April 30th, 2010
Stopping into a Kia dealership yesterday to get my headlamp
replaced (not personally—I’m referring to the car), I was
talking to the clerk about the repair when a lady walked up carrying
a Tupperware container filled with cupcakes.
Let me correct that and say it was once
filled with cupcakes, but now there were about six missing from what
had been a meticulously constructed two-and-a-half dozen.
Glancing
over with my peripheral vision, I perceived that she was pregnant,
and then I overheard them wishing her well on her maternity leave,
and telling her how much they were going to miss her since this was
her last day.
She offered a cupcake to a gentleman to my left, and then was
about to offer one to the clerk talking to me, when it occurred to
her that I was standing there and how would she be able to offer one
to the clerk without offering one to me?
This gave her pause—and also began my inner giggle.
Because
I think I had her dilemma figured out—probably being on a tight
budget and also not wanting to bake too long while standing on
swollen ankles from carrying around a human boulder in her belly,
she had obviously made just enough cupcakes for everyone at her job.
The loss of one cupcake to some stranger could very well mean
an embarrassing moment for her with the fellow-employee.
She fidgeted for a second, and then the other gentleman at
the counter, realizing her predicament, reached over and took a
second cupcake, motioning to her that he had retrieved it for his
buddy.
The
entire time I had it in my power to make eye contact with her, gaze
at the cupcakes and say, “Mmmm.
Those look good.”
Don’t
think I wasn’t tempted. Don’t
think it didn’t cross my mind.
Don’t think that the playing out of the entire scenario in
my brain didn’t produce a hilarious scene, which I laughed at
profusely, inwardly.
But I thought this woman had already had enough traumas.
Surviving nine months of pregnancy, and the addition of me
copping a cake might just send her into premature labor.
So I turned my back and stared out the window until she was
done with her confection distribution.
Now
a normal person would leave it alone.
A good person would just enjoy the internal pleasure of what
the possible scene might have been.
But since I am neither, I saw her later on at the checkout
counter, once again feeding the troops with her offering.
I tried to restrain myself, but was unable to do so, being
addicted to awkward situations which I like to pop like a pimple.
So
I strolled up to the window where she was passing out her goodies
and said, “I see you made cupcakes … ”
Terror etched her features, so I continued.
“They tell me this is your last day and you’re going on
maternity leave.”
“Yes,”
she replied quietly, peering down at her depleting supply of treats.
“They
sure look good,” I said, using my congenial way.
I
could see in her mannerisms that all of her polite
All
at once she looked up and said, “Would you like one?”
I
almost laughed out loud, because I realized it had been an agonizing
choice for her. Who
would be left out of her miracle of gifts?
I
said, “No, thank you. I’m
a diabetic.”
I
walked away.
Do
I feel guilty about playing with a young mom’s emotions?
Do I wish that I had been less naughty in this particular
scenario? Should I have
left it alone and allowed for the quiet distribution of the sweets
to the masses? Would a
better man just simply have walked away—cupcake-less, without ever
producing such a nervous situation?
Probably.
But
doggone it, that’s just no fun.
April 29th, 2010
Most people have heard of a car fax.
It’s a document chronicling the history of a vehicle with
maintenance records and also information about collisions and
difficulties. Nowadays,
most of us wouldn’t even consider buying a used car without
reviewing one.
Yet
for some reason, we think human beings should arrive into our
presence free of difficulty, brand-new, never misused and ready to
drive. Human beings have a history, too.
Yet none of us really take the time to do a care
fax on the individuals we encounter everyday.
For instance:
·
The majority of people in the
·
The majority of the people are frustrated with their jobs.
·
The majority of people we meet and interact with are holding a
grudge.
·
The majority of people believe in God.
·
The majority of the people have a prejudice against some ethnic
group, race or religion, ingrained in them during their upbringing.
·
The majority of people have been sexually abused.
·
The majority of people are angry about their circumstances.
·
The majority of people have a sexual fetish.
·
The majority of people carry some agnosticism toward their own
belief.
·
The majority of the people are on some form of medication.
·
The majority of the people are overweight.
·
The majority of the people are bigoted against overweight people.
·
The majority of the people do not like fruits and vegetables.
·
The majority of the people are nervous about meeting strangers.
·
The majority of the people think God loves them but also that He
will kill children with earthquakes and send people to hell.
