What is Love – Part 1

In my previous post (which has been some time due to my lack of inspiration and struggling with the surprise threat of seizures), I said that my next topic was going to be “What is Love.”  Well, now, as I start to write, I realize just how hard it is for me to answer a question that, for me and maybe for many of you, is allusive and intrusive into your heart that we fight to keep people away from. You see, we all don’t want to be hurt inside and the fear of opening our hearts and subject ourselves to the risk of being broken-hearted.  I’ve been hurt and broken-hearted but always willing to share what is on my heart.

While there is a sting of rejection, being open and honest about what is on your heart, for me, has been worth the risk. As Jesus said, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-33).  Therefore, especially as I get further down my life journey road, I have that comfort, even in times of depression. 

My depression comes mainly from being cut off from my passions and self-perceived failure to “finish the job” that I wanted in life for my loved ones and me. This last line may be a good segue into the thing we call love.  The only way my mind can work if I am genuinely trying to make some points is to deviate from my albeit meager prose and poetry and put my thoughts into bullet points.  So here is the opening barrage.

God is Love.  Equally hard to understand if we are honest and not just reciting Christian song lyrics and thoughtful sermons. I always find myself defaulting to Isaiah 55:8 when trying to grasp ahold of Him.  Because God is so hard to understand most of the time, so love is a mystery as well, especially if they (in my mind without a doubt) are the same thing. The following is the Apostle Paul’s definition of love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV)


                           The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.  4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 These verses are used at countless weddings and other occasions.  Sometimes, however, shortly after the wedding, we as God’s unruly children, can drive that into the ditch of envy, carnal lust, tit-for-tat relationships.  Relationships that demand reciprocity, an intimacy that grows cold all too soon, career hijacking passion, child-rearing, and a host of other things and distractions that push God aside from the center of the mutual bond and it unravels. Many (thank God) avoid these things and live out their years through the bumps and smooth paths because they never let the distractions keep them apart and keep God at the center. I can self-convict on all the above, for as I have confessed earlier, I have been married now for 42 years, but the caveat is that that it took me three marriages to get there.  The first was for 18 years to my college sweetheart, the second was for two years, who was my answer to lost passion (see above), and my last for 22 years (we celebrated our anniversary Sept 5th.)

I can only speak to this topic by personal experience; thus, I’m not a philosopher or theologian, just another in the fraternity of humankind trying to figure some things out.  One thing I’ve observed in my life when in relationships I can share, and hopefully it will be useful if not pathetically amusing, I loved and still love my two previous wives. My first, in general, is not too happy with me and still views me with disdain as I hurt her when I ended our relationship as husband and wife. While nothing is ever one-sided, I must take responsibility for ending it. All the things mentioned above were in play. She says she has forgiven me, and the last communication we had was via text after my stroke and soon evolved into a replay of the financial settlement issues, so I guess that trumps any attempt at reconciliation on her part.   But I still love her, because love isn’t a subject, for me at least, relegated to finite time and space. Once I have experienced love, it never leaves me.

While born out of a thirst for “something more” than a marriage falling victim to again, all the above things came loving wife number 2.  She was the victim of a hard and tumultuous life, and she was looking for honest compassion, and I was looking for vitality in my personal life. What started in carnal ways evolved to shared love even though, in perfect hindsight, a bad choice.  However, because God loves us, and we screw up so much, he blessed us with a closeness that, while not physically shared these days again, lasts forever and blessed us out of all the chaos a precious girl who is now 28.  We finally gave up on a relationship, and it was very painful as it always is. Today our daughter lives with her and takes care of her in her poor state of health. We pray for each other every day, and love will not be broken by broken, misguided choices we make. Like God, Love transcends all.

Through all the chaos of life, a failing business, failed hopes of a career; only music remained as a passion. Enter my last marriage.  By then, I was worn out with marriage and misguided choices, but someone God surely must have sent to have mercy upon me.   In her words, she married her best friend, and that is what has kept us together. She is 11 years my junior but about the same age mentally. She stuck and still does through all the hard times, as now is one of those hard times for me battling all I have mentioned previously.

Jesus said, “no truer friend is there than one who lays their life down for another” she has met that test and more for she lays down better alternatives, better just about everything that a slug-like me, yet she perseveres because she loves me agape with little expectation for the outcomes, she just loves. And I, as I get older, will love her till the end.

You see, love never dies. We just misplace it once in a while like that old worn bible.  Both my present mate and I were void of compassionate, caring, and honest love.  She, with a trail of relationships, with the exception of one, that were more about being the one who gives and the other side taking and moving on. The serious one ended in a tragic death, and finally, a guy (that be me) who was sent out of no logical circumstance to be her mate for life and her mine. 

To give a synopsis as to who I am.  I have not been intimate with many women in my life, because I was timid and never considered myself as “desirable” to women.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the hunchback of Notre Dame, but not (pick the male idol of your choice) either. I was always the gentleman at the beginning of relationships, and then when I thought they could handle it, expose them to my more crass and earthy side. Through all of this, if intimacy was initiated, I was always the tender giving put the partner first kind of guy. No matter how out of order, I got it only on rare occasions was intimacy a casual thing either initiated by her or by me.  In my way, sex was just one way to express my heart and compassion (not just passion) and respect and considered myself in a more servant capacity, not a dominant personality.   I think on my few occasions, this is what those women really wanted. Someone real, even if it was a bit clumsy now and then. 

In my weak moments, I let my carnal side dominate.  I know, because of my compassionate side,the relationship became something on their part that went beyond my good heart.  I pulled back and realized what I allowed to happen and, as gracefully as possible, pulled away.  I can’t be dishonest no matter how the truth of self-conviction hurts or hurts others for the better.  Here lays the case for abstinence. Now looking back, life would have been less tumultuous. I would have had the good sense and wisdom to let God run the show.  Love doesn’t go by the numbers, and leads us in directions that we are not prepared for but is always present.   In its truest form, it’s experienced, not felt.

