Outreach

                                         I wonder what would happen if wealthy, predominantly white Churches took the lead in incorporating the destitute and homeless, into their fold?

                        

                             I'm not talking about speaking from the Pulpit and philosophically attempting to change ideas and values...

                           

                                    Not limited outreaches, where members venture into different neighborhoods and cultures, to bring Jesus's message of salvation and love...

                                      Maybe instead of sending a few people with the message, the Churches that could afford it, sent busses to those areas of homeless and hurting and  brought them into the Church, itself..

                            Not as a token, one time experiment or statement, but a real and committed attempt at bringing all together, in Gods house?

                                             Not a ministry, but an invitation...

                         Personally, I don't know how comfortable I would feel in a Church that bussed in as many of the people in Albanys downtown missions that wanted to come, opened its coffee bar to them and fed them thru donated love offerings, from the congregation...

                   

                 I doubt I'd  be comfortable sitting behind an unhygienic, still active crack addict...

                                                                  Would you?

                               Can you imagine a sanctuary filled with prostitutes, thieves and criminals, of all colors, unscreened and freely walking around our children?

                                          It would be a security nightmare...

                          They have their own Churches and their own resources, don't they?

                            

           The Shepard did not stay home in comfort, when even one of his sheep was lost...

                      How many of Gods sheep are still lost, awaiting a Shepard to not go to them with words and abandon them, but to pick them up, upon their backs and carry them home?

                                                           I'm just thinking...

                           Can you imagine the possibilities if affluent Churches all did this?

                                          If those lost were sought after with the same zeal, the same resources, by it's members, that the simple Shepard demonstrated...             

                                                                   Not my Church...

                                        But someone else's Church, somewhere else...

                                                 I bet it would be interesting...

                               

Gentleness...

                                  "The bad thing about a peeing contest is that no one ever wins and everyone gets covered in pee"...

                I don't know who to attribute that quote to, but it's not mine.

                                                    I wish it was...

                          

                          I think that both racial and spiritual conversations, between those who disagree, share the same dangers...

                            They both often turn into pissing contests and no one wins.

                                           I'm speaking from experience...

               

                                       Both conversations often tend to die due to the initial approach, long before any meaningful words have a chance to be spoken.

                                  I always thought that dealing with our own heart would be the most difficult part of being a Christian and It is... It really is...

                            But sometimes the hardest part of dealing with our own heart, is the experience of dealing with someone else's heart, that we don't agree with....

                           When we're sure that we're right. Positive. Indisputably correct...

                                                   And so are they...

                                    Nothing hardens hearts quicker than a peeing contest...

         

                   As a Christian, it can be difficult to take part in conversations and be genuinely open to listening to all the different ideas and beliefs without seeming condescending.

                       To be true to our beliefs and faith, while being open to other points of view is almost impossible. We believe what we believe and we know what we know...

               How can we expect someone of different thinking to be open to our ideas, when our very faith makes that impossible for us to legitimately do?!?

                                  This seems to be the very crux of our problem with open dialogues that do not match our inherent Christian values.

                                   So how do we do it?

                               Pretending is condescending.

                              Going in with a false pretense is dishonest and introducing actual doubt to our own faith can be spiritual Russian roulette ...

                                   So how do we respect beliefs we feel are wrong?

                                         I have no clue...

                                      Maybe just by being honest.

                                 Maybe by respecting the person across from us and being gentle in these discussions and as open as our beliefs allow...

                        Being truthful, but genuinely interested in the point of view we disagree with?

                               Maybe looking for commonalities of heart instead of belief?

                                      Perhaps the first step is trusting each other enough to soften our hearts and speak from that place?

                                      A softened heart is the only kind that tends to change, and just maybe everyone has something to learn in that conversation...

                        It's possible that how I believe is wrong, even if what I believe isn't...

                           The one thing I have learned in this limited life cycle of mine, is that in some things, I might be wrong...

                        It's happened a few thousand times this decade, already..

                       I do believe what I believe and have  faith in what I know ...

                             But I can love someone who sees things differently and agree to disagree...

                                 With a soft heart and gentleness.

     

Measurements...

                                      I think the best approach may be an allegory...

