Winding down to The New Year...

                                             It's been a very good year, filled with its share of speed bumps, a couple of hair pin turns and much more black ice than I would have personally requested...

                             I'm speaking figuratively here, not meteorologically, by the way.            

                                    So, I'm sitting gently back in our old recliner this evening and letting the feelings of the last 365 just engulf me like a babies swaddling blanket, not concentrating as much on the actual events, but resting pleasantly in the warming aura of it all...

                                           Feeling the whipping crystals of ice and snow from last years tubing excursion with the Wonderful Wife and trailing McMonkeys, listening to the exaggerated screams of my youngest, down the biggest hill...

                                          Hearing the cresting waves coming in and thundering as they break on the sand filled shore, whoops of glee from my kids being pulled in with the water, as it returned to the ocean, clutching them momentarily, then releasing all but the fabric of their swim trunks; laughing as they struggle with one hand behind their backs, holding the elastic waistband with all that they have, while simultaneously climbing past the inrushes unstoppable movement back to it's source...

                         Rushing wind and terrified screams coming from myself, free falling what felt like thousands of feet but in reality was only one hundred or so, on the bungee jump thing, at The Great Escape, on my fiftieth birthday... I hear the words of pure unfiltered terror leaving my mouth, words that look like &$@:(, in the comics....

                          I hear the snores in a sleeping bag next to mine, when Jake and I slept out in our tent, in the yard, this summer. I smell the scent of burnt powder and see the look of pride and maturity as my eldest completed his hunter safety course. He is not a hunter and probably never will be one, and is one of the gentlest souls I have met in my half century of life experience....

                    But I remember his smile, on completion; knowing that I trusted him enough to learn safe practices and that I am willing to walk with him forward, to an impending adulthood....

                          I remember the constant squabbles in our car about who got to sit where for how long and the ever present " He breathed on/ leaned on/ touched/ sang at or farted on, me"...

                            I feel the warmth beside me as I wake on work days, before the alarm, knowing my Lovely and Wonderful Wife lies dozing across the bed. I whisper " I love you honey, have a great day" as I tip toe out the room... Every work day...

                       I whisper it to my boys, in the hall, on my way down toward the stairs, head turned toward the directions of my kids rooms. They will never hear it, but I do. I want to be certain that I say those words before I leave, believing at some level they will all feel the emotions that are behind the unheard whispers...

                    I still get haunted by sermons spoken at our Church, many months and often years past;  Challenges that I'm just not up to yet, in my spiritual immaturity , and convictions I have been given, surrounded mostly by my earthly failures...

                             And I recall comfort found in practically all of those sermons, somewhere tucked into the points of contact is a message that it is not our works that we are loved for...

                     And I find the nights of three hour videos exploring so much of what I never knew before, about Gods Word becomes a highlight of my week...

                        I remember moments in the hospital, the smell of sanitizer and the feel of uncomfortable folding chairs, hearing words that both terrified me and broke my heart. I hear myself screaming at my kids to shut up, that I was losing it, watching my mother apparently dying..

                         I remember the feeling of complete failure and utter parental incompetence for being so weak and so afraid that I would speak like that, to the kids I love...

                   And the feel of the tears, both mine and theirs, as I apologized for a memory that goes toward the top of the list, of that daddy debit list. I still see the look of incredulity in my Wonderful Wife's eyes as I refused her hugs, broke free and emotionally hid like an injured animal. Debits in the hubby debit list added, too...

                             I remember relief as my mom got better. Not well, but better...

                                     I feel the hugs almost every night, of my three sons.

                             I have memorized the sound of their joy as they plan jaunts to friends houses or friends coming here. I watch in pride as my Wonderful Wife dives into something her heart is so dedicated to, and find myself envying that feeling of belonging...

                                   I struggle with struggling to get that " belonging thing" down. Most days I bounce between feeling like  a social eunuch or a cautionary tale pariah...

                                   I forget sometimes that all I am is just another child of a Loving God.

                                      My feelings, my perceptions, really don't matter...

                  I look around our living room, the Christmas tree down and decorations put away for another year, a new year. I feel the warmth left over from a family movie night, and think of my kids, my McMonkeys, growing into good men. Through all the failures I'm able to glimpse the Work of an Amazing God that either " fills in the gaps" I leave like canyons, or more often than not, uses those gaps to make these children better by them, in His Love...

