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
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!
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!....
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
My grandson Josh learned this from his young aunt who brought it home from school recently. Enjoy
Your Headline - Read All About It!
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
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.)
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
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?
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:).
Forwarded Emails
I got this one today. You might have seen it:
"DID YOU KNOW THESE FACTS?I SURE DIDN'T TILL NOW
Death is certain but the Bible speaks about untimely death!
Make a personal reflection about this..... Very interesting, read until the end.....
It is written in the Bible (Galatians 6:7):
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: For whatsoever a man sow, That shall he also reap."
Here are some men and women Who mocked God :
John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during his interview with an American Magazine, he said: "Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about That. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple, today we are more famous than Him" (1966).
Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.
Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil ):
During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got 500,000 votes from his party, not even God would remove him from Presidency.
Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before being made President, then he died.
Cazuza (Bi-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and poet):
During A show in Canecio ( Rio de Janeiro ),
While smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said:"God, that's for you."
He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible manner.
The man who built the Titanic [no name provided and I don't have time to look him up]
After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe the Titanic would be. With an ironic tone he said: "Not even God can sink it"
The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic
Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show. He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her. After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said: "I don't need your Jesus".
A week later, she was found dead in her apartment
Bon Scott (Singer)
The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang: "Don't stop me; I'm going down all the way, down the highway to hell".
On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found dead, he had been choked by his own vomit.
Campinas (IN 2005)
In Campinas , Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went to pick up a friend..... The mother accompanied her to the car and was so worried about the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the daughter holding her hand, who was already seated in the car: "My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You." She responded: "Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause Inside Here.....It's Already Full "
Hours later, news came by that they had been involved in a fatal accident, everyone had died, The car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact. The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken
Christine Hewitt (Jamaican Journalist and entertainer) Said the Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written. In June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in her motor vehicle.
Many more important people have forgotten that there is no other name that was given so much authority as the name of Jesus. Many have died, but only Jesus died and rose again, and he is still alive.
"Jesus"
PS: If it was a joke, you would have sent it to everyone. So are you going to have courage to send this?. I have done my part, Jesus said "If you are embarrassed about me, I will also be embarrassed about you before my father."
You are my 8 in 8 seconds. I am not breaking this. No way!"
OK, I cleaned up the spacing but left the grammar and punctuation alone. My point is that I get these forwarded emails every day from people who love Jesus but who think that they're not serving Him if they don't forward these emails to everyone on their list - whether the facts have been checked out or not. Forget about whether these people did or said what they are purported to say. I'm focusing on the contradictions in an email such as this: God is an angry God and Christians need to be angry at the world too.
If I have to spend all this time condemning the world, I don't have time to do anything else. Sure, the world is a mess; but who's standards are we judging the world by? As evidenced in this case, we're judging the world through man's interpretation of scripture rather than God's view of the state of mankind. That sounds so much like the Pharisees in scripture; more worried about offending God than getting to know Him.
It's easy to condemn the drunk who drives the wrong way on the inner Beltline and runs head-on into another vehicle, killing three innocent people. If we know that the man was Hispanic and did not have a driver's license, he's double damned. We don't stop at condemning the drunken driver, we condemn the border guards who let him slip through. We condemn the government for not enforcing illegal immigration laws; the police for not apprehending him before he killed someone; the man's father for not loving him or beating him enough. We can go all the way back to Adam and blame him for causing all the troubles we have on Earth. And while we're at it, we can blame God for not stopping that man from getting behind the wheel or for not moving the innocent vehicle out of the way in time. There's plenty of blame to go around.
But have we stopped to consider how God sees this mess of a world? Has anything changed since the time of Adam's fall? Can we really comprehend how God can justify sending His Son to suffer and die on our behalf? Can we comprehend how God loves that drunken driver as much as He does the people who were killed? We certainly don't. Perhaps our problem is that we want a God who is made in our image; one who judges and condemns words, thoughts and deeds that offend us.
What if Jesus really meant it when He said, "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved"? What if instead of a judging God we have a redeeming God? What if we spent as much time focussed on loving people as we do condemning them and let God worry about whether they deserve to be punished for their sins or not? We certainly don't need to accept sin in our lives, but rather than focus on our failures and the sins of others, we focus instead on showing and telling people how much God loves them? How about an email that simply says, "Jesus wants me to tell you that He loves you - and so do I!"
"DID YOU KNOW THESE FACTS?I SURE DIDN'T TILL NOW
Death is certain but the Bible speaks about untimely death!
Make a personal reflection about this..... Very interesting, read until the end.....
It is written in the Bible (Galatians 6:7):
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: For whatsoever a man sow, That shall he also reap."
Here are some men and women Who mocked God :
John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during his interview with an American Magazine, he said: "Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about That. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple, today we are more famous than Him" (1966).
Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.
Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil ):
During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got 500,000 votes from his party, not even God would remove him from Presidency.
Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before being made President, then he died.
Cazuza (Bi-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and poet):
During A show in Canecio ( Rio de Janeiro ),
While smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said:"God, that's for you."
He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible manner.
The man who built the Titanic [no name provided and I don't have time to look him up]
After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe the Titanic would be. With an ironic tone he said: "Not even God can sink it"
The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic
Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show. He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her. After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said: "I don't need your Jesus".