·
The majority of the people are conservative when it comes to
evaluating others.
·
The majority of the people are liberal when it comes to
evaluating themselves and their families.
·
The majority of people have some piece of unforgiveness.
·
The majority of people have a secret that plagues them.
·
The majority of people are afraid.
·
And the majority of
people think everything they believe is in the majority.
When
you look at this list—and it is, as you well know, a partial
one—you can understand if we don’t take a bit of care in our
dealings with others, and are not prepared to turn the other cheek
but instead are ferociously intent on defending our own position,
then we are certainly going to experience animosity, grief and
separation from those travelers we pass in the day and night.
Isn’t it interesting that we take more time to analyze a
car we are considering for purchase than we do a human who comes
across our path?
I
guess the majority of the people are not really interested in
finding out what hurts in other people.
No
wonder we all occasionally feel … in the minority.
April 28th, 2010
Jesus
Freaks,
In
the streets,
Passing
out tickets for God.
Yet for a brief season in our country, the young humans were
ablaze with devotion and intrigue about the Nazarene and there was
literally a “God-spell” that swept the nation, where Jesus
Christ became a superstar and was gently referred to as My Sweet Lord.
I was there for it. Being
a bit too young to participate in
One of my fondest memories is of my young wife, Dollie,
coming in one day saying she had found a brand new organization
called Juice for Jesus. We
did not know what it meant, but it sure sounded cool.
So for weeks we went around telling people about this
exciting new group opening up venues and opportunities all over the
USA—until one person finally informed us that it wasn’t Juice for Jesus, but instead, Jews
for Jesus. (We were also
briefly confused by Messy Antics Jews, until we also discovered that
was better pronounced Messianic Jews.)
Who
knew?
The
movement affected the art, trickling into the music scene with the
Top Ten Pop Songs peppered with inspirational message themes.
Unfortunately, this trend was equally dangerous to both
secularists and religionists, because to those who pursued more of
an earthly outlook, the young humans participating were a bit too
starry-eyed and heavenly-minded.
And to those who burned candles to God, it was particularly
frustrating because these young hippies refused to abandon many of
their old habits in their pursuit of the “
Of
course, there were enough flakes out there to overflow a box of
Kellogg’s. The
Children of God turned the movement into the worship of one man and
a way to promote sexual promiscuity.
There was a group called Jesus People USA which traveled
around in buses, living together in tents, feeding their personnel
oatmeal in the morning and peanut butter sandwiches at night, and
during the day sending them off to accost strangers under the guise
of witnessing.
But there was a particular innocence at the heart of the
movement that made it endearing—but also vulnerable to all the
piranhas of piety and the arrogant of agnosticism, each trolling for
naive victims. So as
quickly as it began, it ended.
Except
for me.
I
refused to go the way of the reform.
Would I call myself a Jesus Freak?
Absolutely not. There
is nothing freakish about believing in a manifesto which is
universally inclusive of all mankind, with the simple credo:
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
For
as you well know, and history records, the movement ceased.
And for many,
Of
course, this time … it was a computer.
The Plan B-Attitudes
April
27th, 2010
1.
Happy is the soul who pursues a dream, and when that dream
breaks in two, turns the half into a whole.
2.
Happy are the children who joyfully play with the toys
provided.
3.
Happy are the dudes who cry instead of lie, create instead of
hate, grin instead of sin and grow instead of go.
4.
Happy is good when
it does not judge bad.
5.
Happy is the driver who removes the rear view mirror.
6.
Happy is the builder of hope who follows the plans of the
Carpenter.
7.
Happy are the happy who find a way to be happy when happy
takes a well-deserved vacation.
8.
Happy is the thinker who is not afraid to tinker.
9.
Happy is the traveler who has enough God to help out, but not
too much God—to make him crazy.
10.
Happy is the man who finds his bottom dollar, settles for a
quarter of it, can still spare a dime without it making a nickel’s
difference, while providing a penny for your thoughts.
11.
And finally: Happy
are the folks who make “woo”
out of “won’t” and create “do”
out of “don’t.”
April 26th, 2010
At
you.
How could you have seen it coming?
What could you have done to produce a level of expectation?
It just happened. Don’t
take it personally. It
feels personal, though, doesn’t it?
Since it came at you, how could it be anything other than personal?