In possibly a bizarre non-sequitur, some old pop songs say it well.  Boston More than a Feeling is a metal rock way of saying it. How deep is Your Love by the Bee Gees asks the question and poses the answer of the from the heart love we have that is true.   Amy Grant and Pablo Cruz, Love will Find A Way, Foreigner asks the question we all seem to ask 40 years later, I want to Know What Love Is.  So, in these words, I don’t think I did a very good job of answering the Foreigner song question either.  It’s a mystery, but without it, we are nothing. Check back tomorrow for a continuation of this topic

 

 

Thanks for the Memories

Well, as I said in my last post, I was taking some time to reunite with old friends via Facebook and in person. This group was old Florida Jaycees that I served with 40 years ago, people in music I went through high school and college. My music friends went on to serve lead roles in the Army and Air Force bands, performing at with the Chicago Symphony and Carnegie Hall, producer, and drummer for Dolly Parton and drummer for Three Dog Night. Director of bands at Eastern Florida State College. 

In my Jaycee friends, one is a mayor, another a city councilman, a head of security worldwide for a major bank, a retired principal at a major high school, and the list goes on, and they all are my dearest friends. We have genuinely missed each other over the years.

We all are bound by the act that we were ordinary people with the heart of God doing extraordinary things, albeit at times irreverently. The back and forth with a lunch gathering or Facebook and texts was another oasis for me in my battle with depression. After this gathering of souls, I have found a useful antidote for depression that my fellow followers can relate to.  Find friends, laugh at those crazy times, and yes, our bloopers, a few tears over the amazing things you did together.  The different timelines are interwoven with America’s history, even though we were just a wisp in winds of time. Even if you don’t think you have done anything extraordinary in your life rest assured, God knows all the amazing things you were a part of and the people you shared them with.

I recommend that you find some old farts as I did.  When you talk about old times, you will discover a treasure of memories of where you were and the differences you made in people around you, A pat on the back, someone who listened when they just needed to be heard or vent to.  These seemingly small things made you amazing even if you weren’t on stage getting an award or getting applause and accolades.   God knows your heart, and the greatest feeling is to feel the words no matter the size of the accomplishment “with you, I am pleased, faithful servant.”

The greatest of leaders are servant leaders that take you by the hand and say, come on, we can do this together, and I’ll be there for and with you.  No matter how small or how huge your project is, all of us matter.  It sounds a lot like Jesus. We are called to be like him, no matter what you believe. You lived and served, so you are worthy and loved.

Don’t get discouraged, my friends; you are loved by people you never realized just how close you really are until you stop and gaze back at far you have come.   The journey was hard and sometimes narrow and times hopeless, but you are an overcomer. And you are still standing, you mattered.  All of you mattered in one way or another. You were created for the moment, the future you really can’t know, and the tarnished past can be polished by remembering the good you did and share it with others.

Now a caution here, my fellow depressants. As you enjoy these reunion moments, push your depression to the rear. Don’t bring your friends to a pity party or bitch and moan about your situation. Savor the moment and the preciousness of this time together. Please don’t bring them down into your pit of despair, give them a chance to lift you with laughter and tears of joy. It will be like a cool fresh sea breeze you haven’t felt for a long time because they are yearning for these reflections as you are. No matter what kind of life you’ve had, there were moments of peace and fun even when you played together as kids getting into mischief; a fish you caught, a first prom looking so elegant, and your date fumbling around to get the corsage just right, slamming your gorgeous dress in the door, that first kiss, that concert in the high school band that was just perfect and made your band director cry with pride, that pass you caught when nobody thought you could, sitting under the tree in the grass dreaming about a world yet to be, BB gun wars, playing in the snow, passing a college exam you thought you didn’t study hard enough to make it. You did these and countless other milestones you passed and still more to come even if in this present state you have to return to baby steps, you are moving forward, and you have mattered and DO matter.

Pray and ask and keep asking. God doesn’t keep time as we do. Be patient. Much easier said than done, especially in this screwed up world we have right now. Remember, none of this is your fault. Only your life, your goodness of heart, and your will to keep trying are what matters. Those memorable experiences shared with others matter; the bad doesn’t matter because you are forgiven by the One that really matters. Our earthly love hurts, like the song says sometimes, but His love never hurts or hurts beyond what we can stand for it is Agape love, no conditions just pure love that happens even when we don’t seem to deserve it.

I have no informed cure for depression. I asked my neurologist if I was mentally ill, and he said yes. I was pissed and taken aback, then I caught myself and thought this guy had given me chemicals, which I only take seizure meds for (by the way I had another one about a week ago putting a crimp in my writing inspiration). His answer to that was up the dosage, but nobody really knows what causes them, and they come without warning and scares the crap out of my family and me. I got some excellent advice from one of my fellow bloggers, and since by my title, I attract many people.  Many younger females, I surmise ladies tend to express their feelings, maybe while men hold it in.

That is, mental illness doesn’t mean your crazy town or a serial killer; most people are helped many times with meds or toughed through like me. My depression or mental illness is mainly due to being partially debilitated by the stroke, limiting my ability to drive because of the loss of peripheral vision on my left side and unpredictability of my seizures. This results in a huge loss of freedom and mobility and freedom to be the provider in chief and a hard-charging overachiever. It really sucks and makes me depressed. I overcome it many times but have setbacks and have to start over about halfway up the hill, so I regroup and try again no matter how frustrating it gets. 