A week later, she was found dead in her apartment
Bon Scott (Singer)
The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang: "Don't stop me; I'm going down all the way, down the highway to hell".
On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found dead, he had been choked by his own vomit.
Campinas (IN 2005)
In Campinas , Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went to pick up a friend..... The mother accompanied her to the car and was so worried about the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the daughter holding her hand, who was already seated in the car: "My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You." She responded: "Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause Inside Here.....It's Already Full "
Hours later, news came by that they had been involved in a fatal accident, everyone had died, The car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact. The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken
Christine Hewitt (Jamaican Journalist and entertainer) Said the Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written. In June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in her motor vehicle.
Many more important people have forgotten that there is no other name that was given so much authority as the name of Jesus. Many have died, but only Jesus died and rose again, and he is still alive.
"Jesus"
PS: If it was a joke, you would have sent it to everyone. So are you going to have courage to send this?. I have done my part, Jesus said "If you are embarrassed about me, I will also be embarrassed about you before my father."
You are my 8 in 8 seconds. I am not breaking this. No way!"
OK, I cleaned up the spacing but left the grammar and punctuation alone. My point is that I get these forwarded emails every day from people who love Jesus but who think that they're not serving Him if they don't forward these emails to everyone on their list - whether the facts have been checked out or not. Forget about whether these people did or said what they are purported to say. I'm focusing on the contradictions in an email such as this: God is an angry God and Christians need to be angry at the world too.
If I have to spend all this time condemning the world, I don't have time to do anything else. Sure, the world is a mess; but who's standards are we judging the world by? As evidenced in this case, we're judging the world through man's interpretation of scripture rather than God's view of the state of mankind. That sounds so much like the Pharisees in scripture; more worried about offending God than getting to know Him.
It's easy to condemn the drunk who drives the wrong way on the inner Beltline and runs head-on into another vehicle, killing three innocent people. If we know that the man was Hispanic and did not have a driver's license, he's double damned. We don't stop at condemning the drunken driver, we condemn the border guards who let him slip through. We condemn the government for not enforcing illegal immigration laws; the police for not apprehending him before he killed someone; the man's father for not loving him or beating him enough. We can go all the way back to Adam and blame him for causing all the troubles we have on Earth. And while we're at it, we can blame God for not stopping that man from getting behind the wheel or for not moving the innocent vehicle out of the way in time. There's plenty of blame to go around.
But have we stopped to consider how God sees this mess of a world? Has anything changed since the time of Adam's fall? Can we really comprehend how God can justify sending His Son to suffer and die on our behalf? Can we comprehend how God loves that drunken driver as much as He does the people who were killed? We certainly don't. Perhaps our problem is that we want a God who is made in our image; one who judges and condemns words, thoughts and deeds that offend us.
What if Jesus really meant it when He said, "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved"? What if instead of a judging God we have a redeeming God? What if we spent as much time focussed on loving people as we do condemning them and let God worry about whether they deserve to be punished for their sins or not? We certainly don't need to accept sin in our lives, but rather than focus on our failures and the sins of others, we focus instead on showing and telling people how much God loves them? How about an email that simply says, "Jesus wants me to tell you that He loves you - and so do I!"
How Many Days Have I Lived?
There's a neat calculator on my Google home page that tells me that I've been alive for 20,703 days. That's 20,703 sunrises and 20,702 sunsets as it's still mid-afternoon when I write this on May 27th, 2008. I suspect that there are about twice that number of bowel movements. Sorry if that's TMI. I'm just one of those guys who likes statistics.
The same calculator tells me that, based on a biblical standard of 3 and a half-score years, I've only got about 4,865 days to go; barring anything stupid that I might do to shorten those days. Less than 5,000 days...less than a quarter of my life remaining.
Today I received in the mail a book titled "One Month To Live: 30 Days to a No-Regrets Life" by Terry and Chris Shook. It's one of about ten books I'm reading simultaneously. It seems the older I get, the more urgent life becomes. I can't remember much of what I've done or didn't do in almost 21,000 days of existence; but there's a need to accomplish something in the time I've got left. Maybe that feeling we get as we age is just God's way of letting us know we've not yet fulfilled our purpose. I certainly hope that I will finish this life accomplishing more than 'living from one tragedy to another', as Jerry Falwell once observed as the meaning of life. And I suspect that God has a different view than Jerry did. As much as I embarrass and frustrate Him, I know that He finds joy in the way I've grown older. For 20,703 days He's supplied my every need, answered countless prayers, withheld His wrath countless times, and given me new dreams to replace those I let slip away.
I am presently on a high plateau in my life. I'm engaged, in love (the love came first), I have renewed hope for the future: it's just a more positive outlook than I had a year ago. Unfortunately, those 4,865 remaining days seems awful short now. How do I cram into those days everything I want to accomplish and still be the husband, the father, the employee, the friend, and the author that I want to be?
In The Shack, written by William P Young, Jesus tells the character that man lives mostly in the past; and when we do think about the future, there's usually fear involved because of our experiences in our past. But God is not a past tense or future tense God; He is a God of Now, a living, relevant, life altering God who wants to spend time with us in the Present. Jesus told the man in The Shack that His desire was not for the man to be like Jesus, but for Him to live through the man.