                                        Don't worry. This really isn't about work...

                                     About eight years ago, corporate decided, thru many studies and resources, that it would cost them less money to cut our machine parts inventory and accept the estimated loss of production downtime that the parts reduction would eventually cause...

                         So about half a million dollars of inventory was removed from our sight alone, and the capital they saved was added to the companies total profits and liquidity.

                                                         All measureables...

                                 Being not well indoctrinated in avoiding asking uncomfortable questions, I gently queried the manager responsible for our two local mills reduction, if they were measuring the real production losses against the parts inventories reduced cost.

                            If the downtime caused by us not currently having a part that was historically stocked ( on three or four machines, this is about a $30,000 dollars an hour loss) was being calculated and compared to corporates estimates...

                  Factoring into the equation that currently we wait days or weeks, for such parts...

                               Let's just say that that particular question was met with more hostility than if id been caught red handed, assassinating The Pope...

                                   They refused to measure the actual cost of what they implemented.

                          The sad thing is, in a lot of situations, what they were doing was great business and fiscally brilliant. I agreed with the concept and 90% of the implementation.

                                     If success is only measured in narrowly self defined parameters and unpleasant and uncooperative realities are ignored, then victory is assured, along with many invisible and unacknowledged failures...

                Not for them to worry. Those will never be accurately measured...

                               I can personally guarantee that much more money is lost, waiting for parts to arrive, than was ever  saved by us not stocking them. 

                                 But that loss was erroneously attributed to something else,  and not legitimately measured...

                                     

                               

                                    They never even acknowledged the true problem...

                             I told you earlier, that this was not going to be about work.

                                        It's not. It probably would be better if it was. As it stands, the actual topic will probably cost me half of the people who read this...

                                   Don't worry. I'm going to get there soon enough...

          

                                     Yesterday was the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade...

                     About 56,000,000 fetuses have been aborted, since it's implementation.

                                  I think whatever side of the aisle that you find yourself standing on, on this abortion issue, that this is a shocking and disturbing number...

                              

            I think there are many false stereotypes about the people choosing abortion.

                       

                  I have known many women who chose to abort their pregnancies.

                                                   None did it glibly or easily...

                    All, to some extent, found themselves haunted by that choice they made.

                                              Many for entire lifetimes...

             I've also known many men who had encouraged a woman to abort their child...

                             Some had just walked away, refusing even the responsibility to know the choice made...

                                                     I will tell you a seceret... 

                      After all the posturing and false bravado is dropped, not one of the men I've known, Christian, or not, were unaffected by by the decision or their own passivity, or for some, their outright encouragement of the abortion, performed...

             When they dropped the crap and spoke from the heart, everyone I'd ever had the opprotunity to speak with had wished there had been a better way...

                                    I heard a lot of talk recently about repealing the "Law"..

                    As a right wing, Christian man I am here to say that the "law" is not the problem.

                                               The "law" is the symptom....

                                  The "law" is an illusionary and false reaction, that leaves the true problem to hide in its invisibility...

                                      Did you hear it? I just lost half of my readers, right there...

                                    

                  Not only was I never indoctrinated on asking uncomfortable questions, but I also must have missed the indoctrination sessions on making uncomfortable statements...

                               

                                 Jesus came to free us from the law. Our hearts would become what we would truly be judged on...

                               Not a dot or tittle was changed, but we have been consistently told that the only purpose of the law was to demonstrate our complete inability to keep it, that Jesus came as the only one capable of fulfilling it, and in a substitutionary death, freed us from it...

                                       

                                   My prayers are much more important than my vote. 

                                 Prayer activists are in dire need, not political ones....

                            Have we fallen so far that we put our faith in mans law?

                                      Has that ever been effective, before?

                            

                   The law did nothing but guide and condemn, all the way back from Adam to the Pharisees and Sauducees... The laws were impossible to follow...

                                          This is an issue of heart, not of law, or the lack, thereof...

                       What needs to change are the hearts of those who have created a society where this seems like a viable option...

             The hearts of the men and women who find themselves in situations with such horrible consequences, for all involved, the innocent and the guilty...

                         We needs hearts changed before the pregnancy occurs...

