Political mongrel...

                I was about ten years old and entering my " pre- juvenile delinquent "stage. That pretty much means that I was posturing, but still not doing anything " bad". Somewhere I got the bright idea to draw a tank on the back of my jean jacket. To make it look cooler, I added a Swastika on the turret.

                               Now,  I had no idea what a " swastika" was, really...

                                                      My dad certainly did.

                             Growing up in the camps in Germany and Poland, from birth to about my age, he was acutely familiar with not only the meaning of that symbol, but had first hand knowledge of the atrocities it came to represent. I, a young punk from a tiny mill village, had experienced some anger fallout. He, in contrast, stared straight down the true faces of evil...

                                  He started off yelling, asking if I even knew what a swastika meant. Of course I claimed I did... He got madder still, started to explain, then just shut down, disgusted and stormed out the door. My mom, who had been quietly watching, sat down next to me and explained as well as she could, some of the experiences my dad had, under that "symbol". I remember her eyes, trying to reach me, trying to make me understand in a very gentle way, how much I'd hurt and upset my father with that drawing. I picked up a little of the meaning, but still didn't really get it...

                How could he, thirty years later, still be affected by a silly, stupid drawing?

                  I was young and ignorant and had not yet seen evil, up close and personal...

                         

                             Fast forward about a thousand years, and I am not the same naive, want-to-be punk that painted the tank on his jacket. The roads chosen did bring me into extremely close proximity to evil and violent stupidity. I cannot really compare it to what my father lived, but it was bad enough.

                                                   Let's just leave it at that...

                                 Today I can understand how atrocities can haunt for decades. I get that some memories, some " symbols" can never be viewed without outrage...

                                    I have always been a strange philosophic mongrel. Politically, I leaned toward Libertarian, believing Governments power should be minimal and non invasive.

                                Granted only the power those under it, freely gave...

                        Always a strong believer in States rights, individual rights and freedom to do whatever you wanted, as long as it physically hurt no one else...

                                I guess I'm not exactly that same guy, anymore...

                          I don't think fanatics have the moral right to disrupt funeral services with messages of hate and intolerance. I don't think that burning the American flag that millions have suffered and died for, shows or says anything other than contempt for those who served,and maybe that a few strands are missing from the DNA sequences of those doing the burning...

                                  Guess I'm getting a little judgmental, here...

                             And maybe, just maybe, it is time to retire the old General Lee.

                                    It never crossed my mind that possibly the black community feels the same way about the Confederate flag as my dad felt about swastikas...

                                    So once again, I find myself, caught between what I think should be legal and what I think is right...

                      I strongly believe in freedom of speech and that that we have no legal rights to not be offended, at least in my own Libertarian vision.

                               But I also believe that respect for those offended needs to be balanced into the equation, and sometimes even supersedes " legal" rights...

                         And again, I am perplexed, in my own changing views and values.

                                         The older I get, the less I find I " know"...

                                Maybe I should be more concerned with the freedom to nurture someone else's spirit, than license to offend. Maybe common concern and general decency should be paramount, before individual liberties...

                            We shouldn't need laws to achieve this. Maybe we all could consider what we're saying with our freedom of speech, before actually exersizing it.

                               The sad thing is, this is such a slippery slope and so easily manipulated...

               I suppose that is why principal of law is so different than just being a good human being.

                             If enough people see what things like swastikas and confederate flags do to others souls, then maybe, eventually, excuses like history and heritage will completely lose there already disintegrating illusion of credibility...

                                                                 Here's hoping...

Dinner dialogues...

                                       Strange thing happened the other night. 

                                             No surprise there, I suppose.

                                                         It is our house...

                           Dinner was rushed and the McMonkeys were starving. Pleads came from the dining room " Can we please say our Prayers ourselves, then eat"?

                        No big deal. We do this, not often, but as often as the bubs all converge, starved, and not everything is plated up, in time...

                       " Go ahead", I yell over my shoulder ( sometimes they hear, sometimes they don't).

                                  This time they all heard, and as I'm putting food on the remaining plate, ( mine) accusations are bellowed across the table, directed ( supposedly) toward the offender, but mostly funneled purposely toward the kitchen opening, and my ears.