Thank God for my wife, who preps my meds, endures my frustrations, and carts me around, and I have a few friends that load my miserable ass up to go to Sonny’s BBQ for all you can eat ribs. That will hold me over for a while with well-needed fellowship and damn good BBQ. My mind is sharp. I’ve lost about 70 pounds and am otherwise healthy.   I’m a functional, mentally ill person, my eccentricity and creative mind have been with me since birth.  My faith is battered and bruised, but I still wait upon the LORD, what else can I do. I trudge forward in search of my future purpose and draw comfort from those wonderful memories and the good friends I shared them with.  I draw upon these for a brief period of time.  I wait upon the LORD from the beauty of my wonderful but aging house and my precious family and call upon the LORD for discernment and perseverance.  Switching gears, on my next post, I want to talk about love. I think I have experience in this, with three marriages (I think the last one finally stuck) and one wonderful kid to go with each. We’ll explore “What is Love,” and I don’t mean the 1990’s song by Haddaway, but it has some appropriate words, lol. Thank you to all my fellow bloggers and followers for your collective insight and support. I need all the help I can get.

Going Through a Rough Patch

This post will be brief. I’m sorta going through a rough patch on my battle with depression; this week, so bear with me.  I’m going to give you all a brief break for a week or so while I add a new outlet in a new genre called the Florida Jaycee Alumni.

 You may recall I was the president of the Florida Jaycees(Junior Chamber of Commerce) in 1990-91.  I spent over ten years of my life culminating in, at that time, a 20,000 member organization. My newly found reunion group that John F Kennedy, Gerald Ford, and many other prominent figures in the US were members and tout their success from those early days.

Going down this memory road has been fun but also tends to violate my own advice as to visit ONLY the past and not tarry too long; because this week was largely absorbing my mind in glory days and not “what do I do now” I sense that of us who were considered in many ways “overachievers” it seems not logical why we should just be content with our successes and move past the not so successful moments.

But the feeling of your best days are behind you, and the world is so different, albeit screwed up that there is no place for me.  If you are one of those garden variety depressants, then you know where I’m coming from.  I tell myself, and a cadre of others tell me, just to wait upon the Lord. Well, many times, I feel like I’m surrounded by two groups, those who await the coming apocalypse or those waiting for the return of Christ. 

 Many I fear are more like the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15)  who just wanted to stop charging ahead, sit on their ass and wait for Jesus and drop out of the responsibility of earthly life.  I want to charge ahead, do good deeds, build things, demonstrate the power of a believer, in short, get off the bench and score some points for the good guys. I’m just stuck. The financial chains that bind me are great, but I have overcome worse; the deafening silence from God is unbearable, being unheard by those closest is breeding loneliness, and I have lost my passion for most everything. Writing this blog is different and somewhat satisfying, and hopefully, in my small way, I am helping others battle some of the same things I fight with.

I think my biggest challenge, while I’m not the sharpest tack in the box, is that I’ve become bored with the world I live in.  Change of scenery, activity, projects, business, theology, doesn’t appeal to me.  I’m not thrilled to be alive in this fallen world interrupted ever so rarely with a little hope and spark in others who are going somewhere. Don’t get me wrong I choose not to take my own life. I’m too close to the heavenly goal line to fumble the ball here and lose the game of eternal life and have the trap door open and drop into the smoking section (and I don’t even smoke).

 So, where am I? Jesus is there sometimes on a “just in time” basis. I talk to Jesus, and he answers with actions I can at least sense if not actually see and experience. The Heavenly Father, not so much. The world and everything I can sense seems to be whizzing by going nowhere, and what is it that I’m supposed to do? I feel disconnected from my environment, nothing to see here move on, to what?

 I give thanks daily to God for my provision, at least for now a roof over my head and a beautiful little piece of real estate, my wife, my kids, and my dog when they’re not mean to me lol. Still, I’m missing that calling, that mission, that thing that goes beyond Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 “meaningless Meaningless it’s all meaningless.”  Even the stuff I really thought was from God, and not my own understanding isn’t cutting it.  I have no choice but to wait upon the Lord.  Do I really have any other options?  Maybe someone can help me out here. 

I haven’t played my horn in 2 years, but Bear Dog might start to play. (Does the RCA victor Dog ring a bell)

Saturday On the Lawn I think it was the 4th of July (to the tune “Saturday in the Park” by my beloved band “Chicago.”

undefinedIt’s been two years since the stroke.  The last time on the 4th of July, the cannon on its rampart in front of our house has remained silent, until yesterday.  My wife, in a valiant and thankless effort, got me to succumb to invite a few dear friends over (which turned into about 30) to celebrate the fourth. More on my attempts to rehabilitate myself from depression a little later. We had a potluck (not like in the recent past BBQ for 250 plus, live band, kids fishing, paddle boats on the pond), just music softly playing from our very powerful sound system and some dear friends enjoying the day celebrating and reminiscing. Yes, it was the 4th of July; we said the pledge to the flag gently waving in the breeze. And yes, with a little help from a dear friend, loaded up the old rusty barrel of the cannon and low and behold an old patriot (that be me) pulled the lanyard, set off the shot that was heard around the neighborhood miles away.   A small band of stubborn patriots who still believe in this country and what it stands for one nation under God. We did, however, practice social distancing as much as possible in between the unrestricted embraces of real friends.    Since we were all outside, no masks unless you wanted to, the embraces were careful but real and so needed by us all. I donned my colonial militia jacket and hat. Once again, this crazy old bastard overrode the old communist bastard across the way with a defiant deafening blast spewing fire and glory to honor this imperfect but great nation.  With the 12-pound black powder cannon loaded with about 12 ounces of powder, we additionally expanded the 6-foot social distancing to 6 THOUSAND feet to repel all enemies foreign and domestic daring only the most foolhardy anarchists to make the trek up our driveway.

