Open mouth...

            I signed up for a class at our Church with my Wonderful Wife on Biblical conflict resolution.

                                         Secretly, I didn't think I needed it...

                            The role I usually fit in, in our family is often a peacemaker... 

             Growing up in a " Chaoticaly disengaged" family i learned that once something escalates past a certain point, there was no pulling it back. If a situation was not de-escalated by then, all hell was guaranteed to break loose... There were about two minutes from the first word to the point of no return.

             I could never stop the escalations then because I did not have the words or the maturity; I could see it coming, but I was functionally powerless ..

                   As I grew older, I learned how to intercede before the critical mass occurred.

                        To see what the battle was really about, assess the needs of those involved and calm them down long enough to listen. If you could do that in minutes or sometimes seconds, there was a remote possibility to bypass the whole crazy circus...    

                                      Our house is almost nothing like that...

                                But we still are a family... We still argue and button push and sometimes, every single one of us could use a little bit of sane intervention...

                            I came home a few days ago and my Wonderful Wife was conspicuously absent.

   Usually, she meets me at our door when I walk thru , almost always ready with a quick hug and kiss and a how was your day...Those moments are our little intimate routine, a quick catch up of each others day, a time between my lunch box unpacking and dinner being cooked... Sometimes light and happy and other times, sharing stresses and frustrations that come with life and parenting..

                                        She stayed upstairs...

                         Slightly miffed, I found each of my boys and hugged them hello, as usual...

                             I sat down and listened as a mother and son began a quiet bickering, increasing linearly in volume... I was puzzled. My Wonderful Wife seemed irritable and aggravated..

                                            It was unlike her usual self...

            She was in full scale cleaning mode, driven and on a mission. My son excitedly wanted to show his mom something he waited years for, from school. She was lost in her housework...

                                          As my Wonderful Wife came downstairs and grudgingly acknowledged me, I pointed out that she kind of blew off our son...

                                           She curtly told me she was busy cleaning...

                        I explained what he wanted her to see was important to him and that he really wanted to share it with her..

                            I was told that the house would not clean itself and she gruffly apologized for being such a bad mother... 

                                This was not the woman I was used too...

                 I climbed upon my high horse and not so gently explained that her priorities were way off, then walked into our living room, in a self righteous huff...

                   I sat down, turned on my I pad and opened Facebook. In moments, a picture came up of my Wonderful Wife as a very young toddler, on her fathers knee...

                It was his birthday. He had passed away twelve years ago, before the birth of any of our children...

                     In one moment, all the inconsistencies colluded and made perfect sense...

                                      I had missed it completely. 

              Not only had i forgotten this date, but in my husbandly wisdom, made this extremely painful and inescapeable day that my Wonderful Wife was just trying to make it thru, without completely falling apart, that much worse...

                         In trying to resolve a conflict that did not even exist, I laid another needless weight on an already overburdened woman I adored..

                                       How do I make this better?!?!  

                                 Hell, how do I just not make this worse?!?

                          As I stared at that picture on my I pad, I not only saw the obvious loss and pain tied into this day, I saw the many others, most might miss...

                       I saw a knee my children would never get to sit on. I knew my Wonderful Wife probably saw this too... A lump rose in my throat as I realized that she was feeling something I could not remove or soften, something that was hers, alone...

             My son came downstairs and I pulled him aside. I explained that it was a rough day for his mom and I explained why.. I asked him to give her a little Grace.

           This son of mine, who will argue over almost any word, when spoken heart to heart, dissolves in gentleness....

                 I wonder if I should let it go, and like Hippocrates, just do no more harm...

                       After pondering for a few moments, I walk into the kitchen this lady I love is currently inhabitating. I nervously walk up behind her and gently tap her shoulder. When she turns around, I hug her and tell her I'm sorry for being such an idiot and that I saw her post on Facebook.

       She hugs me back and forgives me. This amazing lady, in the midst of a thousand unrelenting emotions, gently lays her head on my shoulder and gives me Grace, for being such an unrelenting and misunderstanding putz..

       Now you know one more of the reasons why I call her my Wonderful Wife...

Their are those who's are punctually challenged...

                         I realized the other day, that It must be close to a year since I started this blog. I remember worrying that like the last one, this one would probably die a lonely and solitary death, attributed exclusively to its owners lack of posts and attention...

           So I looked back and found that tomorrow will be a year from my first post. Perplexed by its survival, I found about fifty six separate posts...

                     As I re read things written, the urge to correct spelling and punctuation errors attached itself to me. From one post to another,  I compared lengths of run on sentences and realized that probably, somewhere there is an extremely winded asthmatic, who would not stop for breath until a period finally came...

