Realities lost...

                                   I went and saw " Ant-Man" yesterday.

                                                      I love movies. 

                           Excited, I get, when I I remember them, finding myself reciting 

Iines long since forgotten, by those who have watched them with me, in the past...

                I cannot remember the word " screwdriver" or " doorknob " to save my life, but I can describe the tone of voice and gently rising volume of Rex Harrison's monologue to "Lucia" ( Gene Tieney) in " The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".

                                  When I was about ten years old, I'd found myself in the school psychologists office. Lots and lots of questions were asked by him, as he studied my class folders and large, folding, overstuffed organizer. They had every Marvel character possible on them, some were stickers, but the coolest being the organizer...

                              After about a thousand dog years of teachers complaints over my " disorganization", my mother decided it was time for drastic measures. Her last regaling was in minute detail, of my literally having to pull out a solid block of crunched papers, bent classbooks and assorted semester old snacks, from my desk and then needing to hand split the pile like dried elm, to search for a paper both the teacher and I knew, I never had even started...

                              Let's be kind, and say it was enough, for her.

                        Enough impetus to convince my wild eyed mother, who until that moment, would never fathom the possibility of powerlessness, that maybe, just maybe, everything everyone knew and had tried so far, wasn't going to work... 

                  Maybe, just maybe, spending $22.00 on an officially licensed Marvel three way binder, might be enough to spur some extremely latent organizational gene in me to finally sprout,  and get those anal-retentive educators off her back...

                            WW2 erupted at home, when my father saw the price tag. It was a doozy of a battle, but in the end, both my parents went to their respective corners exhausted and angry...

                                             I did get that cool binder, though...

                                The sad part was that within weeks, my even wilder eyed mother was hearing diatribes from the same teachers, about more, but thinner blocks of compressed and crunched papers, being pulled from between the now triangle shaped covers...

                    When the psychologist realized how much I knew about the comic book universe, he became concerned. I couldn't recite times tables, but could tell him the secret identity and super powers, origins and associated villains of every superhero created...

                     Clueless about any actual historic event, I could describe frame by frame, the smallest altercations between any hero and arch nemesis ...

                          He was genuinely concerned about my grasp of reality. I knew that it was all imaginary, but I also knew that I had a college educated, hundred and forty pound, psychobabble spouting, gender questionable hippie on my line.

                                         And catch and release was not in vogue, then...

                                                 Not by me, anyway...

                               I remember a lot of meetings, a lot of counseling.

                       I remember being bored and amused at the attention. They really thought I couldn't separate reality from fantasy. They couldn't comprehend that maybe a kid like me, in a house like mine, might want or even need something " out there" to divert his attention and distract his mind...

                              I came home one day to find all of my comics, all of my action figures, models and magazines incinerated in our wood furnace, in the cellar.

                                        I guess I was a better actor than I thought...

                                 It wasn't long until I found other escapes.

              

                      To my Wonderful Wifes chagrin, you will find most days, in either bathroom, comic books filling magazine racks, or piled on the sink...

                 Not usually left on the sink. I try to remember to bring them out of the downstairs bathroom, mostly because there is no handy magazine rack, in that one, and said Wonderful Wife doesn't appreciate the hero decor as much as the rest of us...

                                  I watch every superhero movie, the first week it comes out. 80% of the time, I go alone...

                                       It took MaryAnne quite a while to "get" how important this was to me. 

                     Probably ( most certainly) because I never took the time to explain it. Truthfully, I don't think I knew, myself how important it really was....

                  We don't fight often, but a couple fairly loud disagreements have been had over me stopping mid project, at home and heading out to see " Spider-Man" or " The Avengers", with no real explanation.

                                                     I didn't know how to explain it...

                       Most people watch these shows and smile at the affects, enjoying happy remembrances of childhoods memories, long since past..

                                I watch them and see characters and stories that allowed me to keep some semblance of comfort; some tad bit of sanity, in a world where I was kind of terrified and emotionally fractured.

                                             Maybe it did get me out of reality. 

                                            Maybe, just maybe, I needed it to...

                       I walk into a theatre today and my body, my soul, and what's left of the little McMonkey inside, all sit back and smile.

                   For 120 minutes or so, I am home. Not the home of my birth or upbringing. 