                    We need family, friends and Churches hearts and attitudes and reactions to be different after these pregnancies occur, than they often are now....

                                   Less judgement. More love. Better options... 

                             The most damning of all truths, is this...

             If our hearts were right, if all our collective hearts were right, no "law" would be necessary...

                             But here I go again, talking about the immeasurables...

                      I wish that not another fetus, another baby, ever had to be removed, be killed...

                         I wish that men had there hearts and spirits right, before unzipping their pants and that women understood thier true worth and value, in the eyes of God and decent men; that they did not feel the need to debase themselves for compliments or attention...

             I wish those that victimize the innocent or powerless are stopped before they find and exploit that opprotunity...

              Most of all, I wish that the easy answers were the right ones and that the right ones weren't so damn hard, impossible in mans world, even...

                I wish we could legislate ourselves into heaven and out of hell...

                     But that is Gods Domain...

                     I'm sure He wants the innocent protected. He knows, because, in the end He is their only protection...

                        He is greater than our evil and holds our hearts in the palm of His Hand...

                            With the faith the size of a mustard seed, we could accomplish much more than this...

                          So sadly, this is a  problem of Faith and Heart...

                                Yours. Mine. Ours...

                               This is not a problem of politics.

                      This is a problem of collective Christian heart, Faith and prayer...

                           

Tribulation and self will...

              Friday night is movie night at our house. Probably one of the biggest commonalities between my family is that we all love movies.

                Early on, it was Disney. Later it became Pixar. Nowadays we lean more towards action, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Avengers, Captain America, maybe the Batman trilogy ( the good ones, with Christian Bale). 

                     Tonight we're watching the new " Left Behind" movie with Nicholas Cage.

                         On this one, I'm having my doubts...

                At bedtime last night, one of my boys shared that he had a nightmare recently, about The Rapture. What made it a nightmare was that in his dream, our whole family, except for him, were taken up to Heaven... He was alone and left behind...

                    My boy was crying and shaking when he told both his mom and me this, in separate conversations. We tried to reassure him that with his Faith in Jesus and his dedication to God that he would be with all the other believers and Jesus...

               I said something to him that later got me thinking...

                 I said if that ever became true, that I would ask God to leave me here, with him...

                     Today when I returned from work, i began to research if this was even feasible.

                      I read The Bible and Googled about the rapture. 

                        Truthfully, this is not my strong suit. I'm just not that good of a scholar...

                          

                              But what really got my mind a rumbling were some quotes and ideas that popped into my head... Things like Jesus saying that the physician comes for the sick, and not the well man.

     The whole idea of The Great Commision, our responsibilities as Christians to predominately Share Christ's Gospel with those who need to hear it.

                    My mind was filled with the purposes that we were given free will for.

     To freely choose to accept Jesus and do the work he left for us; that he prepared for us...

            Aside from wanting to comfort my son, what kind of Christian would I be, to desert those people who God created The Great Commision for? The lost and hopeless...

                    This is probably heretical. This is probably one of those questions we are better off not asking...

                                                       But I am asking...

                                                   I do that kind of thing.

                               What if we ask a loving, caring God if we could stay behing and spread his Gospel to those caught in the turmoil and chaos, that had finally arisen, as foretold 2000 years ago? To those who's lack of belief kept them here...

                  If anyone on earth would need witnesses, it would be these ones, those left behind...

                                                Would we have a choice ?

                              Would it be a sin to choose staying, if the choice were granted?

                                            This whole deal could be completely mute.

                                            Perhaps there could be no leeway...

                                   

                                           I don't know. I really don't know..

                                      My heart leads me one way and my mind is not so sure...

                                            Christ demonstrated going thru much worse than the tribulation has to offer, for us who are his enemy and have hated him. Not only did he do this for our Salvation, but also as an example of the kind of love we should have for one another....

            No greater love, than that a man should lay down his life, for his brother...

                            I found nothing that addressed if we chose to ask, what would He say?

                                            Something to think about....

                             If anyone one has any irrefutable answers, please let me know...

                                Not suppositions or interpretations that are not definitive...

                                        A bit of light reading on a Friday night...

                  

Hey, junior....

