I ate lunch every day in 3rd grade next to Sarah Jane Tillman. I only remember 2 things about Sarah Jane Tillman : she ate paste during art class (yum!) and that she was my best friend.She was a bit portly for a 3rd grader so I suspect it had to do with the paste. It's a high calorie art supply unlike it's more modern cousin, the terribly bland glue stick. I was her best friend 'cause she said so. "What if I don't want to be" I asked. "Too bad. I said you are". I pondered this and shrugged. "Sure" I said "best friends forever" and we shook on it. I knew it wouldn't last though. I'm just not a paste guy.
I got a text today I was dreading but knew was coming. My friend Dane Burk died today. He was my friend. I found out around a year ago he had been diagnosed with a Glioblastoma. A brain tumor. As it turned out, a death sentence. So He lost his battle today and I'm so sad. He loved Jesus and was ready to go and for that I'm happy but feel at a loss as to what to pray, what to say. The world, is a little smaller today. I just thought you should know.
I first met Dane in the youth group in the late 80's. He dated my sister for like a week until he found out what me and my two brothers knew. Yikes. We started hanging out, Dane and me.At the church door every time it was open, doing some youth activity. That was nice and all but our best times were on the court. Basketball. Tennis. Racquetball. Rain or shine we were out there almost every day. For 2 years. 2 amazing years. He was my best friend. I loved being with him, challenging him, just goofing off. Movies, sleep overs, eating at Godfathers pizza. Singing with such passion the love songs to Jesus we used to sing as Bro. Jim led us. We never said it. I guess we never needed to. We were best friends.And I, am better because of it.
As I knew his time was coming to an end I thought back on so many good memories. I went back to our old church where at the end of an overgrown court stood nailed to a light pole, a backboard with no rim. No net, but laden down with the memory of epic struggle. And much laughter. I took a few imaginary jump shots then sat on a 5 gallon bucket. And cried. I drove from there to the tennis courts, to the racquetball courts. And cried. For 2 years I had such a full life. I had a friend.
Two years. Maybe closer to three. And then....poof. I left. Went to college. Made new best friends. Made choices. Made a career. Made a family. Made a life. And I never saw Dane again. Maybe I saw him once or twice for a few minutes when I came back home tho I don't remember that. Just seems like we mighta. But soon enough He left town too and our paths never crossed. I realized I hadn't seen Dane in maybe 32 years. 32 years? How is that possible? We were best friends. It made me sad but also amazed me how profoundly 2 years can shape a life, can have such impact. I consider it one of the best times of my life.
I don't know Danes wife. Or his kids. Well some what I do through Facebook. They seem so wonderful, a loving family dedicated to one another and to God. My heart aches for them. I was in church praying for them, for Dane on Sunday. Ok, well, I wasn't praying per se as much as my mind was wandering as it is want to do in church. On the video screen was a picture of a huge grape vine with gobs of grapes hanging down. The preachers speech was about abiding in the vine. Abide. All the fruit. It was just hanging there. I felt like God was speaking and saying this was Dane. He abided. And he produced. His wife and kids were just the tip of the iceberg. For months I've seen people posting prayers and stories and memories and I'm just seeing the fruit hanging down from the Dane branch, people he had touched, connected with, and helped make better people. People who love Jesus. I got chills. I felt like God said "That, is your sermon Mark. Go and do like wise" I hope I will.
For a time, Dane, you were my best friend and I am better for it. I know that you are in glory this very day and I rejoice with you. How great it must be. Thank you for living your life so well. You will be missed. You will not be forgotten. I love you brother, my friend.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Sunday, September 28, 2014
CLARITY THROUGH LAUNDRY
I believed in Santa for a long time. Maybe I made it to 7th grade before the truth hit home. I was 15 so probably it was time. But what kid doesn't want to believe in Santa? I mean, a guy who comes around once a year and gives you stuff for no reason? Well, yeah, there was the whole 'making a list and checking it twice' thing but still, free toys! I missed the 'Santa's not real' clues for a long time. Dad "helping" Santa put a bike together. Shopping with mom and seeing her buy something that looked eerily like what was found under the tree for my sister. With my ear to the bedroom door hearing what sounded like two people putting toys under the tree instead of one fat guy. I'm a fat guy now. I make noises now when I bend over and stand up.. And the whole chimney thing. Ours was fake. Didn't even go through the roof. So the dawning of understanding came as somewhat of a shock. 7th grade. Maybe I was as dumb as my brother said I was. It was a sad time for me. I really wanted to believe......
I bring this up because I had another dawning revelation today. My underwear were inside out. No not the ones I was wearin' but the ones I was gonna put on when I got of the shower. I always make sure they're turned right when I take 'em off so they come out of the dryer ready to go (tho this has become harder for me since they took the label off the inside. I really have to study 'em). I want to step right into a pair of pantaloons right after toweling off. No fuss no muss. Drives me nuts to have to take them off again. This began happening back when we got one of those computer controlled front load washer dryer combos that you actually do have to read the operator manuals in order to use them. We all know washing machines eat socks (or maybe it's the dryer. Have you ever counted socks when you transfer them? Uh huh.You haven't have you.) Apparently now they turn your unmentionables inside out? C'mon, you think this isn't on purpose? Of course it is. The machines are learning, becoming aware. They're trying to make us mad! Insane! Wholly incompetent and dependent on them. And we wont even know. What a bunch of Lemmings.
-If you've read my posts on Facebook for any amount of time you've heard me rail against my computer.It's slow. It freezes. Posts delete themselves. Or it just shuts down. When Terri uses it it acts like Bill Gates personal computer. Works perfect. So irritating.
-The clock in my truck keeps changing time. I know they are supposed to do that but mine goes backward, a little each day so I have to keep resetting it. It's digital so isn't the computer supposed to do this?
-My coffee maker and alarm clock seem to have a hard time remembering from the night before I set 'em both to go off at 5:30 so half my days I wake up late to no coffee. Drives me crazy and makes me a little less like Jesus every day.
-The toaster burns the toast no matter where I turn the dial so I get the electronic computer controlled toaster with the "just right" browning feature which still scorches my toast and my wallet is torched for sixty five bucks.
-Your're phone mysteriously butt dials your wife, mother or significant other and lets them know that you're not at the men's sunday school social but at Dave's Pool and Beer Hall and who,by the way, is Lorainna?
I see it so clearly now. I am the frog in the slowly boiling water. It starts with a washing machine that eats socks to the one that learn to fold cloths. Pretty soon I'll tell the machines my account numbers and buy a phone that GPS's me. And I slowly let it happen, lulled into a new normal, not guarding the small things in life, those tiny important things that grow into big things later on and one day Skynet becomes self aware takes over and nukes the world and the people, the ones that are left, are put into pods to power the matrix. Pretty grim. All because I didn't guard the small. Because I shrugged at inside out underwear.
Okay. So maybe some of that isn't true. Maybe just my imagination. I was telling Terri all of this and a midst her 'yes dear's' and 'un-huh's and 'hummm's' the words "be on guard" was said. Maybe I said it. Or her. If I actually make a point here we'll say her. But it made me think of that verse.
Proverbs 4:23 says "Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." I don't do that very well. The guard your heart thing. Probably better said is I choose not to do it very well. Too busy with the mundane to look at the details and slowly I come to realize the details matter. Maybe I watch a show or movie I shouldn't. Or read a book I shouldn't. Or not read the Book I should. Eat those extra fries. One less lap at the track. Don't answer that call (caller ID is of the devil). Tell a little white lie.And on and on and on....
Big things often start small. Every flood starts with the first rain drop. If we find we are not the person we ought to be (and often I'm not) we should check to see how we have guarded our heart. Or if we have. So grab a spear and stand guard at the gate of your heart and don't let the small things that don't seem to matter get by. Because it all matters. Because if you don't, you may one day get caught....with your pants down.
I bring this up because I had another dawning revelation today. My underwear were inside out. No not the ones I was wearin' but the ones I was gonna put on when I got of the shower. I always make sure they're turned right when I take 'em off so they come out of the dryer ready to go (tho this has become harder for me since they took the label off the inside. I really have to study 'em). I want to step right into a pair of pantaloons right after toweling off. No fuss no muss. Drives me nuts to have to take them off again. This began happening back when we got one of those computer controlled front load washer dryer combos that you actually do have to read the operator manuals in order to use them. We all know washing machines eat socks (or maybe it's the dryer. Have you ever counted socks when you transfer them? Uh huh.You haven't have you.) Apparently now they turn your unmentionables inside out? C'mon, you think this isn't on purpose? Of course it is. The machines are learning, becoming aware. They're trying to make us mad! Insane! Wholly incompetent and dependent on them. And we wont even know. What a bunch of Lemmings.
-If you've read my posts on Facebook for any amount of time you've heard me rail against my computer.It's slow. It freezes. Posts delete themselves. Or it just shuts down. When Terri uses it it acts like Bill Gates personal computer. Works perfect. So irritating.
-The clock in my truck keeps changing time. I know they are supposed to do that but mine goes backward, a little each day so I have to keep resetting it. It's digital so isn't the computer supposed to do this?
-My coffee maker and alarm clock seem to have a hard time remembering from the night before I set 'em both to go off at 5:30 so half my days I wake up late to no coffee. Drives me crazy and makes me a little less like Jesus every day.
-The toaster burns the toast no matter where I turn the dial so I get the electronic computer controlled toaster with the "just right" browning feature which still scorches my toast and my wallet is torched for sixty five bucks.
-Your're phone mysteriously butt dials your wife, mother or significant other and lets them know that you're not at the men's sunday school social but at Dave's Pool and Beer Hall and who,by the way, is Lorainna?
I see it so clearly now. I am the frog in the slowly boiling water. It starts with a washing machine that eats socks to the one that learn to fold cloths. Pretty soon I'll tell the machines my account numbers and buy a phone that GPS's me. And I slowly let it happen, lulled into a new normal, not guarding the small things in life, those tiny important things that grow into big things later on and one day Skynet becomes self aware takes over and nukes the world and the people, the ones that are left, are put into pods to power the matrix. Pretty grim. All because I didn't guard the small. Because I shrugged at inside out underwear.
Okay. So maybe some of that isn't true. Maybe just my imagination. I was telling Terri all of this and a midst her 'yes dear's' and 'un-huh's and 'hummm's' the words "be on guard" was said. Maybe I said it. Or her. If I actually make a point here we'll say her. But it made me think of that verse.
Proverbs 4:23 says "Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." I don't do that very well. The guard your heart thing. Probably better said is I choose not to do it very well. Too busy with the mundane to look at the details and slowly I come to realize the details matter. Maybe I watch a show or movie I shouldn't. Or read a book I shouldn't. Or not read the Book I should. Eat those extra fries. One less lap at the track. Don't answer that call (caller ID is of the devil). Tell a little white lie.And on and on and on....
Big things often start small. Every flood starts with the first rain drop. If we find we are not the person we ought to be (and often I'm not) we should check to see how we have guarded our heart. Or if we have. So grab a spear and stand guard at the gate of your heart and don't let the small things that don't seem to matter get by. Because it all matters. Because if you don't, you may one day get caught....with your pants down.
Friday, July 18, 2014
SAY CHEESE
I made hamburgers for supper the other night. I could eat burgers every night and never complain and since my one and only is away I will and I wont. I've been on a hunt for the perfect hamburger of late and have decided the one's I make at home are as good as any. Love to see cheese melting on that patty. And playing with fire is always fun right?
My hamburger tonight prompted a call I've been meaning to make for years now, to the International Cheese and Milk Byproduct Council. Wisconsin I suppose. At issue is the square cheese on a round burger and how to properly deal with the corners that droop over the edge. Not only is it a waste but you get those flare ups when it drops through the grill grates and onto the coals. Now I like seeing fire as much as the next guy but not when it's scorching the bottom of what will be my perfect dinner.
I did some research in various trade journals recently such as FDA Now, Food Statistics and the American Way and Mad Magazine found that fairly 76.3% of all American cheese slices consumed in America end up on a burger and only some 21% find their way to a sandwich. The other 2 or 3 % end up either melted on a vegetable, eaten by a baby or fed to the dog under the table. I realize that when cheese was invented all we had was square bread so the square cheese made sense. Though what's up with Provolone cheese? It's the one cheese you don't put on a burger and it's round. It goes on a square sandwich.
I think the problem with this cheese/hamburger situation has roots in the 1950's when the hamburger conglomerates took over the care and feeding of the American public and their unwillingness to work with other sectors of the food industries. Knife wielding burly men with blood stained leather aprons using a campaign of intimidation and slander, labeling dairy producers as '...small men who fondle cow teats...', wheedled their way into the darkest corners of our government, paying off officials and policy makers for favorable treatment in the laws concerning, well, lets just say it, burger shape. One notable exception was the Wendys Corporation who made some various concessions with the cheese producers and bread unions, agreeing to make square burgers in exchange for keeping the buns round. While unorthodox it seems to have been beneficial for all sides.( I purposely didn't mention Krystal and White Castle because, my gosh, is that even meat?)
As I'm putting my square piece of cheese on the round burger I'm contemplating a campaign to bring uniformity to out tables. Take soup for instance. You put soup in a bowl. The bowl is round, the soup is round. Shouldn't it all be this way? So I'm thinking of join one of the unions (Probably the dairy union, 'cause, well, who doesn't like to grab a teat once in a while?) to affect change from the inside out, working my way up until I get a seat at the table, so to speak, to push for the reforms every American deserves. I hope, that when the time comes I can count on your vote and your very best efforts. Help me put America back on the culinary map and make Julia Child proud. Thank you for your support. And God bless America.
Any questions, comments and financial contributions can be sent to 'Round Cheese Around the World' at P.O. Box 27.......
My hamburger tonight prompted a call I've been meaning to make for years now, to the International Cheese and Milk Byproduct Council. Wisconsin I suppose. At issue is the square cheese on a round burger and how to properly deal with the corners that droop over the edge. Not only is it a waste but you get those flare ups when it drops through the grill grates and onto the coals. Now I like seeing fire as much as the next guy but not when it's scorching the bottom of what will be my perfect dinner.
I did some research in various trade journals recently such as FDA Now, Food Statistics and the American Way and Mad Magazine found that fairly 76.3% of all American cheese slices consumed in America end up on a burger and only some 21% find their way to a sandwich. The other 2 or 3 % end up either melted on a vegetable, eaten by a baby or fed to the dog under the table. I realize that when cheese was invented all we had was square bread so the square cheese made sense. Though what's up with Provolone cheese? It's the one cheese you don't put on a burger and it's round. It goes on a square sandwich.
I think the problem with this cheese/hamburger situation has roots in the 1950's when the hamburger conglomerates took over the care and feeding of the American public and their unwillingness to work with other sectors of the food industries. Knife wielding burly men with blood stained leather aprons using a campaign of intimidation and slander, labeling dairy producers as '...small men who fondle cow teats...', wheedled their way into the darkest corners of our government, paying off officials and policy makers for favorable treatment in the laws concerning, well, lets just say it, burger shape. One notable exception was the Wendys Corporation who made some various concessions with the cheese producers and bread unions, agreeing to make square burgers in exchange for keeping the buns round. While unorthodox it seems to have been beneficial for all sides.( I purposely didn't mention Krystal and White Castle because, my gosh, is that even meat?)