                  The urge to neaten up and purge some of the things I didn't like surfaced.

              I thought about it semi seriously, for nearly three seconds, then reminded myself that this has never been that kind of a blog...

                   I was asked by a very trusted friend how I would feel if after I posted something, I found out it was wrong. How would I deal with the humiliation...

          I scratched my head, pondering the question. I explained as best I could, that what I share is generally not about any spiritual competence...

                        I am much more experienced in failings and struggles than evangelical victories.

I've read about those, but the personal experience still eludes me. I suppose that it might be different if I were a better Christian, but sadly, I am not. For me, this is a daily battle. I question, stumble and fall more often than I ever succeed..

                          I hope that comes through, above all else...

                               I wish I were one of those who surrender once and done.

                                                  I'm not. 

                    Most lessons for me, are repetitive and gather momentum, the longer they last.  I pray that progress is hidden somewhere in this menagerie of my spiritual journeys and bumblings, and that maybe back thru this year, a glimpse or two of them have briefly, if inperceptably surfaced.

                                                So this will never be for anyone searching for the best or most direct route to...anywhere...

                                     It realy is just ramblings of a Christian family man...

                                           What I have learned in this journey is there are far fewer" Once and done" Christians than I originally thought. They exist. They thrive and serve and have an amazing walk that can confuse me to a point of desperation, when I choose to sit and compare... I admire them and listen intently, when they speak. They humble me and no matter how hard I try, truly understanding them completely eludes me..

                                         When I hear my friends struggle with ego and perception, questioning not where they need to go or the philosophical mapped steps that can get them there, my ears piqué...

       As I hear them explain that they understand the words but still cannot locate their own feet, i find a kinship of spirit that words will never explain...

                             For me, the translation from " philosophical " to " functional" in dealing with God completely befuddles me... So I have taken a page from Captain James T. Kirk , and basically just dissolved the entire question...

                               Disintegrate politics and religion. 

                                           No more philosophy.

                                 Simplify it to the basest and truest prime function.

                                         " Would Jesus buy it"?

                                              That is the best I can do. 

                      No deep studies on Greek translation have ever simplified life's real questions about right and wrong. 

                                              The words in red always have...

                             So I am overly simplistic and Biblicaly unrefined. 

                                            I do read. I do listen.

          My heart is open to however God chooses to enter... My Pastors sermons continually haunt me as nagging convictions magicly escape the boxes I try to trap them in...

       Eventually, they wear me out and this long hardened heart softens a tad bit...

                   The fights have become shorter, at times and maybe when the planets line up correctly, God chooses to Grace me with an epiphany I do not feel the need to attempt to outrun...

                 I suppose the spiritual funks have decreased a bit, both in frequency and intensity.

                           God seems to have Graced the man who struggled ineptidly in his search for Him.

                                 Who searched for a God who was never lost...

                                       It has helped me more than most will know, writing these words.

                                  I would never have kept writing if no one was reading them...

                                      I am thankful for those who read the words that probably appear as organized as a Rubix cube. Any growth I have been blessed with in the struggles this past year are because your reading kept me writing and facing questions and situations I would have much rather hidden from.

                    Thank you will never be enough...

                         But thank you...

         

                  

Child's play...

                It was about six years ago, after a dinner with our friends. My neighbor and I sat across our dining room table, each with a child on our lap, and a chess board set up before them.

     His son was five and mine, six. Both boys had watched their dads play this game with their older siblings and both had learned the moves and names of the pieces. They decided to play each other, and we two dads interestingly, watched...

                     For about two hours we watched as they both left the queens exposed and kings unprotected, with equally absent strategy...

                 We dads looked on, wincing and fidgeting with each senseless move...

                 Neither of us interfered. The feelings we shared were those of great pride in our children attempting a game that they had absolutely no real concept of and the intense agony of seeing both of our sons miss incredibly simple moves that eluded them and committing defensive suicides, turn after turn after turn... 

         I looked across, somewhere in this little eternity and asked him simply " Do you think this is how God feels, watching us"?

                    We both laughed long and hard , and for one tiny moment, felt a different kind of kinship with our Creator...

                           How many days in this short little lifetime, have been filled by me, with the same well intentioned attempts and futile, child like incompetences?

                                                      Most of them...

                                           Strangely, I doubt I'm alone in this...

                     Life is just too big to get nearly right. For every move well played, in a sportsmanlike fashion, I find ten others where I dropped a ball I had no clue I was even carrying..

                                  I'm not sharing this as a confession of imperfection. Quite the contrary...