Before I die, in the 4,865 days more or less that I have remaining, I want to walk on water with Jesus. I want to talk to Him from a mountain top. I want the Holy Spirit to lift me up and let me fly wherever the wind takes me. In my dreams I often am able to fly; that would be cool to get to the place where I'm living in the present and that God is living through me. Perhaps eternity is really living in the Present with, not the presence of, Christ.
The same calculator tells me that, based on a biblical standard of 3 and a half-score years, I've only got about 4,865 days to go; barring anything stupid that I might do to shorten those days. Less than 5,000 days...less than a quarter of my life remaining.
Today I received in the mail a book titled "One Month To Live: 30 Days to a No-Regrets Life" by Terry and Chris Shook. It's one of about ten books I'm reading simultaneously. It seems the older I get, the more urgent life becomes. I can't remember much of what I've done or didn't do in almost 21,000 days of existence; but there's a need to accomplish something in the time I've got left. Maybe that feeling we get as we age is just God's way of letting us know we've not yet fulfilled our purpose. I certainly hope that I will finish this life accomplishing more than 'living from one tragedy to another', as Jerry Falwell once observed as the meaning of life. And I suspect that God has a different view than Jerry did. As much as I embarrass and frustrate Him, I know that He finds joy in the way I've grown older. For 20,703 days He's supplied my every need, answered countless prayers, withheld His wrath countless times, and given me new dreams to replace those I let slip away.
I am presently on a high plateau in my life. I'm engaged, in love (the love came first), I have renewed hope for the future: it's just a more positive outlook than I had a year ago. Unfortunately, those 4,865 remaining days seems awful short now. How do I cram into those days everything I want to accomplish and still be the husband, the father, the employee, the friend, and the author that I want to be?
In The Shack, written by William P Young, Jesus tells the character that man lives mostly in the past; and when we do think about the future, there's usually fear involved because of our experiences in our past. But God is not a past tense or future tense God; He is a God of Now, a living, relevant, life altering God who wants to spend time with us in the Present. Jesus told the man in The Shack that His desire was not for the man to be like Jesus, but for Him to live through the man.
Before I die, in the 4,865 days more or less that I have remaining, I want to walk on water with Jesus. I want to talk to Him from a mountain top. I want the Holy Spirit to lift me up and let me fly wherever the wind takes me. In my dreams I often am able to fly; that would be cool to get to the place where I'm living in the present and that God is living through me. Perhaps eternity is really living in the Present with, not the presence of, Christ.
Promising Vaccine Prevents Alzheimer's in Mice
An article posted in the May issue of Molecular Therapy, the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy is optimistic they're on the right track towards curing Alzheimers disease. My aunt had Alzheimers: she couldn't remember what she ate or how long ago. She couldn't remember how to button her blouse; but she could remember her wedding day and events from her childhood just as though they were happening right then. Alzheimer's truly is a cruel disease and a cure is needed, however sometimes the way science goes about finding the cure doesn't make a lot of sense; but what do I know - I skipped science in school.
When I see articles such as this one, I have a few questions. First of all, I didn't know mice had Alzheimer's. And if they do, do mice call it by that name, or do they call it something like Mickielucus or Minniejitis or Jerriatrics? My next question would be, "How does one tell if a rat can't remember something? Did they get lost in a maze and just sit down and zone out? As a fiscal conservative, I'm wondering why we're wasting money trying to keep rodents from getting old and forgetting stuff. Do we need them to remember where they hid the cheese or which holes will get them back into my house? I'd rather invest money in exterminating mice, not medicating them.
The article said that the mice who received the vaccine were genetically engineered to express large amounts of amyloid beta protein. So science can't cure Alzheimer's but it can reproduce it; sounds like what Lucifer did when he tried to improve on the Creator's design. Reading deeper into the article, scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center used a herpes virus stripped of the viral genes to create the vaccine. That's just what I need, to get herpes and not have the pleasure of remembering how I got it.
Give me Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He didn't waste money on lab rats. If he needed to transplant an arm or a leg, he'd go dig one up and sew it on his patient. If he needed a brain, he'd go over to the local community college and whack a professor and shove his brain inside his patient's skull. If his patient had a bad ticker, he'd hook him up to a big ol' defribrilator and zap him with a few million volts. Frankenstein was more concerned with function than with form. His patient could always go to a plastic surgeon once the parts were all in place.
The article says that it will be several years before this vaccine is safe to use on humans. By then science will have discovered even more clues into how our complex bodies perform. Maybe they'll be able to tell me why my feet smell and my nose runs and, miracle of miracles, they'll come up with a blue pill that will make my weenie bigger all the time instead of just four hours - if I'm lucky!
When I see articles such as this one, I have a few questions. First of all, I didn't know mice had Alzheimer's. And if they do, do mice call it by that name, or do they call it something like Mickielucus or Minniejitis or Jerriatrics? My next question would be, "How does one tell if a rat can't remember something? Did they get lost in a maze and just sit down and zone out? As a fiscal conservative, I'm wondering why we're wasting money trying to keep rodents from getting old and forgetting stuff. Do we need them to remember where they hid the cheese or which holes will get them back into my house? I'd rather invest money in exterminating mice, not medicating them.