                                 But most of what I feel is gratitude and awe.

                   Graced in so much this year, this decade, this lifetime, this eternity....

                            Many earthly challenges are waiting for me on the other side, after that big ball drops. 

                                                    That probably fits us all. 

                              What I need to remember is they are all earthly challenges.

                        And that the solutions to them all are in our Loving Fathers hands, Who is not limited one bit, by earthly constraints...

                                                        Happy New Year...

My best draft...

                                      Every now and then, I open my blog and read through some of what I've written in the past few years. A few of the posts written make me smile, while the rest usually bring less of a reaction. I take a breath, clear my throat and begin reading some of the ones with the greyed out word " draft" next to them...

                                    Most were ideas and starts that just did not work out. Some became material for later posts, after more thought or new experiences gave a different perspective to my vision.

                                         At the end, my finger hesitates over one in particular. I spent five days and nights writing it, reading it and being lost in a very long ago past...

            It is by far the longest post I have ever written; in truth it is a combination of two separate stories written in the span of those five days, and in the end I tied them together, as they should be...

                                          My Wonderful Wife knew the turmoil going on inside her husband and our 3 McMonkeys stepped quietly around me, wondering silently about the far off looks and the glaze in my eyes. Great kids they are, having somehow sensed, I think, that I was in a place they could not go and could not explain to them. They would stop for hugs momentarily and watch , as I erased and rewrote a hundred times, things I had just written, of which I had no idea how to say...

                                                               I finished it.

                                   I read it and reread it a half dozen more times, then handed it to the Wonderful Wife.

                                                        One other person read it...

                                                                   

                                                         It will never be published.

                                         Nothing bad in it, just some personal history and confusions from a very different time. I hope someday that my kids will get the chance to eventually read it, though.

                                                One hell of a cautionary tale...

                                         I made a peace the day it was finished; an uneasy one that required self forgiveness and a gentleness that I never felt OK receiving before.

                                           I still fight it sometimes...

                                                     It is perpetually stuck with the other " drafts" written, obscured by sheer volume of unfinished works...

                        Except that one is finished,  and should probably be read as my eulogy ...

                                                  But like the rest of my life, a life I love in its entirety, the whole deal, in the end, is simply draft...

                                                             Best draft ever...

                                         

                                          

"We are all Jews..."

                             Had breakfast with a good friend recently. We talked about a lot of things, life, politics, relationships...

                    A few days later, he sent me a link about an event that happened during WW2, when Hitler was rounding up and exterminating all the Jews he could find. The trains came to a prisoner of war camp that had about a thousand men that were captured. Most were Americans and other allied soldiers, intermingled with assorted Jewish ones. The German guards ordered all the Jews to come forward and be taken away. When the order was given, all 1000 of the prisoners stepped forward and exclaimed...

                                                             " We are all Jews "

                                        

      The camp Commander pulled out his pistol and put it to the lead POW's head, demanding that the non- Jews step back. 

                                                 He refused to give that order.

                              Every man standing, held that line. The only reply given by all was

                                                              " We are all Jews "

                                                 Not wanting to personally execute every single prisoner and be held accountable for war crimes after the war, the base Commander walked away...

                                 

                               This was the first time I'd read about or even heard about this story.

                                                   

                                                          It gave me Hope.

                                   We are a mess, as a species. The majority of our history can be summarized by the relationship between Cain and Abel. Our capacity for good is amazing, given the right heart set, but sadly, we don't see it, ignore it or flat out deny its presence, most of the time....

                          And in that, we underestimate the most wonderful part of our spirit.

                                       When battle hardened men can see that there is a " right and wrong" and are willing to die for those believing differently, even those whom they hold their own personal predjuces  against, maybe, just maybe, we can too...

                     By being open to what is right, or just flat out refusing to do what's wrong to our brothers and sisters, so different from us...

                                                               So similar, also...

                                            I think about a battle that occurred during the first World War. 

                 Across a battlefield a few hundred feet wide, on Christmas Day, the soldiers from both sides stopped throwing grenades and firing bullets at each other, and began volleying Christmas Carols, instead...