But sometimes we have to realize that the natural order, in
an attempt to generate a re-birthing of hope, has the unfortunate
job of first initiating some despair, with the aspiration that some
good folks will refuse to believe that it’s coming at them and instead, will foster the birth of courage.
For
you.
Not necessarily. I
don’t know about you, but sometimes I would just like to shoot
people who say “it must be God’s will.”
Are we really going to accept the notion that everything that
happens is destined to be? Or
are we going to realize that change only occurs when we receive what
edifies and we stand strong and reject what deters?
How would we ever develop a spine if we merely acquiesced to
everything thrown on our backs?
No—this pain is not for you. No—this
sickness was not conceived in the mind of God as a test of your
faith. Human beings get
sick because there’s a need for cures.
Human beings get sick because wisdom is required.
This is not for you.
But now it is…
In
you.
That’s right. Whether
you like it or not, this emotional, physical and mental dilemma has
become a squatter on your human land.
It is in you.
It comes demanding a diet of fear.
So you must be honest with yourself, realizing that you now
have fear AND love living inside you—two forces with
irreconcilable differences. So
divorce them. That’s
right—divorce them. Call
fear what it is: the lie
that has not yet proven itself to be worthy of consideration.
Develop a sense of humor, which is the only thing that scares
fear, and let love maintain the throne in your house.
Through you. Oh,
my goodness, there is so much power you possess as a force of
nature. You are heart,
soul, mind and strength—a heart with emotions to give an honest
report about your feelings; a soul which can link to God for
strength of a divine sort; a mind which can learn all the available
information and knowledge about your redemption and healing; and a
body that still produces heart-beat and breath, to fight the good
fight. Remember,
miracles don’t happen because God wills them.
Miracles happen because God happens upon a pilgrim who
refuses to die and then honors the faith he sees.
With
you.
Sometimes the night is darker than other nights.
Sometimes the monsters frighten away the love.
It is important for you to know that there are forces with
you. Some are
supernatural, enlisting the help of angels; and some are folks like
me, who wouldn’t mind praying a little longer, hearing a complaint
or two, and listening to your heart’s desire.
You are not alone. You
will never be alone. There
is so much with you that it would be impossible for you to be
removed without thousands of souls being altered.
 |
At you. |
|
For you |
|
In you. |
|
Through you. |
|
And finally, with
you. |
It is a balancing act on a high wire, burdened with a pole,
stepping cautiously but wisely, towards your destination.
Miracles happen … because
you live. You.
You.
And as long as you have
enduring faith … there will always be you.
(To a dear soul, and many like her, who are going through
such painful times.)
Need,
Minus What, Plus What, Equals What?
April 25th, 2010
Need
is tricky. I guess
that’s pretty obvious. Otherwise
it would be called fulfillment.
It is normally perceived to be the lacking that is required
to be addressed to make thing right.
But what makes it tricky is that it really comes in two
parts. First, there’s
the obvious lacking—the absence of enough to get along or get by.
But there’s a second portion to need, and that is the
addressing—the part of me that just doesn’t want to deal with
it.
Need just does not exist without both of these parts standing
in their individual corners, glaring at each other.
We live in
The
first part of need—the aching lack—just won’t go away.
And the second part of need adds on a friend, which causes it
to be equally stubborn. That
friend is greed. And
when selfishness links up with greed, it creates a self-righteous
nephew that has no respect for anyone but himself.
We
normally associate greed with the pursuit of gain, but greed can
also be manifested by protecting the little we’ve got.
After all, it’s a whole new banter in the American culture.
“I’ve got to protect my family.”
My
understanding is that you are supposed to take care of your family
and there’s certainly nothing wrong with keeping an eye on the
well-being of your offspring. But
to perform these functions to the detriment of the human need we see
around us is not only short-sighted, but perniciously greedy.
It causes us to stop looking at the little dab we could do as
seed, and instead look at it as the portion we must lay back for the
forecasted “rainy day.”
So
you see, need, which is really two parts—that which is required by
people and the world around me, and my own personal reticence to
consider it—when it links up with greed (fear of losing anything
that I have), what could have been seed is perceived in my mind as
“the bank of protection.”
So
the poor don’t just get poorer—they get angrier.
And the selfish don’t just get more selfish, they get
greedy. And the
seed—that glorious piece of us that could go out and help others,
lies dormant inside our being, never released, never blessing and
never enriching our minds and hearts with a sense of humanity.