As I'm putting my square piece of cheese on the round burger I'm contemplating a campaign to bring uniformity to out tables. Take soup for instance. You put soup in a bowl. The bowl is round, the soup is round. Shouldn't it all be this way? So I'm thinking of join one of the unions (Probably the dairy union, 'cause, well, who doesn't like to grab a teat once in a while?) to affect change from the inside out, working my way up until I get a seat at the table, so to speak, to push for the reforms every American deserves. I hope, that when the time comes I can count on your vote and your very best efforts. Help me put America back on the culinary map and make Julia Child proud. Thank you for your support. And God bless America.
Any questions, comments and financial contributions can be sent to 'Round Cheese Around the World' at P.O. Box 27.......
Sunday, July 13, 2014
SIMPLE
Somewhere in the spring of 1980 me and Ronnie Trojanowski hopped in his what had to be an 1870's Datsun B210, Japans answer to the atomic bomb, and headed for the river. It was tan (or maybe that was rust), had four wheels and more duct tape than bolts holding it together. Come to think of it, it was probably far more dangerous than the lightning that would be crashing down around us as we tubed down the river an hour later. That's the great thing about being 17 and a guy. You're mentally retarded and you're ok with that as long as you got someone along to be retarded with you. Mostly I was the one who came along with everyone else. We all have a place.
Florida is full of springs. All cold. All 72 degrees. Well, cold to Floridians. I only knew about the beach and it's warm 85 degree gulf stream waters as a child. The first real spring I ever went to was with the church group in high school during one of their many "summer outings" designed to keep us wee little cretins from smoking pot and setting off firecrackers at the nursing home. Usually on these trips half the kids were saved and half were degenerates sent by their parents to get that way and I think it was one of that group who pushed me in. No warning. No dipping my toes in. No getting used to the water. I was airborne and then I couldn't breath.
Cold . So cold .. When you're not ready for it, cold water is a killer. It was Gods second choice of punishment for those cast into eternal damnation. It only helps a little to dip your feet in before the plunge but there's some psychological boost you get if you do it first. I get chills just walking up to the springs now. I'm getting a chill just talking about. One of my most favorite things is tubing down the Ichetucknee springs river but I almost can't do it. I don't like to be cold. Brrrr...72 degrees...
I got a chill the other day that had nothing to do with water. It was a song. You ever get that? It was Simple Man by Leonard Skynard (only the best southern band ever). It's about a mother telling her son about how to live life. Don't live fast. Find a woman. Not a fast one I suppose. Don't lust for rich mans gold. Be a simple kind of man. I got chills. And I cried because that's what I've always wanted. To be a simple man. To get up in the morning and love God to the best of my understanding. And my wife. And care for my neighbor. I didn't want to have a complicated life with business issues. Marital issues. Car issues. Money issues. Getting fat and growing old issues. I wanted it simple. I wanted it black and white not this nuanced colorful world I'm stuck with. That sounds stupid doesn't it? Probably I shoulda told my wife this before we got married....
For a while now I have struggled with questions about my faith. Scripture. And God. Why He does or doesn't do the things He does. I feel small when I say something like that. How I'm really supposed to live and does it even matter if I do or don't live a particular way. Sometimes it appears to not matter. What's that old saying? Evil wins when good men do nothing? I am a good man and I'm tired of doing nothing. Uncertainty will make you that way. Very lukewarm. In not pursuing answers to my questions and doubts I've become something I never wanted. A simpleton, not the simple man I long to be. I've become the Gilligan of my world. Loveable, funny, nice and about as deep as a puddle. I want to change that. I want to live up to the worth and value God bestowed on me. And I will. How can I not? I have been touched by the One who loved us all and I can't not follow. Because he loves me. And that, feels really good to this simple man. Real good.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
SCREWED
I thought I'd never drive . I didn't get my license until I was 18 . I knew if I ever did learn I'd have to learn in a light blue 1978 Chevrolet Impala . Station wagon . When you're 15 isn't a station wagon just a brightly painted hearse ? In fact , when you're 15 wouldn't it be way cooler to drive an actual hearse ? What say's street cred more than a 15 year old in a hearse ? It would be a chick magnet right , even for this 15 year old ? What's really behind those dark tinted windows with those swag curtains they'd want to know. If the hearse is a rockin'. . . . .
I drive like my dad . Slow and steady wins the race . Maybe he was hell on wheels before I knew him but all I remember is getting honked at by passing cyclists . Possibly because he drove a Volkswagon Rabbit and a Datsun B210 before that . Not familiar with those ? On the historical time line they're sandwiched somewhere between the invention of the wheel and the wheel barrow . Not the fastest of rides but it seemed to suit him . My mom on the other hand drive like a woman running moonshine in a dry county . pssshh . Earnhardt . He never drove against my mother . Well , all in all I think I turned out ok in the driving department . I mean I can at least .
Another thing I can do is fix cars . Well , in a gorilla can fix a stuck door sorta way . I have my wife to thank for that . When we were first married she asked me to fix a stuck glove box or something and I gave my litany of excuses of why it couldn't be done except the true one about how I was mentally retarded when it came to fixing cars . ''It's ok snookems (she doesn't call me that anymore) . My brothers have been fixing cars for years . Mike is coming . He can fix anything I need ''. I didn't know at the time what a gauntlet was but it was thrown down so off I went to Sears for a set of Craftsman tools so I could rescue my fair maiden in her time of despair . And have been doing so in the many years since .
I don't remember what I fixed then but I'm sure I had parts left over . I always seem to . A few extra screws , a nut or bolt or bracket . Something . I have a jar filled with all the left overs , thinking that some day , with all the cars we've had over the years between my wife and kids and me , I'll have enough to make a whole new one . I mentioned one time I took the dash off to fix the A/C and had 19 screws left over . 19 ! I keep thinking they must not be necessary , hoping really . I fear the day when I hit a speed bump doing 35 and end up with the dash in my lap and the air bag flapping out the window . But until then they'll just decorate my shop in the jar for the unnecessary .
In church this morning someone said something that made me think of those parts . Those screws . The screws that no one sees . The screws that are so insignificant that they aren't even noticed when they're gone . Do you ever feel like that ? Like your role in life is so small you don't really matter and in fact the world seems to operate just fine even when you've checked out . It's a bummer of a feeling going around knowing you're not really necessary . I feel like that at times . Like this blog . I read other peoples stuff and I'm like 'why even try? Everybody else is so much better'. I have to tell myself ''So what?''. Of course there are people better . Doesn't mean I take my ball and go home . Well, I guess I have the last 6 months but never mind that . I'm back .
Somewhere at General Motors there's a bespectacled engineer with high water pants, a pocket protector and a salary somewhere north of 80 grand who drew the spot where the screw held the thing a ma jig to the manifold . He though it was important and he should know . He designed it . He knows it works without it but better with it . And somewhere out there , is the Engineer of the universe who is way smart and knows what works best . Who best to be a screw and who to be a wheel . A trunk . A horn . I'm sort of a screw , or one of the minor parts that no one sees . I wanted to be a paint job . Flashy . Attention grabbing . I like to have people polish me . But I'm a screw who's been in a jar for a while . Maybe I should get back in my place and do my job . How 'bout you? Anonymity anyone ?
I drive like my dad . Slow and steady wins the race . Maybe he was hell on wheels before I knew him but all I remember is getting honked at by passing cyclists . Possibly because he drove a Volkswagon Rabbit and a Datsun B210 before that . Not familiar with those ? On the historical time line they're sandwiched somewhere between the invention of the wheel and the wheel barrow . Not the fastest of rides but it seemed to suit him . My mom on the other hand drive like a woman running moonshine in a dry county . pssshh . Earnhardt . He never drove against my mother . Well , all in all I think I turned out ok in the driving department . I mean I can at least .
Another thing I can do is fix cars . Well , in a gorilla can fix a stuck door sorta way . I have my wife to thank for that . When we were first married she asked me to fix a stuck glove box or something and I gave my litany of excuses of why it couldn't be done except the true one about how I was mentally retarded when it came to fixing cars . ''It's ok snookems (she doesn't call me that anymore) . My brothers have been fixing cars for years . Mike is coming . He can fix anything I need ''. I didn't know at the time what a gauntlet was but it was thrown down so off I went to Sears for a set of Craftsman tools so I could rescue my fair maiden in her time of despair . And have been doing so in the many years since .
I don't remember what I fixed then but I'm sure I had parts left over . I always seem to . A few extra screws , a nut or bolt or bracket . Something . I have a jar filled with all the left overs , thinking that some day , with all the cars we've had over the years between my wife and kids and me , I'll have enough to make a whole new one . I mentioned one time I took the dash off to fix the A/C and had 19 screws left over . 19 ! I keep thinking they must not be necessary , hoping really . I fear the day when I hit a speed bump doing 35 and end up with the dash in my lap and the air bag flapping out the window . But until then they'll just decorate my shop in the jar for the unnecessary .
In church this morning someone said something that made me think of those parts . Those screws . The screws that no one sees . The screws that are so insignificant that they aren't even noticed when they're gone . Do you ever feel like that ? Like your role in life is so small you don't really matter and in fact the world seems to operate just fine even when you've checked out . It's a bummer of a feeling going around knowing you're not really necessary . I feel like that at times . Like this blog . I read other peoples stuff and I'm like 'why even try? Everybody else is so much better'. I have to tell myself ''So what?''. Of course there are people better . Doesn't mean I take my ball and go home . Well, I guess I have the last 6 months but never mind that . I'm back .
Somewhere at General Motors there's a bespectacled engineer with high water pants, a pocket protector and a salary somewhere north of 80 grand who drew the spot where the screw held the thing a ma jig to the manifold . He though it was important and he should know . He designed it . He knows it works without it but better with it . And somewhere out there , is the Engineer of the universe who is way smart and knows what works best . Who best to be a screw and who to be a wheel . A trunk . A horn . I'm sort of a screw , or one of the minor parts that no one sees . I wanted to be a paint job . Flashy . Attention grabbing . I like to have people polish me . But I'm a screw who's been in a jar for a while . Maybe I should get back in my place and do my job . How 'bout you? Anonymity anyone ?
Monday, January 13, 2014
Sign Here Please
Where do I start? I found out recently there are some things that happen in life that throw you for a loop and when the dust clears you don't know . Know what to say . Know how to say . When to say . To whom to say . To family of course . Obviously . And then . . . . It effects only some of the everybody's we know but then I don't know how I know . Maybe it effects a nobody in the everybody's who turns out to be a somebody one day that anybody could have seen coming in the future . Sorry . I'm obfuscating 'cause I'm scared to tell you . . . But here goes , what I know as told to me and my own personal recollections . I hope it helps . . . .
I couldn't breath . I couldn't feel my legs. With tears in my eyes I opened my mouth and tried to suck in air as my heart pounded out of my chest . The air I managed to take in felt like fire . I think we all know this day will come but you never reeeally expect it . And we hope it wont be this bad .
"You ok dare buddy? Look at me . Look in my eyes !" Whats this guys deal yelling at me like this . It's not like I'm dying .
"Mark ! You gonna make it Mark? Hold on for me buddy!" He said Mark like Maawk . He's from Brooklyn I think. Or is it the Bronx . I'm from the south so what do I know about New York ?
"Gee he don't look so good Vin . I don't tink he gonna make it ."
"Tito shut ya mouth and gimme some water an a towel " he barks . "He's gonna make it." He said water like 'waaada' .
I'm sweating bullets . I think Tito's right . I'm not gonna make it . I feel someones hands on me . Pushing . My shirt is off and it feels weird having someone else's hand on me . I think it's the Vin guy . Vin . Gotta be short for Vinny right? Which is short for Vincent I think . Why do parents give names to kids that are gonna be shortened anyway? Just go with Bob or Joe to start with . Maybe corporations are right . Maybe we should be a number . I want to be 37 .
It's funny what goes through your mind at a time like this .
"Stay wid me Maawk . Ya gonna make it . . . "
" He's fadin Vinny , he . . ."
I knew it was Vinny . He shoots , he scores .
". . . ain't breedin so good ."
And Vinny's pounding on me and yelling something I can't hear and my heart struggles to pound the way it has for fifty years and I know it's the end , my body's spent and as my eye's close and my muscles go limp and I begin to fall , finally into eternity and my ears grasp one final sound .
"Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . . "
Darkness . Silence . Void . "What's happening to me?" I remember thinking . Why am I here and how am I here . A voice breaks the emptiness as if carried by a faint breeze and whispers "Sign here please ." It's the voice of satan .
" Huh?" I mumble , staring at her . He's a she .
"I saaiiddd . . . " drawing the word out , "sign here please , right by the X."
"I uugh , I . . ."
"Look Maawk . . " .She begins in that high pitch Brooklyn accent . Satan's a New Yorker . This , I believe . " . . . we done been ova dis so jus sign an-"
"Oh , right . I was just reading the-"
"You's don't gotta read it , it's just standard boiler plate . Look , " she says with apparent exasperation , "I got a hair appointment in ten minutes so if you don't mind ," she says and points to the X . "Sign here please ."
. . . eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep . Beep .Beep . Beep . I take a violent deep breath and my eyes flair open . My heart's still pounding , sweat pouring off my balding head and my legs . . . I can't feel my legs . "Oh God , what have I done? What's happening to me?" I think when , wham , there's a slap to my back and a burst of pain as the treadmill slows to the off position and a voice exclaims "Maawk ! Ya did it ! Ha ha . . . I knew ya had it in ya ! "Tito didn't tink so but I knew if I pushed ya ya'd make it altho ya had me scared dare for a second . Taut he might be right and we was gonna lose ya's ! Hey Tito ! I tol ya he was gonna make it din I ? Dat's ma boy ! Alright , now hit the showers and tomorrow , we'll see if we's can get ya's up to a half mile !" he said with a big 'atta boy' smile and pounds me on the back one more time as a send off . "Tomorrow" He yells . "Don't be late!"
I can't believe I joined a gym . An enthusiastic psycho gym . Man . How'd I get talked into this I think to myself as I walk toward the exit . As I pass the front desk I see a man pondering a sheet of paper , a pen in his hand and I wonder if I should intervene . Behind the desk I see satan , impatiently tapping her fingers on the blotter , a Malboro pinched between her lips , blue smoke wafting upward toward yellowed ceiling tiles . She glances over and looks at me and smiles a devious smile , takes a deep drag and blows me an air kiss filled with nicotine . I shudder and put my head down and walk out the door . She did have nice hair though .
I found out recently what they did before gyms . They did push ups and sit ups at home . And ran around the block . Well some of us did . Mostly though , I think anymore we only eat at home and drive around the block . Some of us even eat while driving around the block ! I'm hopeless .
Most of us need help to accomplish something important or significant in our lives I reckon because most of those lofty things in life are hard to get . They take effort and I think , mostly , time . If you're anything like me you're a great starter but not so good on the follow through . In my case I've found I'm lazy surrounded with pockets of hard work and I try to only let the pockets show . Gotta look good for my fans . I've come to know there's a whole lot more cloth in the rest of the pants than what makes up the pockets and I better take care of that or there'll be no pockets to worry with . And I can't do it alone . And I think I'm not alone .