                           I'm sharing this for every one of us who at one moment or another, stared into a non existent mirror and perplexedly asked ourselves , just what exactly have we gotten ourselves into?!?

                 Not in a bad way, not in the end of the month, end of the year or end of the night panic state all parents are familiar with, but the one where you keenly perceive all the amazing blessings and abundances entrusted to you and wonder for a moment, what God is thinking, putting that giant chess board before you...

                           Not overwhelmed or even concerned. Just curious...

                                Our incompetences are not the problem. 

                    No more than they were for the two children who laughed and played ....

                                 The important things, they knew...

                         That their dads loved them and kept them safe, on his lap.

                          That nothing was too big. Not the mistakes or the successes...

                            And that how they treated each other was the only real measure, when all else passed..

                                So I sit on Gods lap, for the most part oblivious...

                                 It is harder to remember, as I age, that the mistakes and failures are not as big as I would like to believe, and not nearly as important.

                                  I do my best to walk in Faith and play fairly and kindly.

                             I trust that I don't need to know everything, if I trust my soul to the One who does.

                                 ...and that two children happily inept, can teach much..

                       

My moms best lesson...

 Sometimes I wonder if God works differently than we usually think .

                         As people, what often defines our love for one another are not the things that we agree with, but the characteristics that frustrate us, the ones we love each other for anyway...

                         After lifetimes with loved ones, we learn to accept these things as well as their most noble qualities in who they are. We learn to love them not in spite of their humanness, but as much, because of it... 

                          To me, this ability, this natural inclination we all have to love the imperfections that define each other, because without them, we all would be someone else... Is greater than us alone...

       It seems grander than human nature, perhaps a quality that could only come from ...

                                                             ...  God?

             I think about the Prodigal Son and the love of his father. The heartbroken dad who stood on a hill and rejoiced from the first sight of his waywards sons return and never stopped. He was well aware of the sin his son carried and had a living contrast, still in his home, in his eldest, obedient son, to compare... but the love for his less perfect child, never wavered or waned...

    It was a different love than he had for his eldest, it was larger in scope, complete in wholeness of vision. Sometimes, we love those more, that we forgive more... We find a tendency not our own, but gifted from our loving Creator. We love not the sin, but the entire sinner..

         I remember how God loved us all enough to send His only Son, Whom He was well pleased, to die for the unrepentant and undeserved. He did not die for us in spite of our sins, but because of them...

                            It's funny how in our younger years, the frustration of differences between family members is nearly overpowering. 

                               My middle son cannot wait to get away from his younger brother. Any amount of time separating the two, is seen by him, as a blessed reprieve...

                         I had two older brothers who saw me the exact same way. My Wonderful Wife had three older sisters that were like minded. I hear this eternally repeated tale from almost every family member and friend or perfect stranger that I have ever talked to.. It could almost be considered universal.

          After nearly fifty years my brothers and i have found that somehow those differences eventually disappeaed or just became kind of comically acceptable.

                   There have been moments in reminiscing that we spoke of those times with a strange affection...

            Time is an amazingly precious thing.  Not just for the opportunities it gives us, but for the way it changes the unpleasant realities we knew in the past into strangely sanitized and happily  remembered, cartoon-ish pages of Sunday comic memories..

                 How it pulls us together in a love, developed thru years of gentle dilution of angers past..

                           How the people we could not picture spending another minute together with then, become those whose presence now, we cherish and incomprehensibly, crave...

                      If we are lucky, we have those moments as the old garbage passes and we find the hidden and forgotten treasures that were buried beneath...

                I remember in my early twenties, lamenting about some of the bad times that happened in our house, growing up. We were at my moms trailer and my parents divorce was still stinging everyone. It was that stage of blame and regret on all sides, trying to make sense out of a season of pain everyone still felt trapped in. Finally, my mom had enough. Enough of the guilt, enough of the shame, enough of all of us, herself included, seeing the last twenty years as an epic failure.

 " If you take away all the bad" she screamed, " What do you have left" !?!?

                     

                           " If you take away all the bad, what do you have left"?

                                I think that is exactly what time does for us, if we let it...

                                  

  So, in looking back thru the mirror that can make the pain appear smaller than it actually was, don't fight it by insisting on perfect accuracy... Accept it's gift...

                            I love my mom with all my heart. In posts past, I shared that much of my hardness and strength came from her teachings. I forgot to mention the most precious of all the lessons she gave me, one day, in some of her worst emotional pain...

                       " If you take away all of the bad, what do you have left"?

                                   Today, I share this with you...

A special morning prayer...