It’s
why we never reach the point anymore of getting the “equals”
part of our little equation—and that is the deed.
Nothing gets done. We
take great comfort in reporting that we discuss things, debate them,
but in the end, we decide to table any motion toward action.
Because
here’s the formula:
Need, minus greed, plus seed, equals deed.
It
doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about poverty, health
care, morality, abortion or any other looming lack that threatens
the fiber of our culture. Because
we don’t address both portions of need, greed slips in and blocks
the seed, preventing the deed.
What
should we do? We must
recognize that need will never go away.
This will cause us to stop being so frightened when its ugly
head crops up right in front of our faces.
We also must realize that even though we love our
families—those immediate members that share genetic code—our
complete family is much larger, including the entire human race.
In this way, greed can step out of the way and allow for our
tiny mustard seed to be offered to the cause.
You get enough mustard seeds, you can fill up a field and
produce a wonderful deed.
Until
we recognize that need is a two-headed monster—what others are
demanding combined with what I’m refusing to do—we will not be
able to address the festering fussiness in our society.
May I say it again?
Need
minus greed, plus seed, equals deed.
April 24th, 2010
Doing what is expected.
But expected by whom? Are
you talking about me doing what is expected by my friends and
family? Or are you
talking about me doing what is expected by me?
There is a difference, you know.
At least, there should be.
Because
friends and family develop a type of understanding, resigning,
simulated unconditional love that studies our fears and
apprehensions, and decides—often for
us—what we are going to do and what we aren’t going to do.
Because what we refer to in our society as “personality”
is really nothing more than the accumulation of all of our fears and
apprehensions, manifesting themselves in a series of pre-disposed
actions. In other words,
what controls who we are
is not so much what we want
as what we fear. So friends
and family, trying to be sympathetic, will study our fears and
decide what we like and what we don’t like and dub it “our
personality.”
If
you choose to live that way, it’s absolutely … predictable. As a
matter of fact, you will more than likely find yourself in the
majority. But I
don’t think you’ll find yourself among those who are happiest.
For I feel “predictable” can be a very good thing if
it’s what I decide and
not what is decided for me.
And if I decide what is predictable for me, obviously that
will occasionally make me unpredictable to my friends and family,
which, honest to God, is what makes us interesting.
To be predictable to yourself, yet endearingly unpredictable
to others, demands that you make a decision on what you want to
accomplish based upon one magical question instead of three
frightened ones. The
three frightened questions?
1.
Can I really do this?
2.
What happens if I fail?
3.
What will people think?
All
three of those questions involve accepting a roommate named Fear,
who pays fifty-one per cent of the rent and therefore tends to
control what goes on in the household.
When fear of what is going to happen causes us to stop
trying, we develop predominate peccadilloes which friends and family
gear in on and explain away as our particular personality.
We do it with our children and in some ways, we even do it
with our faith by rationalizing portions of the scripture that may
seem obtuse to us by either ignoring them or coming up with some odd
interpretation which makes them more palatable.
No, I didn’t forget—I’ll tell you the magic question.
I call it “magic” because it creates the potential that
allows us to predict within ourselves what is the right thing to do
and therefore, makes us unpredictable to others.
The magic question?
Do I really want to do this?
Pretty simple, huh? But
it is the essence of a quality life-style.
And if we DO want to do it, then we have to find a way to
muster the courage to at least attempt it, dispelling all fear of
temporary failure and all intimidation of other people’s opinions.
It is a magic question that establishes a way of thinking
inside of us that lets us know that we’ve taken power and control
of our own decisions instead of falling into a “default
personality profile.”
Predictable. It can be very good if I’m
the one doing the predicting.
April 23rd, 2010
Unexpressed feelings lay deep within the treasure of the
human heart, fermenting—producing fear—because after all, every
morning the juice of life is poured into our souls and we have the
choice of either drinking our fill and distributing our flavor to
others, or holding it inside, worried about whether there will be
another “juicing” coming any time soon.
Feelings were never meant to be thought through.
That’s why they’re called feelings.
We feel, so we share that feeling immediately, knowing full
well it could be right or it could be wrong, and we’re prepared to
face the consequences of either.
But to allow the juice of life to ferment inside us until it
intoxicates us with either delusions of grandeur or sensations of
self-doubt is just the process of
making old wine.
