Every mans battle...

                       I tried to watch a Charlie Brown special a few nights ago, with my boys. Moments into commercial, comes a trio of Victoria Secerets angels, prancing erotically across the screen. They were wearing less than some of the Playboy covers that are covered up in the Stewarts shops down the street...

                 My boys are twelve, eleven and nine years old, in chronological fashion.

                                                   Technically, still children...

                                    They covered their eyes with afghans, just like they do when they see that creepy Maybeline commercial, the one with the bright red lips, that even to me, looks a little bit scary...

                               In moments like these, I am amazingly proud of my three sons.

                         They exist in a world that seeks to sensualize and quietly attempts to traumatize their inborn sense of decency and modesty at almost every turn...

                        I remember the movie " The Deep" from 1977. I was twelve years old when it came out. Someone got a VHS copy of it after about a year. Back then, a woman in a blurred wet T shirt was about all the sex education you could get...

                     Of course their were Playboy magazines, but none of us stopped to read the articles.

    We all believed that women had staples in the center of their bellies...

          So I grew up exposed gradually to porn, little by little. Back then, no one saw it as a big deal, I guess.

                      At least not most of the people that I drank with...

                                So I grew up seeing and doing many things entirely too early. At the time I thought it showed maturity. It would not be the first or last time I had wrong judgements, growing up...

                      As a Christian man, I still struggle with purity of the eye. This is not a popular topic in Church circles and often is left to men's groups or meetings with trusted male friends. We tend to hide it in terms like " unspoken concerns" and never really bring it out into the sunlight. The sad thing is, this is not a unique struggle. I have a book that was given to me a long time ago, by my Wonderful Wife. We had talked about this issue between us, at times and even with one of our trusted Pastors. The title of the book is " Every mans battle"...

                            Every mans battle... No truer words have ever been spoken...

                               I have talked with many men regarding this issue. Guys at work, guys in Church, Pastors and elders in many different denominations...

                            After all those discussions I can confidentially assure you that not once have I met a man that did not, at one time or another, struggle with purity of the eye...

                           I'm not talking necessarily about straight out porn. Sometimes it's a commercial or ad in a magazine, that snaps a picture in a mans mind. A trip to the beach or a trip to the supermarket, where a well endowed woman in a low cut blouse bends down to pick up a can from the bottom of her cart...

       I guess  I am talking about lust. Insidious, in it's approach, often disguised, and in its camaflouge, nearly impossible to battle.

                We try not to look, or try to try not to look...

                   The point is for every few success's encountered, there are a few failures, also...

                      Some had faced it early and created defenses against it by surrounding themselves with Biblical principals, accountability partners and requests to be confronted, if they appear to stray in a lustful direction.

         But there are no absolute protections, in the end, against free will...

         God can and will protect us from succumbing to temptation, but He will not always remove the temptation... And as long as mankind has both free will and temptation? 

                        Eventually, every man will give in to temptation...

                          At best, we confess our sins and try to shore up all our built defenses, and start over again, once more a new and clean creature, in Gods eyes...

                                             

                                  So why do I bring this up?!?

         What good will it do, to paint men with such a large and unflattering brush?

                                        I guess it is for a couple of reasons.

                                                 To be exact, three...

                             

                             I have three young boys that want to be better than that....

                                Inside their hearts they know that these things the world tosses before them are not prizes, but traps...

           But their hearts are encased in pre and actual pubescent bodies that can't deflect the onslaught of all this sexual marketing without some kind of defense..

        All three have accepted Jesus and have learned the differences between right and wrong and have read about not caving into temptation.

                    They are getting older and probably have been inadvertently exposed to more crap on their buses and school hallways, than I really want to comprehend, right now...

                              

                                                        I want to protect them.

                         I want to build a bubble and a wall and a cage that will keep them safe from the pollution this world has put a billboard, commercial or mouse click away...

                                As a father, I'm somewhat terrified about the prospect of trying to help my growing young men build structures into their lives to reduce temptation and encourage purity of eye and honesty.

                         I have been battling lust since the moment I was saved, it seems. Some years were absolute failures, but many have had marked success's..

                        I do know that foundations built well and early will make for much less struggle and much more success, for them...

             I did not plan on preparing them as early as this...

              But they are in the process of becoming young men.

                 And soon they will be fighting every mans battle...