The article said that the mice who received the vaccine were genetically engineered to express large amounts of amyloid beta protein. So science can't cure Alzheimer's but it can reproduce it; sounds like what Lucifer did when he tried to improve on the Creator's design. Reading deeper into the article, scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center used a herpes virus stripped of the viral genes to create the vaccine. That's just what I need, to get herpes and not have the pleasure of remembering how I got it.
Give me Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He didn't waste money on lab rats. If he needed to transplant an arm or a leg, he'd go dig one up and sew it on his patient. If he needed a brain, he'd go over to the local community college and whack a professor and shove his brain inside his patient's skull. If his patient had a bad ticker, he'd hook him up to a big ol' defribrilator and zap him with a few million volts. Frankenstein was more concerned with function than with form. His patient could always go to a plastic surgeon once the parts were all in place.
The article says that it will be several years before this vaccine is safe to use on humans. By then science will have discovered even more clues into how our complex bodies perform. Maybe they'll be able to tell me why my feet smell and my nose runs and, miracle of miracles, they'll come up with a blue pill that will make my weenie bigger all the time instead of just four hours - if I'm lucky!
We've Set a Date
My fiance and I have set a date for our wedding. Whoo-hoo! Aren't you just as excited as we are? Actually we're both amazed at all that God has done in the past year or so to bring us together. There have been too many coincidences for us getting to this point to be coincidental. We have goals and dreams like any other couple, but we also have a sense of peace that we're really meant for each other and that there is a purpose and a plan for us as a couple.
Sure, every couple feels this way in the beginning. But this isn't our first time walking down an aisle. For me it's going to be the fourth and fifth times. We're getting married out in Nebraska on November 2nd, and then we're coming to North Carolina to marry a week later. (Jimmy if you're reading this, please book November 9th to marry us).
For those who know us, you can expect us to change; we won't be the same person you know now. We'll be better, because we're going to be much happier together than we've been single. We're going to make decisions not for us as individuals, but as a couple. Where we go, what we do, how we get there - that's something we'll decide together and depend on God to guide us and keep us from getting into trouble.
My daughter and I have been blessed in the past to have been welcomed into the homes of my church family. In the future, Pam and I can invite friends and family into our home so that we can bless you. The changes that are happening may not be apparent right now, but in a year or two you're going to look back and see us in a new light. We feel it happening in us now. Just wanted you to know so you're not surprised. It's a positive change, and we're very excited about our future together.
I write this here because I hope you'll keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We don't need wedding gifts or receptions or parties to mark our official union. All we're asking is that our friends and family be happy for us. God will take care of the rest.
Sure, every couple feels this way in the beginning. But this isn't our first time walking down an aisle. For me it's going to be the fourth and fifth times. We're getting married out in Nebraska on November 2nd, and then we're coming to North Carolina to marry a week later. (Jimmy if you're reading this, please book November 9th to marry us).
For those who know us, you can expect us to change; we won't be the same person you know now. We'll be better, because we're going to be much happier together than we've been single. We're going to make decisions not for us as individuals, but as a couple. Where we go, what we do, how we get there - that's something we'll decide together and depend on God to guide us and keep us from getting into trouble.
My daughter and I have been blessed in the past to have been welcomed into the homes of my church family. In the future, Pam and I can invite friends and family into our home so that we can bless you. The changes that are happening may not be apparent right now, but in a year or two you're going to look back and see us in a new light. We feel it happening in us now. Just wanted you to know so you're not surprised. It's a positive change, and we're very excited about our future together.
I write this here because I hope you'll keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We don't need wedding gifts or receptions or parties to mark our official union. All we're asking is that our friends and family be happy for us. God will take care of the rest.
"As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart"
I hope you have a few minutes because this could very well be one of my longest posts. (Sorry James - I know you're busy.)
On Monday I received an email from my very favorite author, James Michael Pratt, asking me if I would endorse his new book - As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart. I've been a fan of James since reading "The Lighthouse Keeper", and writing to tell him how much I enjoyed the story. Surprisingly, James responded to my email and later sent me an autographed copy of "The Last Valentine" which I gave to my fiance who was then dying from cancer. Since then we've written occasionally; but I was both surprised and honored that James would ask me to endorse his new book.
I received the manuscript and printed it out to take home with me on Monday night. Despite having to work two jobs, I finished the book in 24 hours. Let me say up front that this book came into my life at just the right moment, and I suspect that it will do the same for you wherever you are. The timing is just one of the serendipities I've experienced over the past several months. For a long time I've been in a rut, but now I'm at least walking on the slope so that I can see a better, brighter future ahead.
Anyway, normally I work as an usher cleaning theaters at night (http://www.dirtymoviecritic.blogspot.com/), but Monday night I worked in the box office. Traffic was predictably slow on a week night so I went to the car for the manuscript and began reading between customers. I read a little after getting home but fell asleep because I'm too old to be working two jobs. I read some more on my lunch break yesterday and then committed to finish the book last night.