This is what we suffer from in our society and our country.
We take the juice of new possibilities and debate them,
holding them in old containers until we are convinced they are
acceptable to the palate of a society stuck somewhere in the past.
Wake
up.
There
is no good time to change your life.
There is no “appropriate moment” to revise your actions.
There is no “logical step” towards transition.
Revolution overthrows present power.
You
ministers can sit around and wait for your congregations to be ready
for the new wine of spiritual experience and they will just continue
to take the juice of possibility and hold it inside themselves until
it becomes old wine.
You
politicians can jockey for position and clamor for votes, reasoning
that the populace has a greater pulse on its need than you, who have
been elected to lead them, and you will just end up with the
repetition of failed policy.
You
corporations can continue to feed the American public a diet of the
“same old same old” because you fear that changing the product
will displace your clientele to new buyers, but unfortunately, all
you’ll end up with is a dilapidated bottom line because you ended
up not being on the cutting edge.
There
is no good time to evolve. Just
ask the amoeba.
Therefore
it is our responsibility to understand that the juice that fills our
lives was never meant to be turned into old
win, intoxicating us into believing we’re all right the way we
are, drunk on self-esteem. The
juice comes from the fruit we squeeze until we get every drop of
possibility and then we drink to give us the nutrients that keep us
from developing a cancer in our souls.
There
is no good time to change your life.
For after all, evolution is a violent process, producing a
peaceful result. And
when the juice of change comes, drink freely.
Guzzle it down—or you’ll end up storing it in the depths
of the barrels of your soul until it ferments into fear.
April 22nd, 2010
All I said to the little tyke was “hello.”
Yet it was enough to frighten him into burying his face in
his mother’s skirt as he whirled around, facing the rear, clinging
tenaciously to Mama’s leg.
“He’s just shy,” she explained to me.
I nodded my head. It’s
the kind of thing you’re supposed to do.
We live in a time when foibles, weaknesses and even
personality quirks that are completely devastating to our human
possibility are explained away with simple statements of, “He’s
just … “
I suppose I could have taken an extra moment to explain to
her that shy people are much less likely to be happy in life.
They usually not only do not get a piece of the pie, but
rarely get the opportunity to even lick up the crumbs.
But
it got me thinking. What
if Jesus had been shy? With
an upbringing in a small village, raised by a handful of family and
friends, what if he were so overcome by fear of strangers that he
never left town? What if
Jesus, being shy, decided just to become the Mayor of Nazareth?
That would be pretty influential—especially to the hometown
folk.
What
if his shyness caused him to take his spiritual fervor and just
start “Carpenters
for God”—a small organization in
Or
what if his memories of his boyhood in
On the other hand, what would have happened if Jesus had
stayed purely Jewish, following all the traditions of the elders,
refusing to have contact with the Romans, Greeks, Samaritans and
that poor Syro-Phoenician woman, with the demon-possessed child?
What if he locked himself into a small box with all of his
preferences and fetishes and hid away, becoming just a pleasant,
well-respected family man?
Let’s press on. What
if he lived today? What
if Jesus decided to become a Republican?
What if he walked around extolling the high ground of
morality and ethics? Could
he ever have made friends with that centurion, who had the sick
servant? And Magdalene?
Tax collectors? Prostitutes
and whores?
What if Jesus were a Democrat?
What if he spent all of his time being concerned about the
earth, climate change, social security, health care and recycling?
Or even the poor? For
after all, Judas tried to get him all worked up over the poor and
Jesus calmly replied, “The poor you have with you always.
Do what you can for them.”
What if Jesus were a Baptist, and instead of focusing on the
Kingdom of God, and happiness, he just followed after his cousin
John’s ministry and got himself a really nice church with a
baptistery and spent his
life “immersed” in his work?
What if Jesus was Catholic and declared himself the Pope of
his own church and wore a really funny hat all the time?
What
if Jesus decided to be Donald Trump, and used his speaking tools to
wield power and exact profits?
What
if Jesus were a minister, trying to figure out the best ways to use
the twelve people on his staff, keeping them all happy so the
congregation would enjoy the worship services instead of being stung
by the challenges?
