, even when I'd left and started a life of my own. In their latter years both were forced by circumstance to enter nursing homes. My dad lasted six months - he was always strong. Although I would visit and bring Mama, I was never comfortable with the smell of the home or the vacant look my father's eyes had. He knew that it would be a week, maybe two before family would come see him again; and although he never was one to toss around a baseball with his son, he was fiercely proud of my service and that I was the first in the family to graduate from high school. My mother lived to be 93, her mind still as sharp and critical as when I'd grown up. She only lasted a month, and altough we visited her every night after work, I remember the fear in her eyes as we left for our homes. For both my parents, home and family were as important as church and honoring God.

Now that my youngest is a rising senior, soon to be college student and starting a life of her own, I understand why my parents wanted to remain part of our lives. Someone needs to remember those who raised us the best way they knew how. We need to remember those who put their loved ones before themselves, who sacrificed their dreams to help make their children's dreams come true. We need to have someone validate that we did make an impact on this earth when we were alive. That doesn't mean that we never mattered to God, but it's important to us that we matter to those we love.

If I could take my daughter aside and tell her something important that will leave a piece of my legacy behind, it would be to remember the moments, to live this time you have now. The things that irritate her now will seem precious to her later on. What she couldn't wait to flee from will be the place she most longs to return to. The ones who smother her now will be the ones she most wants to hold her when life gets tough. I know that I will always want to be a part of someone who has given me unspeakable joy and purpose; and wherever she goes, she takes a part of me with her. Like David, we might not have as many years as my parents enjoyed on this earth. What we do have is this moment and our memories and the legacy left us by those who walked this life with us for awhile.

God bless Daddy, God bless Mama, God bless David, God bless my little girl. God bless you.

Compensating God

2008-07-28T16:12:00.003-04:00

This really should have been written before my "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" post; so if you haven't read either, read this one first and it might help you understand how I got to where I am now.

The Church told us the truth that we cannot earn our way to an eternity with God; that it is by believing in Jesus Christ that we are saved. I understood that truth but still struggled with my obligations to God. Perhaps I was confused by the 'conflicting' teachings that we can't earn salvation, we're little more than slugs saved by grace, and that we owe God everything. That's all true, but it's not everything we need to understand about God's love and grace.

Several years ago I was invited to visit a local church to hear a prophet who was speaking there. Near the end of his message, this prophet pointed to me and said, "God has a word for you." I looked around, hoping he was pointing at someone behind me, but the prophet shook his head and said, "Yes, you in the blue shirt looking around - God has something to say to you." I nodded meekly, steeling myself for a possible rebuke. Lord knows, I deserved to be rebuked...I just didn't want Him to call me out publically. The prophet walked halfway down the aisle and pointed his finger at me and said, "God wants you to know that He has seen all that you have done for Him, but He also wants you to know that it doesn't mean a thing. God is not interested in your service, He wants you to get to know Him as a Father."

I'd never met or heard of this prophet before. Only a handful of people at the church knew me and I know they didn't prep this guy by telling him about what I did back in my own church. That's why I knew it was really God speaking to me through this man. Sometimes people talk through their ass and claim it's God speaking through them, but this guy was right on the money.

For two or three years, I had been a deacon in my church - not through biblical qualifications, but because I was one of the few men who showed up on a regular basis. God used a donkey in the OT, guess He could use an ass who made himself available. Not only was I an usher, but I was a greeter, the janitor, the guy who wrote, printed and folded the weekly bulletins (with some help from my Sunday School class), a Sunday School teacher, I prepared the communion elements, helped paint the church classrooms, and pretty much anything else that needed doing around the church. If the doors were open, I was there; and when they weren't, I had a key to let myself in.

You see, I had been saved back on Father's Day in 1996, and although I knew I was saved by grace, I felt like I owed God something for saving me. Now that I was saved by grace, I felt obligated to compensate God for everything He was doing for me after saving me. After all, He didn't snatch me up at confession, but left me here for a reason, so God must have wanted something from me.