                   I am home in that place of wonder and miracle; where good guys win and every battle fought was worthwhile.

                        There was both victory and defeat, but the outcome mattered.

                                The conflicts solved problems and made the world a better place. People did not destroy each other for no reason....

                                            That is the home I'm talking about. 

                                  That house may have been burnt down, inside a wood furnace, in our cellar,long ago...

                                                      but the home...

                                               The home is still there...

                                                  In a theatre near you...

A few inches of skin...

                                I think it's a fair ascertation that I haven't lived an overly sheltered life.

                        Last night I saw I video that shocked me, and left me speechless.

                                                         Not much does that...

                                              I have drank and drugged with murderers and rapists. I had partied with people who beat their children. There are many things I never did, but there are a thousand things I knew about and didn't stop...

                                         A ledger, filled with sins of omission and commission...

                                                        I'm not that guy, today.

                                         I share that, not as a confession or testimony. 

                                   I was Graced and changed into something, someone, that is a completely different creature than I had been, long ago. Where I sank is a million miles away from where I stand today, so what possible reason would there be to bring this up ?

                                                   To say that I know sin...

                                  To say that I know guilt and desperation...

                                          To say that I know sinners. 

              I know their hearts and their minds and their processes of thought. I know that they love and that they hate and admittedly or not, live in a state of utter hopelessness and desperation...

                              Not the " Five "Hail Mary's"  and ten " Our Fathers" kinds of people...

                                                 ( Catholics will get that)....

                                    Sin is sin, and separation from God, is separation from God...

                                           But there are people who cannot understand, cannot fathom the mindset and seeming absence of soul, exhibited by some. They may love, serve and forgive these transgressors but never will they be able to fully relate to them.

                                                               But I get them...

                                     I understand the women who get abortions and the men that sometimes push them into that. I understand a heart that sees birthing a child into the dangerous, deviant and hellish world that they intimately know, can make it seem like a greater damnation than not being born...

                                 I don't share that viewpoint today. Quite the opposite perspective, actually...

                             My heart breaks and with every part of my soul, I know what they are doing is wrong and against God. I weep for both the sin and the child lost...                         

                                              But I do understand it.

                            I have managed to leave it between them and God, and I find I can genuinely love them, with no anger in my heart...

                                           Some say that makes me a bad Christian.

                                          Not condoning, not condemning, not judging...

                                           

                                                       But this thing, I cannot get...

                               Creating a business model to profit from aborted parts.

                     Drinking wine and eating lunch,while glibly explaining how they reposition a viable fetus, to more easily harvest certain parts...

                                                         I can't fathom that...

                                 That one, put me at a loss for words for a very long time...

                                            Not an easy feat to accomplish...

                                          I am against abortion. I hate that sin.

                                                But I understand the sinner...

                                     Recently though, a lot has been burdening my heart about this whole damn issue. I remember the people holding signs with pictures of aborted fetuses in front of Planned Parenthood, and hearing good Christians saying we don't want to be " that" kind of Christian...

                                Today, I'm not getting that sentiment, either...

                                    If my one day- old, my one hour- old child was in an office having his brains scrambled without benefit of anesthesia  and was being dissected, to have his organs sold to the highest bidder, you can bet your bumpkins I would not be typing a blog, now..

                       I might be pounding on bars of a jail cell or shot dead by the police, but there is no way possible that any other outcome would be happening...

                             And I know of no one on this earth who could blame me.

                                What a difference a few millimeters of skin can make. 

                     This is exactly what these doctors are doing to our children, except they leave the babies head far enough inside the mother to claim that the baby isn't born, yet.

                                   And yes, our children. We are answerable for them.

                                                           We really are....

                                     If someone ran into a Church, any Church, on a Sunday morning, telling the congregation this exact procedure was happening to a one hour -old child, just down the street, I'm betting few of the men would remain seated and uninvolved. If we knew it was happening to one of our children, no one I know would step back and say it wasn't any of their business...

                I guess we must be buying that " few flaps of the mothers skin" excuse also, because that IS exactly what is happening, just down the street, except the babies head is conveniently still covered... By his mothers skin.

                        And we're doing nothing... Don't want to be getting " extreme", here...