               One of the McMonkeys had decided to eat without praying, and one of the others HAD to let me know. I'm not sure if he was actually concerned for his siblings spiritual health, or just wanted to get his brother in trouble. My guess would be 95% the latter and a possible 3% the former.

                                         The other 2% is factored in for margin of error...

                                  So, I'm running, just trying to get the menagerie fed, and this philosophical quandary drops into my lap, before I can even say my own prayer and eat.

                                                 ...and I'm kind of starving...

                               Part of me wants to ignore this entire situation and tell the little tattletale to mind his own prayers...

         I justify that, by thinking no one should be forced to pray, that it should be about a personal spiritual connection between that person and God; and that all three of these kids are old enough to make the decision themselves ...

                                                  I told you I was hungry, right?

                                       I stopped. I breathed. I prayed, not over this meal yet, but over a situation that had me perplexed and unsure...

                                                       And I was hungry...

                            I looked my non- praying son in the eye and asked him if he was grateful to God for the food we were given? He said yes, he was, but that he didn't feel he needed to offer thanks.

                                           Stomach grumbling, I contemplated...

                                 I informed him that if he wasn't grateful enough to offer thanks, he did not have to eat. I explained rather calmly that this is something we do as a family and it is a requirement.

                                           Then I said my prayer, and ate.

                                                           So did he...

                          Im nowhere near100% sure I was right or wrong, and quite sure the margin for error in this situation greatly exceeds the earlier 3%. I just don't know... One more of those daddy "Limbo" zones...

                                             A funnier thing happened Sunday morning.

                                                       Not funnier, just un-expected ...

                            It was Father's Day and the previous non- praying son was excitedly helping me fix breakfast. My Wonderful Wife had offered to do the cooking, but she likes the way I do the bacon.

                                (A little secret. That is part of the reason she loves me. She will agree, wholeheartedly, specifying that it is just a small part, but we both know it's a little bigger part than either of us like to admit)

                           Breakfast gets plated, and the same son wants to say the prayer. He begins and his voice breaks a little. " And thank you for making dad be our dad" he finishes...

                                He bowed his head and covered his eyes with his T- shirt, pressing the cloth against his face, to hide and soak up the tears...

                        The youngest started saying something, and I told him to be quiet. 

                                                I touched my sons shoulder. 

                                 A good dad might have said that its ok to cry, and made this a lesson on vulnerability. My son is much like me, uncomfortable with public emotion.

                                     I mentioned how much that I liked his prayer...

                                      I told him I loved it, and then I discreetly wiped my own eyes...

                                              You know. Public displays of emotion,and all...

                       Someone made a distracting joke or a funny sound. We all laughed and joked...

                                                  I silently thanked God for my sons...

Insanity...

                                             Im still shocked about Charleston.

                                          I thought by now, I'd get used to this stuff.

                  Atrocities on a daily basis, overwhelming all the good that happens outside the medias three ring circus. We are bombarded every single half hour, with thirty second talking points about some segment out there, whether black, white, Christian, Muslim, woman or man...

                       If you go by the stories on the silly screen, we are all hopeless.

                                             In the largest sense, I fully agree. 

                       As a Christian, my entire existence's only real meaning, only real worth, is in The Savior that is the source of any " good" remotely evident in me.

                                           But I see hope in a thousand places...

                            I see hope in the people who are trying to make this world a better place. It doesn't matter whether they are political, religious or animal activists, every one of them gives me hope that humanity can get "it", at least a little bit right, sometimes. I see passions in artists and athletes; concert pianists and half tanked, honky tonk ivory pounders, playing off key, by ear...

                 Long shot, overmatched professional, million dollar teams or intimate groups of gut wrenching, everyday types, standing out from the pack by their drive and dedication.

                            They all personify that we CAN inspire each other, to be " better"...

                                                   Not in the religious sense.

                                                          In the human one.

                               I look to God often for strength and inspiration, but sometimes I'm positive that He wants me to look at my brothers and sisters on this planet, those that are working to fix the brokenness that they can fix, in and around each other.

                   He gave us hands and hearts for a reason. For a thousand different reasons...

                      For every sick idiot who ruthlessly destroys lives, there really are a few hundred others, doing what they can to improve this crazy rock we inhabit...

                                                   I can't lose sight of that.

                   I want to, sometimes. I want to give up and think the worst about every single person that passes me by, that I see at work, on the street, at Church...