The church, unwittingly, was complicit in my deception. They allowed me to do all those things. After all, if I told them that I was called by God to use my spiritual gifts in administration and helps, then who were they to deny me the right to serve God? Rather, they encouraged me, and when I couldn't perceive God's acceptance and approval of my service, I took their praise as His approval. At one point, I was cleaning the church on a weekly basis and the leadership decided they should pay me for my efforts. I took this as an affirmation that I was on the right path. It wasn't long though before some of the people who used to praise me for cleaning the church for free were complaining about how they weren't getting their money's worth. What used to be a blessing to me turned into a bitter feeling towards those people and I quickly gave up the position as custodian to someone else who needed the money. Then I wondered what I had done to displease God. I never knew if I was doing enough or doing it well enough to merit His approval.

I think it was Micah who said something like, "What can we give to the Lord? Our possessions? Our time and energy? Are those enough?" (I'm paraphrasing here because I'm too lazy to look it up.) "Well what if I gave a dozen rivers of oil; would that be enough? What if I did like Abraham and offered my first-born as compensation for my sins - would that satisfy God?" Micah understood that we can't do enough, nor does God expect us to try.

What God has always wanted is a relationship with those who are created in His image. While I was worrying about keeping Him appeased because Jesus had to suffer and die for my rebellion, God wanted me to treat Him like a Father rather than a task-master. Why is it that we're afraid to get close to Him? Are we afraid He's going to ask us for some hard sacrifice? Maybe we're afraid if we get close He's going to spank us for our sins. Why do we expect Him to be less loving as a parent than we are?

What the prophet said to me didn't change my activities immediately, but the seed was planted. It took a few months before I started letting things go. It took a church split for me to simply quit trying altogether. I don't blame the church for its complicity in my self-deception. There are people like me in every congregation who substitute activity for a personal relationship with Papa. It was the continued support and love of my pastor and his family that helped me see that God has no expectations of me. I'm free to approach Him, and free to shy away. God is gentle.

He's like a kind person who sees a stray puppy and who coaxes it to come get some food, a nice home, and loving care. The puppy, so scrawny you can count every rib, takes a tentative step forwards because it wants what the man has. But if the man makes a move towards the puppy, it shies back because it's been hurt and deceived by man before. The man, though knowing that he offers everything this poor puppy could ever need, also knows that he can't force it to come to him. Either the puppy allows his need to overcome caution, or the puppy chooses to risk the unknown and misses out on something it really wants.

When I truly understood that God's motivation isn't to make my life miserable by demanding everything from me, and that He actually delights in me, then I was able to stop trying to please Him and learn to love Him; and by loving Him I'm able to accomplish more than I ever could trying to compensate Him for all of His grace and mercies in my life. Like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, God has never loved me less - even when I've taken advantage of Him. His love has been constant and His desire has been for me to know His love and to love Him in return.

Nights In Rodanthe

2008-07-25T14:59:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite writers, Nicholas Sparks, has another movie coming from one of his novels: Check it out here. http://nightsinrodanthe.warnerbros.com/

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not....

2008-07-24T10:49:00.003-04:00

I grew up in the Church. Some of my earliest memories were of tent revivals where a sweating preacher would yell and scream hellfire and damnation. People clapped and shouted "Amen!" amid a flurry of paper fans, provided to them by the local funeral homes. But even though I don't recall any specific sermons growing up, I do remember that there was a lot of emphasis on keeping the Ten Commandments and warning us to avoid those who broke the Law.

In recent years there has been more teachings on grace and mercy, but for the most part when you turn on a TV, you're still assaulted by a God of holy justice; the same God who committed ethnic cleansing in the Old Testament and Who rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and Who threatened humans with the fires of Hell if we didn't love this fierce, righteous, unbending, and quick to condemn us, God.

Then we read the New Testament and see a different God, a God of love, peace, mercy and grace. We're left wondering what happened to God between Malachi and Matthew? Did God repent of His ways and get saved? How do we resolve the conflicting Gods of the Old and the New Testaments? If God is truly schizophrenic, which of Him do I wake up to each morning? It's kind of like a child plucking the petals off a daisy while repeating, "He loves me; He loves me not; He loves me; He loves me not.

I got a raise at work: He loves me.
I failed to pay my tithes: He loves me not.
I met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with: He loves me.
The doctors have given up on chemo and radiation to fight my daughter's cancer: He loves me not.