                                           It happened that the Americans recognized the melody to one of the songs that the Germans were singing, and began singing along with them in English...

                                       One fellow walked out on the field with no gun, simply singing..

                                      Others joined from the other side.

                                    Soon, both battalions were singing together, sharing food and tending to their own, and the others wounded. They helped each other burying the fallen, from both sides...

                 They celebrated Jesus, spoke of their families and mourned their dead...

                                                            Together...

                                    

                                  We can be so much more than what we usually choose to be.

                                                     Of course, orders were soon given and that gentle reprieve taken, was soon ended...

                                         Once again we played Cain and Abel.

                                                     As we do till this day.

                                                         No answers, here.

                                                            Just hope.

                                       Naive, stupid, unrealistic hope that maybe we can learn these lessons again, and maybe extend them for a few more days...

                                                      If we could stop this nature for twenty four hours, we could stop it for thirty six. 

                                                            That's almost two days.

                                                   Perhaps we are destined to destroy each other in the spirit of hate and persecution. Maybe it is inescapable.. I read the " Book" and it certainly seems to be...

                            But maybe, in the " in-be tweens" we can learn to stop a few moments and simply love each other, until the "orders" return...

                                    Maybe we can listen to the orders of our own destructive natures, ignore what they compell us to do, and simply step forward in defiance of the dark side of our humanness.

                                         Step forward together and simply say

                                                         "We are all Jews"...

                                        

" Just sitting here watching the wheels go 'round and 'round ..."

                                             I grew up listening to John Lennon. 

                           I wasn't a big fan of The Beatles early years, but when the Later albums came out, with songs like " Revolution ", " Hey Jude", " Yesterday " and "Maxwells Silver Hammer", I was hooked.

                                    The Beatles split up, John took off with Yoko, and I, along with the rest of the sane world,  wondered what the heck is this guy thinking?

                            Then he came out with " Working Class Hero" and " Imagine", and I knew he still had it....

                                                 I tried listening to Yoko's music. 

                                                                 I really did...

                           And I wondered again, what he saw, heard and loved about her...

                                                Then came "Double Fantasy".

                       "Woman", " Starting Over"  and "Watching the Wheels" became some my favorite songs , and as I listened , I experienced something very different in what I was hearing. I heard in them something that was always missing in the rest of all his other compilations...

                                                              Peace.   

                                                            Happiness. 

                                                      Contentment with life...

                          It seems that what one of our all time greatest lyricists had always needed was something so simple and ordinary as just to be a dad...

                                Rocking his son to sleep and being with the woman he loved was what ultimately made him happy...

                                           Not much different than the rest of us...

                                         I listen to " Beautiful Boy" and I know we could have had coffee together at the local McDonalds, sitting near the play land , laughing as our kids got lost in the ball pit.

                                            And I realize what he must have seen in Yoko...

                                  Not exactly, I'm sure, but I know the feeling he must have had for her, because I know what I myself feel for my Wonderful Wife.

                    Laughingly, I see rather clearly that I am the Wonderful Wife's " Yoko".

                                People look at her and think in their heads " What is this woman thinking?!?"

                                              I know this because they tell me. 

      Some actually come up and ask me outright, just what went on in her head that day, the day that she said "yes"... Most of you reading this blog for any amount of time have probably already wondered that, quietly in your own minds ,once or twice.

                                                            I am her Yoko...

                                     In the end, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter now for the same reason it didn't matter then.

                                 I love her and inexplicably, she loves me...

                                    We may have a few extra McMonkeys than them, but we have found together, with these children, the same peace, the same happiness and contentment as that same famous and mismatched couple...

                                         No one can really explain it, but if your in it, you know exactly what I'm talking about....

                                           And what his last few songs were about...

                                              I am sad that he died so young.

                         Not because the world lost an amazing talent and amazing songwriter...

                                         That saddens me, but it's not the reason.

                                                I am sad that a man missed the chance to grow with his sons, to see them grow into the men they would become and know that he played some part in them getting there.

                                           I am sad for the boys, not far in age from where mine are now, and have been in the recent past. Missing a dad they love...