Arriving home I went straight to my bedroom, kicked off my shoes, and sat in the chair next to the bed. I pulled the throw my darling Pam had made for me over my lap, propped my feet on the bed and made myself comfortable. In his book James talks about returning to a simple, less stressful lifestyle. This is the mood I wanted to be in to finish the manuscript. By now I was captivated by the story and how James so skillfully combined fact and fantasy so that the reader doesn't know what is real and what is imagined. His story-telling ability draws the reader into the story and one can smell the salty ocean air and taste the ham sandwich.
I finished the book after midnight, crawled into bed, and dreamed of living in a cottage and doing heroic things. I awoke early this morning, recalling the manscript and the purpose of the story. I won't divulge much of it here because you need to read it for yourself. I'll just say that wrapped into the story within the story is a truth about the triune nature of man who was created by a Triune God. It was the underlying truth in the story that I thought about on the way to work this morning and which prompted me to record my thoughts here before they're lost in the busyness of my work day.
This is my take on James' new book, "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart": We function in life on three levels. The first is physical - our bodies. Our bodies make demands on us - safety, provisions, pleasure. These primal 'needs' control much of what we do with our bodies. We eat to live, we live in houses to protect us from the environment, we procreate as often as possible. These needs are so great that we create lifestyles to fulfill them: bigger homes, we eat far more than we need to, we find new ways to enjoy sex; we work jobs we don't enjoy to provide for a lifestyle that doesn't satisfy. This is where our second nature comes in.
Our mind is the next highest level. With our minds we create things that will meet our physical needs. We diversify: we go to college to get an education to get a better paying job to provide us more shelter, more sustinance, more pleasure. But more than that, our minds seek to know something more than our own selves. We want to know how we got here, why we're here, where we're going and what, if anything lies on the other side of life. Sometimes our minds can overcome the primal needs of our bodies - but not often. We're so busy today that our most precious possession isn't physical possessions or even relationships - it's time. The more technology does to create more time for us, the more we feel we have to pack something into that time. But eventually our need for rest overcomes our desire to learn or work or even enjoy sex.
It's like the law of gravity can be temporarily overcome by the law of aerodynamics. Gravity still exists no matter how high we fly. Once the law of aerodynamics fails, gravity takes over. Our bodies will shut themselves down in spite of our attempts to pack as much life into the time we have. I know from personal experience that working 16 hour days leaves one exhausted and less efficient at either job.
When we are able to use our mind to overcome our bodies - we consider those moments heroic. We admire Olympic athletes who finish a race a half second before the competition, or soldiers who fight on afer being wounded, Holocaust victims who survived Nazi death-camps or pilots like John McCain who was shot down over VietNam and survived years in a POW camp; or fire-fighters who risk being burned alive to save a life - even the life of a pet. We make heroes of people who put their bodies in harm's way for a cause: Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Mother Teresa. But most of us are dominated by our physical nature and seldom rise to the heroic level.
Then there is the third level - the one that James wants us to understand in his book - the heart level. Certainly we think of someone who wins a race or a boxing match as having "heart", but in fact those things were really determination - or mental decisions to overcome their physical bodies. The heart, on the other hand, can be likened to our soul. Where our physical selves are the body, and our intellect is our minds, so the heart is our soul: Body, mind (intellect), soul (spirit) - just the way that God created us.
In James' book, he wants us to make decisions for our lives not only with our reason, but with our instincts. We must learn to trust our hearts if we're going to live a purposeful life; and by combining our heart instincts with our rational minds we can script the path our life should take to realize that purpose. If we say we want to be a writer, for instance, but we spend most of our time being president of the PTA, chances are we're going to be good at leading the PTA, but be a lousy writer.
As James explains, we're where we're at in life because we followed either our minds or our hearts. But if we're going to live a life of significance and change this world into which we were born, we must learn to use the heart to rule our brain, which is the part of us most closely connected to our Creator.
That's as far as I feel comfortable going with James' material - if you want to really understand you're going to have to get his new book. I will only say that this manscript coming into my hands at this point in my life is not coincidental. For the past six months, God has been opening my eyes to His plan for my life. There have been too many experiences to chalk them up to coincidences. I've been blessed with a new love - something that has drawn me out of the pit I dug for myself. I've seen my daughter, her body eaten up with cancer, deliver a baby boy who survived almost nine months of toxic chemicals, cigarrettes, rap music, his mother's daily bouts of nausea and drug induced sleep. My finances have begun to turn to the positive after decades of life-draining debt. I've begun to dream of owning a bed and breakfast so that I can spend as much time as possible with my soon-to-be wife, and I've considered enrolling in a culinary course at the local community college so that I can handle the 'breakfast' part of the business. On top of that, my novel 'Sea Tree' won't let go of my mind. It's a story that needs to be told.
I've procrastinated for two years over this novel - which finds it's origins in a dream, much like James' "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart" does. There have been three hang-ups I've struggled with: First, will writing this novel be more work than it will be fun? I'm already burned out on work. If Sea Tree isn't going to be fun for me to write, it won't be fun for you to read. Second - what if I find out I can't write and I've been deluding myself all this time with romantic notions that writing is my calling in life? And third - do I really have anything to say in this novel that will touch the readers? It's not so much about whether the book becomes a best seller, but gaining recognition as being a published author does lend a legitimacy to my life and a legacy to my heirs.