I spend most of the day wondering whether I'm in God's good graces, or whether I'm a breath away from waking up in Hell. With this concept of God, I'm more like the slovenly steward who hid the talent the Master gave him in fear of losing even that and displeasing the Master. If the only reason I’m even responding to Him is to serve my own self-interest and escape Hell, am I really loving Him or myself?

Having grown up with that kind of theology, it's no wonder that churches are still preaching judgment over love. We're told that God judged America on 9/11, or that He judged New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. I think that most Christians are like me, having learned in churches that focused more on obeying God than on loving Him. Most of us, truth be told, turned to God out of a fear of Hell than out of love for Him. I mean, how can you love someone you can't trust? How can you trust a God who demands that you love Him while dangling you over a fiery pit, and threatens to drop you unless you say what He wants you to say? Didn't Jesus Himself say that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, your soul and all your strength? It seems the church's response has been that the fear of God is equivalent to loving Him.

It’s no wonder that Christians are turning so many away from God at a time when the world needs Him more than ever. They don’t want one more drop of God’s life other than the minimum required to escape Hell. How do we reconcile that God with Jesus who loved us enough to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and forgive murderers, thieves and prostitutes?

Wayne Jacobsen observes that, “We live in a day when millions have made a commitment to Christ and yet so few lives are really transformed by His power. It has been said of this generation that our Christianity is a mile wide but only an inch deep. People claim to know God but show no transformation in their daily lives. We challenge them as hypocrites and attempt to badger them into more righteous lifestyles, but in the end most believers end up as much a part of the world’s ways as their nonbelieving neighbors.”

Recently I picked up a book that's opened my eyes to God's love. I've mentioned it on another post here: "The Shack" by William P Young. If you go to the author's blog, you'll see testimony after testimony about how this book has positively impacted people's lives. It has done the same with me. I now have an inkling of understanding this Father that Jesus presented in the Gospels.

In The Shack, Mack suggests to Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) that he has tried to keep the Law and lead as good a life as possible. Sarayu’s response was, “How’s that working for you?”

I think now that I have a better grasp on how God can love me in spite of my sins and failures. Before Jesus came, we could only see God’s actions and assume He was moved by motivations similar to our own. Jesus presented God as a loving Father, One who is willing to allow His children to sin in order to show them how destructive sin can be. Jesus’ message was not to come to God or you’ll burn in Hell; His message was that God’s kingdom has come near and you can become a participant in it.

Jacobsen goes on to say, “He allows us the consequences of sin, not because He delights in our anguish, but so we can see its devastating effect and run to the only one in the universe who can set us free from them. His wrath against sin was not His rejection of us in anger, but only a reflection of the depth of love that cannot look away unconcerned as sin destroys us. There is no one that God does not love with all that He is. His love reaches beyond every sin and failure, hoping that at some moment they will come to know just how loved they are.”

So here I am, on the cusp of a new revelation of God. Finally understanding that God is not conflicted, but that He has always wanted a personal relationship with me based on love and trust; I feel that it is time to cast off the old cloak of shame and put on this new cloak of belonging to God. Rather than ask you to counsel and save me from some new false doctrine, I ask you to do what Sarayu did when you see me revert to my old religious ways: Say, “How’s that working for you?” With the new life-partner God brought into my life (my fianc'e, Pamela), I look forward to the future and our journey in loving God more.

A Rainy Day at the Beach

2008-07-11T23:11:00.004-04:00

Are you ready?
Did it hurt?
Did you feel anything?
Well, did you at least get wet?
Did you do anything yet?
Do you want me to open your legs?
I don’t think they’re supposed to bend that way.
Are you going to eat that?
Would you like some butter on that?
I’m so full.
Thanks for coming.
It was wonderful dear.
Is there an ‘off’ button on this thing?
.
,
.
,
,

And now that you've all blushed, here's the rest of the story:

On Thursday night, Pam and I went to The Lucky Fisherman seafood restaurant, located at Oak Island, NC for dinner. A quick storm came up just as we arrived, with a little hail mixed in, so I dropped Pam off at the door so she wouldn't get too wet. I asked her before she exited the car, "Are you ready?" Pam nodded and dashed up the steps to the restaurant's covered porch. I parked the car and ran through the rain to join her on the 'porch' where other diners waited for seating. I inquired about whether she'd gotten too wet or if she'd been struck by the hail, "Did it hurt?", referring to the hail. She said no, so I asked if she'd even felt the hail, "Did you feel anything?" Again Pam said no. It was pouring down as I dropped her off at the door so I asked her, "Well, did you at least get wet?" I was wiping water from my face and arms. Of course, I'd run from the parking lot, so I'd been exposed to the rain more than she had.