That gave my mental health a bit of exhilaration that at least I am capable of doing something without blowing myself up in the process. In my dark humor one day I had a thought to load up about a pound of black powder(which will allow a twelve-pound ball to travel nearly a mile) grab the lanyard walk to the front of the cannon put my head tightly in front of the barrel and pull it one last time.  Then I thought better of it.  For one thing, it might not kill me quickly and painlessly or for another, that as my head tumbles off my torso, I would live long enough to be rolling around on the ground and get dizzy and looking back at what was left of my once stunningly handsome body.  Obviously, this scenario is fraught with fantasies of the dark and absurd kind. Moving on from the silly, One of my last-minute guests who is a music and spiritual soulmate, who also for years has battled bipolar disorder, and I made an oath that we would faithfully lift each other up as life goes on. I felt his inner loneliness (you know my fellow depressants being in a crowd or surrounded by family and feeling utterly alone). This day these friends made me feel a healing salve that soothed my despair.

I have my faithful wife to thank for this. (she does all my editing, so I have to be nice to her. LOL – (not really -note from the editor 😉) We all lamented as to what is happening to our country, why all anger and hate that is imputed into what might be a simple disagreement to outright warfare.  As an example, out of our little group this day, we had a WWII vet, devote Catholics, Evangelicals, law enforcement, and every stripe of high tech low tech (that be me) liberal, conservative all in a small group bound by God and being patriots. The side conversations for me among friends catching up, was a conversation with my conservative high tech bipolar friend to continue to pray for each other and stand with each other in our common struggle to keep on a mental functional keel to an in-depth conversation with the wife of our dear couple friends about raising our kids and the perils of parenting and promote good values, independence, and accountability. She and I couldn’t be politically, farther apart, she is being the consummate liberal; I the stallworth conservative.  She used to enjoy watching Keith Oberton and I Bill O’Reilly.  She an “anybody but Trump,” and I put up with obnoxious but get the right things done.  I take Trump over what is the alternative.  We do not exactly have any Thomas Jefferson or John Adams’s to choose from now, do we? She’s a devout Catholic, and her husband is an irreverent version of the same thing. My wife and I are more of the Evangelical bent, her reverent, me not so much. The four of us are bound forever, by our good hearts her punch bowl upside-down cake, his kick-butt baby back ribs, my dry rub pulled pork, and my wife’s baked beans. 

How about we just keep it simple, surely good debate could not descend into angst when feasting on such homegrown delights with the intellectual jousting merely adding spice to the meal. While this day was a refreshing respite from the self-sequestration and drive by observation of the news cycle, I lament that the day didn’t have the ambiance of older people and parents sitting under the trees watching a pack of kids with their devices on lock-down and having paddle boat races, catching fish, playing volleyball and basketball shooting down the zip line and finding a quiet spot to talk about future plans. Young boys and girls having conversions under the trees, a prelude to in some cases, getting married on these very grounds. A soundtrack playing in the background all day long with music spanning from now to 75 years ago only to be interrupted every half hour by the roar of the cannon.

Today a single cannon shot by an old man in a special place with a repository of a lifetime of memories. Let us always remember that what makes our country great is memories and family, and times like this defended to the death by patriots and for patriots.

Is the United States a Christian Nation?

One of my fellow bloggers posted that the United States is not a Christian nation because the founders did not have that in mind.  He sounds very astute but, in my opinion, in error. 

Many of the founders, including Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, Were generally considered “Deists” as a product of the Age of Enlightenment.  Thomas Jefferson though a deist, wrote his own version of the bible. John Adams was a Christian through and through. 

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson vigorously debated virtually every topic, including religion, to the point of separation between the two until only in the twilight of their lives reconciled and ironically both died on July 4, 1826, within five hours of each other, in their own homes. 

Jefferson was a slave owner, but from all accounts was a compassionate master.  Let not the irony of this go unnoticed after all he did and accomplished, he died pennilessly and left his widow and family deeply in debt.  In the end, just another imperfect man trying to form a more perfect union of mankind in a nation that relies upon the freedom of all to use their God-given free will as they choose and take up the consequences of the right and wrong decisions with their maker.

Adams, a strong abolitionist, died a modest farmer.  Three things these men had in common.  They were both farmers, both loved this newborn country they fathered, and both believed that this nation in order to survive must be guided by the principles and will of our Creator, whether through Jesus Christ, like John Adams believed, or in an Almighty Creator God, like Thomas Jefferson believed.  Just my observation, the questioning mind of Thomas Jefferson probably had trouble with the concept of the Trinity.  Father, Son, Holy Spirit, like that’s easy for any of us to grasp, but Christians accept it as another thing we don’t understand in our pursuit to rationalize what we can only sense but cannot see. 

I was watching yet another episode of “How the Universe Works” on the Science Channel in the middle of the night while the TV gave me medication for my depression when the scientist was trying to explain the theories behind the creation of the universe or multi-verse and the concept of inflation of the small heavy mass that started the whole thing when the bloviating was finally at the end, he said possibly the most profound four words ever spoken.  He said the truth is, “WE DON’T KNOW.” At last, maybe a universal truth has been uttered, I would add, but God does.  Only this Creator God could keep all these celestial plates spinning, break a few as they collide and meticulously gather them up and make something new.  This same Creator has the same power to breathe love, not Chaos into our lives, and yes, our nation.  Maybe sometimes we just need to get out of the way and let Him do his work and as King David did at a young age be a man after his own heart and like his youngest son Solomon ask not for riches but discernment with wisdom and know the difference between right and wrong.  Come on, America, we can do this, we being God and us on the path Jesus laid out for us. 