                                            I wrote this poem over thirty years ago and am somewhat surprised that the limited grey matter inside my skull chose to retain it.

                          This was back in the day of my five string, out of tune guitar. I forget there was a time when I was an idealist.  It originally was  a song, of all things...

               Back then, I had all these questions written below, going thru my noggin and had enough faith in human nature, that maybe change was possible.

                                                I guess I'm still a bit of a closet idealist. 

                          A lot is still wrong in this world. Much is better, but Im thinking that maybe my generation has made all the progress in this area that we are capable of...

                        I watch my kids, who don't even seem to notice the racial differences between them and their closest friends and I am uplifted...

               I think about some of the headlines in the last few years and become disenchanted...

                    But then I think about this generation, coming up, and my Faith is again, renewed.

                        I do believe it will get better. In the process, it may get worse for a bit, but the truths that Dr. King spoke are stronger than the ignorances that seeks to hold them back. Progress has been gradual and incomplete, but it has been forwardly consistent...

                          I don't know a lot about Gods Will, but I do believe we are all His amazingly loved children and that when we are together in brotherhood, God smiles.

                        I can't prove that to those who believe differently and I think that's o.k...

                            Just as the lion will lay down with the lamb, eventually there will be peace between His children, also...

                                           We are so much more than we realize.

                                                I hope we realize that soon...

                               

                                                     Hey junior, can you see?

                                                      Have we changed at all?

                                                    Hey junior, do you still dream?

                                                        Do you still stand so tall?

                                                      You preached the word,

                                                           Who really heard?

                                                You think it would be so damn easy...

                                                         And now that your gone,

                                                            who's to carry on

                                             That wonderful dream that had freed you..

                                               

                                                   Hey junior, can you still see?

                                                     You took such a painful fall...

                                                     Hey Martin, do you still believe

                                                      About peace and love for all?

  

                                                     You preached the word

                                                         But who really heard?

                                                  You think it would be so damn easy...

                                                     And now that your gone,

                                                      Who's left to carry on

                                               That wonderful dream that had freed you...

                                                      We just may walk, hand in hand..

                                                    And that judgement day may come

                                                        then there won't be a man alive...

                                                     Who can doubt what you've done...

   

                                                       Because you preached the word

                                                                 And we all heard....

                                                        We knew it would never be easy...

                                                             And since you've been gone,

                                                               We've tried to carry on

                                                       That wonderful dream that had freed you...

                                                        That glorious dream that had killed you...

                                                         

                                                          Hey Martin, we still dream...

                                                      

                                                  

                                                      A little bit different type of post than usual...

                                                   

I think I heard the bell...

                                       My favorite Rocky movie has to be Rocky V. 

                         I know that Rocky 4 was probably a better movie. Dolph Lungren killed Apollo Creed in the ring and Sylvester Stallone made that great speech in the end...

                                               It's kind of hard to top that.

                      But hands down, the best scene of all scenes, is the moment in Rocky V, after Tommy Gunn hit Pauly in the bar, and Rocky tells Tommy " My rings outside"...

                      And Rocky is back in his truest element, not the ring, but a back alley...

                       

                          I wrote a different blog last night. I spent a few hours on it, then I read it thru a few times and realized that I liked what it said, but also recognized that it was a cover. 

                            God has been working in my heart in this last year a lot, and I don't want to talk about that...

                              I would rather be non specific and stick to safer and less personal topics. 

                                  

                                    I am trying to register for Bible College...

             That has to be the hardest sentence I have ever typed on this old and antiquated iPad..

                                 I am much more comfortable in " the alley"...

                            

                              There are people in this world who have an unquenchable thirst for the Word of God and have hearts of service and love that I cannot comprehend.

                                      My experiences of God are from the street. 

        Being delivered from addiction and suicide. Seeing some of darkest people being brought forward, into the light, thru Jesus Christ...

                    Walking with those delivered after a brother or sister has fallen back into darkness...

          Allowing God access to my soul when I question and am angry and dont understand...

              Sitting in our living room recliner, mentally inventorying all these blessings He has Graced this family I belong too, with...

                  I have no scholastic experience and truthfully, i don't want any. That sounds horrible, I know, but it is the plain and unvarnished truth...