                                             I am sad for the wife who people hated for breaking up a group of amazingly talented individuals and allowed her husband to simply be who he was born to be...

                                                        A loving dad, husband...

                                        That is how I remember John Lennon today.

                                                  And I'm glad he found Yoko.....

                                                       

Perils of teens eating off the adult menu...

                            I hijacked the eldest McMonkey yesterday and brought him out grocery shopping. Of course,  I needed to throw in a lunch at 99 restaurant, to finalize the bargaining of the deal.

                           It was a good day. He was helpful, reasonably happy and adolescence moodiness gave way to smiles and laughter. We packed the car with food and headed toward the land of buffalo wings and burgers.

                           Bellies full, we meandered across the parking lot, and into our car. 

                                 Little did I know that he hadn't done #2 in about 3 days...

                                     At 9:00 pm, movie paused and not done with my potato chips, my Wonderful Wife called me to the upstairs toilet. 

                                             I knew that is never a good sign...

                                     He had tried to flush it about half a dozen times before giving up and watching the beginning of our movie. Mare tried flushing it down three more times, after seeing it lodged in the bottom of the porcelain bowl. It would not budge, forward, nor backward; it gave no quarter to the plungers valiant attacks...

                                    I had read on Facebook about a sure fire remedy, using liberal amounts of Dawn dishwashing liquid, buckets of hot water and multiple flushings.

                                             I cursed the internet that night...

                                    Seeing that liquid would eventually flush itself around the brick like obstruction, I resigned myself (and the rest of my family) to the fact it would be a " pee only" fixture for the night.

                                 I generally look forward to Sunday's, but I felt just like Monday was coming with the soon rising sun.

                                  After all the morning showers ( except for mine) I brought up a bucket holding my toilet snake. I pushed the head of it thru the murky water and began turning he handle, hoping to see the snake pull itself dutifully thru the internal porcelain passages and deeper into the 4" copper drain pipe. 

                                                          Dutiful, it was not...

                                                So I reached my hand into the fouled water, pushing the spring-like snake thru the S curved throne. If you haven't done this, realize it is about as easy as pushing a rope up a flagpole...

                                          After the third time I was able to get a nice, powerful sounding and quick draining flush.

                               As I cleaned up the bathroom and sanitized my hands, I thought about, of all things, God and Jesus...

                               God cannot look on sin without judgement so He sent His only Son to be our Advocate. 

                      Jesus lived in a sinful world, loving all, but frequenting the ones who were broken by lives of sin and were trapped in it, the most.

                                       It was Hiim that touched the leper, and his hands that washed filthy feat; they knew the sweat and dirt of a carpenters work and His fingers wrote in the dust, in behalf of a woman caught in sin...

                               Our connection to a Loving God was clogged in much the same way as my toilet was, this morning. I doubt in looking at our own sins, we would see them as any better than the "stuff" that blocked that drain, today...

                              But Jesus put his hand in our filth, opening that conduit that connects us to God, cleaning us and covering Himself in the process, by our sin, staying sinless, Himself.

                                    He died in our guilt and rose immaculately clean, standing beside His Father, as Satan proclaims our sins to God, Jesus just smiles and declares us cleansed by His own Blood.

                                   I jumped in the shower and scrubbed my hands like Jack Nicholson in " As Good as it Gets". I thought of all my sins, those past, but mostly those recent. As the residues that stuck to my skin from my mornings work dripped off of me and down the shower drain, I repented of things I could not cleanse myself with, by soap and water. Knowing how humbling and just plain " ickey" it was plunging thru someone else's mess of poop, I felt small asking Him to do it for me, again...

                                     I wish I did not still sin and did not regularly need cleaning, but I do.

                                                                        I still do...

                                               It breaks me sometimes, this fallible humanness.

                                                                  Almost constantly...

                 But the good news, some of the best news, was written a few thousand years ago.

                              In Heaven I will never sin again. I won't be afraid of sin anymore, and won't dread the temptations thrown daily in my path. 

                                                          I love that thought...

Teens,tweens, whatever's...

                                                         1 hour every day.

                                                       1 night every week.

                                                   1 weekend every month.

                                                        1 week every year.    

               

                          Spend at least this much time with your wife, the articles suggested.