 All these men collaborated on the idea that men should be free to worship as they choose. Still, the country should have religion and abide by its noble principles, particularly Judeo–Christian tenants and natural law.  Most of our law today is based upon Mosaic law (i.e., 7-year judgments,10 Commandments, etc.)  These tenants can’t be lost, or we don’t have the land of opportunity we have kept together for 154 years. I would recommend strongly to read the book by W Cleon Skousen,  The 5000-year Leap.   It really gets to the heart of how America gets its roots. 

My blogger friend is right in one very regrettable sense. We ARE not a Christian nation today mainly because we’ve lost our Christian core values, institutionalized the church, commercialized it, and made idols of our celebrities and sometimes made our religious leadership into celebrities, losing the whole point of the humble but infinitely powerful Jesus. True Christianity is freedom by its very nature truth, and free will brought together to allow everyone. I mean, everyone to determine their relationship to God with their own free will or at their peril, no relationship at all.  And America guarantees those rights under the constitution. 

Let’s go back a bit; the nation really had its roots in the Puritans and Pilgrims that were being persecuted as Christians by the religious corruption of the times, not specifically the state. However, the state was complicit in the institutional churches’ iron rule of its many times unwilling to be ruled, congregants. As in anything too big, be it government, corporations, or institutional church (does the inquisition ring any bells, the Holocaust to name a couple).  So, in a nutshell, it’s not the noble principles of Christianity or other religions that we should fear or despise or cut off. Its the same thing that the Puritan and Enlightenment founders boldly put forth, at the risk of their own lives, to protect from autocratic tyranny run by a few.

There are many flavors of “Christianity,” and they all exist in varying ways in America. We Christians many times, choose to pick doctrinal fights instead of preaching the Gospel. That is to say, spread the word if it is not accepted, that is where God takes over. If we live like Christians inside and out, then others will want what we have and not banish it from the town square. 

We don’t have that anymore, just social media platforms. It would be better for us all to go down by evil as Jesus did and summon the power to overcome than these petty snipes, especially when they come from within.  Be it a misguided movement or inter-church fighting.  It was 150 years from the Mayflower Compact to the US Constitution and 244 years until now, and we are dangerously close to being thrown back 5000 years and lose it all. 

Honoring not Dishonoring America.

Our country now has over 300 million people and my guess nearly that many opinions.  But we all can be heard RESPECTFULLY, and the more discerning amongst us can sort out the drivel and lead.  We can voice our opinions and be heard (after letters to congress and other peaceful measures go unheard). Allow me to give two examples of how peaceful protests work instead of this evil mess of noble causes being hijacked and usurped by the same forces that our founders tried to protect us from.  First is one I didn’t participate in the second I did. The first is the Million Man March in Washington DC on  October 16, 1995. One of the primary motivating factors for the march was to place black issues back on the nation’s political agenda.  An event that The second I attended in 2010 at the Lincoln Memorial called Restoring Honor. (a large tea party like event sponsored by Glenn Beck) hundreds of thousands of people of all stripes showed up to honor America, but also protest the tearing down of America and demand incorruptible leadership of our republic. 

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As a sidebar here is this is unlike the disgusting display of hate, looting, and vandalism, overpowering the news today.  In a proper setting,  a message of equal import, when the rally was done, everyone nearly without exception picked up their blankets and trash and patrolled the whole Lincoln Memorial site and cleaned up better than when they arrived drawing amazement from the park police and staff. 

My wife usually gets skittish in large crowds, but not here. It was like one huge picnic and family reunion of the American family.  Myself, my wife, and my youngest 7-year-old son never feared for anything and spent the rest of the weekend touring the sites, museums, and monuments of DC, that thugs and paid anarchists desecrate today.  What changed from a mere ten years ago, Where is the leadership that responds to the people’s voice, where is the leadership of law and protection of the innocent? As you may know, I grew up in the ’60s, and 70’s I didn’t get into the drug or protest thing I was part of a fledgling “Silent Majority”. This was Richard Nixon’s battle cry and it took him into the White house. Don’t get me wrong, he was flawed and he was what he was but the great silent, hardworking, raise families, coach little league, hospital candy stripper.  America didn’t want Vietnam, Free love, or thugs burning their businesses and communities cloaking the thuggery under a banner of justice and taking out “the man”.

History repeats itself. Sadly, only having been through the sixties I wonder if this time we can recover. Have we gone so far from those original founding principles of freedom with accountability that we have forever lost our way?  This is a helluva time to try and recover from my depression, stroke, and business struggles, and of course this panic-driven virus mentality.  I have my wife, my kids, and a roof over my head.  Daily provision, my local church, and my bible.  While that doesn’t sound like much its enough for me for now and maybe God will yet again let me run one more race, do one more unnoticed good deed, and if need be see my kids surpass my dreams and aspirations for your Glory oh Lord.

Tales of Two Men – Part 2

The second man is a man who I will call D.  D grew up in a household where he had a loving mother and dad, but dad was controlled by alcohol.  This man’s story can be paralleled to the true story and motion pix “I Can Only Imagine” the story of the lead singer in the Christian group “Mercy Me.” We were and are close friends and worked together in music and ministry over the years. Sometimes being persecuted for our unconventional approach to worship and caring for the least of these.

 He broke out of his childhood experiences rose above them, forgave the past and self-educated himself into a marvelous musician, a good career in high tech digital systems, and a wonderful Christian family with kids being musicians and excelling at everything they do. However, soon after his marriage, the demons of his father plagued him as well, but his strong wife stood beside him, and he was redeemed, and life moves forward.

He shared with me that he and his wife went to see the movie mentioned above, he needed her to calm himself for that was his story, and it was overwhelming. Maybe sometimes putting people in our lives that will be a part of that redemption can complete the circle in life’s worldly twists and turns.