  My Wonderful Wife was puking when the plane crashed into the first tower. We were on a boat, whale watching, and I had brought her to the front of the ship. I didn't understand motion sickness very well, at the time...

                All I could think about, as we boarded, was the fact that I would finally be standing on the bow of a boat, on the North Atlantic ocean, in the early fall, once again. I pictured the dark blue swells and the keel of the bow slamming into them; I could hear in my minds ear, the sounds and the slight gurgle of froth, combined with the swells and progressively bigger waves, breaking... I smelled the harbor and tasted the salt in the air as we ascended the aluminum gang- plank.

                                 This to me, was heaven on earth. I could not comprehend that it was possible for anyone to feel any other way about it.

                             It was not heaven for my poor, wretching, Wonderful Wife, less than an hour later.

               I was confused, as my heart wrenched for the agony my new Lovely Bride was in. Guilt began to slowly set in, like a dismal fog and the anticipated joy of standing in my souls born true station ebbed rhythmically away.

                             What began as a long awaited adventure for me became a consuming and helpless empathy for my true love. All concern for the journey was replaced by the need to comfort her.

                                           It was not about me, anymore...

                       Minutes later, below deck we heard the news about the first tower...

                              No one believed it, at first. It had to be a mistake. Unfortunately, the news would get much worse...

                                       That was where we were on September 11th, 2001.

                             The tragedy eclipsed everything else in our Nation. Many lessons came from those horrendouse weeks and months, but the most important had nothing to do with politics, policy or our eventual military reactions. It had nothing to do with the wars that followed, or the haunting need we all felt for protecting our grieving country.

                                      This was a lesson of our universal and inescapable fragility.

                       It woke up a world to a fact that had somehow had been lulled by a pleasant denial.

                                There is no " safety", like we had in games like hide and seek, as children.

                                  Everyone saw the destruction and death that was never even an imagined possibility, and part of them, part of us, all realized that it could be us..

                                            Or our family. For many, it was....

                                      I share often about the notes I leave my family, usually minutes or seconds before I walk out our kitchen door. It may not be a jet falling from the sky or a mentally ill sociopath with an arsenal that happens to find me. It might be residuals from a two pound cheeseburger, letting loose in my arteries, or my hand mistakenly hitting a 480 volt cable, feeding a machine.

                              How often have we all had our entire world change in one second that we never saw coming?  No warning, no do over... No second chance...

                             What I take from this day is the reality of mortality.

                                            This is not a dress rehearsal...

                      I sat quietly for a moment this morning and said a prayer for all those whose lives were cut short and the family and friends left behind them. I thanked God for the first responders that risked their lives and those who made the ultimate sacrifice. No greater love than giving your life for your brother..or a stranger... My heart breaks for those suffering thirteen years after, from health affects caused by their service at ground zero, at that time.

                                  It is easy to walk away with anger and hate for those who perpetrated this. In many cases, I think it is nearly impossible not too...

                       But I hope in the baggage that comes with this day, that we can pull something out that may add a tiny bit to our lives...

                           Maybe, like we did on that day thirteen years ago, we can grab our children and spouses, as they walk thru the door, safe. Hug them tightly, in remembrance, in gratitude.

              Knowing there are no guarantees and that each moment we are graced with, would feel like an eternity, without..

                           

Gotta serve somebody...

                                             I suppose you have to give serious appreciation to how good of a Pastoring staff your Church has, when you find yourself ruminating about their sermons, many months after they were given...

              I always wanted to be the kind of guy who could walk into his Church, listen to the message and instantly get it. Absorbed like a sponge and retained like a coupon for a free 2 pound cheeseburger...

                            But I am not that guy. I go in to listen to Gods Word with a touch of sceptisism, a sort of " I'm from Missouri", the show-me state mentality.

                               Don't get me wrong; All these guys are spot on in their preaching. Never have any of them been off Scripture in message. In fact, the Chapter and Verse they are teaching on is always posted on the giant screen above them. On the rare occasion that they add their own opinion or personal interpretation, it is stated clearly that it is their own view, not Gospel itself. These dudes do not mess around....

                                          The sceptisism comes from past experiences of the religious nature. I had learned long ago to compare what is said to what The Book says, always insuring it isn't twisted or taken out of context, for personal ideology.

                           My guys have never been off, that I have found. They certainly have earned my trust.

        I personally think its good practice to mentally check what I hear, still, from whatever the source.

                That's just the kind of guy I am...

                                                             Back to the rumination...

                        Awhile ago, we were instructed on how The Bible showed the type of citizen God wanted us to be. The fact that we don't like or agree with the present authority of government at the particular time, was irrelevant. As long as the earthly authority did not conflict with Gods laws, we were commanded to obey as a good servant...