My prayers have been that I will lead a life of significance. Like many, success comes most often in our latter years. Maybe this is my time to shine. Maybe there is no coincidence that James Michael Pratt is my favorite author and it certainly is no coincidence that he entrusted his manuscript to me. Perhaps my endorsement of 'As A Man Thinketh' isn't as important as the message that God has for me, that indeed I have a divine plan and purpose for my life and this book is His way of helping me come to that realization.
I hope that you will all read "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart", not because I want James to earn more money so he can write more great books; but because it can be the catalyst to change in your own life. I know that I am not alone among my friends who are looking for significance and purpose in life. Guided by my heart, in touch with my Creator, I believe that the best is yet to come.
You can find out more about James' new book and all of his other fine novels and non-fiction at this website: http://www.jmpratt.com/ or at http://www.powerthink.com/. Thank you, James, for sharing this life-changing work with me.
On Monday I received an email from my very favorite author, James Michael Pratt, asking me if I would endorse his new book - As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart. I've been a fan of James since reading "The Lighthouse Keeper", and writing to tell him how much I enjoyed the story. Surprisingly, James responded to my email and later sent me an autographed copy of "The Last Valentine" which I gave to my fiance who was then dying from cancer. Since then we've written occasionally; but I was both surprised and honored that James would ask me to endorse his new book.
I received the manuscript and printed it out to take home with me on Monday night. Despite having to work two jobs, I finished the book in 24 hours. Let me say up front that this book came into my life at just the right moment, and I suspect that it will do the same for you wherever you are. The timing is just one of the serendipities I've experienced over the past several months. For a long time I've been in a rut, but now I'm at least walking on the slope so that I can see a better, brighter future ahead.
Anyway, normally I work as an usher cleaning theaters at night (http://www.dirtymoviecritic.blogspot.com/), but Monday night I worked in the box office. Traffic was predictably slow on a week night so I went to the car for the manuscript and began reading between customers. I read a little after getting home but fell asleep because I'm too old to be working two jobs. I read some more on my lunch break yesterday and then committed to finish the book last night.
Arriving home I went straight to my bedroom, kicked off my shoes, and sat in the chair next to the bed. I pulled the throw my darling Pam had made for me over my lap, propped my feet on the bed and made myself comfortable. In his book James talks about returning to a simple, less stressful lifestyle. This is the mood I wanted to be in to finish the manuscript. By now I was captivated by the story and how James so skillfully combined fact and fantasy so that the reader doesn't know what is real and what is imagined. His story-telling ability draws the reader into the story and one can smell the salty ocean air and taste the ham sandwich.
I finished the book after midnight, crawled into bed, and dreamed of living in a cottage and doing heroic things. I awoke early this morning, recalling the manscript and the purpose of the story. I won't divulge much of it here because you need to read it for yourself. I'll just say that wrapped into the story within the story is a truth about the triune nature of man who was created by a Triune God. It was the underlying truth in the story that I thought about on the way to work this morning and which prompted me to record my thoughts here before they're lost in the busyness of my work day.
This is my take on James' new book, "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart": We function in life on three levels. The first is physical - our bodies. Our bodies make demands on us - safety, provisions, pleasure. These primal 'needs' control much of what we do with our bodies. We eat to live, we live in houses to protect us from the environment, we procreate as often as possible. These needs are so great that we create lifestyles to fulfill them: bigger homes, we eat far more than we need to, we find new ways to enjoy sex; we work jobs we don't enjoy to provide for a lifestyle that doesn't satisfy. This is where our second nature comes in.
Our mind is the next highest level. With our minds we create things that will meet our physical needs. We diversify: we go to college to get an education to get a better paying job to provide us more shelter, more sustinance, more pleasure. But more than that, our minds seek to know something more than our own selves. We want to know how we got here, why we're here, where we're going and what, if anything lies on the other side of life. Sometimes our minds can overcome the primal needs of our bodies - but not often. We're so busy today that our most precious possession isn't physical possessions or even relationships - it's time. The more technology does to create more time for us, the more we feel we have to pack something into that time. But eventually our need for rest overcomes our desire to learn or work or even enjoy sex.
It's like the law of gravity can be temporarily overcome by the law of aerodynamics. Gravity still exists no matter how high we fly. Once the law of aerodynamics fails, gravity takes over. Our bodies will shut themselves down in spite of our attempts to pack as much life into the time we have. I know from personal experience that working 16 hour days leaves one exhausted and less efficient at either job.
When we are able to use our mind to overcome our bodies - we consider those moments heroic. We admire Olympic athletes who finish a race a half second before the competition, or soldiers who fight on afer being wounded, Holocaust victims who survived Nazi death-camps or pilots like John McCain who was shot down over VietNam and survived years in a POW camp; or fire-fighters who risk being burned alive to save a life - even the life of a pet. We make heroes of people who put their bodies in harm's way for a cause: Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Mother Teresa. But most of us are dominated by our physical nature and seldom rise to the heroic level.