What
if Jesus decided to be an athlete, running the 400-meter for the
What
if Jesus decided to take all of his preferences, frustrations,
cultural barriers, spiritual inclinations and social whims and wrap
them up in a big package and present them to mankind, asking the
diversity of human types to adjust to his profile?
What
if Jesus decided not to be accessible?
What if Jesus made it more difficult to enter the
What
if Jesus were shy?
For
you see, sometimes the work is much more important than our opinion
and sometimes the only way for the work to get done is for us to
once and for all overcome our preference.
April 21st, 2010
It isn’t what she dreamed, but it is what she created.
I really didn’t know her well when she came into my life at
full velocity fourteen years ago.
I mean, I would have insisted that we were friends because we
possessed one of those peripheral relationships that merely make us
acquaintances, but in which we project greater depth
No, I didn’t really know her.
For instance I wouldn’t have known what her favorite color
was or what really made her laugh or cry.
She was in the midst of a painful divorce, which I’m
convinced may be the true definition of an oxymoron.
She was in the middle of a custody battle for her three
children. She was
abused—mainly mentally and emotionally, where the scars don’t
show up and the police don’t beat down the door, yet the human
soul just quietly dies alone in the dark.
She had played in orchestras for years, but really had never
pushed herself to do more than the modicum of her profession.
She had birthed three sons who were quickly not only escaping
out of her control, but becoming strangers to her within her own
house. She was smart.
She was sharp. But
she was quickly being dulled by the sheer force of the rocks banging
up against her.
So she came, knowing that something had to be different—a
change was needed. And
for fourteen years she has evolved from a single cell of protoplasm,
bruised and beaten by her environment, to a full-fledged human being
in control of all of her surroundings.
She
now does more than play an instrument—she writes music.
She doesn’t just perform motherly or clerical duties—she
launches businesses. She
prays for people instead of constantly needing the prayer for
herself. She reaches in
the darkness without fear of being snatched away.
She has become my business partner, traveling companion,
typist, fellow-musician, confidante, friend and commiserator as I
wade through the “ick” and glue of religiosity and corporate
stickiness.
Her name is Janet Clazzy.
People often ask me if she’s my wife.
No—I have wife,
a lovely women—forty years of marriage.
Janet’s my partner. Janet
has been with me as I’ve composed twelve symphonies, sixteen
screenplays, eight episodes of a situation comedy, traveled a half
million miles and performed thousands and thousands of shows.
I am a fortunate man.
This is her world, and even though today is her fifty-seventh
birthday, she is insisting on working because she loves her job and
finds it just as much fun as sitting around, pretending that a day
off would be more enjoyable. I
also respect the fact that she doesn’t mind people knowing that
she’s fifty-seven years old. She
wears it as a badge of honor—as well she should.
Those three boys that she birthed, that were on their way to
becoming strangers, are now sons and full-grown men, each on his own
mission, each immersed in admiration of a determined, loving mother.
I wish a happy birthday today to Janet Clazzy, my partner in
the pursuit of changing the minds of a reticent church and a fallow
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April 20th, 2010
I received a wonderful email from a young woman, sharing with
me some of her concerns about her dreams, with the curious question:
how do I know whether I should chase after the things that people tell
me are essential?
Her question was so universal that I decided to take this jonathots
to answer it, knowing that the discussion might certainly be
beneficial to others—including myself.
Whenever options come before us, dangling their
possibilities, there is really only one question we need to ask to
determine what path we should choose.
The question?
Will more of the same
make me happy?
Contrary to popular opinion, money does not evade us, playing
a nasty game of hide-and-seek. Here’s
a strange-sounding observation:
Money can’t be bought.
It must be wooed, like a lover, by our passion.
If our passion is limited, ultimately our bottom line will
sink. If our passion is
high, money will race to our aid, or we will find very creative ways
to maintain the integrity of our joyful diversions by budgeting
wisely.
If the answer to the question—Will
more of the same make me happy?—is no, then stop.
There is no need to go further.
Family loyalty, tradition, or even statistics telling you of
the great potential of the endeavor, are meaningless.
Every mission in life demands fuel, and happiness
is the only fuel that permits the engine to hum.
If
more of the same WILL make you happy, then pursue—without
reservation. Full steam
ahead, as they say.
Sometimes
we’re not sure. Then
pause. Stop. Cease the
locomotive from churning toward its destination and just sit there
and allow for a train of thought to fill your mind with ideas and
explanations about your true feelings.