                   I love listening to Charles Stanley and all of the Pastors and Elders from our Church.

                         I concentrate intently on all they share and dissect it and compare it to all I've learned on this journey, so far... 

                                            But I struggle in studying the Bible.

               I truly am the last person on this earth that should attend Bible College, in my own, personal opinion...

                             In one of our Churches men's study groups a few years ago, we took an insane personality survey with over 700 questions, to help identify the gifts that God has given us, so we could prepare to use them, as He intended...

              I was in the same group as our founding Pastor and he and I swapped our results pages.

                                                 We were polar opposites...

                                      I am not a people person. Philosophically, I like "people", but in practice find myself uncomfortable and reasonably inept, around them...

                               The Word does not become " alive" for me, as I read it...

                        But in a setting where I am listening to It and hearing all the implications that it confers, I am fascinated... Drawn in... And It lives...

                                 For many years, decades even, I have felt this nudge.

                             Kind of like an unrelenting whiffle ball to the ear, nudge... in my soul...

               

                                  I am to old. I do not have the temperament. I do not have the personal inclination... I do not have the time or the finances. I do not have a heart for service... I do not want to leave my cherished chair, in the back. I do not want to leave my comfort zone..

                      And true growth only begins AFTER we LEAVE the comfort zone...

               Not one iota of this whole crazy idea contains anything I want and think is reasonable... 

                                           But the nudge has become a push...

                            I have absolutely no idea why I am being led- have been led for a long time, and now am being pushed, into something I can find no earthly reason for...

                                     I keep telling Him, He got the wrong guy...

                                                   He got the wrong guy...

                                                         But I am tired. 

                              The second best scene in Rocky V was when Rocky got knocked down hard and didn't want to get up... Eventually, he begins to rise, saying" I didn't hear no bell"...

                                                       I am tired.

                                           Tired of stating logic that God ignores...

                              Tired enough that in this battle, at least, I think I finally hear the bell..

Letting go...

                        I was in my mid twenties, three or four years sober. 

                                        Stark raving sober, they say...

                I had become clean and sober the same day that I was saved. But of course, the residuals remained.

       I've shared before that I was pretty messed up still, after accepting Jesus.

                 A lot of unresolved issues, anger, frustrations and depression... Deep enough to contemplate some of Shakespears darker questions...Dark enough to get all the wrong answers...

                In another year and a half I would spend an extended vacation in an institution, going from small group to my psychologist , to another small group, to one on one with a psychologist, then small group and one on one with my psychiatrist , again... 

                                     For my whole stay there..

                       Like I said, sometimes God leaves residuals for us to deal with...

                          This part transpired about a year and a half before the happy hotel stay...

                                       At three and a half years sober, or so...

               I was doing my best to convince a young lady (Actually, she was about eight years older than me- but calling her an old lady probably would not have been taken complimentarilly) that I would be good boyfriend material. She was on the fence about that, and wouldn't give me a definate answer either way...

           So when she offered to bring me to go get my horoscope chart done, I went with her. 

                      I wasn't going to Church or actively involved with any Christians. 

                                                      She was pretty.

                  I would get a few hours alone with her on the ride there and back...

                                                  Of course I said yes...

                       I sat with a sweet old lady named Ruth. She took a lot of information about birthday, birth times and of course, birthplace.

                  There was a lot of gobbily gook and then she looked troubled and sad...

                           She predicted an extreme amount of pain and confusion would fill my life.

                               Something about a Pisces sun sign/ Scorpio moon...

                                And that the lesson I needed to learn in this life was how to let go with grace and dignity, of what I loved most...

                           She sadly stated that I would probably never learn that. Something again to do with a Pisces sun and a Scorpio moon...

                                             Fast forward twenty some years...

                               I don't read the horoscope these days. Haven't for decades...

            The residuals have been removed now, thru the Grace of God and with the help of a lot of clinicians, friends and 12 step groups that I'm sure He set in my path, in His perfect timing...

                         It's kind of funny, the space I'm presently in. My youngest son is nine years old and my oldest parent is almost eighty. My mom is in her seventies...

                    My boys are getting older and just like when they were learning to ride a bicycle, I'm once again learning to let go...