There is a reason there are gyms. And Alcoholics Anonymous . And Weight Watchers . And psychiatrists and psychologists . And churches . An good neighbors . We weren't built to do it by ourselves . We all have frailties and weaknesses that sometime become anything from bad habits to addictions and we hide it . Can't have people thinking bad about us . The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 6 to carry each others burdens because life is hard . We find ourselves stuck in a rut , depressed , and addicted to booze or TV or a bucket of fried chicken as a way to deal . And deal we must , but don't do it alone . You'll never make it .
I'm in a rut . I hate being in the place in life I am and some days I can barely work . I've been here before . I get out , man up , but seem to get back in the rut now days as quick as I get out of 'em and it's a merry-go-round I want to get off of . I called the preacher today . He'll help . I'm going to see some friends . They will too . Probably I'll go to the gym . And eat better , maybe broccoli and kale . Whoa . Gear down there big shifter , don't want to move too fast . I've learned you can live life while ignoring God and get by . And be miserable . I don't want to be miserable anymore .
There's a dotted line before my life with a caption above it . It says 'Sign Here Please'. I think I will .
I couldn't breath . I couldn't feel my legs. With tears in my eyes I opened my mouth and tried to suck in air as my heart pounded out of my chest . The air I managed to take in felt like fire . I think we all know this day will come but you never reeeally expect it . And we hope it wont be this bad .
"You ok dare buddy? Look at me . Look in my eyes !" Whats this guys deal yelling at me like this . It's not like I'm dying .
"Mark ! You gonna make it Mark? Hold on for me buddy!" He said Mark like Maawk . He's from Brooklyn I think. Or is it the Bronx . I'm from the south so what do I know about New York ?
"Gee he don't look so good Vin . I don't tink he gonna make it ."
"Tito shut ya mouth and gimme some water an a towel " he barks . "He's gonna make it." He said water like 'waaada' .
I'm sweating bullets . I think Tito's right . I'm not gonna make it . I feel someones hands on me . Pushing . My shirt is off and it feels weird having someone else's hand on me . I think it's the Vin guy . Vin . Gotta be short for Vinny right? Which is short for Vincent I think . Why do parents give names to kids that are gonna be shortened anyway? Just go with Bob or Joe to start with . Maybe corporations are right . Maybe we should be a number . I want to be 37 .
It's funny what goes through your mind at a time like this .
"Stay wid me Maawk . Ya gonna make it . . . "
" He's fadin Vinny , he . . ."
I knew it was Vinny . He shoots , he scores .
". . . ain't breedin so good ."
And Vinny's pounding on me and yelling something I can't hear and my heart struggles to pound the way it has for fifty years and I know it's the end , my body's spent and as my eye's close and my muscles go limp and I begin to fall , finally into eternity and my ears grasp one final sound .
"Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . . "
Darkness . Silence . Void . "What's happening to me?" I remember thinking . Why am I here and how am I here . A voice breaks the emptiness as if carried by a faint breeze and whispers "Sign here please ." It's the voice of satan .
" Huh?" I mumble , staring at her . He's a she .
"I saaiiddd . . . " drawing the word out , "sign here please , right by the X."
"I uugh , I . . ."
"Look Maawk . . " .She begins in that high pitch Brooklyn accent . Satan's a New Yorker . This , I believe . " . . . we done been ova dis so jus sign an-"
"Oh , right . I was just reading the-"
"You's don't gotta read it , it's just standard boiler plate . Look , " she says with apparent exasperation , "I got a hair appointment in ten minutes so if you don't mind ," she says and points to the X . "Sign here please ."
. . . eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep . Beep .Beep . Beep . I take a violent deep breath and my eyes flair open . My heart's still pounding , sweat pouring off my balding head and my legs . . . I can't feel my legs . "Oh God , what have I done? What's happening to me?" I think when , wham , there's a slap to my back and a burst of pain as the treadmill slows to the off position and a voice exclaims "Maawk ! Ya did it ! Ha ha . . . I knew ya had it in ya ! "Tito didn't tink so but I knew if I pushed ya ya'd make it altho ya had me scared dare for a second . Taut he might be right and we was gonna lose ya's ! Hey Tito ! I tol ya he was gonna make it din I ? Dat's ma boy ! Alright , now hit the showers and tomorrow , we'll see if we's can get ya's up to a half mile !" he said with a big 'atta boy' smile and pounds me on the back one more time as a send off . "Tomorrow" He yells . "Don't be late!"
I can't believe I joined a gym . An enthusiastic psycho gym . Man . How'd I get talked into this I think to myself as I walk toward the exit . As I pass the front desk I see a man pondering a sheet of paper , a pen in his hand and I wonder if I should intervene . Behind the desk I see satan , impatiently tapping her fingers on the blotter , a Malboro pinched between her lips , blue smoke wafting upward toward yellowed ceiling tiles . She glances over and looks at me and smiles a devious smile , takes a deep drag and blows me an air kiss filled with nicotine . I shudder and put my head down and walk out the door . She did have nice hair though .
I found out recently what they did before gyms . They did push ups and sit ups at home . And ran around the block . Well some of us did . Mostly though , I think anymore we only eat at home and drive around the block . Some of us even eat while driving around the block ! I'm hopeless .
Most of us need help to accomplish something important or significant in our lives I reckon because most of those lofty things in life are hard to get . They take effort and I think , mostly , time . If you're anything like me you're a great starter but not so good on the follow through . In my case I've found I'm lazy surrounded with pockets of hard work and I try to only let the pockets show . Gotta look good for my fans . I've come to know there's a whole lot more cloth in the rest of the pants than what makes up the pockets and I better take care of that or there'll be no pockets to worry with . And I can't do it alone . And I think I'm not alone .
There is a reason there are gyms. And Alcoholics Anonymous . And Weight Watchers . And psychiatrists and psychologists . And churches . An good neighbors . We weren't built to do it by ourselves . We all have frailties and weaknesses that sometime become anything from bad habits to addictions and we hide it . Can't have people thinking bad about us . The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 6 to carry each others burdens because life is hard . We find ourselves stuck in a rut , depressed , and addicted to booze or TV or a bucket of fried chicken as a way to deal . And deal we must , but don't do it alone . You'll never make it .
I'm in a rut . I hate being in the place in life I am and some days I can barely work . I've been here before . I get out , man up , but seem to get back in the rut now days as quick as I get out of 'em and it's a merry-go-round I want to get off of . I called the preacher today . He'll help . I'm going to see some friends . They will too . Probably I'll go to the gym . And eat better , maybe broccoli and kale . Whoa . Gear down there big shifter , don't want to move too fast . I've learned you can live life while ignoring God and get by . And be miserable . I don't want to be miserable anymore .
There's a dotted line before my life with a caption above it . It says 'Sign Here Please'. I think I will .
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Porches
I built houses once upon a time back when I was younger living in West Palm Beach . Helped build I suppose I should say as I was nineteen and barely knew how to swing a hammer . I did more toting and fetching than driving nails . The one time they did let me use the nail gun I nailed two fingers together so back to toting and fetching . They let me have a tool belt though which is all I really wanted anyway 'cause the hammer made that cool clacking sound when I walked . Yeah . I'm a carpenter .
The company I worked for was called Amazing Builders out of West Palm Beach . Amazing ? I guess the fact they let me work with 'em for a year or so was amazing but we never got to see a finished house so I don't know how they knew . They were a framing crew who just did the form work , stud walls , roof trusses and deck . And poof like a puff of smoke we were gone and on to the next one so we , or at least I , never got to see what it looked like when it was complete . And boy would I have loved that . They were mansions built on the beach in Palm Beach , fifteen or twenty thousand square feet affairs with maybe not streets of gold but driveways anyway . Gold plumbing for sure . Does water taste better out of one of those ? I'll never know this side of heaven . Wait . Jesus said I'll thirst no more . Scratch that .
I never wanted to live in a mansion - too much to clean and who changes the light bulbs in a 20 foot ceiling ? I always wanted to live in a log cabin in the woods on the side of a mountain . A little two room affair with a fireplace and a front porch with two rockers and a hound dog under it . I wanted to plant a garden . I'd have chickens pecking the ground around the front steps , a goat tied to a post , pigs in a pen and a cow in the barn . I wanted to cut down a tree and chop wood and stack it on the side of the house under a lean to , hoping it would be enough to last through a snowy winter . My wife would cook chili and chicken n dumplings and such in a cast iron pot hanging from a hook over the fire and come out and stand on the porch and holler ''Come and get it'' while banging a triangle hanging from a rope next to a porch post . After dinner my bride and me would sit in those rockers on the front porch and I'd blow a mellow tune on the harmonica while she sewed up the holes in my socks and dungarees .We'd sleep in a feather bed under a under a homemade quilt made from fabric she got for a real good price at the general store down the holler and I would wake up of a morning to the smell of coffee and biscuits and bacon from the pig we used to have . Perfect .
Perfect until government revenue men came with their pick axes and hammers and laid waste to my still and set fire to my grow house behind the barn . You didn't think this picturesque setting came for free did ya ? Lawmen . They carted off the animals and the bank took the house on account of I couldn't pay the note and here Mabel and me set behind bars on a hay bed 'cause somebody , probably that preacher man , called john law . sigh . It was nice while it lasted . I made some good hooch I'll tell ya .
I was thinkin' about this last night . Not the moonshine but the porch . We went to the picture show last night and there was a scene where a little girl walked onto an old wooden porch , weather worn and peeling . The porch , not the girl . The boards creaked as she stepped over and sat in the swing and stared off at the field where the wildflowers swayed in the wind . Inside the house her alcoholic father lay in bed with a sickness , blood seeping from his nose as he was passing from this life to beyond . They never said what he was dying from but die he did and as he did so she sat there in that porch swing and seemed to take comfort of some sort feeling the sun , the breeze and the sweet smell of roses . I wept .
I've always fantasized about a porch and it's therapeutic value . It's because some of my best moments , moments I was so close to God it felt like He was in the rocking chair next to me , came while I sat on some wooden porch . It's like , for me , inside the house is the harshness of life or maybe just life in general . It's marriage and money . It's kids and jobs and cars . Sickness and old age and the heart break of losing someone you love . But the porch . The porch . It's where I go to meet God . My Dad . I rock and I talk and I listen . He tells me He loves me and He holds my hand . And as I get up to go He stands and kisses me on the forehead and says come on back any time . He'll keep my chair warm .
In 2014 , I look to find myself on the porch more . I hope you'll join me .
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
The Big Five Oh-noooo . . . .
Not sure what this means but everything I see in the antique store seems to be the same stuff we had in our house growing up . Probably I'm gonna see this more . I'm going to live to be 100.
I went to the antiques mall last month . We were visiting family in Louisville to celebrate my brothers 40th birthday and we decided to hit up the antique shop . The antique shops in northern towns seem to have more good stuff than the ones back home . I think because it's the stuff grandparents unload before packing up Buick and moving to Tuscon or St. Pete . The stuff you find down here in Florida is that touristy kitsch grandma bought once she got down here but is now on a shelf in a run down shop on main street . So the aqua place setting for eight with dolphins in the center and matching cups sit behind the hazy antique windows collecting dust because Myrtle kicked the bucket and Frank has moved in with that tart 3 doors down . She has her own kitch . That's what I heard anyway .
Flea markets for me are more fun than Antique shops. I want to say it's because there is more to look at but in all honesty it's because of the food there . It's just like the stuff you get at the fair when it comes to town . Deep fried and covered in sugar or sauce without an ounce of some ingredient that might be called good for you . The flea market in Waldo has the doughnut guy that makes mini baby doughnuts to order for you . He's got this machine that squirts out the dough (12 baby doughnuts) onto a little mini river of oil and as the dough floats down it changes to golden brown and gets flipped by an cute little arm into a basket and immediately gets doused with glaze or powdered sugar or chocolate or cinnamon and MY GOSH why am I typing this ? I'm going into a glucose spasm ! Sorry . I'm dieting .
I've found that pawing through other peoples cast offs is a cheap date we both enjoy . My one and only and I love to go to the flea market or antique shop but mostly it's from the yard sale we seem to come home with something . A piece of furniture , books , a blender . Pants . Whoa there big boy . Never pants . I just can't wear something someone mighta peed in . Toys are an abundant item . Little junior grows up ya know . We used to Christmas shop for the kids at yard sales and what's sweet is finding someone who's kid is a couple years older than yours and crashing their yard sale each year. You get age appropriate stuff for like 3 cents on the dollar and with a little bleach it's as good as new . And if you have boys you can skip the bleach !
Terri always goes with something in mind while I'm just content to browse . She seems to like picture frames and glasses . The drinking kind . She's asked me over the years to make a frame or three and I grunt like the neanderthal I am and whack something out that would embarrass the kids in ninth grade shop class so she's gone to look elsewhere . She's found some nice ones though . She has a good eye . She bought some drinking glasses at the last stop , tall and kinda rainbow colored . I took one out of the cupboard and had a glass of milk with my . . .uuuhh . . .err . . . lettuce .
"Who used one of the new glasses?"
"I did . Why?"
"Wha . . .You can't use those . Y'all broke all the others!"
"Broke what? What others?"
"The ones we bought at Target . We had 16 of 'em and now we're down to 2 ."
"So these cups are like the towels hanging in the bathroom ? They only look like you should use them but you can't . 'Cause they match ."
"Exactly ."
Exactly .
Cast Iron skillet . I guess that is something I always look for . I don't know where it came from but I've had this fascination with all things cast iron of late . I guess since I'm becoming old I'm developing a love for things old fashiony . Read : things older than me ! We had a cast iron skillet for years in the back of the cupboard and never used it but somewhere along the way Terri pulled it out and we've never looked back . The thing is indestructible . It looks so industrial and they last forever . Every time I read a western and a cowboy throws a T-bone in a cast iron skillet over a camp fire I get weak in the knees . I'm looking for one with the ridges in it so when you cook a steak it gives you those grill marks . Awesome . I have a 12 inch and a 6 inch. I'll cook bacon in the 12 and get the 6 real hot , put in some bacon grease and crack a couple eggs in it and watch as they practically leap out of the pan . I brown 'em up good and slide them out on a plate with the bacon , Texas toast and a mess of cheese grits and wash it down with a cup of coffee from the cast iron kettle . That , is how you do breakfast !
Most every flea market or antique shop has a hand full of them and almost without exception they look like they need to be sand blasted ! I mean they're rusted and dirty , old and worn out and some I swear look like they still have meat particles left in them . I'm wondering if they are really trying to sell them or if they're just there to give an old timey feel to the store . Or stall , depending on where you're shopping . But you can sand blast cast iron so no matter how bad it looks , how ugly and worn and out of date out it seems , it has real value under the aged exterior . It may be old , but it's got plenty of life left . An awesome weapon in the kitchen arsenal .