Then there is the third level - the one that James wants us to understand in his book - the heart level. Certainly we think of someone who wins a race or a boxing match as having "heart", but in fact those things were really determination - or mental decisions to overcome their physical bodies. The heart, on the other hand, can be likened to our soul. Where our physical selves are the body, and our intellect is our minds, so the heart is our soul: Body, mind (intellect), soul (spirit) - just the way that God created us.
In James' book, he wants us to make decisions for our lives not only with our reason, but with our instincts. We must learn to trust our hearts if we're going to live a purposeful life; and by combining our heart instincts with our rational minds we can script the path our life should take to realize that purpose. If we say we want to be a writer, for instance, but we spend most of our time being president of the PTA, chances are we're going to be good at leading the PTA, but be a lousy writer.
As James explains, we're where we're at in life because we followed either our minds or our hearts. But if we're going to live a life of significance and change this world into which we were born, we must learn to use the heart to rule our brain, which is the part of us most closely connected to our Creator.
That's as far as I feel comfortable going with James' material - if you want to really understand you're going to have to get his new book. I will only say that this manscript coming into my hands at this point in my life is not coincidental. For the past six months, God has been opening my eyes to His plan for my life. There have been too many experiences to chalk them up to coincidences. I've been blessed with a new love - something that has drawn me out of the pit I dug for myself. I've seen my daughter, her body eaten up with cancer, deliver a baby boy who survived almost nine months of toxic chemicals, cigarrettes, rap music, his mother's daily bouts of nausea and drug induced sleep. My finances have begun to turn to the positive after decades of life-draining debt. I've begun to dream of owning a bed and breakfast so that I can spend as much time as possible with my soon-to-be wife, and I've considered enrolling in a culinary course at the local community college so that I can handle the 'breakfast' part of the business. On top of that, my novel 'Sea Tree' won't let go of my mind. It's a story that needs to be told.
I've procrastinated for two years over this novel - which finds it's origins in a dream, much like James' "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart" does. There have been three hang-ups I've struggled with: First, will writing this novel be more work than it will be fun? I'm already burned out on work. If Sea Tree isn't going to be fun for me to write, it won't be fun for you to read. Second - what if I find out I can't write and I've been deluding myself all this time with romantic notions that writing is my calling in life? And third - do I really have anything to say in this novel that will touch the readers? It's not so much about whether the book becomes a best seller, but gaining recognition as being a published author does lend a legitimacy to my life and a legacy to my heirs.
My prayers have been that I will lead a life of significance. Like many, success comes most often in our latter years. Maybe this is my time to shine. Maybe there is no coincidence that James Michael Pratt is my favorite author and it certainly is no coincidence that he entrusted his manuscript to me. Perhaps my endorsement of 'As A Man Thinketh' isn't as important as the message that God has for me, that indeed I have a divine plan and purpose for my life and this book is His way of helping me come to that realization.
I hope that you will all read "As A Man Thinketh...In His Heart", not because I want James to earn more money so he can write more great books; but because it can be the catalyst to change in your own life. I know that I am not alone among my friends who are looking for significance and purpose in life. Guided by my heart, in touch with my Creator, I believe that the best is yet to come.
You can find out more about James' new book and all of his other fine novels and non-fiction at this website: http://www.jmpratt.com/ or at http://www.powerthink.com/. Thank you, James, for sharing this life-changing work with me.
Bathrooms
Yesterday at church my pastor talked about public bathrooms in Greece during the time of Paul. Jimmy said that public restrooms were elaborate affairs, many providing entertainment by way of musicians who played from a stage in the center while being surrounded by patrons sitting on toilets. One could imagine a higher rate of constipation when trying to do your business with someone looking on - especially if there's a stand-up comedian on stage that day. And it must truly suck to only be able to book public toilets to showcase your talent.
Today we've got security auditors in the office. Totally by chance, our fire alarms went off as soon as the auditors arrived. The fire marshals donned their red baseball caps and herded people downstairs even though it was raining outside and employees were reluctant to leave their desks. My job is to check the men's room on the way out to make sure no one is trapped in there in the event of a fire. Sure enough, someone had decided to use the bathroom while we were supposed to be exiting the building. I stood in the hallway outside the restroom waiting for the jerk to finish and vacate my area of responsibility. It sucks to have to check bathrooms for malingerers. Nevertheless I put in my after-action report a note to tell employees that when the fire alarm goes off, you don't stop at the bathroom on the way downstairs.
One more thought on bathrooms. Yesterday after church I went to the mall to play video games and had to use the bathroom. Normally I like to take a book with me so that I can exercise both mind and bowels at the same time; but this wasn't a planned trip so I was empty-handed. However, the mall was playing some pretty good music so I sat there enjoying the music, adding my own percussions and laughing when I was off the beat. I sat there so long my legs fell asleep, which is what happens when I take a book to the bathroom. Once I can't feel my legs any longer I know when it's time to stop reading.
Bathrooms can be wonderful places, unless you have to clean the women's restrooms at the theater I work at. Our female customers have yet to learn to sit all the way down so they don't soil the toilet seats and the floor. Then then come to me to complain about how filthy the women's bathrooms are - as though I'm responsible for making them that way. What a load of crap!