So, looking back on part one and part two together. We don’t know what happened to M in his search for redemption, but D’s has amid a tumultuous journey a happy ending.  Why is this? One man’s struggles reach out, reads his Bible, gets a few breaks, but still, redemption alludes him. Another man goes through somewhat similar experiences and succeeds.  The first man is black and the other white, we can stipulate to the economic and prejudicial differences.  But I gave M a chance and loved him like a brother. D battled through his life, not particularly gifted by stature economics or even race to a great degree. Why is that? As the Christian song goes, “God Only Knows.”  I don’t cloak my outward self in my Christianity. Still, I do know, especially now, that if I couldn’t bridge the human gap between God and me with Jesus in my present state of depression, it would be virtually impossible in my eyes to understand his ways remotely.

So, where am I? That is the question of the day.  I’m not nor have not gone through what these two men have endured and am as lost as they were.  In many ways, even though now I have a life to look back upon with more hits than misses. I had a wonderful loving mom and dad to raise me and, at last, grown or nearly grown kids, and at last, as well a loyal, devoted wife that takes care of me and for now a roof over my head and daily provision. Why Lord have you blessed me with such rewards for my good deeds and helped me weather the storms of the not so good, only to forsake me and leave me helpless to do a few chores and write drivel? Is this all there is? I guess I’ll just keep reading out of my tattered well-used old Bible and try to make sense of it all.

A Tale of Two Men-Part 1

Both men have one thing in common Their desire for redemption.  The first I’ll share with you is a man who I will call M. He was an African American who worked for me a while back and is among the three black guys in the photo from my earlier post from A Tale of Two Crosses, building the crosses. He was one of three black guys, one Polish Italian, a Mexican and one Cheesehead half German and half Swiss guy (that be me). For that moment, at least we were all just children of God working together to build something greater than ourselves.

M came from a poor Florida family who grew up on Merritt Island, Florida when it was virtually all orange groves and cattle farming. Most of the fruit was picked and packaged by Black folks from kids on up to Grandma and Grandpa. M’s father disappeared when M was a child. His stepfather was an abusive drunk and made M work the orchards taking his earnings and not feed the family and drink up the proceeds between beating him when he didn’t pick enough fruit. M never learned much in what little schooling he had but grew into a strong, handsome man. He, too, had issues with alcohol, and it destroyed the one marriage he had. After he started working for me, I would notice when we took a lunch break; he would pull out an old, well-used bible and read a bit before returning to work. Why he clung to this bible amidst this life of tragedy and sin always confounded me.  Sometimes he lived homelessly and followed us from job to job, but he always had that bible in his knapsack. I never asked him how he got his faith. I just took it as it was and would pray with him once in a while. He really only excelled at one thing (which you can’t find anyone to do these days) final hand grading, slinging a sledgehammer, and carrying heavy stuff.  Like the many Haitians I worked with (See the previous post on Haiti), he was ignorant and a little slow but clever and innovative when the time came. We taught him how to help finish concrete, and the other two black guys on the crew would continuously needle him and tell him how stupid he was. They were excellent concrete finishers who were called “Fat Kenny” and “Skinny Kenny” since that was one way to avoid confusion when summoning them by name. It was easier that way “Skinny” could be Tiger Woods’s Twin, and “Fat” was more like Fat Albert from Bill Cosby days.   It really didn’t matter what your ethnicity was when you’ve got 10 yards of hot 4000psi mud getting ready to go off when Pat yells out “somebody get their ass over here with a mag and a trowel start finishing this stuff” (it didn’t matter what the color of the ass was at that point).

M never hardly ever had a chance in life and blew the ones he had mainly because of the carnal nature of his upbringing. But he always had that old bible, and because of that, he had my utmost respect.  I’d find little projects he could handle on his own at the job sites as well as my 9-acre homesite building little things and putting the finishing touches on my home and job site projects. He would walk to the job sites and usually refused a ride.  I helped him get a car and even gave him a company fuel card to put gas in it.  I learned that misguided charity causes more harm than good. He then used the card to fill up hookers’ cars and other low lives to purchase booze, sex, and other things. When I got a bill for $1100 plus, I knew I had done a travesty to this man. 

This story ends where it started, M just showed up, and then he disappeared.  I never heard from or saw him again. I enjoyed our time together, and my University Alum butt worked right beside him until he just didn’t show one day.  I never heard from him or saw him again. Maybe he’s somewhere in the woods reading that tattered old bible and still clinging to the hope of redemption. Well, M, you still have hope as long as you keep reading. My prayers are still with you, my old friend.

The tale of the other man comes in the next post.

A Tale of Two Crosses

As I see and hear the constant replay on Fox news, the idiots and manipulated hordes of at first just hooligans, now galvanized by misguided ideology violence;  of course, the ever-present evil or duped corporate and other fat cat financiers,  that want to rule the world by being the last one standing in the destruction of a godless as well as a timid God worshiping society to faithless to stand up for what is right—preferring to go along with mass manipulation like marionettes dancing by the strings of the more powerful. 

When I see the destruction of monuments by lackeys of the manipulators where the lackeys don’t have a clue as to any of the totality of the history that these monuments and statues represent.  I shudder as to what is next.  The manipulated lackeys would not be nearly as compliant if, in their small brains, they studied history both the good and the bad that makes these things so important.  These monuments should not be worshiped as idols nor despised as archetypes of evil, just as milestones of our journey through history.  Our society is going headlong into a future, not unlike the vision of the1960’s futuristic film by the genius but slightly warped Stanly Kubrick Clockwork Orange (not a film for the faint-hearted. As an aside this film was rated “X” went it first debuted but now only carries an “R” rating a testament as our march toward acceptable depravity). 