Speaking of old and worn out . . . I turn 50 this weekend . I know right ? I look , what , 38 ? Clean living and Krispy Kreme's . It's so funny 'cause I'll catch a glimpse in the mirror for a split second and I look like I might have 20 years ago but when the steam clears the old guy is back . We all think we are younger than we are sometimes don't we ? But I go through the day choosing to think I look like the 30 year old and can do things my 30 year old self could do based on a foggy glimpse .It's the equivalent of putting my fingers in my ears and going " la la la la " but they say you are as young as you think you are so who knows . I do know I'm not what I once was , the years adding weight , aches , pains and taking away hair and memory . And I'm only half way . Some day's I feel like a flea market skillet with a bit too much rust and maybe a meat particle or two here and there and in need of a good scrubbing . Still valuable though . Still usable . Still have a place in the kitchen of life . Thank God . Thank God He made me out of tough stuff and seasoned me well for use in His kitchen . I hope I'll be found to not be one of the too many cooks in the kitchen but instead be the instrument he uses to cook up life for generations to come .
So I'm on to the next 50 . . . y'all coming ?
I went to the antiques mall last month . We were visiting family in Louisville to celebrate my brothers 40th birthday and we decided to hit up the antique shop . The antique shops in northern towns seem to have more good stuff than the ones back home . I think because it's the stuff grandparents unload before packing up Buick and moving to Tuscon or St. Pete . The stuff you find down here in Florida is that touristy kitsch grandma bought once she got down here but is now on a shelf in a run down shop on main street . So the aqua place setting for eight with dolphins in the center and matching cups sit behind the hazy antique windows collecting dust because Myrtle kicked the bucket and Frank has moved in with that tart 3 doors down . She has her own kitch . That's what I heard anyway .
Flea markets for me are more fun than Antique shops. I want to say it's because there is more to look at but in all honesty it's because of the food there . It's just like the stuff you get at the fair when it comes to town . Deep fried and covered in sugar or sauce without an ounce of some ingredient that might be called good for you . The flea market in Waldo has the doughnut guy that makes mini baby doughnuts to order for you . He's got this machine that squirts out the dough (12 baby doughnuts) onto a little mini river of oil and as the dough floats down it changes to golden brown and gets flipped by an cute little arm into a basket and immediately gets doused with glaze or powdered sugar or chocolate or cinnamon and MY GOSH why am I typing this ? I'm going into a glucose spasm ! Sorry . I'm dieting .
I've found that pawing through other peoples cast offs is a cheap date we both enjoy . My one and only and I love to go to the flea market or antique shop but mostly it's from the yard sale we seem to come home with something . A piece of furniture , books , a blender . Pants . Whoa there big boy . Never pants . I just can't wear something someone mighta peed in . Toys are an abundant item . Little junior grows up ya know . We used to Christmas shop for the kids at yard sales and what's sweet is finding someone who's kid is a couple years older than yours and crashing their yard sale each year. You get age appropriate stuff for like 3 cents on the dollar and with a little bleach it's as good as new . And if you have boys you can skip the bleach !
Terri always goes with something in mind while I'm just content to browse . She seems to like picture frames and glasses . The drinking kind . She's asked me over the years to make a frame or three and I grunt like the neanderthal I am and whack something out that would embarrass the kids in ninth grade shop class so she's gone to look elsewhere . She's found some nice ones though . She has a good eye . She bought some drinking glasses at the last stop , tall and kinda rainbow colored . I took one out of the cupboard and had a glass of milk with my . . .uuuhh . . .err . . . lettuce .
"Who used one of the new glasses?"
"I did . Why?"
"Wha . . .You can't use those . Y'all broke all the others!"
"Broke what? What others?"
"The ones we bought at Target . We had 16 of 'em and now we're down to 2 ."
"So these cups are like the towels hanging in the bathroom ? They only look like you should use them but you can't . 'Cause they match ."
"Exactly ."
Exactly .
Cast Iron skillet . I guess that is something I always look for . I don't know where it came from but I've had this fascination with all things cast iron of late . I guess since I'm becoming old I'm developing a love for things old fashiony . Read : things older than me ! We had a cast iron skillet for years in the back of the cupboard and never used it but somewhere along the way Terri pulled it out and we've never looked back . The thing is indestructible . It looks so industrial and they last forever . Every time I read a western and a cowboy throws a T-bone in a cast iron skillet over a camp fire I get weak in the knees . I'm looking for one with the ridges in it so when you cook a steak it gives you those grill marks . Awesome . I have a 12 inch and a 6 inch. I'll cook bacon in the 12 and get the 6 real hot , put in some bacon grease and crack a couple eggs in it and watch as they practically leap out of the pan . I brown 'em up good and slide them out on a plate with the bacon , Texas toast and a mess of cheese grits and wash it down with a cup of coffee from the cast iron kettle . That , is how you do breakfast !
Most every flea market or antique shop has a hand full of them and almost without exception they look like they need to be sand blasted ! I mean they're rusted and dirty , old and worn out and some I swear look like they still have meat particles left in them . I'm wondering if they are really trying to sell them or if they're just there to give an old timey feel to the store . Or stall , depending on where you're shopping . But you can sand blast cast iron so no matter how bad it looks , how ugly and worn and out of date out it seems , it has real value under the aged exterior . It may be old , but it's got plenty of life left . An awesome weapon in the kitchen arsenal .
Speaking of old and worn out . . . I turn 50 this weekend . I know right ? I look , what , 38 ? Clean living and Krispy Kreme's . It's so funny 'cause I'll catch a glimpse in the mirror for a split second and I look like I might have 20 years ago but when the steam clears the old guy is back . We all think we are younger than we are sometimes don't we ? But I go through the day choosing to think I look like the 30 year old and can do things my 30 year old self could do based on a foggy glimpse .It's the equivalent of putting my fingers in my ears and going " la la la la " but they say you are as young as you think you are so who knows . I do know I'm not what I once was , the years adding weight , aches , pains and taking away hair and memory . And I'm only half way . Some day's I feel like a flea market skillet with a bit too much rust and maybe a meat particle or two here and there and in need of a good scrubbing . Still valuable though . Still usable . Still have a place in the kitchen of life . Thank God . Thank God He made me out of tough stuff and seasoned me well for use in His kitchen . I hope I'll be found to not be one of the too many cooks in the kitchen but instead be the instrument he uses to cook up life for generations to come .
So I'm on to the next 50 . . . y'all coming ?
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Fire
Top caveman discovery , quick . Ok , right, you saw the title so yeah , fire was the first thing to come to my mind too . Well full disclosure here , it was second but since it's a christian blog I wasn't going to say sex came to mind first but there it is . I'm a Neanderthal . Sue me . If I have been a cave woman the answer would be curtains .
My first experience with flame was on my first birthday . Dad smoked so I'd seen fire before . He pulled the magic paper sticks from his pocket and flicked his wrist and fire would appear . Pretty . But he was 6 feet tall and I was only about a foot , so I never got up close and personal with it until my birthday . Mom set me on the table in front of a cake and grabbed the Kodak . I didn't know what it was (the cake) 'cause it was my first birthday so I touched it . Tasty . There was a stick mashed into the middle of the cake and dad did his wrist flicking thing and the fire touched the stick and it was on fire too ! Oooo. . . pretty . As the pictures tell it this smiling baby reached out to touch the pretty which turned out to be hot and apparently fairly painful . I often get miffed at parents who film little junior rolling his trike off a cliff and just as he's going over they drop the camera and run screaming and all we really end up with is a shot of a patch of dandelions with crying in the background . This is what they send to Americas Funniest Videos ? Kudos to mom and dad for sticking with the camera .
Boys like fire don't they? Something mystical and magical and powerful about it that must be innate in boys (and men too) that draws us. Anytime we do a bonfire or camp fire the boys want to toss in sticks , paper and anything else that might be flammable in the fire and stir it around while the girls are standing at the edges swishing away the smoke . We love the smell of it in our clothes after something like that and if we get soot on out faces all the better . Don't get me wrong, girls like fire too but more along the line of candles at dinner and rose petals and candles in the bedroom . There's a story I'm not allowed to tell of a couple whose bed caught on fire when a cand. . . . and I'm not allowed to tell .
I found out this summer that fire makes noise , apparently loud enough to wake a whole island of campers and keep 'em up all night . I'm no rugged outdoors-man but often I long for the good old days of the dust covered and weary cowboy laying on his bed roll next to the fire with the metal coffee pot hanging over it on a stick . The sound of a harmonica softly breaks the silence as he gazes up at a sky so full of stars it's almost too bright , and he wonders to himself how in the world his horse learned to play the harmonica . He lays back , his head on a rock and with the brim of his 10 gallon hat pulled down over his forehead he begins to dream of bacon and eggs cooking over that same fire in a cast iron skillet . Zzzz . . . .
Not that I've ever camped like this . It's just how I imagine real camping . I do like to sleep under the stars tho and I usually bring a hammock to string between 2 trees . Not a bed roll but close enough and I laid there this summer staring up at a star filled Maine sky and gave thanks to God for so much and He spoke to me , I'm almost certain of this . He said something along the line of "Mark, you shoulda brought bug spray". Most people imagine the silence of the woods as being refreshing and a thing of wonder but I can tell you from experience that it only enhances the sounds of the thousand mosquitoes feasting on the succulent skin of the dude dumb enough to sleep in the woods . A fella dumb enough to sleep (ha) in a string hammock so they could get at both sides . So I got up and started a camp fire and sat around it for 6 hours feeling only slightly more miserable that the campers in tents wondering what idiot is up at 2 in the morning making fire . They're just lucky I left my horses harmonica in the bag with the bug spray .
As much as I love fire there's one I can't seem to get going . Or if I do it's like burning wet wood , mostly smoke with a small flame and little heat . A Boy Scout of the heart I'm not . I was getting ready to say I long for there to be a fire for God and a fire for life but the truth is I long for not much . I guess mediocrity will do that to you . I don't know where it started but I'd like it to end and for my life to burst into a red hot flame of passion for the important . There is an old song that says "It only takes a spark to get a fire going . . ." but I'm not sure that's true for me . Didn't Paul say to Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God ? How's that work ? I just don't know . I just don't know .
So I end this bit of so called writing in need of advice .Where would you go or what would you do ? How do you handle the dull gray days of life that seem to go on without the heat and light of the love of God ? Anybody? Anybody? Stumbling indeed . . . .
My first experience with flame was on my first birthday . Dad smoked so I'd seen fire before . He pulled the magic paper sticks from his pocket and flicked his wrist and fire would appear . Pretty . But he was 6 feet tall and I was only about a foot , so I never got up close and personal with it until my birthday . Mom set me on the table in front of a cake and grabbed the Kodak . I didn't know what it was (the cake) 'cause it was my first birthday so I touched it . Tasty . There was a stick mashed into the middle of the cake and dad did his wrist flicking thing and the fire touched the stick and it was on fire too ! Oooo. . . pretty . As the pictures tell it this smiling baby reached out to touch the pretty which turned out to be hot and apparently fairly painful . I often get miffed at parents who film little junior rolling his trike off a cliff and just as he's going over they drop the camera and run screaming and all we really end up with is a shot of a patch of dandelions with crying in the background . This is what they send to Americas Funniest Videos ? Kudos to mom and dad for sticking with the camera .
Boys like fire don't they? Something mystical and magical and powerful about it that must be innate in boys (and men too) that draws us. Anytime we do a bonfire or camp fire the boys want to toss in sticks , paper and anything else that might be flammable in the fire and stir it around while the girls are standing at the edges swishing away the smoke . We love the smell of it in our clothes after something like that and if we get soot on out faces all the better . Don't get me wrong, girls like fire too but more along the line of candles at dinner and rose petals and candles in the bedroom . There's a story I'm not allowed to tell of a couple whose bed caught on fire when a cand. . . . and I'm not allowed to tell .
I found out this summer that fire makes noise , apparently loud enough to wake a whole island of campers and keep 'em up all night . I'm no rugged outdoors-man but often I long for the good old days of the dust covered and weary cowboy laying on his bed roll next to the fire with the metal coffee pot hanging over it on a stick . The sound of a harmonica softly breaks the silence as he gazes up at a sky so full of stars it's almost too bright , and he wonders to himself how in the world his horse learned to play the harmonica . He lays back , his head on a rock and with the brim of his 10 gallon hat pulled down over his forehead he begins to dream of bacon and eggs cooking over that same fire in a cast iron skillet . Zzzz . . . .
Not that I've ever camped like this . It's just how I imagine real camping . I do like to sleep under the stars tho and I usually bring a hammock to string between 2 trees . Not a bed roll but close enough and I laid there this summer staring up at a star filled Maine sky and gave thanks to God for so much and He spoke to me , I'm almost certain of this . He said something along the line of "Mark, you shoulda brought bug spray". Most people imagine the silence of the woods as being refreshing and a thing of wonder but I can tell you from experience that it only enhances the sounds of the thousand mosquitoes feasting on the succulent skin of the dude dumb enough to sleep in the woods . A fella dumb enough to sleep (ha) in a string hammock so they could get at both sides . So I got up and started a camp fire and sat around it for 6 hours feeling only slightly more miserable that the campers in tents wondering what idiot is up at 2 in the morning making fire . They're just lucky I left my horses harmonica in the bag with the bug spray .
As much as I love fire there's one I can't seem to get going . Or if I do it's like burning wet wood , mostly smoke with a small flame and little heat . A Boy Scout of the heart I'm not . I was getting ready to say I long for there to be a fire for God and a fire for life but the truth is I long for not much . I guess mediocrity will do that to you . I don't know where it started but I'd like it to end and for my life to burst into a red hot flame of passion for the important . There is an old song that says "It only takes a spark to get a fire going . . ." but I'm not sure that's true for me . Didn't Paul say to Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God ? How's that work ? I just don't know . I just don't know .
So I end this bit of so called writing in need of advice .Where would you go or what would you do ? How do you handle the dull gray days of life that seem to go on without the heat and light of the love of God ? Anybody? Anybody? Stumbling indeed . . . .
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Walk
I had a friend once . . . I think it was back in the 70's. Yeaahhh . That was a nice day .
The 70's were great weren't they ? Probably most of you don't remember them because you are too young or you were stoned through most of 'em . I don't remember much of them but I pin most of that on painting with industrial coatings for 20 years without wearing a mask . Warning labels schmorning labels . I do remember corduroy bell bottoms and long hair and rock music , none of which I was allowed to have . Danged Baptists . I woulda made a great hippie .I did have one of those 'Keep on Truckin' t-shirts , the one with the guy taking the long step forward . It was sorta hippie-ish though I don't know why .
I went swimming in the summer with my friend back then , maybe 1978 , in a pond about the size of the parking lot of your local Dollar General . More of a pool of water . Not so big and sorta green , the kind of place they wont let you swim in now a days because you'll get some flesh eating amoeba . Where were flesh eating amoebas back in the 70's ? And peanut allergies ? Did you ever meet someone with a peanut allergy in the 70"s ? I think as we've progressed medically and are living longer God has had to find new ways to kill us off . It's a working theory . . . .