                                                               Letting go...

                            It seems that almost the entirety of lifes existence has been filled with this.

          Letting go of childhood toys. Letting go of the magic of Santa Clause and the Easter bunny.

             Letting go of antiquated angers and resentments, frustrations and dissolutions...

                 Letting go off who we thought we would be. Letting go of the parents we thought ours should have been and the ideas we created in our minds of the parents we would eventually be...

                  Coming to grips with the fact that almost every preconceived notion about life that we pictured in our tiny little minds would become much larger and more complicated and entirely different than we originally believed...

                       Letting go of those we've loved that left us too early and to the words still carried in our hearts that we wished we said to them...

                                

                                         I remember an old saying I heard in A.A.

                                      " Anything I ever let go of, had claw marks"..

                                                 I still find it difficult to " let go"....

                            The truth is that every single thing I ever tried to let go of never happened because I was emotionally ready and gracefully opened my fingers...

                      Nothing, absolutely nothing, not grief or anger or any character defect has ever left me because of my own self will or decision...

                                       Every single thing I struggled with left, not because I let go of it, but because a Gracious God chose to remove it...

                           I never learned to let go of what I love with grace and dignity. 

                                                       I probably never will.

                                Those are Gods Dominion. They are His attributes.

                                 The wonderful thing about this is that I don't have to...

                      Whether it is the inevitable maturing of a child or a chronic physical decline of a parent, God does the work and we provide the willingness.

                        Sometimes we don't even have to do that. We just show him our need and give Him permission to enter our life and change us. We ask him to ignore our will at those times we can't stop it ourselves...

                                    A Gracious God will not force Himself on us... He will let us decimate our lives, if we refuse to ask for his assistance...

                      But a Loving God will replace our self will with healing, even if we do fight it;  if in a moment of desperation and clarity, we invite Him in and ask Him to supersede our insanities...

                               

Tazed and confused...

                                As I was filling out vacation request sheets for 2015 , I saw that my birthday was just a few months away...

                            Generally, I don't think too far ahead, especially about my birthday. Its never been a big deal... 

                                                  But this year I turn 50...

                             This is not the " philosophical " 50 that you picture in your twenties. 

       It is not the " hmm, I might actually reach 50", that you experience in your late 30's and 40's...

                           It IS the " Crap! I'm going to BE 50 in a few months !!!"...

                        The Lord willing and the creek don't rise , I'm actually going get there...

                                                      Who'da thunk that?!?

                                         I don't have a problem with getting older. I'm kind of hoping to be that cranky old curmudgeon, sitting on a rocker with a salty North Atlantic gust, freezing in my beard...

                             I remember telling my Wonderful Wife, while we were still dating, that my beard had blonde highlights, as I gazed at myself in her living room mirror. She laughed and informed me that it was not blonde, but grey...

                          Of course I still married her. I did harbor doubts about her interpretations of the color chart, though..

                          I look in the bathroom mirror now and see that many of the remaining follicles on both my skull and face have somehow become an extremely light platinum blonde...

                              And yes, I'm smart enough now not to say that out loud, in front of my Wonderful Wife...

                                   I think sometimes, denial can be a healthy thing.

                           

                          I am not wealthy enough to buy a Dodge Challenger and I'm married to a woman who is in better shape and better looking than most women half her age...

    Not to mention I am helplessly, hopelessly in love with her, no matter how she looks..

                   So, she's stuck with me, at least until my life insurance check clears..

                               After that, she can pretty much do whatever she wants...

                    Since there is no hope of a mid-life crisis, I must do something else.            

                                     I'm not going to make a bucket list.

                  Completing one of those would require much more energy than I feel willing to expend, at this time.

                                                    I mean, I'm turning 50, not dying...

                                 I always wanted to skydive on my fiftieth birthday, but looking at the actual, not the " philosophical" ground, I'm beginning to have second thoughts....

                                It looks and is, very hard, and although my body does have a fairly rubbery cosistency, it does not lately react that way, at all...

                        My three McMonkeys are looking forward to me skydiving. I made the mistake of mentioning that idea out loud, one day in our car. " Really dad? Are you REALLY going to jump out of an AIRPLANE?!?" they asked...