                             The negativity we breath in and out from this culture seems like it has a death grip on my psyche, sometimes...

                                                             Correction.

                                            Sometimes it does have a death grip.

                                                     But only "sometimes"...

                       It's easy to get lost in the insanity. It's comforting, in an odd and sad way.

                                          But inversely, it is immensely freeing,to step out of it and look into the souls of the ones attempting " better"; to commit ourselves ( on some days ), to joining them in the quest.

                              Great things happen that do not ever erase the atrocities, but they can definitely help to put them into perspective.

                                     We need... I need...to keep these travesties " right sized".

                                            If it is in our own circle, our own family, or our own Church, there really is no " right size" to the grief or despair. It is giant and overwhelming, made endurable only by God.

                                 I need to remember that every single tragedy creates that reality somewhere, but I also must remind myself today that it is not "here"...

                              We all will have our share of grief, but the non stop headlines try to force every instance down our throat, personalizing it for us, at the basest level. It can break our spirit, if we let it...

                                                   I do mourn for Charleston.

                         Part of my heart breaks at the unnecessary loss and savagery that occurred in Gods house. Part of me questions all the " whys". Part of me looks at my Wonderful Wife and children, that often are attending Bible studies at our Church, with friends and their own families, who we love...

            But part of me looks at God and the people He placed here, that eclipse the terrible things.

                                                       I mourn and then I stop.

                                     If it were my family or my Church, it would be much different...

                                                  But gratefully , Gracefully, it wasn't.

                                            

                                                      That sounds kind of awful, doesn't it?

                                    

                                       I pray that this is the last time, something like this happens.

                              But I also pray that these things don't break us, and make us all miss the things going on, greater than the tragedies...

                                                        ...That the insanity never wins...

                                                        Because that would be insane.

Rex

            I remember being about four years old. We had this amazing golden collie named Rex, and I thought he was my dog. Aside from the fact he had to share his dog biscuits with me, he seemed to like me, too...

                    One day, I went outside to play and my mom quickly shooed me back inside. My dad looked upset and was hurrying to the street corner, a house away, and out of view.

                                           Turns out, my dog was run over...

                         Everyone was upset and I don't think the concept had sunk in, for me. The reaction, the decision, was to get another dog.

                                         Prince, I remember much clearer.

                  He followed me as I left the confines of my yard, jumping the rusted chain fence, to accompany me, in my travels.  I would hug him so hard that he would growl and pull away. He was a big black collie, with lots of hair. I used to laugh, when my dad gave him a bath. It seemed he'd lost half his weight, half his volume, when his hair was soaked and clinging to him.

    One summer, a few years later, late in July, I was feeling overly rambunctious, with no one to wrestle with. Prince was laying outside, panting in the shade. I ran, gave him a hug and he growled then nipped.                                                                                                                                                    

             I should have known, but Ignorant, I hugged him again, and he bit hard, into my face...  

       Lots of blood and yelling, my parents ran out and immediately knew what had happened.

                        They knew that it was not Princes fault. He warned me and so had they.  It wasn't a big deal. My face healed, I learned better, and the scars made me look kind of cool...

                                          A few years later, unfortunately, the same scenario took place, except this time, he bit a neighborhood friend with Down Syndrome. Did about the same amount of damage....

                              I tried telling myself it was nobody's fault, but I knew it was mine, for not keeping him home when I went to play whiffle ball, at the firehouse.  

              It was reported, and when asked if he had bitten in the past, a history, my parents said yes, describing the incident a few short, preceding summers ago.

                            

                          Short story long, Prince made a trip " Upstate, to a nice farm"...

                                       

                                                     I'm not a "dog person", anymore...

                                         I like them and they like me, well enough, but I never make a habit of remembering their names. I just call them "dog".

                                       No need to establish a more personal relationship...

                                             

                         My brother, on the other hand, could not conceive of a canine-free existence. He's had dogs his entire adult life.

                                                  Me, I never understood it...

                            Why risk your heart, bank balance and time, for something that's just going to die or leave you? 

              My brother has a much bigger and better heart than I. Every dog he gets, he loves totally. He is one of those people who calls his dogs his " kids"...

                         I never understood that. Always, when I heard it, I became judgemental, condescending, even...