"Cannonball !" Is there any other way to get in a lake off a dock ? I feel as though if Joni Earekson had used this approach we'd a never heard of her . That feeling of flying through the air after a long run down the dock and you lift and you tuck and 'SPAAA . . . LOOSH'! Awesome . And you come up and yell 'yeah' and claim to have had the highest splash but really , how did we know ? The surprise for me this day was how warm the water was . It was like when you pee in the pool and you feel the water turn warm around you and you'd never admit it to anyone but it kinda feels nice and it gross but you know it's true . Well when the whole pond is like that it's not so neat a feeling and almost a disappointment . In the middle of July escaping the heat was the goal , not being engulfed by it . But it was what we had and , you know, When in Rome . . .
I was in church last week and I was actually trackin' for once (re: paint fume comment above) . It was our 25th anniversary at the Vineyard and we sang some songs from a ways back , one of which was Lord Light The Fire Again and it really touched me . It reminded me of a better time , a time when I cared about God and what He thought and I actually did some of the stuff in the bible . At the end of the pastors speech his wife got up and asked if there were some who might need their fire lit again . Would you like to get some prayer . I said yes , I needed that and so I proceeded to . . . walk out the door and go to lunch .
I've been thinking about this this week . I talked to my wife . She said she wanted to go get prayer too but followed my lead out the door . It made me sad to hear this . We think our decision don't matter . . . . My thoughts brought me back to swimming in this pond of lukewarm water . Of how at my take off into the air I was bracing for cool relief on a summers day only to be disappointed by the warmth of stagnant water . I am stagnant water , lukewarm , a product of doing almost nothing . And mostly , not refreshing . In particular to my Dad . Woe is me and to all I meet . Well, that sounds kind of harsh but just think of how I could have refreshed those around me if I'd have been letting the cool water of the living God flow through me like I should have . Such a disappointment .
I should have walked . Walked forward with my leg stuck way out in front of me like the Keep on Truckin' guy . Big steps forward towards a refreshing and meaningful life for me and those I meet and touch. I hope I do . Big steps into the pool of living water . . . .
The 70's were great weren't they ? Probably most of you don't remember them because you are too young or you were stoned through most of 'em . I don't remember much of them but I pin most of that on painting with industrial coatings for 20 years without wearing a mask . Warning labels schmorning labels . I do remember corduroy bell bottoms and long hair and rock music , none of which I was allowed to have . Danged Baptists . I woulda made a great hippie .I did have one of those 'Keep on Truckin' t-shirts , the one with the guy taking the long step forward . It was sorta hippie-ish though I don't know why .
I went swimming in the summer with my friend back then , maybe 1978 , in a pond about the size of the parking lot of your local Dollar General . More of a pool of water . Not so big and sorta green , the kind of place they wont let you swim in now a days because you'll get some flesh eating amoeba . Where were flesh eating amoebas back in the 70's ? And peanut allergies ? Did you ever meet someone with a peanut allergy in the 70"s ? I think as we've progressed medically and are living longer God has had to find new ways to kill us off . It's a working theory . . . .
"Cannonball !" Is there any other way to get in a lake off a dock ? I feel as though if Joni Earekson had used this approach we'd a never heard of her . That feeling of flying through the air after a long run down the dock and you lift and you tuck and 'SPAAA . . . LOOSH'! Awesome . And you come up and yell 'yeah' and claim to have had the highest splash but really , how did we know ? The surprise for me this day was how warm the water was . It was like when you pee in the pool and you feel the water turn warm around you and you'd never admit it to anyone but it kinda feels nice and it gross but you know it's true . Well when the whole pond is like that it's not so neat a feeling and almost a disappointment . In the middle of July escaping the heat was the goal , not being engulfed by it . But it was what we had and , you know, When in Rome . . .
I was in church last week and I was actually trackin' for once (re: paint fume comment above) . It was our 25th anniversary at the Vineyard and we sang some songs from a ways back , one of which was Lord Light The Fire Again and it really touched me . It reminded me of a better time , a time when I cared about God and what He thought and I actually did some of the stuff in the bible . At the end of the pastors speech his wife got up and asked if there were some who might need their fire lit again . Would you like to get some prayer . I said yes , I needed that and so I proceeded to . . . walk out the door and go to lunch .
I've been thinking about this this week . I talked to my wife . She said she wanted to go get prayer too but followed my lead out the door . It made me sad to hear this . We think our decision don't matter . . . . My thoughts brought me back to swimming in this pond of lukewarm water . Of how at my take off into the air I was bracing for cool relief on a summers day only to be disappointed by the warmth of stagnant water . I am stagnant water , lukewarm , a product of doing almost nothing . And mostly , not refreshing . In particular to my Dad . Woe is me and to all I meet . Well, that sounds kind of harsh but just think of how I could have refreshed those around me if I'd have been letting the cool water of the living God flow through me like I should have . Such a disappointment .
I should have walked . Walked forward with my leg stuck way out in front of me like the Keep on Truckin' guy . Big steps forward towards a refreshing and meaningful life for me and those I meet and touch. I hope I do . Big steps into the pool of living water . . . .
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Pointing Fingers
Is it called the fore finger 'cause it's forth in line?
Funny . I looked at my hand and it was the second finger because when someone tells you to look at your hand you look at the top . That would be the hairy side men . But if I ask you to count to five you flip it over and you count from your pinky over don't you . And it is the forth , but , if you count to ten you start on the left hand thumb and go to the right in which case the fore finger is the ninth finger and nine is an interesting number . It's the number at which I realize how many donuts I've just eaten out of the box of hot Krispy Kreme donuts and how I may as well go for the whole dozen then hide the empty box from the family because, well , I just ate a dozen donuts . . . and I have no idea what all that had to do with my original thought which was "Wow that's a huge booger on my fore finger" and that " that's mostly what I use this finger for " . Well , that and shaking hands .
"There's the guy I was telling you about" the wife says .
"Which one?"
"In the green " she whispers intently . ''And flip flops . Buffets should have a limit . . .''.
"Oh , with receding hair?" he ask as he points to the man .With a sushing sound and ninja reflexes she knocks his hand down and with a whisper that's really a shout (you men know what I'm talking about) says "Don't point Harvey . It's rude!"
''Yikes and ok Myrtle. For gosh sakes I just wanted to be sure who it is we're about to gossip about'' . Their hearing aids musta been turned down . It wasn't gossip . I heard them fine . . .
We have gone and are going through a rough patch these last 3 months or so . After a diagnosis of breast cancer in January Terri has had 4 surgeries to remove the cancer and clean things up . She is , thank you Jesus , now cancer free . That is a lot to go through and while not a brain transplant , 4 times on the operating table will suck the life out of you . My poor wife .
And all the poorer because of me I'm afraid . When people have asked me about her I say something along the line of "she's handling it well " or " in a little pain " or " she's real tired . . . but things are ok ". I think I've tried to minimize it because it wasn't brain surgery . And maybe worse , social media world that we live in , people don't get a chance to ask because I post something on Facebook . And I can tell you if the person posting is a certain husband you probably should call the wife or daughter to get the real story . A 50 word blurb on Facebook is a poor substitute for conversation . I have done her a disservice I think . The truth is , she's flat worn out . So tired .
We were having a conversation in bed the other night . I always assumed those long stretches of silence meant the convo was over but she has this gift of being able to know right when I'm falling asleep to say something else . " Nobody has called ". zzz . . ." whaa . . .?" She punches my shoulder . " You never listen . How come nobody called to check on us?" Because your husband's been telling everyone you're doing fine ."Joan called" I reminded , though that was 2 weeks ago . I rolled over after another period of silence thinking of sleep . Then I was thinking about why no one called . I pondered this because I hadn't noticed . I wondered if she felt hurt . It made me upset as I thought about it and I wanted to point a finger at someone and say "What gives . Not even a call" ?
My mom always said that when you point a finger at someone there are three pointed back at you . Because I had the IQ of a sack of hammers it took me a while to get this . Point you finger and look at your hand . Uh-huh . Like I said it took me a while .
So I looked at the fingers pointing back at me . And here is what those three fingers were telling me the next morning :
- When people ask how it's going I should be aware enough of my own life and that of my family to tell them whats up .
- Tell them the truth . Mostly I tell it like it is if you ask but sometimes gloss over hardship to make it sound like I can handle things even when I can't . We don't really want to burden others do we ? But most folks ask for a reason . They genuinely care and want to help .
- Don't just go to church . Be church . We haven't been to home group in over a year . That's where the relationships are . That's where things get done .We're just not connected like we used to be .
- Just do something . We've had a few people say 'If you need anything. . . . ' or ' If we can do something just ask . . .' which is great and something I say all the time and we all really mean it but I'm finding those in need don't usually ask . They're embarrassed . They don't want to be a burden . They don't want to put you out . So just show up and mow their yard or grab their kids for a play date . Make dinner . Come over and fold laundry together . You get the idea .
- MAKE A PHONE CALL ! . I'm the champion of "I was gonna call . . ." Even 2 minutes makes a difference . A text , email or Facebook post is almost as good . It feels good to know you are thought of .
- Ask around for people in need . Seek people out . Some can use what you've got .
-Mostly I learned you should always ask the wife .
I could go on . I want to be better . I'm not really mad at anyone . Disappointed , maybe a little but at no one in particular . I understand and honestly I may be my own worst enemy . Maybe it just getting to the point where people are too busy and too spread out to be able to connect . Maybe I'm too rapped up in my own American dream to care about yours . I feel it's all too true about me .
sigh . . . stumbling indeed . . . .
Funny . I looked at my hand and it was the second finger because when someone tells you to look at your hand you look at the top . That would be the hairy side men . But if I ask you to count to five you flip it over and you count from your pinky over don't you . And it is the forth , but , if you count to ten you start on the left hand thumb and go to the right in which case the fore finger is the ninth finger and nine is an interesting number . It's the number at which I realize how many donuts I've just eaten out of the box of hot Krispy Kreme donuts and how I may as well go for the whole dozen then hide the empty box from the family because, well , I just ate a dozen donuts . . . and I have no idea what all that had to do with my original thought which was "Wow that's a huge booger on my fore finger" and that " that's mostly what I use this finger for " . Well , that and shaking hands .
"There's the guy I was telling you about" the wife says .
"Which one?"
"In the green " she whispers intently . ''And flip flops . Buffets should have a limit . . .''.
"Oh , with receding hair?" he ask as he points to the man .With a sushing sound and ninja reflexes she knocks his hand down and with a whisper that's really a shout (you men know what I'm talking about) says "Don't point Harvey . It's rude!"
''Yikes and ok Myrtle. For gosh sakes I just wanted to be sure who it is we're about to gossip about'' . Their hearing aids musta been turned down . It wasn't gossip . I heard them fine . . .
We have gone and are going through a rough patch these last 3 months or so . After a diagnosis of breast cancer in January Terri has had 4 surgeries to remove the cancer and clean things up . She is , thank you Jesus , now cancer free . That is a lot to go through and while not a brain transplant , 4 times on the operating table will suck the life out of you . My poor wife .
And all the poorer because of me I'm afraid . When people have asked me about her I say something along the line of "she's handling it well " or " in a little pain " or " she's real tired . . . but things are ok ". I think I've tried to minimize it because it wasn't brain surgery . And maybe worse , social media world that we live in , people don't get a chance to ask because I post something on Facebook . And I can tell you if the person posting is a certain husband you probably should call the wife or daughter to get the real story . A 50 word blurb on Facebook is a poor substitute for conversation . I have done her a disservice I think . The truth is , she's flat worn out . So tired .
We were having a conversation in bed the other night . I always assumed those long stretches of silence meant the convo was over but she has this gift of being able to know right when I'm falling asleep to say something else . " Nobody has called ". zzz . . ." whaa . . .?" She punches my shoulder . " You never listen . How come nobody called to check on us?" Because your husband's been telling everyone you're doing fine ."Joan called" I reminded , though that was 2 weeks ago . I rolled over after another period of silence thinking of sleep . Then I was thinking about why no one called . I pondered this because I hadn't noticed . I wondered if she felt hurt . It made me upset as I thought about it and I wanted to point a finger at someone and say "What gives . Not even a call" ?
My mom always said that when you point a finger at someone there are three pointed back at you . Because I had the IQ of a sack of hammers it took me a while to get this . Point you finger and look at your hand . Uh-huh . Like I said it took me a while .
So I looked at the fingers pointing back at me . And here is what those three fingers were telling me the next morning :
- When people ask how it's going I should be aware enough of my own life and that of my family to tell them whats up .
- Tell them the truth . Mostly I tell it like it is if you ask but sometimes gloss over hardship to make it sound like I can handle things even when I can't . We don't really want to burden others do we ? But most folks ask for a reason . They genuinely care and want to help .
- Don't just go to church . Be church . We haven't been to home group in over a year . That's where the relationships are . That's where things get done .We're just not connected like we used to be .
- Just do something . We've had a few people say 'If you need anything. . . . ' or ' If we can do something just ask . . .' which is great and something I say all the time and we all really mean it but I'm finding those in need don't usually ask . They're embarrassed . They don't want to be a burden . They don't want to put you out . So just show up and mow their yard or grab their kids for a play date . Make dinner . Come over and fold laundry together . You get the idea .
- MAKE A PHONE CALL ! . I'm the champion of "I was gonna call . . ." Even 2 minutes makes a difference . A text , email or Facebook post is almost as good . It feels good to know you are thought of .
- Ask around for people in need . Seek people out . Some can use what you've got .
-Mostly I learned you should always ask the wife .
I could go on . I want to be better . I'm not really mad at anyone . Disappointed , maybe a little but at no one in particular . I understand and honestly I may be my own worst enemy . Maybe it just getting to the point where people are too busy and too spread out to be able to connect . Maybe I'm too rapped up in my own American dream to care about yours . I feel it's all too true about me .
sigh . . . stumbling indeed . . . .
Friday, March 29, 2013
Good Friday
Is 'good' a strong enough word to use on Good Friday ?
Growing up I guess I never paid attention to Good Friday except that we got the day off from school so in my mind it WAS a good Friday ! I was always grateful to God for His timing and having all this go down on Friday instead of , say , Tuesday . Good Tuesday and then back to school . Or Work . I'd like to think the three day weekend was part of the plan .
We are cat people . Well , really , kitten people as we don't have much use for them past the first 8 months . They're just so cute in that box the kid's holding at the Publix front door . "Free kittens mister" he says with this sad look in his eyes . "My mom wont let us keep 'em on account of my dad lost his job and she has eye cancer and can't look after them and my sister ran away 'cause we have no food and . . . " "Alright stop . I'll take . . . 2" . sucker .
Dummy . We have 5 kids and each one needs to 'have their own' so I had to go back and get 3 more because it's 'only fair'. I shoulda given 'em the life's not fair speech but there you go . I like cats so I didn't fight it .
Cats are sorta disposable aren't they? We've had bunches over time and they just disappear after a few years . We've taken a couple to the vet in a moment of weakness but mostly if they get sick they wander off and die . I guess . It sounds heartless and fairly irresponsible (sounds ?!?) but my granny used to put 'em in a sack with a brick and toss 'em in the pond so I like to think I've evolved .