                           

                         

Inside out and backwards...

                 A few mornings ago, I was standing in front of our kitchen stove making assorted breakfasts for my Wonderful Wife and three hungry McMonkeys. I had been up a couple of hours already, and had watched early morning TV shows with them, not thinking much about anything...

                  As I turned with an omelette filled plate toward the island in our kitchen that two of the boys were sitting at, my middle Bub started laughing and pointing at my shorts. It seems that when I awoke the night before, plagued with cement filled sinuses, I had dressed a little too quickly, without the benifit of light. I stumbled into the bathroom and finished the last dose of NyQuil,and groggily went down the fifteen steps to our living room.

                 Resting in the recliner and covered in a blanket, I coughed and snorted, doing my best to clear a minimal passage way for breath, and to bumble off to sleep...

                  It seems in my sickened and dozey state, that I had put my shorts on inside out.

                      "Look at the pockets sticking out like ears "! My youngest one screamed with glee.

             "There inside out"  #2 laughs aloud as my Wonderful Wife joins in the chorus " And backwards! Look at the tag in the front! His shorts are on inside out and backwards..." 

                                                     Welcome to my mornings...

                                     To be honest, that really didn't bother me. I've never been a slave to fashion. Most of the time Ive done stupid things on purpose, to get a laugh. It's just a bonus when it happens by accident...

                           We had a pretty great Thanksgiving. My brother and sister in law came from Vermont and joined all of us and my father. No great political or religious debates ensued and everyone seemed to enjoy the day and company. In my house, it generally does not get better than that...

      It came to me that day, that counting blessings is like counting stars; once you commit to start, eventually the vastness forcibly overwhelms you...

        Sometimes they seem faint and infinitely far away. Sometimes the best and brightest require us to change where we are gazing and adjust the latitudes and longitudes... But when our eyes eventually do lock on, it becomes blazingly evident....that is, if we truly want to look; truly want to see...

                       Some of the world and national events lately have broken my heart.

                             That would not have been the case a few years ago.. Maybe even one year ago...

                               But today, as I see our nation divided over actuall injustices and media induced ones, something inside of me twist and turns in a confused and uncomfortable convulsion. My soul seems to spasm from an ineptness to emotionally understand and comprehend...

            It thirsts for truth, for the right way and the correct answer. I want to have an irrevocabe decision on right and wrong; a heavenly judgement that I can trust...

                                                     But I sit here, still waiting.

                                All I can see is melting hot mess created by loss and pain. Misteps and misunderstandings. I want to see right and wrong, not human frailty and inborn fault.

               But like so often in this quizzical life, I find no answer in black or white.

                         The answer remains locked somewhere in between..

                            It remains indecipherable to me although the spirit inside me longs to know what I should believe and where I should stand...

                                      So I stand at a loss, wanting justice, but not being able to define it. Wanting fairness, but absolutely clueless where to start...

                    All of the people I know, given the chance, would press the "easy button". 

              The button that would make everything equal and fair and just, across the board...

   That is, if that could actually be accomplished. No slight of hand side show or snake oil salesmans pledge; true equality and brotherhood.  If that could be guaranteed, I'm sure most people I know would agree to that...

                                   Sadly, no easy button exists.

                               Like all things human, like all things spiritual, it comes down to the hardest and trickiest of mans source. It comes to our hearts...

                        My brain and heart wrestle quite regularly. My brain generally has no qualms about its direction or purpose. Precise, logical and military in its evaluations, it tries to out perform the hearts simple and feeble replies with an over abundance of logic. Overwhelm with volume and infinite repetition...

              But the heart will not meekly leave the fight. It's still and small voice persistently chants what it KNOWS in its unfathomable depths...

              They fight and turn, twist and pary...

                    Inside out and backwards again, just at a deeper level...

                      In my confusion, I pray. An answer comes about how God holds all kings hearts in His hands and can soften them, as He wishes and sees fit.

                                     In His time, for His glory and His purposes..

                                                  And we are not kings....

                          But He does hold our hearts in His hands, softening and changing, as He sees fit.

                                It is such an easy trap for a well meaning Christian to fall in. 

                                   To believe we have infinite power over our own heart...

                                     It seems so reasonable. But it is thru Grace we are Saved, thru Grace we are changed. Our will had always been an enemy of our God, until He graced us with the ability to hear of Him and the want of the Love and forgiveness he had to offer.