                                        This is what has been recommended a couple of times in Church classes I've taken, and a few Marriage- type E- mails I get from assorted sources...

                                              Yes, I get and read those E-mails.

                                I look at this, and my heart goes thru a thousand stages of envy for the people who somehow find the resources to do this.

                                    My soul screams " YES! I WANT TO DO THIS!" as my wallet, watch and imagined children's voices ( real children, imagined voices) speak " Tsk, Tsk, Tsk... You can't afford it, you do not have the time, and have multiple other responsibilities that take precedence over this. It is a LUXURY you cannot afford. You must set your priorities ..."

                                                            Ouch.

                                    I hate listening to my inner voices answers...

                                                 The sad thing is that I have no idea how to make this realistic. My Wonderful Wife is my biggest priority, after God, and sometimes it is a struggle to keep Him first.

                             Not because she is "high maintenance" or anything, because she is the least demanding woman I know. I have a hard time because I adore her and have to remind myself more often than I care to admit, that God must come first...

                                               Sometimes that's very difficult.

                                            But back to the subject at hand...

                            Do real people manage to do this? I'm not seeing it much in my circle. Is this one of those things, like super skinny super models being photoshopped in fashion magazines to make them look even skinnier?

                                                              Is it unrealistic?

                                           Or am I just an overly lazy, fifty plus guy who completely discombobulated his priorities? I would love to sit across from my Wonderful Wife an hour each day, and listen to her share the moments of her day with me. Quite a few nights, we do get fifteen or twenty minutes together to pass the daily baton of our Cliff Notes daily experiences, before I slip off to bed.

                                                        Great moments...

                                                 A night alone, once a week?

                                                     A guy can dream, right?

                                     We have three boys, teens, tweens, whatever...

                                                        You do the math.

                                             A weekend together once a month?

                                          Maybe if we hid from everyone in our cellar...

                                                   Nope. They would find us. 

                                                       They always find us...

                                             Someone seriously believes that married parents of said teens/tweens/whatever's can actually find the time, money,energy, legal places to drop of said whatever's, and then be able to locate the ultimate destination they somehow had the ability to choose, between the previous hours, nights and weekends?

                                              Mike and Carol Brady, maybe, but I do recall they had to drag all six of the " whatever's" to Disneyland...

                                                              And Alice, too...

                                             There is nothing I would like more than to be able to spend the kind of time with my Wonderful Wife, like we did when we were single. I'm betting if asked, she would probably concur...

                                    So I keep reading the articles and feeding my insecurities.

                                                  We will keep juggling everything that comes with this life filled with a thousand other things other than us, that demand our time. We will catch quick kisses as we pass each other at our kitchen door. Sometimes we'll blow the game whistle, toss a yellow flag on the floor and yell "foul"...

                          Tell the kids to fight over the last pop tart, we're going out...

                                     Ignore the whining from the crumb filled lips and the nagging whispering voices of guilt from our own thoughts.

                            

                                         

                                                              1 hour every day.

                                                             1 night every week.

                                                         1 weekend every month.

                                                              1 week every year.

 

                                                                        I wish...

" He went to Paris "...

                      " He went to Paris, looking for answers to questions that bothered him so..."

                                                I love Jimmy Buffet songs.

                                          This one was always one of my favorites.

                                       The timeline is kind of different, but the first few verses summed up most of my life, except I went to Key West and married a P.T.A. name Mare...

                 " And all of the answers, to all of the questions, got locked in his attic, one day...

                                             and twenty more years slipped away."

                      

                                       I have a lot of those questions coming back today.

                                                    and they are bothering me so...

                                              How does a Christian deal with refugees leaving war torn countries, trying to escape and protect their wives and children, much as I would; attempting to foster hope in an impossibility of death and destruction?

                                              How do we deal with the fact that intermingled in the innocents are predators and terrorists that want nothing more than to destroy anything not fitting their belief system?

                  And what do we do, when we realize it is completely impossible for us to tell them apart?

                                                    That last question haunts me...

                                       Where do the duties of a vigilant Shepard give way it's precedence to be a Good Samaritan ?

                               How do we dutifully accomplish both, without being derelict in either?

                               I mentioned that these questions bothered me so, didn't I ?