                                        " How would that make Christians LOOK?!?

                                          The point is, we KNOW this is happening...

                         Guess this is where the term "Courage of our convictions" comes into play.

                                          But first, I think we have to have convictions. 

                                            If we do, God will supply the courage...

                 I am the first to say both my courage and convictions are lacking; are totally absent, really...

                           Ashamedly, I do not want to pay the price and accept the penalty and stigma of being " that kind of Christian". 

                  Not that I think they are wrong, because I am certain that they are not...

                     Jesus and his Apostles endured beatings, persecutions and prisons to preach The Gospel.

                              I'm thinking they would not be sitting quietly in this situation, today.

                     I'm thinking that Jesus Himself, just might be saying that infants ARE Gods children and NOT Ceasears private organ shop. The One Who tipped over tables in the Temple does not seem like the type that would shout " Amen", when the Preacher spoke Verses against abortion, then leave that sentiment on the Churches chair, when He left...

                                              Which Christian would HE be?

                                                Passive? Afraid of the law?

                     Not wanting to be bothered and unwilling to make a personal sacrifice?

                                                              Nope.

                                         But that's the kind of Christian I am...

                           Maybe the ones carrying the pictures and signs of graphic partial aborted fetuses do give the wrong impression of what a " Good" Christian should be...

                                                            I don't know..

                               But when that last day does come, and it will; and we ALL are standing at the foot of Jesus, answering for our actions, inactions; sins and sins of omission, I am thinking I would much rather be standing with them, than where I will be standing...

                 How will I look Him in the eye, knowing what I know, what we all know, is happening just down the street?

                              Do you think He will buy the excuse of a few inches of skin?

                                                        I'm thinking not...

                            

There all nuts...

                                                        Families are crazy...

                                    Not just mine. All of them, every single one...

                                         No other constant is so perfectly repetatoy, than the biological insanities intertwined amongst moms and dads, siblings and anyone else sharing DNA from Adam on down.

                                                     This is not a family secret.

                                          I think somewhere it must be mandated...

                                                  God asked for one good man and found Lot. Even He didn't search for one sane family. In His unending and limitless Wisdom, I think He must have acknowledged the sheer impossibility of that...

                                         I'd thought of praying for it once or twice, but kind of felt like I was either tempting or taunting Him, with that request...

                     I grew up in a family of secrets. Don't act surprised; you probably did, too.

                                   Some bad, some strange and some just completely absurd...

                                          I keep thinking my family will get...saner.

                                  There goes my own personal crazies, thinking that...

                                           I am tired of the " don't tell this one THAT" thing, or " if you tell those people, all they'll do is gossip"..

                                    Sherlock Holmes could not find out one of my relations travel plans if Dr. Watsons head were to be encased in a rat filled cage...

                              You probably think I'm kidding on that. Believe you me, that one is true...

                                 I'll probably be disowned for printing that out loud...

                                             

                                    Did you ever want to grab someone by the shirt, and explain to them that the cost of stupid family politics and need for control, just aren't worth it, anymore?

              Eggshells are meant to be thrown away, not scattered for those you love, to walk upon...

                                 Relationships can't be built on eggshells. They crack, creating a self fulfilling prophesy of disappointment and frustration...

                              It seems I've spent the lions share of my life being either the cause or the effect of both of these emotions.

                              You want to scream " It's not my circus, not my monkey", but you realize the cost.

                    To love them, you must adopt the circus and cradle the monkey.

                                                       Those are the conditions...

                                                 I will pay that toll, I guess.

                       I will bitch and moan, complain and posture, but I will pay that toll. 

                                             Not for me. Well, maybe for me, a little.

                                                  But mostly for my McMonkeys...

                                       Sometimes I try to be the sane one. Big laugh, there...

                         Try not to rock the boat or rattle the cage; accept the dysfunctionality and laugh off the idiocintric insanities.

                                        And sometimes, my head just hurts...

                                                Sometimes my heart just aches, and I silently wish we all could just drop the theatrics and stupidities, in a life that really is difficult enough, without them...

                                                        One more silly prayer.

                     The craziest thing about this whole diatribe is that my family of origin is probably saner now than it's ever been. Instead of venting and complaining, I should be on my knees, thanking an Amazing God for Gracing us all, with the limited sanity He's chosen to give us.