                    Without that, we would still be lost in the wilderness.

                             So once again, I reluctantly find that my part is not in strategizing or planning.

                       That alone proves Gods Grace and Wisdom...

                                   As always, my part remains reasonably simple and adequately difficult...

                           To love God with all my heart...

                           To love my fellow man as Christ loves me...

                           To be a clean vessel and conduit, to bring His message to those who would hear; 

                           and to those who will not...

                                  To let my heart be softened and prepared, to be willing to change...

                                     To be right side in and frontword, where it matters, in the heart...

                            

Glasses...

                    Been a little Frazzled recently. Nothing in particular, just a cacophony of little irks and a few small concerns...

     I don't know if small is the best adjective, but they are not giant, not insurmountable or overwhelming...

                     Just life sometimes keeps pecking. I suppose it all comes down to the glasses you wish too wear.

                           I went thru our companies insurance informational meeting...twice. It just did not make it thru this large melon of a head the first time. Or the second. Or any time in the past month that I read the new policy...

                Don't worry. This is not about insurance or politics or Obamacare. 

                                           Really...

                           So a few weeks ago, my Wonderful Wife and I were discussing a physical test we were contemplating for one of our kids. Nothing serious, just an informative test. His primary Doctor said nothing was wrong, but you know how fifty year old( and nearly fifty year old ) helicopter parents can be..

            Always wanting second opinions...

                 For the first time in my parenting life, I wondered if the second opinion was worth it.

Not because I didn't want to get it... Because I was worried about the money...

           Last year it would not have been an issue, this year, it kind of is...

                  I've listened to A LOT of people complaining about coverage lately. It's happening everywhere. I wish I could legitimately blame someone, but in the end, as it always does, it comes back to simplicity. The "who" of the cause doesn't matter much, because it truly is a " what" statement...

                 What we are trying to do is replace Faith and Trust in Gods provision with a man-made, overly complex, poor substitute...

      Don't get me wrong; I STRONGLY DESIRE great healthcare for my family. Having that would remove loads of worry that I choose to carry instead of sprinkles of Faith...

       I have grown up in 21 century America, where we trust in panzi like institutions to make us feel secure...

       Unfortunately, that is an illusion. It is an amazingly convincing illusion, granted, but it has no real power or authority above God...

                         Blue Cross, to their chagrin, does not keep us healthy. They like to give that impression, but Health is graced by God, not distributed by Aflec.

                    So once again, it becomes a question of where to place our Faith...

                  My brain somehow thinks that great insurance and God as a back-up/ trump card is the most preferable...

                  As most of you know, I have a very silly and easily distracted eight pound mass inside my thick, polish skull..

                              And this is the place where true Faith really begins...

                          I can't tell you where it ends because I'm still struggling with the first hurdle..

               

                                           I want the kind of Faith that exists without worry of pain or loss.

     I want to KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we can somehow be protected from physical, emotional and financial losses.

          But that was never promised by God... I wish it was...

             No power on earth can give us that. Satan will promise it, daily, even hourly...

                But he can never deliver it. Illusions and allusions, but never true security.

                       So I find myself admitting and confessing that the show is more attractive than the real deal, sometimes. Sometimes I want to be conveniently deceived , if it means feeling worldly secure...

      But Christians are blessed with a simple yet terrifying choice that eventually define them; Faith or fear...

               Two pairs of glasses on the bedroom table. One that sees into a focused eternity, undistracted, almost oblivious to worldly concerns. Another with wide lensed vision, that collects every possible worry in a 360 degree spectrum.

    It shouldnt be so difficult, this accesorizing decision...

          So I Pray.

          I pray for knowledge of Gods Will for me, the power to carry it out and the willingness to go along with it...

          Willingness... That ones the kicker...

Not knowing why...

                                  

                                      I wrote this about a year and a half ago, I think....

                     My mother had just told me about my cousin, who had killed himself a few days before , and as I tried to stay outside the emotions it brought up inside of me, I did the one thing that helped me to process my feelings most...

                                                                  I wrote.

                                 It is a strange place to be, trying to figure out how you feel, exactly, about someone you only spoke to once or twice, in the past two decades, but had seen so many summers, growing up, as a child....