I had an idea in mind about 12 years ago when we built a new sanctuary at the church, our family, and a hand full of brave believing souls started in 1963. The congregation first started as a home church then purchased a 3.5-acre piece on the corner of Lake Washington and Croton Roads in Melbourne, Florida. My dad was instrumental in purchasing the property.  He had skirmished with the small congregation about buying a piece “out in the middle of nowhere.” Once again, he faced the ridicule and short-sightedness of others, like when he moved his family from Wisconsin to sell sand in Florida. The church as it grew moved from a house to meeting in a nearby fire station. Every Sunday, sometimes we had to wait for the firemen to move the trucks out of the garage so we could set up a makeshift worship place, pull the tarp off of an old piano in the corner behind the fire hoses and have church. 

Then the folks raised enough money to buy a build it yourself boxed wood building that the congregation put up themselves, not unlike an old Midwest barn rising with a “picnic on the grounds celebration” and began meeting. The bureaucracy was virtually nonexistent back then, and churches were given some slack.

During the ’70s and ’80s, the congregation grew, but was always under 100 members, and built a more permanent building and turned the old “barn” into classrooms. The old “barn” showed its age, and space was made for Sunday School in the “new” building.  Time went along, and with good leadership, we outgrew that building and upgraded the grounds and parking and constructed the sanctuary that sits there today. Sorry to put my readers through this rather tedious history, but I’m getting to the point here soon, I promise.

Shortly after we moved into the new sanctuary, I could see that we were on a now valuable corner in a very developed Melbourne. As I looked at the community and commercializing of the intersections, I feared that future generations would raise this church and sell it off to be the next Walgreens or such. I had a plan. I convinced the congregation to raise a few more Shekels to match me dollar for dollar to construct a commemorative cross between the two buildings, the old as a fellowship hall, and the new a sanctuary.  My plan, that was like my dad’s, was somewhat scoffed at was to build a 2’x 2′ roughly 30′ tall solid concrete cross with an 8′ square solid concrete foundation. The cross was formed and poured in the parking lot and hoisted and set with an 80-ton crane with a total weight of over 40-tons. I wanted this to stand forever, and no one will defile this site with a mere 7-11 or a Walgreens. The demolition of this and the outrage of knocking down this symbol of Christ would surely never happen. As of this writing, it still stands, but the crazies may soon attack it and try to bring it to the ground. Good luck with that. You’re going to need a lot more than a few ropes, as used on old Andy Jackson or George Washington. There is a copper lightning rod poured into the concrete running the full length of the cross designed as lightning protection, but I think God might have one of those wrath moments and send a little extra lightening through there and fry these jerks.

 As time went on, the pastor from Pineda Presbyterian church (near the Pineda Causeway and Wickham Road in Melbourne wanted to know if I could build one for them. I said, sure! Cover the cost of the concrete and steel, and a couple of guys from work and I will do it. An elderly man in the congregation funded this, to honor his deceased wife.  We discreetly installed, as part of the cross her wedding ring.  So up went an exact copy of the one at Crossroads Community Church.   My name doesn’t appear on either cross and only mentioned on a commemorative marble plaque to the founding members and pastor at the Crossroads one.  I jokingly refer to these as my Ebenezer stones (look it up Bible Nerds lol).  As I get old and drive-by, these old but timeless mementos of my faith, which wavers daily, the pilot light is still on. So, if you happen by these spots, they are still there, and only Armageddon will bring them down because there will be a new landlord in town.

Keep believing my friends, and if you need a little encouragement, just stop by one of these crosses and behold some things last forever and that is Jesus, but these come pretty darn close.

Building of the cross

Father’s Day 2020

Father’s Day, this is our day. Right Dads?  Fathers traditionally (although tradition seems to be a politically incorrect term these days) have been the leader of the house; that is until momma is not happy, and then there is albeit a temporary role changing.  For example, when I was growing up, dad would let off what was then called “blue language” when he wrapped the brand new disc-harrow around the corner post of the cornfield when preparing the field for spring planting on the farm in Wisconsin. Mom took over when we kids would use that language in the house, and it would result in either willow switches to the back of the legs or your mouth being washed out with soap (not an expression but the real Ivory Soap thing). But dads, then, and hopefully now, were looked up to as role models at least for the boys, blue language, and all. They were the main providers and life coaches.  Not all dads fit the old 50’s series “Father Knows Best” thing, but they were our dads, imperfect and sometimes very flawed, as I will go into in the next post. They were also simultaneously the source of love, pride, and self-worth that no son will ever forget through the best and worst of times.

I’m a dad of 3 very diverse, loving (when they want to be), talented, and yes, wise-ass children. They are the product of three separate marriages. 2 sons and one daughter. My oldest son is married and has my one and only grandchild. Next is my daughter, who lives in upstate New York, and my youngest boy (17), who is homeschooled and lives at home with us.  Raising a teenager when I’m nearly 68 is, to say the least challenging. My oldest runs our family site development business and has an Underground Utility license. My daughter did a stint at college and now works at home and lives with and attends to her mother, who is struggling with her health. My youngest is going into his senior year of high school, and as I said earlier is homeschooled.  Mainly because public school is lacking these days, and he, while smart as a whip, can’t sit still long enough to excel in a classroom and wants to be an air-conditioning tech. He has absolutely no inclination to go to college and will probably have his first house before his contemporaries pay off a 1/ 10th of their student loan. All my kids take turns pissing me off and then turn around and can be so thoughtful and loving; such is the life of a dad.