We had taken a seat on the bench outside the restaurant and we noticed some patrons arriving after us going up to a stand beside the door and signing in. I'd assumed that Pam had signed us in and she assumed I had. She looked at the sign-in sheet and back at me and asked, "Did you do anything yet?" I said, "Nope, sorry." and got up to sign us in. We waited about a half hour before they called our name and seated us in a nice quiet corner of the restaurant. We both ordered the "All-U-Can-Eat Crab Legs from the buffet.

Pam had never had crab legs before so I asked her if she'd like for me to show her how to crack the crab legs, "Do you want me to open your (crab) legs?" She nodded and I proceeded to crack the legs and use a kife to extract the meat. After watching me crack open a couple of legs, Pam decided to give it a try. At first she bent the legs sideways as though to break them in half. It required a twisting/pulling motion the way she was doing it, so I said, "I don't think they're supposed to bend that way." In no time she'd perfected the art of breaking open the crab legs and was enjoying them right out of the shell. I pointed to the container of melted butter and asked, "Would you like some butter on that?" Pam dipped a little of the crab into the butter and tasted it, and she smiled.

We made two trips each to the buffet, not counting the trips for crab legs and the dessert. By the time we were done, we were stuffed. "I'm so full" Pam said. The dinner was very nice; the food was great and the company was better. I leaned over and gave her a kiss and said, "Thank you for coming." Pam responded with "It was wonderful dear." And indeed it was a very nice dinner - our first date at the beach. It was a week of firsts: Pam's first trip on an airplane, the first time she'd visited North Carolina, the first time she'd met my pastor and friends at church, the first time she'd seen the ocean, her first engagement ring, which I presented to her the last day we were at the beach.

Upon leaving the restaurant, it was still raining, though much less than when we'd arrived. We jogged to the car and I started the engine. The air conditioner was on the maximum setting and as soon as the cold air assaulted our wet bodies, we began to shiver. I was driving a rental and was unfamiliar with the controls. It took me awhile to find the a/c button, and in the process, I asked "Is there an 'off' button on this thing?!" Pam found it first and turned the a/c off. We drove off, passing a theater on the way back to the condo, so we decided to draw out our date as long as possible by taking in "Get Smart" at the cinema. Although we were full from a great dinner, I still bought popcorn, a large soda and some Skittles for the movie. It was a very nice date on a rainy day at the beach.

Now I understand how someone could assume that two people in love, on vacation at the beach, might make the above statements while engaged in something more erotic than dinner and a movie, but that would be none of your business if we did or didn't say those things behind closed doors.

A High Concept Movie Personality Test

2008-06-19T10:26:00.004-04:00

If my life were a high-concept movie, it would be Jaws 2 (1978) meets Total Recall (1990).

Take the What Is Your High-Concept Movie? quiz.

Personally, I enjoyed the original Jaws, the original Rocky, the original Rambo. I don't know how your name relates to a movie. I plugged in my fiance's name and hers came back "American Pie" meets "The Nutty Professor". I plugged in my pastor's name and he came back "Hitch" meets "Silence of the Lambs". My new grandson came back "The Little Mermaid" meets "Total Recall". What do I have to do to get "The Notebook" meets "Somewhere In Time"?

I'm Also a Talent!

2008-06-19T10:21:00.002-04:00

I'm a Talent!

You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life.

Talent: 62%
Lifer: 38%
Mandarin: 31%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

I'm just average. At least I see myself like half the people see themselves. There's comfort in our misery:). Actually, this test tells us what we'd like to be, not how we really are.

I'm a Lotus Elise!....

2008-06-19T10:14:00.000-04:00

I'm a Lotus Elise!