                                               I am completely at a loss, here...

                                    I am of two minds and two spirits in direct opposition to each other, and have no way, it seems, to reconcile...

                      I have a Covenant with God, my Wonderful Wife and I, where i swore to love, honor and protect her. As a father, I am to provide an environment that keeps my children safe.

                     As a Veteran, I took an oath to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic...

                             As a Christian, I accepted His forgiveness and became willing to accept the commands given me, to love my enemies as He loved me...

                                       That is much more demanding than it first sounds...

                              To love those beheading and mutilating us, bombing and shooting and removing any illusion of peace or safety we had conveniently lulled ourselves into believing we had...

                                                   I don't think I can do that...

                                     I can't even honestly claim that I want too...

                                This is the crux of my problem and seed of my dilemma...

                I want them to become lovable or at least tolerable; to not be a threat to the ones I love and the country I am obliged by oath, to protect...

                           So I lean away from commands given, in favor of what I want to justify...

                            Not a good feeling, for a man who wants to love and honor his God...

                                            But doesn't, by ignoring His commands and wishes..

                                So I struggle with this, as I have struggled with almost all of this walk I bumble thru, fighting obedience in a twisted spite, until the eventuality of Gods Grace gets me past the present battle, in bruised victory, only to land on another plateau of " No... Never..."

                                                        The story of my life.

                                  When I signed up for this I thought it would be so much easier.

                         More regimented, perhaps, more legalistic and better defined...

                                                             But easier, still...

                                                   In reality, the struggles past the Words have proven to be more difficult than the Words, themselves; knowing how to " reconcile" the confusions found, is much more of a challenge.

                                            I think of Paris tonight, as I ponder the questions.

                                                                 I pray for them.

                                                                   I pray for us.

                                                                I pray for " them"

                                                     But mostly I pray for me, that God will do His work in my defiant soul and change it, giving willingness, wisdom and strength to know and follow it...

                                  He hears me, along with thousands of desperate, pained prayers continents away...

                                               He hears them. He is with them.

                                                      He went to Paris...

                                                      And everywhere else.

Another brick in the wall...

                                                  Have you ever had this day?

                       The under slept, overloaded and stuffed with more stress than the Hefty garbage bag commercials - type of day, and have one of your kids walk up quietly behind you, at its most chaotic point?

                                                 " Hi dad" he says deflated...

                               You momentarily turn, almost grudgingly, and look into his eyes. Something's wrong, you can tell, so you rob a few seconds from the task at hand to say hi and give him a hug.

                        He holds on a little longer than usual and you pretend not to notice...

                                   Turning back to your work, you tell him that your glad he's home and again, ignore the few extra seconds he stands behind you waiting and hoping.

                               As he carries his bulging book bag on his tiny shoulders into the house, you make a mental note to talk to him later. " After dinner", you tell yourself...

                          But "after dinner " comes and goes, as you continually try to get past the wall he's erected in your absence.

                                    He doesn't need you now. Whether he cried it out or tougher it out, you have no way of knowing. Was it a day he was pushed around in the hallway or the day kids on the bus made fun of him? Did he disappoint a favorite teacher or maybe he just found out his best friend is moving half a country away? 

                                               He doesn't need you now...

                                                          But he did...

                                           And you probably never will know why.

                                             

                        A wall begins, it's foundation begun by this first brick you created...

                                           The hardest thing to do in every single relationship is to let someone know that we need them, to stand quietly waiting for them to acknowledge us and maybe not meet that need we are so terrified to let them know we have...

                             

                                      It happens in all relationships; parents, kids, spouses...

                             We don't get to define the need or it's time or place. We don't even get to choose whether it's valid. All we are able to choose is if we are willing to fill it...

                              Nothing is sadder in this life than watching kids who learned how not to need their parents or husbands and wives that long ago, stopped needing each other...

                             I grew up in a house with parents who had absolutely no need or real use for each other, by the time I was old enough to notice.

                               By then, they had passed the place where they noticed the cost...

                                            But watching it day in and day out, the cost tallied in my head automatically. I learned observing fear and weakness, masked as strength, what not to do...

                                                          At least I thought I did...

                                          What my kids need from me are not electronics or toys; it is time...