                                           I listened, and as our Pastor predicted right before speaking on this,

my spirit began fighting the whole concept. To be fair, he prefaced this Sermon by sharing with us that this is not a touchy feely, uplifting message and certainly not one that he liked to give. This was a challenging issue, especially in our American culture.

                     I think that was a slight understatement. By slight, I mean giant...

                                When I joined the Navy, I signed a paper promising to defend and protect The Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I take seriously the Bill of Rights, God given rights, as the founding fathers stated.

                         But lately, this little voice in my soul asks me a very simple question.

                                                    "Would Jesus buy this?"

                                            That is a very hard question, if you happen to be harboring well intentioned but Biblicaly innacurate, established core beliefs...

                                                 As it turns out, that I do...

                                                 As it turns out I was...

                                     I wished again that I were one of those who got it and went on their merry way. I really, really wish I was the type who could do that...

                                       But that's just not the kind of guy I am.

                                             So I began comparing those " God given" rights, guaranteed by this Constitution I adore...

                        Freedom of speech?  In all my searching, I could not find that in The Bible. That we would be persecuted for our speech, now that was in there...

                         Freedom to assemble? Maybe to mandatorily assemble to conduct a census and pay taxes..

     Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? I think you know better than that by now.

We will be put to death for our beliefs, and the only liberty guaranteed us is in the blood of Christ, if we choose to accept His gift. Happiness? Reading about Job answered that one...

    No where did I find reference to freedom of the press, freedom of religion without persecution or freedom to keep and bear arms..

                   I began asking questions that were unthinkable. Every major political belief I held dear was on the line. I looked at the Constitution and asked myself that simple, little, question- 

                                                    Would Jesus buy this?!?

                        Recently, I came to the realization that many things claimed by assorted political organizations have nothing to do with politics. It is simply acceptable to Jesus or it is not...

        That is the only real question. It has nothing to do with politics....

                  Believe me, the last few months have been a battle of spiritual turmoil and the seemingly crippling loss of deep seated, long held political beliefs, all dealing WITH politics....

                                     No man can have two masters, The Good Book says.

                            I followed this much further than I ever believed I would, haunted by the choice between two masters..

                                 Jesus or The Constitution....

      I tried everything in my armory to insure this question need not be asked, but I personally found it inescapable.....

                 Does the Constitution bend or even break before Jesus or does Jesus bow before it?

                       No real question, when phrased like that....

                  I feel like either a religious heretic or political one. Either one is terribly uncomfortable.

                          So the true hauntings all began from Biblicaly based sermons that dared me to look at my own beliefs. My Pastor was right. This was not touchy-feely or in any means fun.

              I hated this journey. What I swore to defend and protect is not really based on what I was lead to believe. Barrabas was a zealot and politician that was released instead of a guiltless, non political Jesus.

               So, somehow I am supposed to support leaders that God appointed their own throne, who personally make my skin crawl, without complaint?

         I should do my best for the authorities God has put over me, to honor Him?

                What a concept. How un- American...

                     But it's in The Book...

                 Dylan said it best. " You gotta serve somebody..."

We ran away...

                                                          We ran away.

                         We packed up our suitcases and cell phone chargers and hit the road.

                                                             No children. 

                Well, there still were children, but they were shuffled to good friends and relatives, well cared for, albeit somewhat confused that their mom and dad were actually going someplace for a few successive days ....without them.

                                     My Wonderful Wife wanted to go to Lake Placid and Whiteface Mountain for her 50th birthday and our 13th wedding anniversary. The really cool thing about it is that she wanted me to tag along with her....

                                          I will let you in on a little secret....

               I always get a little bit nervous on these endeavors. Not that we've had many getaways, but the few we've had always were accompanied with a small amount of jitters.

                                    She is the most amazing person I know. 

                       Maybe I'm unique in this, but when I'm taken out of the rolls of home handyman, dad and provider and left singularly with the title "husband", I begin to question if there is anything else worthwhile, left...

                               After thirteen years, removed from the life we've built together for one weekend, will she still see what she saw in me,  before those years began?

                       It's scarier than the first date, if you let it be...

                                 Me, I decided to do what I did back then...

            Ignore fear and insecurity and trust that some things are just meant to be...

                             So we talked the same small talks we did back then. 

                           We laughed at the same silly stuff that brought us close in the past, 

                             and found our hearts were still open and our souls were still intwined...

                         There really is no reason for her to love me as she does. It was as much an anomaly then as it still is, now...

                              

                       Glad she does, though...