                                                   Why not more sanity?

                                               Get in line for that question.

                                  I'm picturing Saint Peter, at the gate. By about the fourth person, he'll be able to tell, by the look in their eye. I can see him, shaking his head, looking thru The Book of Life as he gently explains that those questions aren't his to answer. Quietly, endlessly repeating, " it's not my area"...

                                       Not Biblically sound. Nowhere near factual...

                          But I still picture it. Maybe it's just a little mental joke, to help me keep what's left of my dwindling sanity.

                                   I love my family, all of them, communally and separately. I understand their qualms and character traits. Really, I do...

                     I would not trade them in for a saner version, even if there was one.

                                      So I do not pray for the impossible.

                           I pray that my own insanity does not damage any of us. That my own personal qualms and crazies can be muted , at least a little, and that maybe my heart can show His Love and Patience, more than my own emotional fallibility.

                                     Please help me remember that i am a dues paying member in this circus ridiculous. Please Grace me with patience enough not to break these gentle threads, and let me sometime in this eternity, see the beauty You have Created, in this family tapestry...

Everyone loves Jello...

                                            Kind of a strange title for the contents...

                    I grew up watching Bill Cosby in " Fat Albert". I was too young to be thinking about racism or stereotypes; all I knew when I watched that show, was that it was funny and had really cool music.

    As I grew older " The Cosby Show" became a standby, just like "Cheers" or "Taxi".

                                         I liked Bill Cosby. He was genuine, displaying the same personality and sense of humor, from Saturday cartoons, Jello commercials and Monday night family sit-coms.

                      I loved his stand up routines. No one else seemed to be able to perform a two hour stand up comedy special, without bad language or blatant, overly sexualized humor, and still be hilarious, except for him...

                            The only black comedian at the time, who never used the " N" word...

                   Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Eddie Murphy, George Carlin and Richard Pryor. They made me laugh so hard, I think sometimes I peed myself. 

                                          But they often leaned on shock, vulgarity and disrespect to get their laughs; Cosby relied on intelligence, true wit and humor, not needing censoring...

                     Any show he did or was in, you knew your kids could watch.

                            And you knew they would laugh just as hard as you would. I know this because my McMonkeys watch " The Cosby Show" reruns, and laugh...

                                If it sounds like I idolized this man, I would have to agree with you.

                                                                   I did...

                                     Today, I look at how we demonize or defend celebrities, depending sadly, on how much we " like" them, and how they have made us feel...

                                   Over twenty five women had come out accusing Bill Cosby of drugging and raping them. Professional, successful women...

                            That shouldn't matter, in this day and age. In any day and age, it shouldn't...

                                                    But, of course, it does...

                              Point being, enough women too fill two juries, in a court of law, and enough too more than occupy an entire Grand Jury, came forth with charges that were brushed aside or ignored by our Judicial system. Most of them, due to statute of limitations and public dis-belief.

                         I didn't start giving any of this situation credence, until well over the first dozen complaints surfaced...

                                                          Shame on me...

                                                       And shame on him.

                  Sadly, it has taken affidavits of his own confession, to finally sway public opinion...

                                          But this really is not about " The Coz".

                            What I think this one is about, maybe, is just how easily our perceptions are decided by emotion and not fact. Our entire perspective on the severity, or even possibility of guilt, is often based simply on how good someone has made us feel, in the past..

                                Magic Johnson was heralded a hero when he anounced he was HIV positive. Nobody questioned that he had unprotected sex with thousands of women, infecting many of them. No one said anything about the irresponsibility of the lifestyle that caused his and others disease...

                                  In some states, what he did, was criminal...

                               Except everyone liked Magic. So he became a hero...

                      At almost the exact same moment in time, Paul Ruebens ( Pee Wee Herman) was caught " abusing himself" ( throwback to George Carlins " confessions" routine) in an adult theatre.

                                       Labeled a pervert, his career ended.

                                         He was an odd duck, kind of freaky.

              I'm not defending him, but he certainly wasn't infecting unsuspecting women with a terminal disease...

                                               Magic, a hero. Pee Wee, a fiend.

                                    Bill Clinton became President and survived countless sexual scandals, while Gary Hart was destroyed by one single affair.

