Don’t Be An Idiot Forever!

Idiot; a foolish person, subnormal intelligence.

Jerk; a dull, stupid person.

This has been an interesting weekend, a weekend that was meant for observing and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with your family and love ones! It was also a time to spread the joy and peace to all during these rough economic times. Hopefully, some of us will continue to be better through out the year. On Christmas Day & Eve, I didn’t return any phone calls or left any messages except one, to my 86 year old godmother. Even then, I waited late that evening to do it. I didn't call my other godmother because she lived up the street from my mom's home. I guess if there was any bad news about the house, I didn't want to hear it. Using my mother’s passing would be the weakest excuse I could use. In fact, I don’t have any excuses. I prefer keeping a wall a wall around me to block out the possibilities of becoming too close to anyone and them getting too close to me. One would question whether I’m an idiot or a jerk. Those that were already in my life while mom was here, I hope would understand. Those I met post mom’s transition might have a hard time. They might lean toward thinking of me as a jerk. Oh, well. I needed that time to meditate and be alone. I wasn’t courting depression, I just needed that time. It rained all day Christmas and I love the rain! It’s like looking at black & white pictures vs color ones. B & W pictures force you to view the picture from the photographer’s viewpoint. A portrait makes you look at the internal aspect and a landscape at a possible hidden meaning. Color pictures are beautiful and many times people get hung-up on the pretty colors whether than the true significance, if any, of the photo. Don’t misunderstand me. Color pictures can possess some details that will make you look deeper. I’m biased toward black & white. I take pride in giving some profound advice and listening to others’ problems. I read the Bible daily looking for ways to be better. I admit I fail at times, but The Word has a strong foundation in my life. I do believe that I did give some bad guidance to someone. I mentioned that they should retaliate after being betrayed and broken hearted by posting throughout the home copies of very disrespectful and disruptive emails between a third party. “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.” Romans 12:19. How wrong and guilty am I? Forgiveness should have been mentioned but because I am a good friend, I took the betrayal personal. You can’t practice what you preach when you’re a jerk! Or a hypocrite! Love can cause pain, it opens you up and makes you weak. I’ve discussed this many times that there are different levels of love. Don’t confuse it with lust, either. You must achieve a higher level of love to avoid the hurts. Can you reach it? It’s worth a try. Love doesn’t just have relationships it has a certain je ne sais quoi. French, for “I don’t know what.” You can’t put your finger on it. But it can be awfully great! I’m getting older and even more sensitive. My compassion level is rising and I’m guessing it’s because I have accepted my mortality. It does seem true to form that the elderly finally has the “aha” moment in their later years. We finally realize what is really important to us. We wonder if we wasted our younger years on frivolity and materialism. Maybe not, maybe it’s the process that we all go through to learn and experience. We can be idiots, jerks, or both if we think nothing is different or won’t change. But the elderly figured it out. Don’t waste your time on hate and contention, we don’t know what the next life will bring but we didn’t know about this one either. God bless you in this coming New Year! May what we do be pleasing and appreciative in His Sight.

Merry Christmas!!!

My Personal Haiku

The grassy field of frosted dew reflected the moon’s rays like snow in the early morning.

Open Letter To God

God, I’m fighting depression real hard today! Life can be so confusing. One minute I’m on top and everything seems to be in control. The next second, all hell breaks loose. What are you expecting from me? What do you want me to do? My friends are suffering, families are suffering, I am suffering and it seems my prayers are not working. I don’t have enough money to cover all my debts, I don’t have enough love for peace and harmony, and I don’t have enough patience to wait for You to get me through. What is wrong with me? I thought I was trying to do your will. I admit, I haven’t been really pushing and I have slipped a lot more than expected, but does that mean you’re not going to help me? My co-workers are dealing with job security and other personal problems, my neighbor’s car seem to be breaking down every week. People are losing their family members to all kinds of sicknesses and cancers and names unknown to man. The holidays seem more stressful than ever and we don’t even have to get half the amount of gifts as before. The older I get, the more I hurt. I’m even getting sensitive. I got full when Lightening McQueen in CARS, rather than win the race, went back and pushed The King over the finish line when The King got knocked out of the race by Chick Hicks. I don’t know if it was the sacrifice Lightening made or the lesson he learned from Doc Hudson or the townspeople of Radiator Springs that made me misty eyed. I’m leaning towards being older as my excuse. This is nothing compared to the problems people are facing, God, and you know that I’m venting. Are you showing me that I don’t have any control with my life at all? You know that I can’t even read Footprints in its entirety any more. Why because I know that you have carried me all my life! I am grateful for your blessings but I would like to win the lottery to help my friends and family. I know I can’t win if I don’t play. Just talking to You have already made me feel better. It’s really true, I feel so much better now that I’ve given my burdens to You. Since I don’t have that kind of control, I might as well trust that You’ll be. It just gets hard sometimes, that’s all. Holidays just aren’t the same any more. But, I am grateful that you let me see them.