         Of course, he never understood how people can adore babies. I would watch his confused look, as one of the trio of our McMonkey babies would puke, drooze snot or exceed a diapers diarrhea capacity.

                         The same way I look at him, letting his dog lick his face...

                               He is the first to admit that he doesn't "get" that... 

                                  It took awhile to realize I don't have to " get it".

                                                And neither does he...

                                 

                               What I do understand, is that you can't quantify or qualify love.

                           We humans have never been able to do that, thru-out our entire history.

                                     To paraphrase a line from Jurassic Park ,

                                                " Love will always find a way"...

                    We restrict, catoragize and define our vision of it, but the scope,  we have never fully encompassed it's magnitude...

                                            I don't need to know who you love.

                                          I just want to know that you do love...

                                             I need to know that deep inside, we all have something or someone that matters more than our own overly fragile and completely inadequate understanding...

                 Something that we, ourselves can't explain the whys and wherefores of...

                               That magic thing that we value more than ourselves...

                                                         

                                                   For me, it is my Wonderful Wife and our boys.

                                      There is much more, but they are my core.

                                                 God and they,  are that defining circle...

                                           All circles are precious, to those they encompass.

                                                              

                                                                       I "get" that...

                                                             That's all I "need" to know...

        

                                        

Cotillion...

                                 I threatened my three boys with finishing school.

                     They looked at me strangely . " What's that?" they asked...

                       " A place where young boys and girls dress up in suits and ties, dresses and ball gowns, and learn proper etiquette. What fork goes with what course of the meal being served, how to be proper and fancy; how to dance waltzes".

                       A perfectly even mixture of terror at the thought, and incredulousness, that people actually attend places like that, ensued at our dinner table. I received the "mom" eye, across the sarracha chicken, from my Wonderful Wife.

                  It became much more pronounced , as I informed my McMonkeys that they would have to attend a cotillion.

                  Stephen laughed and almost spit out his hot dog. I looked at him strangely, this time, as he told us that he couldn't help laughing. The word sounded funny.

                     Jacob, of course started laughing, too. 

              Soon, both corners of the table had red faced kids,feeding off each other's fit of unexplainable and explosive teary-eyed, hiccup filled, hilarity...

                 I mimicked a pirouette, telling them both that they would both be doing that, with girls.

                         Notched up a level further, they laughed like only nine and eleven year olds can, as my Wonderful Wife shook her head. " You don't have to encourage them" was all she said...

                                                         

                                        I don't even know for sure, what a " cotillion" is...

                    

                           Rewind about two hours, and you would find my lovely bride and I having a spirited financial discussion about whether a new bed for our eldest son is a luxury or a need.

                     I think a mattress that isn't shorter than he is yet, laying on the floor, sans box spring, bed frame or headboard, is o.k.

              She, being somewhat more fancy and refined than me, believes that a properly equipped bed is a requirement for our ever- growing McTeen.

                                 Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea who is correct. I slept on a futon for most of my pre-marital, adult life. That, or the old " coffin rack", in the Navy. The futon was usually still in the upright position, because of my propensity to laziness...

            I hated changing it from a bed, to a couch and back, again. It was much easier to leave like a couch.

                 Not more comfortable. I rolled out of that darned thing, onto my apartments wooden floor, more times than I care to count.

                                             It was much easier, though...

                           The day after we sold our dresser, and our clothes were folded in laundry baskets, awaiting our kids old dresser to be moved into our room, she aggravatingly said that she could not understand how anyone could live out of baskets.

                           I never recall purposely using a dresser, most of my adult life.

                  Two sea- bags I had, remnants from the old Navy days. One I used for a hamper, the other kept my clean clothes.

                       When all my clothes were dirty, I brought both stinky sea-bags to the laundromat, washing them both, and all their contents.

                            After drying everything,  I did a rough fold, stacked the now clean clothes into piles, and then placed them back in the bags. I wore everything from one bag, temporarily storing the dirty clothes in the corner, until the bag emptied and became a hamper, again.

                                             Repeat for a decade and a half...

                        We moved furniture around, when I came home from work, the day after selling the other dresser and set up our bigger, more drawered dresser against the wall.

                                                     I heard a sigh of relief...

                          Does my son need a bed with mattresses, box springs, headboard, footboard and frame?

                                                                   Probably.

                                           Am I in need of finishing school, myself?