                        We weren't very close, even back then, but he was family, and a part of my childhood. We laughed, fought and picked wild grapes in the woods near my house, together. I wanted so much to find words of comfort for his mom and brothers and sisters, after I'd heard. My work schedule kept me from attending the funeral and I couldn't find anything to say or write, that didn't seem stiff or cliché. I felt useless and impotent, in my silence...

                   In retrospect, I think that is how everyone feels in situations like this, but sadly, I think that is also exactly what separates people, in their grief...

                Not wanting to say the wrong thing, at a time when there is no right thing to say...

                  

                I didn't want to publish this then, because I didn't want it to seem like I was making that tragedy about me. My history is scattered with friends, acquaintances and loved ones who chose this exact same road. I careened on it myself, more often than I ever let people guess, and understand more than I would like, these decisions made...

                                                         So I wrote this.

                             Everybody has their own personal hot-button issue, I guess.

                                                   I think this one is mine....

                                             Generally, I shoot for " philosophical"...

                But I guess today is not going to go that way. A post was building these last few days, words adding and subtracting themselves in a strange and subtle dance. Concept was fairly solid with a few light emotional sentiments gently tossed in. Most was written already, inside my brain...

                       And as almost always, life stepped in and pushed aside every single idea that seemed remotely relevant to what I originanaly wanted to say...

              This evening I find myself sitting in a well used recliner, starting and erasing every single thing that manages to get typed, escaping the keyboard. Emotions are bouncing between heart and soul, giving no crededence to the authority governing them by my philosophical mind... I have no way to start the paragraphs that need to be written; no acceptable Segway into the statements that seem much too raw to stand by themselves...

                                                       I hate suicide.

                           It doesn't matter why I'm writing this today. There are reasons and emotions behind this, but none that really need explaining... Let's just say that every time that I read or hear or see anything that relates to this, my heart aches...

                                                    My heart breaks...

                                        The strange thing about suicide is that it is never "distant". The person who commits it may not have been personaly close, but this rug we are all weaved in together intertwines entire families, entire communities...

                            I doubt any of us really know how wide of a net we cast in this life, how many people we affect directly and to a much larger degree, indirectly.

                        That is such a huge part of these tragedies. No one ever really knows their real worth and importance; no actuall concept of the emptiness and loss they inevitably leave behind...

                            

                                      So today I am praying for families. I am praying for all the Moms and dads and brothers and sisters left behind. I want to tell them, the specific them and communal them, the thousands of people decimated every day by this disease that it will be all right...

                                If not all right, at least eventually bearable...

                                 I hope all those who have ever made this choice have found peace in their escape from the pain and isolation felt. What I hope most, is that somewhere before the time they got lost, before the depth overtook them, they had accepted Jesus as their Savior...

        That when they then trudge over that final hill, The Father, like the one of the prodigal son , sees them...

                I hope He then rushes with arms open, conveying an unmistakeable love so intently, that they will finally understand that it was always present...

                                I intimately understand those who walked this path to its bitter end. I had trudged it long ago, a lifetime ago, it seems. I paved part of it... So I understand the feeling of being caught in a trap you cannot yourself, spring...inescapeable and hopeless...

                             I do not know why God slipped that tiny bit of hope into my soul, at that precise moment needed, when I walked that long, dark road ; and I am continually haunted by the fact that i have no idea why he did not slip it into those countless other people who chose differently...

                                          And that is part of what breaks my heart..

                                                  The guilt and the grace...

                                                     and not knowing why...

                                                 

         

Matters of consequence...

     I've been doing winter prep, the last couple of days. Start and run generator, start and run snowblower, make sure we have enough kerosene for emergency heat and get propane tanks ready to fill for supplementary/ emergency back up heat...

           Purchase another 100# propane tank as a back up, back up...

              Insure we have some gasoline for snowblower/ generator and a few empty 5 gallon cans for fresh gasoline...

                           These are the pleasures of autumn in the north-east...

                          I am O.K. with the winter. A warm and toasty beach, sand in my toes and a wet glass of fresh and dark iced tea in my hand would be preferable, but you can't have it all...

                          It would be way to much to keep track of, even if you could...

                              

                         We had our first real round of flu like symptoms in our house. 

                                             It hit my Wonderful Wife.

                            It's very strange to see this extremely passionate woman about health and fitness, knocked down hard by a few thousand microbes...