It's not a good Friday for one of our cats . I'm going to take it to be put down . He's been sickly for quite a while and he's to the point of being disgusting . He sneezes snot all over the place , he pulls out his hair , doesn't clean himself and he stinks . He's really gross but he's a lover . He wants so bad to be a lap cat but it's like eeeww when he jumps up in your lap .
I was raking the lawn this morning and he kept coming by and rubbing up against my leg and meowing , wanting a scratch and a rub and a little love . Most of the time he ignores me like all cats until he wants something and then it's purring and the lovey dovey treatment . But he's gross and looking down at him in all his grossness I said you gotta go . I felt bad . He didn't deserve this . He deserved better care . Truth is I don't care . Ouch . I am a small man .
As I contemplated this I realized what day it was . Good Friday . A day when Someone who didn't deserve to die was put down . A day when God looked down at a gross and hairless and stinky humanity and had mercy . At a people who occasionally come around , for a scratch , and a pat and more food in a bowl , and He had mercy . He didn't put me down! He put His Son down .
Then He raised me up .
It's not Good Friday .
It's Great Friday !
Growing up I guess I never paid attention to Good Friday except that we got the day off from school so in my mind it WAS a good Friday ! I was always grateful to God for His timing and having all this go down on Friday instead of , say , Tuesday . Good Tuesday and then back to school . Or Work . I'd like to think the three day weekend was part of the plan .
We are cat people . Well , really , kitten people as we don't have much use for them past the first 8 months . They're just so cute in that box the kid's holding at the Publix front door . "Free kittens mister" he says with this sad look in his eyes . "My mom wont let us keep 'em on account of my dad lost his job and she has eye cancer and can't look after them and my sister ran away 'cause we have no food and . . . " "Alright stop . I'll take . . . 2" . sucker .
Dummy . We have 5 kids and each one needs to 'have their own' so I had to go back and get 3 more because it's 'only fair'. I shoulda given 'em the life's not fair speech but there you go . I like cats so I didn't fight it .
Cats are sorta disposable aren't they? We've had bunches over time and they just disappear after a few years . We've taken a couple to the vet in a moment of weakness but mostly if they get sick they wander off and die . I guess . It sounds heartless and fairly irresponsible (sounds ?!?) but my granny used to put 'em in a sack with a brick and toss 'em in the pond so I like to think I've evolved .
It's not a good Friday for one of our cats . I'm going to take it to be put down . He's been sickly for quite a while and he's to the point of being disgusting . He sneezes snot all over the place , he pulls out his hair , doesn't clean himself and he stinks . He's really gross but he's a lover . He wants so bad to be a lap cat but it's like eeeww when he jumps up in your lap .
I was raking the lawn this morning and he kept coming by and rubbing up against my leg and meowing , wanting a scratch and a rub and a little love . Most of the time he ignores me like all cats until he wants something and then it's purring and the lovey dovey treatment . But he's gross and looking down at him in all his grossness I said you gotta go . I felt bad . He didn't deserve this . He deserved better care . Truth is I don't care . Ouch . I am a small man .
As I contemplated this I realized what day it was . Good Friday . A day when Someone who didn't deserve to die was put down . A day when God looked down at a gross and hairless and stinky humanity and had mercy . At a people who occasionally come around , for a scratch , and a pat and more food in a bowl , and He had mercy . He didn't put me down! He put His Son down .
Then He raised me up .
It's not Good Friday .
It's Great Friday !
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Things I Love
My mom's cat died this week . Or last . We're not sure . The smell appeared this week so I'm guessing it met it's demise last week . She doesn't listens to me . I told her you can only keep a cat in your trunk for so long .
I had a cat that I really loved when I was a kid . Tiger Paws . More than his feet looked like a tiger so I'm not sure why only his paws got the credit but there you go . Moms doing . Probably because when she threw him in the trunk and slammed the lid on his legs that's all that was showing . Mom has a way with animals .
Mr. Howard lived next door and had a dog named Brutus who chased Tiger Paws up a tree one day and commenced to camp out at the base of the tree until his meal came down . It was a long wait . After 3 days Mr. Howard got tired of the kid next door crying and saying "here kitty kitty" so he called someone . Turns out the fire Department doesn't rescue cats after all , no matter what the children's books tell you . He called a tree service . Perhaps if I'd been calling "Tiger Paws" instead of kitty kitty we could have avoided this whole episode . I loved that cat .
I loved Andrea Palmer too . She was my first kiss , behind the shed . We started dating in 3rd grade and made it to 5th grade before she called it off when she found out Tommy Billings had hair on his chest . Loser . If she could only see me now . I have mine braided ! Still , first love . . . .
I love Lou Fortier . My best friend from a long long time ago and a galaxy far far away . We met at church and have been fast friends ever since . Not sure why he liked me but I chose him on account of he had a car , a Mustang . Don't get all excited . It was brown and was from the mid 70's , not Mustangs finest hour . And it was haunted which was awesome . It moaned . Maybe because it was brown and from the mid 70's . No moaning about Lou though - the most best friend ever .
I love music . I put my Ipod on shuffle today and was surprised at all the different kinds of stuff on there . I think that's called eclectic . Of everything I heard today it's the instrumental stuff that gets me going , I think because I fill in my own words or thoughts . I play along with my air guitar , keyboard or drums and look . . . ridiculous . Still . I missed my calling .
The blog isn't long enough to tell you all the reasons I love my wife . Suffice it to say she's the air in my balloon , the jelly in my doughnut and the varooooom in my motor . Might be good if I told her some of this stuff .
I so love my kids and would be happy to live with any one of them in my later years when I'm too frail and need help going to the bathroom .
I love doughnuts and pastries and cupcakes . Did I mention doughnuts ?
I love my bible . My in-laws gave it to me back in the 80's and for a book that is as little used as it is it sure is tattered . Lots of yellow highlighted things and underlined truths . Do you find it hard to understand in some places? I'm a bit ashamed to say after all these years I'm far from a scholar and sometimes barely a novice . A lot of life seems at odds with some of the things I read and being of smallish mind I ache over what is truth . I so want to know . So I keep reading .
This is the point where I'm supposed to say I love God most of all , last paragraph and all . And I do but I'm all too aware of my own foibles and short comings and so sometimes I wonder . Is it enough ? Do I put out ? Love Him with the abandon He is due ? Nah . But I try and hope to hear one day "Well done Good and faithful servant" and know He means it . That tattered book I have says He loves me . Always did . Always will . I love that about Him . My prayer is that on my final day , when I breath my last and I find myself in His presence I can say "I loved You so much , with all my heart " and He'll say "Yeah, you did! C'mon , lets go get a doughnut"!
I had a cat that I really loved when I was a kid . Tiger Paws . More than his feet looked like a tiger so I'm not sure why only his paws got the credit but there you go . Moms doing . Probably because when she threw him in the trunk and slammed the lid on his legs that's all that was showing . Mom has a way with animals .
Mr. Howard lived next door and had a dog named Brutus who chased Tiger Paws up a tree one day and commenced to camp out at the base of the tree until his meal came down . It was a long wait . After 3 days Mr. Howard got tired of the kid next door crying and saying "here kitty kitty" so he called someone . Turns out the fire Department doesn't rescue cats after all , no matter what the children's books tell you . He called a tree service . Perhaps if I'd been calling "Tiger Paws" instead of kitty kitty we could have avoided this whole episode . I loved that cat .
I loved Andrea Palmer too . She was my first kiss , behind the shed . We started dating in 3rd grade and made it to 5th grade before she called it off when she found out Tommy Billings had hair on his chest . Loser . If she could only see me now . I have mine braided ! Still , first love . . . .
I love Lou Fortier . My best friend from a long long time ago and a galaxy far far away . We met at church and have been fast friends ever since . Not sure why he liked me but I chose him on account of he had a car , a Mustang . Don't get all excited . It was brown and was from the mid 70's , not Mustangs finest hour . And it was haunted which was awesome . It moaned . Maybe because it was brown and from the mid 70's . No moaning about Lou though - the most best friend ever .
I love music . I put my Ipod on shuffle today and was surprised at all the different kinds of stuff on there . I think that's called eclectic . Of everything I heard today it's the instrumental stuff that gets me going , I think because I fill in my own words or thoughts . I play along with my air guitar , keyboard or drums and look . . . ridiculous . Still . I missed my calling .
The blog isn't long enough to tell you all the reasons I love my wife . Suffice it to say she's the air in my balloon , the jelly in my doughnut and the varooooom in my motor . Might be good if I told her some of this stuff .
I so love my kids and would be happy to live with any one of them in my later years when I'm too frail and need help going to the bathroom .
I love doughnuts and pastries and cupcakes . Did I mention doughnuts ?
I love my bible . My in-laws gave it to me back in the 80's and for a book that is as little used as it is it sure is tattered . Lots of yellow highlighted things and underlined truths . Do you find it hard to understand in some places? I'm a bit ashamed to say after all these years I'm far from a scholar and sometimes barely a novice . A lot of life seems at odds with some of the things I read and being of smallish mind I ache over what is truth . I so want to know . So I keep reading .
This is the point where I'm supposed to say I love God most of all , last paragraph and all . And I do but I'm all too aware of my own foibles and short comings and so sometimes I wonder . Is it enough ? Do I put out ? Love Him with the abandon He is due ? Nah . But I try and hope to hear one day "Well done Good and faithful servant" and know He means it . That tattered book I have says He loves me . Always did . Always will . I love that about Him . My prayer is that on my final day , when I breath my last and I find myself in His presence I can say "I loved You so much , with all my heart " and He'll say "Yeah, you did! C'mon , lets go get a doughnut"!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Fatty
Walking up to the library today I saw my reflection and began to hum the "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down" song . Fabulous . Now even my subconscious knows I'm fat .
"Lose weight now! Ask me how!" Herbalife used to say that . Maybe they still do . They're a weight loss supplement company . Herbs I would guess . Back in the 1800's they called it snake oil if I'm not mistaken . I tried to sell the stuff back in the 80's. It was one of those pyramid deals where you buy the swill , er. . . supplement , and hawk it to your friends and family and get them to do likewise . It was a good way to clear your calendar .
I got the stuff from Tony McDaniels . " Man you can make so much money off this" he says to me . "Plus if you use it you can lose a ton." Right . I mighta weighed 150 at the time .
Awful . The stuff was just terrible and you had to drink it like 3 times a day to the tune of about a half a gallon and I think skip 2 meals . I bought a gallon to start with for $20 , no , it was $59 a gallon but you dilute it so it lasted for a couple of days or a week and then you called your suppliers beeper (it was the 80's) to get some more . Tony didn't get a second call . I don't think I sold any of the stuff but a couple of friends from back in the day wont respond to friend requests on Facebook so. . . maybe I did .
What they were really selling is laziness , not herbs . I think as human beings we have a bent towards the easy way of doing things and so they took advantage of it . Why jog when you can drink herbs ? But they're not alone . I see the ads for all kind of short cut , labor saving devices and services that promise to save you time so you can spend it on more important things . Cue the commercial of dad running through the park flying a kite with junior . Me, I hired a lawn service so Saturday afternoons could be spent in my Lazyboy watching Real Housewives while junior was in his room playing Playstation . Now we're both fat. What did I do with that Herbalife number. . . .
I'm a bit lazy . I admit it . I've been trying to find some scripture that squares with me being that way and that it's ok but all I come up with are words like sluggard , idle and slothful . Sluggard . I like saying the word sluggard but I don't want to be one . Which means I actually need to DO all those get in shape things I want to do , but really don't want to do , you know what I mean . I like the idea of jogging and salads and all , just not enough to do them . "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied". So says Proverbs . sigh . I guess . . . . .
So I'm on a quest to find diligence . And discipline . And motivation . And all those opposite of sluggard things I used to have in my life but that have been covered over like my 6 pack abs (yes, I believe they're still under there) with stuff that shouldn't be there . I think probably I'll have to pray, grit my teeth and do what the writer of Hebrews says "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it ".
Hum . Sounds hard . But then , life's hard .Who's with me?
"Lose weight now! Ask me how!" Herbalife used to say that . Maybe they still do . They're a weight loss supplement company . Herbs I would guess . Back in the 1800's they called it snake oil if I'm not mistaken . I tried to sell the stuff back in the 80's. It was one of those pyramid deals where you buy the swill , er. . . supplement , and hawk it to your friends and family and get them to do likewise . It was a good way to clear your calendar .
I got the stuff from Tony McDaniels . " Man you can make so much money off this" he says to me . "Plus if you use it you can lose a ton." Right . I mighta weighed 150 at the time .
Awful . The stuff was just terrible and you had to drink it like 3 times a day to the tune of about a half a gallon and I think skip 2 meals . I bought a gallon to start with for $20 , no , it was $59 a gallon but you dilute it so it lasted for a couple of days or a week and then you called your suppliers beeper (it was the 80's) to get some more . Tony didn't get a second call . I don't think I sold any of the stuff but a couple of friends from back in the day wont respond to friend requests on Facebook so. . . maybe I did .
What they were really selling is laziness , not herbs . I think as human beings we have a bent towards the easy way of doing things and so they took advantage of it . Why jog when you can drink herbs ? But they're not alone . I see the ads for all kind of short cut , labor saving devices and services that promise to save you time so you can spend it on more important things . Cue the commercial of dad running through the park flying a kite with junior . Me, I hired a lawn service so Saturday afternoons could be spent in my Lazyboy watching Real Housewives while junior was in his room playing Playstation . Now we're both fat. What did I do with that Herbalife number. . . .
I'm a bit lazy . I admit it . I've been trying to find some scripture that squares with me being that way and that it's ok but all I come up with are words like sluggard , idle and slothful . Sluggard . I like saying the word sluggard but I don't want to be one . Which means I actually need to DO all those get in shape things I want to do , but really don't want to do , you know what I mean . I like the idea of jogging and salads and all , just not enough to do them . "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied". So says Proverbs . sigh . I guess . . . . .
So I'm on a quest to find diligence . And discipline . And motivation . And all those opposite of sluggard things I used to have in my life but that have been covered over like my 6 pack abs (yes, I believe they're still under there) with stuff that shouldn't be there . I think probably I'll have to pray, grit my teeth and do what the writer of Hebrews says "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it ".
Hum . Sounds hard . But then , life's hard .Who's with me?
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Save The Ta-Ta's
I've never liked breasts . I know I know, I'm an idiot . Big, small, stark white or golden brown
I was never attracted . I do however , fancy myself a leg man , the
lower half to be exact . Don't get me wrong , thighs are nice but
sometimes there can be a little too much fat and depending on the
situation can be a bit hard to hold onto . But the leg is perfect size
and shape . Not normal in America but there you go . Plus , really ,
when it comes right down to it , I don't even LIKE chicken .
A pair of breasts I DO like belong to my wife . One of the reasons I married her . Ok , it was the personality , character , intelligence , and loving kindness that wooed me . But those things are hard to see at a hundred yards .
Someone else saw her breasts this past month . I'm an open kinda guy , I said it was ok . It was her doctor . She even got pictures , something even I don't don't have . A few days later the Dr. said she didn't like the pictures and thought a little poking and prodding were in order . Needle biopsy .