                                                  

                                                     Do I need to go to a cotillion ?

                                            

                                            It might be easier to just buy the bed...

The more things change...

                                                             Been awhile...

                                                      It goes in spurts. 

               Sometimes things just build in my head and convince it to type all the crazy thoughts down, and then, some weeks, my brain just runs in a loop, around the well worn track that circles its inside.

                                  I let my first blog die an unnatural and lonesome death. This one has lasted longer.

                        Lately, most of what I want to write is something I've written about before. I feel cursed with repetitive thought and un originality...

                           Then I remember that I'm not an artist performing, just a dad and husband, trying to live a reasonably decent Christian life.

                        I know, my goal should be much bigger, grander than that; I should be writing about great strides made in my walk with Christ...

                                 But I guess I'm just not that kind of Christian.

           

                             We belong to an amazing, Bible based Church, led by men of knowledge, integrity and Grace. The leadership is always based on Scripture, always demonstrated thruout Gods Word, brought to us in context of the whole Book, not disconnected, non- contextual verses.

                              Painstakingly, they pour over the Bible...

                                                 Me, not so much...

                                I wish I were better at that. I wish I could trust my brain to not hijack my heart, with the knowledge it finds...

                       But I spent the majority of my life trying to get over or around; using my brain and all its faculties to "work around" all restrictions, resources and obstacles, to get whatever present pet "want" I was cherishing at that moment.

                         More often than not, given abundant information, nine times out of ten, the still, small voice inside of me is out shouted by rhetoric.

        Maybe that's why it was  the Tree of Knowledge, God forbade us from...

                It is sad, that my noggin is in such direct opposition to my heart.

                                            The heart almost always loses...

                 But an Amazingly Intelligent God, who knows every hair that used to be on my head, knows that for some, knowledge is power. Powerful enough to temp them into thinking that smart is better than kindness and intelligence is greater than humility.

                                  I cannot be smart and humble, at the same time...

                 Our Church leaders can. My Wonderful Wife can. Sometimes, even my McMonkeys can...

                        But not me. That is just not going to happen. Ask anyone...

                                             I'm sort of Cliff Claven-esque...

                                  So God in His Wisdom, seems to have given up on my brain.

                                                           Smart God...

                                           My heart has always been a problem for me. Most of the time it seems to match the Grinches, in an odd/not bad kind of way...

                                          A little too small...

                              Not mean or malicious; not cold or calloused. 

                                          Just a little small, is all...

                                   It's true. I took about a million question personality test, searching out areas  where God has gifted me and in the section on service, I nearly got a goose egg. I scored just enough points to prove I have a pulse.

                             It's funny. When I feel touched, or see a need, sometimes it only seems natural to offer help, a prayer, a meal.

                But that is a rarity, in the scope of things. Generally, my personality leans a very hard opposite, and I don't know why...

                   Maybe because as a child, my parents always thought there was subterfuge when I offered help. Of course, a lot of time, there was...

                                                    But not always.

      And I think that sometimes, some of the deepest hurts can come when those we love can't comprehend an offer of service, without condition...

                            When they won't accept it, without compensating...

                                  And in this line of reasoning, I have personally excelled.

                                        I guess that would be defined as an absence of Grace. Not an absence of Gods Grace, but the type of Grace that accepts what is offered gratefully and unconditionally, in love.

               I suppose the opposite of Grace is the feeling of debt, when accepting offered service, in love....

                                                          That's me.

               Not that I'm ungrateful. Quite the opposite. Usually , I'm greatly touched and kind of overwhelmed, when someone thinks or does something, out of kindness, I'm just incompetent in reaction...

                                I try to appear Graceful, but I truly suck at that. You can literally see the specter of debt cover me, as I bumble out appreciations...

                            So I think I understand why God chooses to focus on my heart.

                                        That's where the need is....

                         My grasp on His Words, really isn't that bad. I'm exposed fairly often to them.

                               Not a scholar, by any means, but I do get the general gist.

                                 I'm thinking the concepts were meant for the lost and suffering, not rocket scientists, so much...

                              Truth be told, I would much rather work scholastically than emotionally, any day of the week. I do philosophical pretty well...

                             Relationships, emotional intimacy, dealing with people...

                                 I would choose a pass, given the choice.

                         Probably why my votes not counted, when included in my prayers...