                          She is a tough broad, this lady of mine. First real bout of sickness in 13 years.

                She bounced back from all three of our children's birth, quicker than she did from this...

                           As I watched, it was an insanely crazy sight, to see her without... Passion...

                                My Wonderful Wife lives and breathes about her eating and work outs. Not that she would admit it, but she has become much like me, in the planning and preparation of her next meal. MaryAnne always joked that I will plan lunch and dinner, while eating breakfast.

          I do have an unnatural attraction to burgers and bacon, I suppose....

                      But this woman times her breakfast to not interfere with her morning work outs.

              She preps her lunches days ahead of time and debates quinoa and pasta choices, while I'm cooking dinner.

             Her face lights up, as she speaks about the intensity and pain of the regiments of exercises she not only endures, but...enjoys?!?

                    Sometimes she even asks if I'll join her...

                                With a straight face...

                                   Now, I am a different kind of character. My face and body would have both maintained much less skeletal fractures and better looks if I were either a better runner or was a much better or much worse fighter...

                    That middle ground tends to seriously stress your entire body, bruises and breaks and all...

                             I have asked myself over the years, exactly what are my own passions?

                 Seeing my Wonderful Wife prancing past my recliner in her work out tights does bring one to mind...

                         But this is a G rated blog, and anyway, that is not the kind of passion I was asking myself about...

                   What brightens my eyes and raises the volume of my speech? What distracts my brain from the everyday relentless routine and pumps adrenaline like a voltage surge, through my veins?!?

                   I feel somewhat ashamed to admit the boring truth...

                                              Nothing really does...

                               It may sound sad or pathetic. It might seem like something this extremely important cannot be absent in someone as young as someone like me...

                                                              But it is absent...

                                                                   Really.

                        I grew up in an excess of excitement. My entire life, from birth to marriage, was a constant and unyielding adventure of insanity, violence, depression and lusts masquerading as love.

               If there was an insane and emotionally damaged woman in a ten mile vicinity, you could bet your mortgage payment and your first, second, third and fourth born that I would find her...

             There was no semblance of peace, no quiet contentment. Moderation was just one of those quizzical terms that I could not even define, let alone recognize,  as it sped by in an unexplainable blur...

                                I took every stupid dare and every impossible chance that came my way.

                                So maybe you can see why I don't get too excited anymore.

                                      I have been graced by an incredibly sane and common sense filled better half. My three amazingly, reasonably calm children hear stories of my childhood from an un named uncle and ask me exactly why I did all those silly and foolish things?

                      They sit and ask the question " Why would you"? where every time in the story I ask " How could you not"?!?

                                       I don't think that I am immaturely old. I just think that I have had my turn in the sun. I have ridden the rides and walked thru the doors that most dared not look at...

                        I'm not tired. Just finally content. Nothing left to chase and nothing behind me left to run from. Somehow, I have mistakenly and quite by accident, fallen into a spot where I can support the passions of a Wonderful Wife and children that I adore...

                    I had my shot and it was one hell of a ride. Aside from the Comet or the Sasquatch at The Great Escape, my adrenaline jolts are a thing of the past. I may jump into a frozen lake on January 1st, 

But all my "insanity" now is an empty shadow...

           I love to see the passions in my family and friends. It brings a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. There are moments that I wish I could momentarily join them in it...

              But that was a different day, long since past.

                   So today my excitement is winterizing. Planning ahead, to out think the chaos that I once used to chase with a passion much like the kind my Wonderful Wife uses to chase the healthy and worthwhile things of life.

                 One moment, I did wonder what would have happened if I had focused those passions I had on things that mattered, " matters of consequence".

                                           I guess we never will know...

                        My passion is my family. I'll take that. I cannot truly think of a greater one.

                            Maybe someday, when the kids are grown and living out their own " passions", raising there own family, I will walk the sands with that tea in my hand...

                   Maybe it will be an ice encrusted pier in northern Maine, dressed in workboots, an old Navy peacoat, winter watch cap and mug of hot coffee.

                    My Wonderful Wife would probably be watching from a nearby inn window, sipping her hot tea and smiling, as she peers at a quiet, unassuming passion in my eyes she cannot see, because they are focused on the Nor east storms slamming the sharp and icy rocks. She will know it is there, though, because she knows my heart and has held my soul...

        Those are the only passions that are probably left, in me.

              Those and my family...