Today we've got security auditors in the office. Totally by chance, our fire alarms went off as soon as the auditors arrived. The fire marshals donned their red baseball caps and herded people downstairs even though it was raining outside and employees were reluctant to leave their desks. My job is to check the men's room on the way out to make sure no one is trapped in there in the event of a fire. Sure enough, someone had decided to use the bathroom while we were supposed to be exiting the building. I stood in the hallway outside the restroom waiting for the jerk to finish and vacate my area of responsibility. It sucks to have to check bathrooms for malingerers. Nevertheless I put in my after-action report a note to tell employees that when the fire alarm goes off, you don't stop at the bathroom on the way downstairs.
One more thought on bathrooms. Yesterday after church I went to the mall to play video games and had to use the bathroom. Normally I like to take a book with me so that I can exercise both mind and bowels at the same time; but this wasn't a planned trip so I was empty-handed. However, the mall was playing some pretty good music so I sat there enjoying the music, adding my own percussions and laughing when I was off the beat. I sat there so long my legs fell asleep, which is what happens when I take a book to the bathroom. Once I can't feel my legs any longer I know when it's time to stop reading.
Bathrooms can be wonderful places, unless you have to clean the women's restrooms at the theater I work at. Our female customers have yet to learn to sit all the way down so they don't soil the toilet seats and the floor. Then then come to me to complain about how filthy the women's bathrooms are - as though I'm responsible for making them that way. What a load of crap!
Distractions Along the Journey
I've had this novel in my mind for over a couple years now...even have the first couple chapters already typed. The problem is, I don't know how it's going to end. I suspect it will turn into a trilogy or maybe even a Never Ending Story. The characters are there and I'm always coming up with scenes and rabbit trails to chase, but lack the discipline to just sit down, start typing and see where it all goes.
The last year has been nothing but distractions: a daughter with cancer; a son who's been laid off from work; another daughter who is a couple years away from college and a life that may take her far from her dad; a grandson who needs a father; debts to be paid; transportation problems; even hiccups in my walk of faith. Along the way, I've begun to wonder if I really have something worth saying. But the dream's still there so I guess it will eventually come to pass. I can only do what I can control.
I wish I could take credit for this, but Allen Asbury said this in a performance when he started his professional music career: "A basketball in my hands is worth about $20. A basketball in the hands of Michael Jordan is worth about $33 million. A tennis racket in my hand is worthless, but in the hands of Pete Sampras, it's worth plenty. Five loaves and two fishes in my hands will make a couple of fish sandwiches; in God's hands they will feed thousands. A rod in my hand may hold off wild animals; a rod in the hand of Moses can part a mighty sea. A few nails in my hand might make a nice birdhouse; nails in Jesus' hands provide salvation for everyone." It all depends on who's hands the instrument is in. All my hopes, dreams, fears, plans and goals are fragile in my own hands, but in the Lord's hands they produce peace, joy, and patience in an otherwise chaotic life.
I've assessed my talents and my pitiful strength lies in the tips of my fingers poised over a computer keyboard. I hope to use them to produce something that will move people somehow, whether it's to laughter, or to tears, from hopelessness to faith. I don't know where the story is going, but I'm blessed to have friends and family who pray for me, who loan me cars when mine is dead; feed me healthy meals when I'm subsisting on chips and dip; who take my grandson to school because his mom is sick and I'm late for work; who allow my youngest daughter to stay over on teacher workdays so I don't have to take off work. You know who you are - and I thank God for you.
The last year has been nothing but distractions: a daughter with cancer; a son who's been laid off from work; another daughter who is a couple years away from college and a life that may take her far from her dad; a grandson who needs a father; debts to be paid; transportation problems; even hiccups in my walk of faith. Along the way, I've begun to wonder if I really have something worth saying. But the dream's still there so I guess it will eventually come to pass. I can only do what I can control.
I wish I could take credit for this, but Allen Asbury said this in a performance when he started his professional music career: "A basketball in my hands is worth about $20. A basketball in the hands of Michael Jordan is worth about $33 million. A tennis racket in my hand is worthless, but in the hands of Pete Sampras, it's worth plenty. Five loaves and two fishes in my hands will make a couple of fish sandwiches; in God's hands they will feed thousands. A rod in my hand may hold off wild animals; a rod in the hand of Moses can part a mighty sea. A few nails in my hand might make a nice birdhouse; nails in Jesus' hands provide salvation for everyone." It all depends on who's hands the instrument is in. All my hopes, dreams, fears, plans and goals are fragile in my own hands, but in the Lord's hands they produce peace, joy, and patience in an otherwise chaotic life.
I've assessed my talents and my pitiful strength lies in the tips of my fingers poised over a computer keyboard. I hope to use them to produce something that will move people somehow, whether it's to laughter, or to tears, from hopelessness to faith. I don't know where the story is going, but I'm blessed to have friends and family who pray for me, who loan me cars when mine is dead; feed me healthy meals when I'm subsisting on chips and dip; who take my grandson to school because his mom is sick and I'm late for work; who allow my youngest daughter to stay over on teacher workdays so I don't have to take off work. You know who you are - and I thank God for you.
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