                      I may have to tell them that after thinking it over, that it doesn't seem to be the best decision I could choose to make, at this particular juncture in my life...

                         Yep. Just tell them I'm chicken. They're good kids, they'll understand...

                                  But I am going to have to do something.

         On Facebook , a few months ( years?) ago, I asked if anyone knew if it were possible to be Tazed without being arrested.  Where could I go to voluntarily be Tazed ?

                          I'm thinking THAT would be about the neatest way I can come up with, to ring in my fiftieth year...

                                                      It's not so crazy...

                                              OK, maybe it is, just a little bit...

                       But really, who wants to do something sane on their birthday?

                            I saw a video of this guy, Chris Carracci, I think his name was...

                   He proved he could be Tazed and then self willed himself to get right back up, half a second later.

                        I'm not thinking I can do that. He was a member of SEAL TEAM SIX and has black belts in numerous styles of self defense.

                    Me, I managed to eat a two pound burger and all the fixings at Fudruckers...

                          There is a 99.997% chance that I will fall on the ground, wet my tighty whiteys and cry like a little girl. I think that the remaining .003% chance that is left over is an anomaly, an impossibility and only a margin of error figured into statistical computations...

                                         But I'm thinking that this, I might have to try.

                        I know this is supposed to be a blog about a rambling, Christian family man.

                    This post doesn't seem to have much about the Christian part...

                           But the rambling? I think I've got that one down...

Happy Birthday, mom...

Happy Birthday Mom...

                         I know you don't read my blog and aren't on Facebook, but that doesn't really matter...

                         Guess I just wanted to say I hope it's a better day today than most lately, and let you know that I'm thinking of you today and praying for you....

                                     I wish you were well enough for us to visit- your three grand McMonkeys missed seeing you more than you would know...

                                 Your youngest McMonkey, your youngest son, did too...

                                   We don't do that touchy- feely thing very well, you and I.

                      I remember about a thousand years ago, when we did...

                             When I was young and precocious and you couldn't wait for me to be old enough for school to start... Couldn't wait for me to get on the bus...

                            Like when I opened all the crossword puzzles and toys from the toy box and emptied them on the floor. I think I was about three or four years old, at the time. When you told me to pick them up and put them away, I told you I couldn't. That's why God made moms...

                    You laughed, gave me a hug and started putting them away...

                             When I was eating my Cheerios  in the living room, for some reason ( about two years old, in case anyones wondering) and brought them into the kitchen to pour them down the sink.

     Being frugal and not wanting to waste good cereal, you did what a lot of moms would do, at the time... I incredulously asked if you were REALLY going to eat those things...You ate a spoonful, said yes, and asked me why.

                                        " How do it taste", I Disgustedly asked...

                                       " OK"  you answered, a little concerned.

                                            " Why do you ask"?  you worriedly inquired...

                                            " Because I PEED in them"! , I replied...

                           

                                                 True story. Just ask her...

          

                                   She had no clue what situations this third kid would bring her.

                                 I remember, barely, sometimes, the cuddling and laughing and outright joy we had in those days I was home alone with my mom...

                           How I thought she was the most amazing woman in the world...

                                As I grew older, my opinion changed on that. A lot of crazy times and it didn't help that I was an anti- everything teenager. Like a lot of stupid teenage kids, I said a lot of awfully bad things that I've come to regret...

                       And a thousand years later, I realize the wisdom of a precocious three year old...

                                    She still is the most amazing woman I know...

                   That's coming from an incredibly blessed man married to the Wonderful Wife.

                    I wrote recently about our Christmas at grandmas, The Miracle on Poplar St...

                                    The picture above is the necklace my mom gave to my Wonderful Wife, MaryAnne. My mom made a point that we all read it. It was important to her, for some reason...

                

                                                                 Family.

                                                          Where life begins

                                                            and love never

                                                                  ends...

                        

                            I love my mom more than she will ever know. I tell her sometimes, hug her and to lighten the mood, pat her on the top of her head, when I leave.

                                         She has no idea how afraid I am of ...

                                                            all this...

                                       Not feeling " Philosophical " at the moment.

                                                        Guess that's ok...