You believe in maximum performance and minimum baggage. You like to travel light and fast, hit the corners hard, and dance like there's no tomorrow.

"Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

I thought I'd be a Hummer. Bummer.

Josh

2008-06-16T13:34:00.002-04:00

My grandson Josh learned this from his young aunt who brought it home from school recently. Enjoy

Your Headline - Read All About It!

2008-06-16T09:33:00.003-04:00

A great post by my favorite author. Hope is a smouldering ember of faith.

http://jmprattcom.blogspot.com/2008/06/your-headline-read-all-about-it.html

Review of The Shack by William P Young

2008-06-04T15:43:00.003-04:00

A novel that is creating a lot of excitement, especially among Christians, "The Shack" by William P. Young provides probably some of the most powerful pictures of God that I have ever experienced. The Shack has been compared to Pilgrim's Progress by Eugene Peterson - author of 'The Message' Bible, but I think that it has the potential to be every bit as powerful as Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". In fact, I'd love to see Mel do the movie exactly as it has been written. We all thought we understood the story of the Crucifixion from the Bible until we saw the movie; putting The Shack on the big screen would bring God from some distant dimension in space directly into our circumstances.

No doubt there are those in the ministry who would criticize, even demonize the book, claiming that it focuses on God's love and ignores His justice. It's not true. Some claim that Jesus says in The Shack that many roads lead to God - and neither is that true. You have to read the context to properly understand the statements the characters make. Christians take scripture out of context all the time to justify their positions.

I have started re-reading The Shack, this time highlighting passages that speak to me where I am in my spiritual journey. If nothing else, I have developed a better understanding of God's love and can better understand the answer to the question, "Where is God when it hurts?" Of all the books written to explain how God is relevant in our generation, The Shack does the best job.

Because we're all at different stages on our spiritual journey, I won't ruin the story for you here. Read the book and come back and tell us what you think. It's a winner in my book! I will say that this is a work of fiction; it was written for the author's children. Each reader must decide for themselves. For me, I felt like God was speaking to me directly.

(If Mel does the movie, he should star as Mackinzie. Morgan Freeman did a wonderful job as God in Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty, so he should play Papa.)

Update on Sea Tree

2008-05-30T11:21:00.003-04:00

Recently I purchased a laptop computer so that I could work on the novel on my lunch hours. I've been reading Steven's King's "On Writing" which is encouraging because the stumbling blocks I'm experiencing are normal for him - and he's certainly a success at writing and selling novels.

I've pretty much decided that Sea Tree is going to be a series. There are too many characters that I want to develop to put them all in one novel. The first book in the series will center around three main characters and how they find their way to Sea Tree. I'm taking the title for the first installment from this blog: Journey To Sea Tree.

As you may or may not know, Sea Tree is the product of a dream I had a few years ago. Life got in the way of turning this dream into my first novel. As with anything, if we wait until everything is perfect before starting something, we'll never get anything done. The first 50 pages of Sea Tree were lost when my hard drive crashed, so I started over and am back up to almost that many pages of very rough draft.

What kind of story is Sea Tree? I'm really not sure - and that's been one of the stumbling blocks in writing the novel. I don't want it to be something that is of interest to a narrow market, such as only Christians, or only fantasy fans. In my mind, it's a fantasy romance/action tale. The story deals with good and evil and with relationships. If it's done well Sea Tree should be a success, but it needs a lot of work. I will not be allowing anyone to read the first draft; and my second draft will probably only be read by my fiance and my daughter - two people whom I know will be gentle and not shatter my fragile ego. By the third draft I'll ask a few friends and authors to critique the book before trying to find an editor and publisher.

Time-wise, we're looking at another year to finish the first draft. I've got a lot going on with a wedding or two between now and the end of the year. The important thing is that I'm back working on the novel and every day I discover something new about the characters. It is fun discovering how these people ended up in my dream. The challenge will be to write how the dream ends, because I woke up before it was finished. It might be hard to believe in certain parts, but isn't that how our dreams are?

By the way - don't you love the paintings on the right? They are done by Rod Chase. You really need to see them in person to fully appreciate them. Hope he doesn't mind that I'm decorating my blog with his art. I'll let him sell Sea Tree on his website and keep the profit:).