                                      Bill Clinton has a charisma that nullifies almost all negativity that went, or goes  his way.

                  No one ever really believed Bill was innocent of the scandals, even his supporters. He had  charm and humor, and most importantly, was" like-able".

                                      I wouldn't mind having dinner with him myself, drinking iced tea and joking around, and I'm a conservative...

                                         Our nature, regarding each other, is kind of twisted.

                             Business success is proven to be dependent much more on people skills, likability,  than competence...

                                      If our judgements are this skewed with celebrities, how badly deformed are they regarding regular people, who's first impression we don't like?

                               Regarding those much different, socially, economically and racially?

                                     If we can ignore abundances of facts, to the degrees that we have done, to allow us to protect our own misconceptions so easily, what else are we capable of distorting?

                                              Is " unbiased" an impossibility?

                                        Me, I'm not so confident on that answer...

                                        

                                      

It takes all kinds...

"                                    Ruminating a lot about our differences lately...

               It's taken a long time, in recent months, of watching and reading; studying and really listening...

              I see people I love, people I respect, divided over disagreements about beliefs that should be holding them together, and I wonder what is the purpose in this...

                                                 There's always a purpose...

                                                                  right?

                                   I look back at my upbringing, in Church. 

                                       People were different, back then, too.

                               Some parishioners looked upon me with skepticism and mistrust. Being the kind of kid I was, and the reputation I'd managed to earn, I don't think there is anyone who could blame them.

There were parents who forbade their kids from hanging out with me. That wasn't just in Church...

                                         But then, there were the other ones...

             The ones who accepted me with all my flaws and irreprobate foibles. My behavior was not something that " slipped by" them, but was seen more as the symptom...

               The symptom of my humanness and symptom of my need for God...

                                        I deserved separation and segregation.

                               But they loved me anyway. Taken " as I was", not just in words, but in the truest example of Christ...

                               I'm not saying that those who didn't welcome me like this were "worse" Christians, because in my ruminations ( I love that word!) I have come to see that the love they had for Christ was just as authentic as those who welcomed me, it just was directed a little differently...

                                   

                                            Some choose to fail on the side of Judgement, and some choose to fail on the side of Grace...

                                            It has taken a very long time for me to understand this.

                       I didn't get it for the longest time. I took everything so personal. After an emotional eternity, realization did eventually sink in, though...

                                  It is necessary to have people who uphold the Laws of God and stress the importance of them, just as it is necessary to have people who acknowledge Laws broken, yet also recognize the Grace, the " unearned favor" Jesus gave us, and give it out, not dependent on the recipients goodness, but their indisputable, spiritual need...

                                     In spite of broken laws and willful disobedience.

                              God is both Judgement and Grace, in perfect balance.

                        None of us will ever attain that balance. At best, we will find ourselves leaning one direction or the other, in those times that we feel the need to choose...

                                         I think God created us that way,on purpose.

                I remember hearing the testimony of one in my Church, Saved at a young age. His sibling told him that he was going to Hell and when he'd asked an elder Christian if she was right, he told him yes, if he didn't repent. I remember how he conveyed that fear of a child, the fear of Hell...

                When I was Saved, I was told I would be standing alone, in front of God, to answer for my life. That certainly got my attention and caused great discomfort.

                     But that was not " the hook" that got me. I'd become used to separation from God, and rightly figured where I would probably end up.  What " popped the top" on this deal, for me, was not the fear of Hell, but the promise of an impossible hope.

                           Both are great reasons to accept Salvation, none better, and neither earned.

                                     God sets the hook exactly how we need it to be set; He meets us at the perfect place, at the perfect time, with the perfect motivation, for who we really are...

                             In this mix that most of us sometimes feel frustrated by, He makes a strange system of spiritual checks and balances, some leaning toward Judgement and obedience, while others sway toward Grace and Hope...

                                      Grace and Judgement can no more be separated than they can nullify each other. Separate faces of the same Amazing God...

                               I still may seem near heretical to some, and some may appear almost legalistic to me; it really doesn't matter.

                                      We are as we are meant to be, at this moment.

                                                       Works in progress...

                                                 All incapable of Gods balance.

                                                    Rumination's, adjourned...