                            It is to be a priority for moments of their choosing, not a timeline based on my convenience.

                                          A lot of days I've managed to get that right.

                                  My Wonderful Wife doesn't need me for my paycheck. 

              Don't get me wrong, if I didn't bring one home a few weeks in a row I'm sure her stress level would skyrocket to levels not yet seen... She's a mom and the budget lady. No paycheck would surely be noticed..

                                 But if I know her, it is not what she needs from me.

                                To love her, to see her, to be her partner and father to the McMonkeys we conceived and she birthed; to be a husband who has forsaken all others, in this Covenant with her and God...

                                         I'm thinking that's what she would list.

                                     I am blessed to come home to a clean house and dinner on the table, coffee made on the mornings I work... I love that she does those things for me, but they are not what I need...

                                                   She is my one and only.

                     She is the first one I think of in the morning and the last one that leaves my thoughts, as I fade off to sleep. 

                                                               I need her...

                                            Probably more than she knows.

                                  I hope that in the end, I have met more needs and missed fewer opportunities to give what was needed.

                                                 More loving, less bricks...

       

Trick or treat, Mrs. Pratt...

                        Last night was the first night in thirteen years that I didn't take a costumed McMonkey down a sidewalk, in search of candy that their mom wouldn't let them gorge themselves on...

                  It started small; a single stroller rolling up broken sidewalks in Whitehall, then an hour long trip to Grandma Jill's house, so she could use her granny superpowers to veto our common sense and fill our tiny terrors with chocolate.

                                        A happier ended version of " Hansel and Gretal"...

                                  

                                       They never tell new parents about these " last rites"...

                        

                If someone told me, as I pushed a small wheeled stroller over giant curbs, into deep pot holes, filled with freezing water, as its gentle, fragile frozen surface inevitably cut thru my thin socks and skin, simultaneously soaking my sneaker, that I would ever miss this, I would have laughed...

                           

                       I have pictures in my mind of long gone Halloweens, of my two older brothers and I, traipsing up our dead end street, house by house, until we arrived at Mrs. Pratts house. 

                     She would invite us into her house and talk to us; ask questions about those things important to the first generation of Jay St. McMonkeys...

                      We grew up climbing the giant pine trees that fenced in her property. We raked humongous piles of pine needles to jump into and had great and fierce wars using the pine cones from those trees, like grenades...

                               When we got older, sometimes we laughed at her warnings about life.

               " Don't smoke cigarettes because they will lead you to beer and beer will lead you to liquor. Pretty soon you'll be smoking marijuana and getting into hard drugs. So don't smoke cigarettes "...

                                We thought she was completely clueless, but like most from her generation, she hit the nail right on the head.

                                                She must have had a crystal ball...

                                                               ...or a Bible....

                                  Little did I know that she had a lot of indirect, but intimate exposure to boozing and drug addiction. Not personal use, but she knew the patterns, from many that she loved...

                                     So when we moved into town, every Halloween we brought our own tiny tribe up the street and to her house....

                           And every time, she invited them, my Wonderful Wife and me, into her home; we talked about our boys and the boys my brothers and I used to be.

                            We talked about the coincidence that our boys are so close in age, looks and temperament to the kids long since grown...

                    The last time we went to visit her, we had lost all track of time and it was well past 9:00 p.m.

                                                     We almost didn't go...

                                 Three tired and cranky children trudged behind two crankier and more tired parents, who were half hoping it was too late, and that the knock on the door might be ignored.

                       On the first knock she came, looking concerned, panicked and relieved.

                    " I thought you weren't going to come. I turned the light off so the teenagers wouldn't knock, but I sat here hoping that you didn't get busy, that you didn't forget"...

                        We went into her house and she loaded the kids up with the rest of the candy that was left in her bowl. We talked again about the time my brothers and I showed up wearing the matching Indian outfits my mother had sewn; the same story we shared with each other, year after year..

                     " Somewhere, I know I still have the picture", she always said...

                                                I don't think she ever found it.

                                 Early on, in the next year, Mrs. Pratt passed away.

                         It didn't seem long until one of our McMonkeys was asking to go with his own friends, trick or treating.

                                    Eventually, last night, they all had places to go...