A-typical . It was kind of a fancy Dr. word that means "Hummm...that doesn't look normal" . Don't you wish they'd learn to talk normal ? It doesn't mean anything really . "We'd like another sample" .
Hospitals are a bee hive of activity aren't they ? If you're on the waiting side of the wall it's slow and all but behind those double doors things were hoppin'. So it seemed to me , but I was only back there for a few minutes . Long enough though to see her butt through those hospital gowns they insist you wear . Then off she went to see a lady with a knife . For a sample .
"We'll let you know , probably in a couple days". I guess things are slower outside the hospital than in . 2 weeks slower . Finally we get a call and the lady says "Mrs Manche , we have the test results back . It says here...."
I've been thinking about life the last few months . Mine . My families . Others . It's slow . It takes a lifetime to live . Yet it's so fleeting . As a kid the time between January and Christmas was eternity but as a grown up those repetitive holiday song barely go away before they are back again . Where did the time go and what did I do with it ? Did anything I did this year mean something? I was thinking I have a lot of talent . And ability . Gifts that God gave me to serve him and the people He loves . I don't know , maybe I did serve and just don't remember . What a waste if I didn't . My time is limited . So is yours .
" Cancer . You have cancer Mrs. Manche ".
Some of us have less than we thought . Though that's not the case with us , thank you Jesus . For now . We caught it early and it's small and they make it out to not be a big deal . Still . Cancer . It's a scary thing but what scares me more I think is not the dying , whenever that is , but the living and how well did I do it . Did I love God with my whole heart ? Did I care for my wife and kids like they were a precious treasure ? Did I love my neighbor as myself ? I gotta say...only sorta .
Time . We only have so much . Then we don't .
A pair of breasts I DO like belong to my wife . One of the reasons I married her . Ok , it was the personality , character , intelligence , and loving kindness that wooed me . But those things are hard to see at a hundred yards .
Someone else saw her breasts this past month . I'm an open kinda guy , I said it was ok . It was her doctor . She even got pictures , something even I don't don't have . A few days later the Dr. said she didn't like the pictures and thought a little poking and prodding were in order . Needle biopsy .
A-typical . It was kind of a fancy Dr. word that means "Hummm...that doesn't look normal" . Don't you wish they'd learn to talk normal ? It doesn't mean anything really . "We'd like another sample" .
Hospitals are a bee hive of activity aren't they ? If you're on the waiting side of the wall it's slow and all but behind those double doors things were hoppin'. So it seemed to me , but I was only back there for a few minutes . Long enough though to see her butt through those hospital gowns they insist you wear . Then off she went to see a lady with a knife . For a sample .
"We'll let you know , probably in a couple days". I guess things are slower outside the hospital than in . 2 weeks slower . Finally we get a call and the lady says "Mrs Manche , we have the test results back . It says here...."
I've been thinking about life the last few months . Mine . My families . Others . It's slow . It takes a lifetime to live . Yet it's so fleeting . As a kid the time between January and Christmas was eternity but as a grown up those repetitive holiday song barely go away before they are back again . Where did the time go and what did I do with it ? Did anything I did this year mean something? I was thinking I have a lot of talent . And ability . Gifts that God gave me to serve him and the people He loves . I don't know , maybe I did serve and just don't remember . What a waste if I didn't . My time is limited . So is yours .
" Cancer . You have cancer Mrs. Manche ".
Some of us have less than we thought . Though that's not the case with us , thank you Jesus . For now . We caught it early and it's small and they make it out to not be a big deal . Still . Cancer . It's a scary thing but what scares me more I think is not the dying , whenever that is , but the living and how well did I do it . Did I love God with my whole heart ? Did I care for my wife and kids like they were a precious treasure ? Did I love my neighbor as myself ? I gotta say...only sorta .
Time . We only have so much . Then we don't .
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
98 lb. Weakling
Maybe more like 250 lb weakling . Fine . 258 lb. weakling .
We have a digital scale so it doesn't have one of those spinny things on the front edge to adjust it with . That was a magic button back in the day . How smart are we that we'd spin that ol' button to be five pounds off , KNOW it was five pounds off and step on the scale and smile . "Well lookie there! Down 5 pounds! Hey honey, come look at this!" And somehow , on some retarded inner level we believe we're down five .
I used to do sorta the same thing with my alarm clock . Set it 15 minutes off so when the alarm went off in the morning I knew I had 15 more minutes than what actually showed . Brilliant . I'd figured out time travel and the space time continum stuff by age 15 . Who knew it would come down to a little button on the side of the clock .
I went to a men's meeting this past weekend . A retreat really . A Friday through Sunday sorta thing where you go to away to some camp ground to meet and eat for 48 hours . Everybody says they like these things . Especially wives . " Please Jesus , it's cheaper for me to send him to YOU this weekend than to call a lawyer so PLEASE throttle the jerk and . . . ". We try to do this once a year 'cause . . . it's good for us ? Makes us better men ? I guess . Anybody remember Promise Keepers ? How long is the boost supposed to last ? If I get pulled over for DUI on the way home do I get my money back ?
At church on Sunday , still smelling of camp fire and beef the pastor say's we all had an awesome time and "you men that didn't make it sure missed out". I guess .
I used to LOVE to go to these things but the ones of late felt like a waste . Not to most but for me for sure . I'm almost certain it has to do with me and and not God . Last year I was in a very bad place and it was awful to be there . And it was a great meeting . Plenty of help there if I'd have just asked . Lots of Gods men there . It just didn't click . This year though I'm fine . I'm not in a bad place , just in an 'I don't care about much mood' with a side of a selfish outlook . Ok . That's a bad place . I went .
I read the guy's book before so I wasn't wowed or touched when he gave his speeches though they were good . To be fair I don't get much from any speaker because my mind wanders off after 5 minutes and doesn't come back until the 3rd verse of ' Just As I Am ' . I like it when you get to fill in blanks as you go along . I feel like I'm taking notes though really the speaker did all the work except for one or two words per line . Kinda like the coloring page the kids get at the restaurant . And some adults . Something to do .
"What do you delight about in me? What do you enjoy about me Dad ?" This was one of 3 questions he gave us to pray on and see what God said . I missed the other 2 because I was writing the whole dang sentence instead of filling in a blank . "I enjoy and delight that you are quiet . That you often don't know what to say . You're my wallflower ." I cried as I walked to the park bench to pray . He didn't give me a chance to open my mouth , He just blurted it out . I cried 'cause that's not who I want to be .
" Strong men do strong things . Weak men do God things . 2 Corinthians 12:9 says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me ." You sat there on the couch last night Mark feeling like a wall flower and despising it , Uncomfortable in you're weakness and wishing you were a strong man . Yes, I gave you the desire to talk and prattle on but not much ability . I don't want them to see a strong man . I want them to see Me . My love . My kindness . My delight Mark , is you . You weakling . Now about that 258 lbs . . . . ."
We have a digital scale so it doesn't have one of those spinny things on the front edge to adjust it with . That was a magic button back in the day . How smart are we that we'd spin that ol' button to be five pounds off , KNOW it was five pounds off and step on the scale and smile . "Well lookie there! Down 5 pounds! Hey honey, come look at this!" And somehow , on some retarded inner level we believe we're down five .
I used to do sorta the same thing with my alarm clock . Set it 15 minutes off so when the alarm went off in the morning I knew I had 15 more minutes than what actually showed . Brilliant . I'd figured out time travel and the space time continum stuff by age 15 . Who knew it would come down to a little button on the side of the clock .
I went to a men's meeting this past weekend . A retreat really . A Friday through Sunday sorta thing where you go to away to some camp ground to meet and eat for 48 hours . Everybody says they like these things . Especially wives . " Please Jesus , it's cheaper for me to send him to YOU this weekend than to call a lawyer so PLEASE throttle the jerk and . . . ". We try to do this once a year 'cause . . . it's good for us ? Makes us better men ? I guess . Anybody remember Promise Keepers ? How long is the boost supposed to last ? If I get pulled over for DUI on the way home do I get my money back ?
At church on Sunday , still smelling of camp fire and beef the pastor say's we all had an awesome time and "you men that didn't make it sure missed out". I guess .
I used to LOVE to go to these things but the ones of late felt like a waste . Not to most but for me for sure . I'm almost certain it has to do with me and and not God . Last year I was in a very bad place and it was awful to be there . And it was a great meeting . Plenty of help there if I'd have just asked . Lots of Gods men there . It just didn't click . This year though I'm fine . I'm not in a bad place , just in an 'I don't care about much mood' with a side of a selfish outlook . Ok . That's a bad place . I went .
I read the guy's book before so I wasn't wowed or touched when he gave his speeches though they were good . To be fair I don't get much from any speaker because my mind wanders off after 5 minutes and doesn't come back until the 3rd verse of ' Just As I Am ' . I like it when you get to fill in blanks as you go along . I feel like I'm taking notes though really the speaker did all the work except for one or two words per line . Kinda like the coloring page the kids get at the restaurant . And some adults . Something to do .
"What do you delight about in me? What do you enjoy about me Dad ?" This was one of 3 questions he gave us to pray on and see what God said . I missed the other 2 because I was writing the whole dang sentence instead of filling in a blank . "I enjoy and delight that you are quiet . That you often don't know what to say . You're my wallflower ." I cried as I walked to the park bench to pray . He didn't give me a chance to open my mouth , He just blurted it out . I cried 'cause that's not who I want to be .
" Strong men do strong things . Weak men do God things . 2 Corinthians 12:9 says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me ." You sat there on the couch last night Mark feeling like a wall flower and despising it , Uncomfortable in you're weakness and wishing you were a strong man . Yes, I gave you the desire to talk and prattle on but not much ability . I don't want them to see a strong man . I want them to see Me . My love . My kindness . My delight Mark , is you . You weakling . Now about that 258 lbs . . . . ."
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The Election
I'm old . I know this because I don't read the comics anymore .
I mentioned once my dad was a smoker . He got up every morning around 5:30 and sat at the kitchen table and smoked . Light one and smoke it down and light the next off of that one . He just sat there and did it , staring off into the distance , which was about 10 feet . It was a small kitchen . He'd do this until he heard the faint thump in the front yard which signaled the arrival of the newspaper . You remember those . Big paper things people look at when they can't get a wifi signal ? It was my job to go fetch it which was just fine as I needed the fresh air . That and our dog was too retarded to fetch anything .
I only read the comics . Too many words made my head hurt so it helped to have pictures to go along with them . If they'd have had math comics , I mighta passed . The comics were good until politics intruded . I think it was because of all the buzz coming out of my dads mouth about that "crook Nixon". And all that was on the news was Watergate this and Watergate that . And now it was showing up in my comics . Can't grown ups leave us alone ?
I don't like politics . It makes my head hurt too . Maybe because they invaded my comics . Like grown ups peeing on the kiddie pool . Just wrong .
I have a smallish mind and have a difficult time figuring things out . Paper or plastic . Half caf or decaf . Would you like fries with that ? Keynesian vs supply side economics ? Ok the fry thing is a no brainer . I try , I really do , to figure out our government and country and it's people and what's best for us . We as a country and a people are so big and vast and are SO interconnected and I sit and think and ponder and my mind ususlly goes back to , well , the fries .
I think about God some . And politics . What does He think ? Of the kingdom we have here I mean and the system we set up to run it . I think He's a democrat .
"Attention ! We interrupt this blog before it gets any worse"
Sorry. I haven't written in so long I forgot something along the way. Re-reading, I feel I owe you a refund. Come see me at church on Sunday .
What I was trying to get to at the end of this blog is that there is a kingdom without borders and time in which I am privileged to live . A kingdom of love . Built by my Dad . It too, has a 2 party system and there is a vote every day . And it is to my shame that most days I vote the Mark party without consideration of my . . . . I wanted to say my opponent . Rival . But He's not . Right? I might be afraid to answer that . Truth is most day I wake up and assume the throne with so little regard to Him and His desires for His kingdom that I'm amazed that I'm not a pile of ashes .
At this point I'm supposed to say I don't want it this way but my actions speak louder than words . Oi vey ! Maybe I'm not as bad as I'm sounding but I'm worse than you think . I'm not sure what He thinks . Probably should find out .
There's an election in a few day and come January there'll be an old or new guy on the throne running the country the way he thinks best and it will work or it wont . I'll do my civic service and vote and then try to be a good citizen for the benefit of my neighbor and my country . And all the while I'll be wondering why I give so much time and attention to a kingdom that will pass away and so much less to the eternal one .
I hope tomorrow I don't get the vote . I hope I smart enough , wise enough to give it to Him . My Dad . My King .I hope the right Guy gets elected . . . .
I mentioned once my dad was a smoker . He got up every morning around 5:30 and sat at the kitchen table and smoked . Light one and smoke it down and light the next off of that one . He just sat there and did it , staring off into the distance , which was about 10 feet . It was a small kitchen . He'd do this until he heard the faint thump in the front yard which signaled the arrival of the newspaper . You remember those . Big paper things people look at when they can't get a wifi signal ? It was my job to go fetch it which was just fine as I needed the fresh air . That and our dog was too retarded to fetch anything .
I only read the comics . Too many words made my head hurt so it helped to have pictures to go along with them . If they'd have had math comics , I mighta passed . The comics were good until politics intruded . I think it was because of all the buzz coming out of my dads mouth about that "crook Nixon". And all that was on the news was Watergate this and Watergate that . And now it was showing up in my comics . Can't grown ups leave us alone ?
I don't like politics . It makes my head hurt too . Maybe because they invaded my comics . Like grown ups peeing on the kiddie pool . Just wrong .
I have a smallish mind and have a difficult time figuring things out . Paper or plastic . Half caf or decaf . Would you like fries with that ? Keynesian vs supply side economics ? Ok the fry thing is a no brainer . I try , I really do , to figure out our government and country and it's people and what's best for us . We as a country and a people are so big and vast and are SO interconnected and I sit and think and ponder and my mind ususlly goes back to , well , the fries .
I think about God some . And politics . What does He think ? Of the kingdom we have here I mean and the system we set up to run it . I think He's a democrat .
"Attention ! We interrupt this blog before it gets any worse"
Sorry. I haven't written in so long I forgot something along the way. Re-reading, I feel I owe you a refund. Come see me at church on Sunday .
What I was trying to get to at the end of this blog is that there is a kingdom without borders and time in which I am privileged to live . A kingdom of love . Built by my Dad . It too, has a 2 party system and there is a vote every day . And it is to my shame that most days I vote the Mark party without consideration of my . . . . I wanted to say my opponent . Rival . But He's not . Right? I might be afraid to answer that . Truth is most day I wake up and assume the throne with so little regard to Him and His desires for His kingdom that I'm amazed that I'm not a pile of ashes .
At this point I'm supposed to say I don't want it this way but my actions speak louder than words . Oi vey ! Maybe I'm not as bad as I'm sounding but I'm worse than you think . I'm not sure what He thinks . Probably should find out .