I sat through countless dance recitals (which I needed to mainline caffeine to stay awake through), band concerts with an intonation so bad I’d cringe, soccer games that he mainly chased the ball but seldom scored. In contrast, I sat with young “soccer moms” who ask me if that was my grandson making me feel young again, yeah, right!  I was the most excited when I was there when they caught their first fish, my oldest when we fished in the Indian River off a spot, where now is Rotary Park in Suntree that our family help build. Then it was a place where everyone dumped their junk, and we commandeered an old car seat (like Grumpy Old Men) and parked, and he caught a 2 foot vegetarian Mullet on a shrimp (the fish must have wanted a little more protein in his diet that day). My daughter and I crashed a private pond in New York State, and she caught the smallest panfish in the pond on a Mickey Mouse fishing rod. My youngest boy caught a 5-pound bass out of the pond in front of the house at the age of 3, and my grandson on the 4th of July caught the smallest brim I’d ever seen.

My kids all ran heavy construction equipment at various times. My daughter, at around nine and youngest son around seven years old at the time, ran a vibratory compaction roller and my oldest just about everything, he starting out running a Dresser 560 a 90,000-pound front-end loader that he could barely reach the pedals on at 12 and by 13 was loading dump trucks at the sand mine

Enough about my kids, my dad raised me the same, running tractors on the farm, and when we moved to Florida, dump trucks, loaders, dozers, motor grader, and the sand dredge. I started out at about nine myself. My dad was great. He didn’t always play ball with me or take me fishing but was his shadow at work.  When I was a real little kid up in Wisconsin, I would ride with him in the dump truck. My grandma ran the local Diner called the Dairy Bar in the little town of Juda (pop. 300) about 3 miles from the farm. Near the end of the day of riding with him, he would always ask me if we wanted to stop at grandmas dairy bar and have a “beer,” he would have a Schlitz, and I would have a root beer which was the way dad and I went drinking together.

We all have had those moments and must cherish them. Later after graduating from the University of Florida, I came back and took over the accounting of the family business and managed most of the outside operations.  I received a baptism by fire by jumping right into a full-blown IRS audit for dad.  My dad was old school, and he always figured that as hard as he worked that Uncle Sam was always getting too big of a cut, and he was not discreet in creative accounting of cash sales and cashing a few small two-party checks. With my excellent training from my ex-IRS agent professor at the University of Florida, I was able to keep him out of the “gray bar hotel.” He only received a $20,000 assessment, which he paid immediately out of his cash stash he stored in the lettuce drawer in the fridge (no pun intended), and it was stored there in case of fire). He was a practical man lol.  My dad also loaned money to the family brothers, seldom charged interest, and helped countless other guys to get through some tight spots. He owned several businesses; some failed some were successful, but, in the end, he was a good man in the practical sense. He jokingly always coined the phrase while holding up a buffalo nickel.  “In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash.”

When it came to the business operation, another phrase was used on him, “Mel could squeeze the shit out of a buffalo nickel.”  This same man taught Sunday school and served as an usher at the church. My dad and I worked side by side for almost 15 years through bumpy scraps, and good times and bad but always with mutual respect.

Then things changed six months after he turned 56. My dad always liked to say he would always keep me under his wing. Metaphorically we flew together all that time flying low and flying high. Then one day, we were flying, and he suddenly left me to fly solo.  He just flew off to heaven and never came back, leaving me to fly by myself at 26 and run the company, raise a son and a family on my own. My lesson was to fly like an eagle but never look down. I guess he just met up with a squadron of angles, and off he went.  In reality,  in his earthly state,  I got a call from my hysterical mother in the middle of the night to come to the house (which was only a  few hundred yards away), and  I found him in the bathroom dead of a heart attack.  It was his time to fly.

I went on to go through the ups and downs of business life and added a few more ups and downs of other kinds, but this isn’t about me. It’s about a journey we all have with our dads. Jesus even referred to his, a heavenly father as (Abba) or daddy. Here is where we all can celebrate this day maybe someday; we’ll see Him and our risen dads too.

Yesterday, I got to honor another father of mine. You see, after my dad passed away, 14 years later, God sent me another father.  His name is Walter.  He came along when my 2nd marriage was falling apart, and my business was doing the same.  I clearly was leaning upon my own understanding and not God’s will (Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6).

Walter was a salty old Irishman who knew how to play hardball and push through tough times with great business acumen.  He helped me through the toughest times of my life and was my father figure when I need one.  The years have passed, my wife (for the last 22 years), and I went and visited him and his saint of a wife Dawn in New Hampshire a couple of summers ago. He was having the onset of Alzheimer’s then, and now Dawn takes care of his every need, and they are many and of a very personal kind. Walter stayed on the phone, and he seldom remembers much; and, at times, is angry and abusive, as Dawn tells me. I knew they are in a bad financial way, and while we are struggling ourselves in my post-stroke world, we sent them $500.  Dawn used some of it and bought him an Acacia wood rocker that he now practically lives in out under the trees. She called me on Father’s Day, and Walter was fairly coherent.  I talked with him, and a miracle happened; we talked about old times like it was yesterday.

He was getting a little tired, and Dawn sobbing on the other end said that he had not been this alert in years, and there was a spark in his eyes that she hadn’t seen.  I guess the dad thing is a perpetual thing.  Walter is 92 and one of the sharpest business minds I know.  All his blood children have abandoned him, and he even outlived one of them. He was talking like he was ready to come to Florida, and he and I would go out and find some business that we could help some poor distressed owner that needed a little cheap business acumen and a little old school kick ass to boot.  It was like we picked up where we left off, and my adopted father and I told each other we loved each other. Then he seemed to drift away, and the moment was gone. I pray for them both each day in my prayer room and am so thankful that Walter, my adopted dad, and I could have this journey together.


One last thought cherish every moment with your dad while he is here. Bury old grievances, forgive each other for the sins, remember the precious moments, in time they last for a lifetime and hopefully beyond—happy Father’s Day to all.