Memories Of You

What would you like to be remembered for? What do you think other people will remember about you? How would you really like to be remembered? These simple questions will need some honest, soul-searching answers. What you might like to be remembered as might be totally different than what others will remember you. Not that it would matter to you anyway, because you’ll be gone. Let’s go over some records, we were successful, we didn’t achieve what we wanted, we worked our fingers to the bone to get our business going, we gave up our family for our career. We gave up our career for our family, we were constantly complaining why we were in the situation that we were in, we were ungrateful when people were kind to us. We were obnoxious braggers that thought if we attended church on Sundays meant that we could act like jerks the rest of the week. We said we loved God but hated everyone we didn’t like or didn’t look like us. We turned our noses up at the homeless and less fortunate. We got ours, let them get theirs. We take our 5 senses for granted so much that we forget to thank God for the blessings he gives us everyday. Some of us would rather be remembered as cool, collected, shrewd business people who made a lot of money and achieved the status as such. Some one else will be using our status symbols after we’ve gone. Some of us want to be remembered as the smoothest operator this side of the planet. The list can go on & on with excuses and explanations. But did anyone notice that I didn’t mention being remembered as a God-fearing, peaceful, loving person? We are so conformed to this world that it’s all we think about impressing. Not speaking for everyone but are we so bound to impressing the people in this world than impressing God in the next? What have we become? We can fool the people that are not around us all of the time but those in our world know us as we truly are. Being Christ-like is not easy, but we shouldn’t give up. Yeah, we’re weak and imperfect, but we can get up and keep trying to be better every day! None of has the answers but if we really get into the Word (Bible), we can find them. I’ve been teased about trying to do the right thing and I don’t mind. It hurts though coming from the people you least expect. But separating yourself from this world isn’t easy. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not a saint and I have my ways. But, I thank God that I can see what He needs me to see. Whether it’s good or bad, I face it with the expectation that if God brought me to it, He will see me through it. You might wonder how I would like to be remembered. In all of this mix, I already told you. This is one of the holiest of the seasons, let’s not forget the real reason why it is. Be patient and understanding to ! other. Pray for those that are with you this season and remember them who are not. I can’t tell you enough how I miss my mom. When all seemed against me, she was there for me. Merry Christmas!

Project Blue Light (For The Fallen In Uniform)

Martyrs & Heroes!

The past several days have been loaded with the media being excited and concerned about Tiger Woods single car crash early Saturday morning. You all know what I’m talking about! They wanted to get to the bottom of why Tiger left his home around 2:30 in the morning and why his wife was helping him out of his SUV with a golf club. They got a story about Tiger and his affair and the media wanted to know all the worse details! This is real news! What a shame! How many married couples have had or are having affairs? We will never know and many of us don’t care! It’s really nobody’s business except the people involved.
However, to me, the real news during that time hasn’t seemed to be fully investigated. We had four (4) police officers ambushed in a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington, while they were doing their paperwork by a lone assassin. Did we hear much about them? Did we hear anything about their families and the people they left behind? These martyrs and heroes died because they wore a uniform and some unbalanced person with prior records decided to kill them in cold blood. This person had already assaulted an officer and raped someone? Why was he out on bond? Why blame a former governor of a decision he made years ago commuting this criminal’s sentence? Are we to be held accountable for past sins? The worse a criminal record the quicker one can make bail? Where was the media on this topic? How important is this killing compared to Tiger’s affair? Who in the hell is approving this media mess? Good men and women are dying daily performing a thankless job and the news media has turned to gossiping. Men and women in the military, as well as, our essential protectors and EMS people seems to be less important than family indiscretions. There was a time when uniforms meant something to people, respect and authority. Someone decided that the laws we had that were meant to govern weren’t in sync with today’s norms. Now all hell have busted loose. I can’t express enough how disappointed I am with the disrespect that the media has shown for people in authority. I’m sure there are some folk in the media that trying to get their voices heard, but they are overshadowed by the deep pockets and coverage of the mainstream. I am not ignoring the ordinary citizen who sacrifices daily to provide for their family and is attacked because some bum doesn’t want to work for a living. They are martyrs and heroes, too! Prayer has been taken out of schools, some churches are bigger than resorts, parents can’t discipline their children anymore, and there seems to be no respect for the elderly and authority! As a society, we have lost our way. We better find it really quick!

Teachable Moments

This is the new phrase that seems to be circulating throughout the media. Primarily, it’s used for mistakes committed by celebrities that somehow can be redeemable. For us common folk, we just screwed up. Can we learn from these mistakes? It depends on how much you lost. I guess the bigger the name and celebrity, you are granted leniency and discretion. Some examples are the Secret Service snafu at the President’s First State Dinner with the “party crashers”, the Salahis, Oprah’s not having Chris Brown on her show because he abused Rihanna but allowed BeBe Winans who did the same with his wife, and Tiger Woods single car crash that is swirling with rumors. Our President will have a “teachable moment” in Afghanistan, too. By the way, we can learn from other people mistakes! There are others I have not named that are allowed “teachable moments” but screwed up. Our state governor, for instance learned a lot from his saga, but it affected so many people in this state. Most of all in this situation, it just about destroyed his family. He lost so much. This is not to say that indiscretions from anyone cannot cause irreparable harm, it is to say that we will never be able to measure the amount of harm done. Screw ups are happening all the time whether you’re well known or not. Some “teachable moments” are not for everyone. Your mistake is yours only and the people you involved. I don’t think that your problem should be mine unless it involves me directly or indirectly. It’s none of my business. Everybody has problems, but we tend to capitalize on somebody else's and ignore our own. I guess we welcome the distraction. We don't want to face up to our own and speculate on others. Bad news spread fast and it makes lots of money! The important thing to remember is every moment is teachable, good or bad. There is always something that we can learn.