There's an election in a few day and come January there'll be an old or new guy on the throne running the country the way he thinks best and it will work or it wont . I'll do my civic service and vote and then try to be a good citizen for the benefit of my neighbor and my country . And all the while I'll be wondering why I give so much time and attention to a kingdom that will pass away and so much less to the eternal one .
I hope tomorrow I don't get the vote . I hope I smart enough , wise enough to give it to Him . My Dad . My King .I hope the right Guy gets elected . . . .
Friday, June 29, 2012
Pinball Whizzer
I went to summer school once . In 4th grade . I had trouble catching on to the whole grading system thing that year because to that point we were graded with smiley faces and satisfactory's and whether we showed up or not and I ALWAYS got smiley faces 'cause my teachers thought I was hot for an 8 year old . I'm pretty sure I remember this right .
A , B , C , D and F . It took me the better part of a year to figure out the A's and B's were what moms and dads were hoping for and the D's and F's were the fast track to foster care . I knew I wasn't going to get the first two because I wasn't a girl and the C was out because you have to do SOMETHING at least . So I hovered around the F level until it was too late to do anything about it . I didn't think all of this grade stuff would matter and thought this was all bogus anyway 'cause they left out the E . Ha . Educators .
Mom and us kids went to Virginia and North Carolina for a month every summer to see the relatives . Always so much fun except for the time my cousins Allen and Stewart saw that I had pink eye and told me I was gonna die . I cried 'cause I didn't want to die just yet and I wanted to see what all this 4th grade business was about . Then my cousin Ann came to my rescue and saved me from my fate and I fell in love . Yeah she was my cousin but that's how we do it down south .
This summer though I was left behind with my dad who never went on vacation . With 4 kids , having them go away WAS vacation . And to my horror they made me go to school . In SUMMER . But only until lunch and then I'd go home to an empty house because , as I would later learn , grown ups work in the summer . I still have a hard time with this . So I had all afternoon to play with friends who were . . . too tired from playing all MORNING . So I ended up going to the Majik Market (who remembers those?) and playing pinball until I ran out of the meager funds I had . I'm not sure how I got money in the first place but it ran out in a week and I was left to ponder how more was aquired .
My dad smoked Winston cigarettes . 2 packs a day , rain or shine . But on those days he had a cold he smoked Salem menthol cigarettes because we all know the medical benefits of smoking MENTHOL cigarettes when you're sick ! For some reason he kept them in the freezer until sickness reared it head and out they'd come . I tried them that summer . Well , I tried one . I put 'em back on account of my face was the same green as the pack and I began to doubt their curative powers .
I did find however the stack of money mom kept frozen there . Because no burglar would think to look in the freezer . I took a $20 . If you're good a 20 spot will get you a lot of time with the pinball machine . If you're 8 and flunked 4th grade you get a 2 hours . I was going to take another twenty and maybe give the Salems another try but for whatever reason didn't . I did manage to to find friends with ample supplies of quarters and squandered their wealth as well and , in the process , somehow passed summer school . Life wasn't too bad .
Until dad found out . Apparently he counts cigarettes . And 20's . Turns out he keeps HIS stash there too . Moms was further in the back under the lamb chops . Dang . He looked at the cigarettes and held 'em out to me . "Have another boy . . . " he smirked . I didn't want one . He didn't offer me another $20 . He got mad and scolded me for "Pissing away all your money" . And his too . On gosh darn pinball . I didn't go out much after that .
As I was thinking about this memory today I thought about my life and how it's kinda the same sometimes . I don't put into this life God gave me all the effort I should . I don't pay attention . I don't ask questions . I waste His money . And sometimes , some days , my grade is an F and not the A I long for . He said "I've entrusted you with so much , talent and ability, My Spirit , My love . I gave you time . Yours and others and you piss it away playing games . " Well , He didn't really say that but it goes with the title . You get the gist . And I get it too . I HAVE been entrusted with so much and as a man I should be better because I AM better . Holy Spirit lives in me and THAT makes me better . Not by might , not by power but by His Spirit . I just seem to waste His best efforts . But I'll keep workin' it out . Because He is worthy .
I'm in summer school . Again . It's cool though. I'm gonna get an A .
A , B , C , D and F . It took me the better part of a year to figure out the A's and B's were what moms and dads were hoping for and the D's and F's were the fast track to foster care . I knew I wasn't going to get the first two because I wasn't a girl and the C was out because you have to do SOMETHING at least . So I hovered around the F level until it was too late to do anything about it . I didn't think all of this grade stuff would matter and thought this was all bogus anyway 'cause they left out the E . Ha . Educators .
Mom and us kids went to Virginia and North Carolina for a month every summer to see the relatives . Always so much fun except for the time my cousins Allen and Stewart saw that I had pink eye and told me I was gonna die . I cried 'cause I didn't want to die just yet and I wanted to see what all this 4th grade business was about . Then my cousin Ann came to my rescue and saved me from my fate and I fell in love . Yeah she was my cousin but that's how we do it down south .
This summer though I was left behind with my dad who never went on vacation . With 4 kids , having them go away WAS vacation . And to my horror they made me go to school . In SUMMER . But only until lunch and then I'd go home to an empty house because , as I would later learn , grown ups work in the summer . I still have a hard time with this . So I had all afternoon to play with friends who were . . . too tired from playing all MORNING . So I ended up going to the Majik Market (who remembers those?) and playing pinball until I ran out of the meager funds I had . I'm not sure how I got money in the first place but it ran out in a week and I was left to ponder how more was aquired .
My dad smoked Winston cigarettes . 2 packs a day , rain or shine . But on those days he had a cold he smoked Salem menthol cigarettes because we all know the medical benefits of smoking MENTHOL cigarettes when you're sick ! For some reason he kept them in the freezer until sickness reared it head and out they'd come . I tried them that summer . Well , I tried one . I put 'em back on account of my face was the same green as the pack and I began to doubt their curative powers .
I did find however the stack of money mom kept frozen there . Because no burglar would think to look in the freezer . I took a $20 . If you're good a 20 spot will get you a lot of time with the pinball machine . If you're 8 and flunked 4th grade you get a 2 hours . I was going to take another twenty and maybe give the Salems another try but for whatever reason didn't . I did manage to to find friends with ample supplies of quarters and squandered their wealth as well and , in the process , somehow passed summer school . Life wasn't too bad .
Until dad found out . Apparently he counts cigarettes . And 20's . Turns out he keeps HIS stash there too . Moms was further in the back under the lamb chops . Dang . He looked at the cigarettes and held 'em out to me . "Have another boy . . . " he smirked . I didn't want one . He didn't offer me another $20 . He got mad and scolded me for "Pissing away all your money" . And his too . On gosh darn pinball . I didn't go out much after that .
As I was thinking about this memory today I thought about my life and how it's kinda the same sometimes . I don't put into this life God gave me all the effort I should . I don't pay attention . I don't ask questions . I waste His money . And sometimes , some days , my grade is an F and not the A I long for . He said "I've entrusted you with so much , talent and ability, My Spirit , My love . I gave you time . Yours and others and you piss it away playing games . " Well , He didn't really say that but it goes with the title . You get the gist . And I get it too . I HAVE been entrusted with so much and as a man I should be better because I AM better . Holy Spirit lives in me and THAT makes me better . Not by might , not by power but by His Spirit . I just seem to waste His best efforts . But I'll keep workin' it out . Because He is worthy .
I'm in summer school . Again . It's cool though. I'm gonna get an A .
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Lost in Publix
I hope they have a Publix in Heaven.
I like to shop . For food , not clothes . I was in Walmart yesterday and they had racks and racks of clothes on clearance and these ladies were pawing through them , picking them up and holding them up , turning them this way and that . Then they hold 'em up to themselves and ask a stranger , a complete stranger , " What do you think ? Will it make my hips look big?" And the lady says "YES"! But then she shuffles around in a basket and pulls out a pair of pants and says "try these". "Oh those are nice" she says as she holds them up to her waist and smiles . "My husband will love these". I walked away with 2 thoughts . One , I hope there is a lot of elastic in the waist band and two , her husband will NOT notice because the only time a husband notices a wife's clothes is when they're not on .
Food is easy to shop for . You make a list and it's like an Easter egg hunt . You take a basket and go around and fill it up with all kinds of yumminess . And ALWAYS get a cart and not one of those little plastic carry baskets they have at the front door 'cause you KNOW it'll be too full when you get to the register . And you'll be behind the guy who puts his stuff on the end of the conveyor belt and wont move it forward because he likes to see food move on it's own . Get the cart on wheels , you'll be more comfortable .
My wife doesn't like me to go to Publix with her . Something about her 'alone' time . In a store full of people . But they're not her people . After years of going with a bunch of kids I get that . It's just I'm not one of them . Mostly .
I remember going to Publix with my mom when I was 4 or 5 and getting lost . I walked away from her and went a few isles over looking for Kool-Aid . I don't remember if I found it but when I went back to mom she wasn't there . I can so clearly remember and even feel the sense of panic that came over me . She was gone! I walked over from isle to isle looking and calling out her name . Which was mom . Did you ever find that weird that everybody else's mom had a name like Mrs. Barber or Mrs. Jones but yours was just mom? Thoughts like this is why I did kindergarten twice I think . And as I call out for mom I wander farther away and begin to feel abandoned and alone . And I cry . Eventually someone finds this weeping 4 year old and takes him by the hand and brings me back to momma . And that's where the memory ends . I have so few memories of my childhood and I don't know why this one stuck around . Odd .
My life with God is kinda like my Publix experience I think . I walk with Him as he puts the provisions of life in my basket and we do it hand in hand . But he gave me the freedom to walk beside Him and even go ahead on my own . To do as He does and be as He made me to be . But sometimes I go back an isle or two and look at something that wasn't for me to have . Or take something I wasn't supposed to have yet . Or sometimes just wander .
I've been in a place now where I've just been wandering . At some point I knew I was lost and I called out for my Dad but I couldn't hear His answer . I searched and called (this is a big world) and have felt so lost and alone . Have you ever felt this way ? I know He's here and I know He loves and cares for me because I know Him . But some times it feels so very opposite and I don't know what to believe . But I trust Him and I know He's always with me . I have to believe that .
I'm walking back now . Because He calls me with that still small voice (whatever that is) . And because I'm tired of wandering (again) . I just want to be in my Dads arms again and for it to be like I imagine it to be . He knows .
If you happen to find this 4 year old weeping in the produce isle you have his permission to take him by the hand . To wipe a tear and walk together to the place where a Father is waiting for His son . I don't want to be lost .
I like to shop . For food , not clothes . I was in Walmart yesterday and they had racks and racks of clothes on clearance and these ladies were pawing through them , picking them up and holding them up , turning them this way and that . Then they hold 'em up to themselves and ask a stranger , a complete stranger , " What do you think ? Will it make my hips look big?" And the lady says "YES"! But then she shuffles around in a basket and pulls out a pair of pants and says "try these". "Oh those are nice" she says as she holds them up to her waist and smiles . "My husband will love these". I walked away with 2 thoughts . One , I hope there is a lot of elastic in the waist band and two , her husband will NOT notice because the only time a husband notices a wife's clothes is when they're not on .
Food is easy to shop for . You make a list and it's like an Easter egg hunt . You take a basket and go around and fill it up with all kinds of yumminess . And ALWAYS get a cart and not one of those little plastic carry baskets they have at the front door 'cause you KNOW it'll be too full when you get to the register . And you'll be behind the guy who puts his stuff on the end of the conveyor belt and wont move it forward because he likes to see food move on it's own . Get the cart on wheels , you'll be more comfortable .
My wife doesn't like me to go to Publix with her . Something about her 'alone' time . In a store full of people . But they're not her people . After years of going with a bunch of kids I get that . It's just I'm not one of them . Mostly .
I remember going to Publix with my mom when I was 4 or 5 and getting lost . I walked away from her and went a few isles over looking for Kool-Aid . I don't remember if I found it but when I went back to mom she wasn't there . I can so clearly remember and even feel the sense of panic that came over me . She was gone! I walked over from isle to isle looking and calling out her name . Which was mom . Did you ever find that weird that everybody else's mom had a name like Mrs. Barber or Mrs. Jones but yours was just mom? Thoughts like this is why I did kindergarten twice I think . And as I call out for mom I wander farther away and begin to feel abandoned and alone . And I cry . Eventually someone finds this weeping 4 year old and takes him by the hand and brings me back to momma . And that's where the memory ends . I have so few memories of my childhood and I don't know why this one stuck around . Odd .
My life with God is kinda like my Publix experience I think . I walk with Him as he puts the provisions of life in my basket and we do it hand in hand . But he gave me the freedom to walk beside Him and even go ahead on my own . To do as He does and be as He made me to be . But sometimes I go back an isle or two and look at something that wasn't for me to have . Or take something I wasn't supposed to have yet . Or sometimes just wander .
I've been in a place now where I've just been wandering . At some point I knew I was lost and I called out for my Dad but I couldn't hear His answer . I searched and called (this is a big world) and have felt so lost and alone . Have you ever felt this way ? I know He's here and I know He loves and cares for me because I know Him . But some times it feels so very opposite and I don't know what to believe . But I trust Him and I know He's always with me . I have to believe that .
I'm walking back now . Because He calls me with that still small voice (whatever that is) . And because I'm tired of wandering (again) . I just want to be in my Dads arms again and for it to be like I imagine it to be . He knows .
If you happen to find this 4 year old weeping in the produce isle you have his permission to take him by the hand . To wipe a tear and walk together to the place where a Father is waiting for His son . I don't want to be lost .
Monday, June 4, 2012
Nothing New Under The Sun
I haven't written in a couple of months . I quit and said I wasn't going to any more because I would come home and look at the blog site and see if anyone had read it . Or better yet , left a comment . I mostly was disappointed . I think because I was needing someone , anyone to like me and think I was. . . smart . So I kept looking for validation . Ha! Smart people use the word validation! I hated this part of me . I know I'm smart , witty , valuable , handsome (well. . .) important and so on and people love me . But sometimes I just don't feel it . And I need to feel it . Do you ever feel that way ?
I miss writing though . Honestly I've not had much to write about or at least haven't been inspired enough to sit here and type . Most good writing come through pain or joy and I've just been numb to either . Not that pain or joy would make my writing good but there you go . I guess it would help if I would talk to Jesus some . I am so far away . In fact I may change the blog title to ' Sitting Around And Being Obstinate With Jesus' . I don't even know if I can put into words where I'm at . Not good for a guy who likes words . sigh . . . . .
Well . . . . that's it . Probably shouldn't have signed back on . Had to try tho . Maybe something will kick in . I would like to at least like to stumble with Jesus again .
I miss writing though . Honestly I've not had much to write about or at least haven't been inspired enough to sit here and type . Most good writing come through pain or joy and I've just been numb to either . Not that pain or joy would make my writing good but there you go . I guess it would help if I would talk to Jesus some . I am so far away . In fact I may change the blog title to ' Sitting Around And Being Obstinate With Jesus' . I don't even know if I can put into words where I'm at . Not good for a guy who likes words . sigh . . . . .
Well . . . . that's it . Probably shouldn't have signed back on . Had to try tho . Maybe something will kick in . I would like to at least like to stumble with Jesus again .
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