                        And for a moment, I think I know some of what Mrs. Pratt felt, when she thought no one was coming...

                                   To realize that our time to see all those moments of our children growing up, have speedily begun passing away. We will still have cross country meets and dinners home, but from this point on, the moments we are present, witnessing their " new first steps", will be fewer and farrer between, most to be recalled to us in stories from them, after the fact...

                                                                    If at all...

                            I joked to my Wonderful Wife that now, we were the " new" Mrs. Pratt...

                                         We would be the ones waiting and hoping...

                   I was kidding at the time, but when I drove to another neighborhood north, this morning, to pick up my eldest and she drove east, to another town, picking up our youngest, that phrase came back into my thoughts, much less comically...

                                   We are given compressed moments of our children's lives that begin dissolving in a time-release process that we can never encapsulate again.

                                                                   "Trick or Treat"

                                                                I think I get it now...

                                                      

I prefer " Merry Christmas"

                                                 I prefer " Merry Christmas "...

                    The silly season will soon be upon us and once again, so much of it will be a distraction, bedazzled and sponsored by Ronco.

                                                    Have a Merry Wal-Mart...

                               Thanksgiving is over a month away and Christmas trees already are planning their devious attack, sneaking out ever earlier from the warehouse lockers that cage them during the brief seven month reprieve they are not filling the aisles, at a superstore near you...

                                      This isn't about the commercial takeover of Jesus's birthday. That train had left the station decades ago, and just like rising health insurance premiums, it will never return to the previous, reasonable state.

                                 What I'm referring to is the several million Christian/ Atheist/ Non- Christian Facebook posting deluge coming, about just what we should call December 25th and how much that argument matters.

                                                Can of worms, officially open...

                           

                                                    I prefer " Merry Christmas "...

                             I can diatribe all night long as to why I'm feeling that way and although my feelings and preferences are wanting to justify and validate my opinion, I still need to ask myself if the battle I'm preparing to wage over the Name of Jesus's birthday is one He would want me to fight?

                                                    Is it a Crusade worth taking?

                                                   You remember The Crusades?

                    Not one of Christs Bride's best moments. I think we won. A period of unparalleled brutality that converted hundreds of thousands to our viewpoint by the fear of death and torture. In our insistence, we made that world a much better and kinder place, didn't we?

                                                                 Maybe not...

                                          We crucified His Spirit again, with that debacle.

                                                   And maybe in the winning, we lost...

                                   A lot of Non-Christians and used- to-be Christians bring that one up a lot, when someone speaks about the Love of God.

                                               " Explain that!" they rightfully exclaim...

                                                                  I never can. 

                                                      Guess they win that round...

                                        I'm not thinking that Jesus would be making a big deal over His own birthday party, especially two thousand years into it... I am thinking He might wish us to live His spirit instead of battling for recognition. It has taken a long time for me to realize that God does not need my defense fund. What I think is desired, in this instance, is not semantic debate for His honor but open display of His values...

                                    When Jesus is attacked, His meaning and purpose and Sacrafice for our Salvation, I will always, always at least make a statement to defend Him and my God. I will offer a simple truthful defense, to let those listening know that there is a truth that is real and complete, whether acknowledged or not.

                                                      Then usually, I let it go.

                                   Those willing to consider the words, will consider it, and those unwilling to, won't, and the addition of any other arguments by me,  have never in my experience, changed the percentages on either side. The Holy Spirit finds a crack or begins one, independent of me...

                                       Mostly, our job, as Christians is to attract people to want to find out what we have been Graced with. More often than not I find our arguments or actions, not His message, will be what pushes them away...

                         So as a wise dude once said, perhaps it is best to carefully choose the battles we take, in His name.

                           Maybe I'm a bad Christian if I'm not offended by "Happy Holidays".

                        Maybe I have my spiritual priorities inverted from how they should be...

                                                           I'm not thinking so.

                               An action of love done in His Spirit but not defined by His name will always touch hearts more than verbal diatribes using His name...

                                   So " Happy Hollidays" or " Seasons Greetings" won't offend me, this year. I will accept all wishes gratefully and hopefully, gracefully.

                                             But I do prefer " Merry Christmas".

                                                        Yes, I certainly do...