And if you’re certain that more of the same is not
going to make you happy, then retreat.
Put down what is in your hands and quietly walk away, in the
opposite direction. You
may wonder what you’re going to do next, but God has a way of
showing us an enlightened path along the passage of our
well-selected departure.
So
my answer to this dear, young woman is very simple.
When you’re not certain of the next choice, find out if
more of the same will make you happy.
|
If
yes, then pursue. |
|
If
not certain, pause. |
|
If
the answer is no, then retreat—and trust God to cover your
exit. |
April 19th, 2010
Maybe it’s because I just got done spending ten days in
I just wonder what happened one week later.
After she had resumed doing her chores and feeling the
gingham against her skin, and taking orders from her auntie, did she
yearn escape, to be part of that magical kingdom—even though most
of the magic was manipulated from behind a curtain? Did
she miss the suspense? One
week later, a mere seven days, had Dorothy forgotten how the ruby
slippers brought her home, since now she was only shod in tattered
penny loafers?
The same thing comes to my mind when I think about the story
of the prodigal son from Luke 15 in the Bible.
He was so dissatisfied with his home life that he took his
inheritance, split out and took a walk on the wild side for a while.
We have no reason to believe he would ever have ceased
riotous living except a famine hit the land and he ran out of money.
And even though it’s a beautiful story of
a return to his father’s home because he realized how much
he missed everybody—I want to know what happens one week later.
Once
again, he’s back to chores and that nagging, prissy, elder brother
who really doesn’t like him, and a father who is very solid, but
awfully predictable in his practices.
What did it feel like then?
Yes—the prodigal son was saved.
Certainly a case could be made that Dorothy was also salvaged
from the depths of destruction and despair.
But saved to do what? Saved
to be what? Is one of
the conditions of the contract of salvation, down there in fine
print, that one must relinquish all hopes, dreams and aspirations
for excitement? Are all
profiles of salvation accompanied by a subdued lifestyle that
watches the world go by, half in pity and half in envy?
I
will tell you right now, the only way to be Dorothy back in
The beauty of
home is that it is a place where people allow us to still continue
to pursue our dreams. The
beauty of our dreams is that we can chase them in the security of
our home.
Yes—I
wonder what happens one week later.
I wonder what happens when we find out that as human beings,
we need a little bit of
April 18th, 2010
Spelunking—casual cavorting in caves for contentment.
I have written over 750 jonathots,
and to my recollection I have never used the word “spelunker”
before.
Treasure the moment.
Because quite bluntly, I don’t like caves. They
are damp, dark, humid and the best part of the experience is the
entrance you just walked away from.
I also don’t like them because they’re noisy.
I guess that’s an incorrect phrasing.
Caves are not
noisy—as it turns out, caves are just intolerant of sound. So
they reverberate it, distort it, multiply it and basically, destroy
all forms of potential communication.
For instance, the guy leading me through my cave tried to
explain the history of the great opening before me and his voice was
so distorted in the confines that several times I misunderstood him
and thought he was insulting my mother.
Seriously though, caves distort sound and make human
interaction and conversation virtually impossible.
They also disguise where
the sound is coming from. You
can imagine how frightening this makes it for search teams trying to
listen for the slightest signs of life during a cave-in.
I don’t like caves. There
is a reason our ancestors lived in them—and God knows, there’s a
reason they came out of them. They
lived in them because they were afraid—afraid of God, animals,
nature and even other cave-dwellers.
Unfortunately,
in our recent history, we have taken several steps backwards into
their original dwelling place. We’re
beginning to live in caves again, where sound is distorted and
therefore, human communication is virtually inaudible.
Our
government is a cave—a large chamber of mahogany, reverberating
the childish and willful stubbornness of a two-party system that
forgot how to party long ago.
Our
corporations have become gigantic caves of misrepresentation, unable
to hear the screaming need of the public because of the din of
hammers and accountants’ pens, striking employees from the rolls.
Our
homes have become sanctuaries of solitude, where we allow ourselves
to be inundated by a frustrating repetition of din from the Internet
and media, while insisting we are maintaining our individuality.
And
our churches have become cavernous, monastic caves of overly-zealous
seventeenth-century organ music or banging tambourines, attempting
to cover up both the cries of the hurting and the still, small voice
of God.
I
know there are people who will say “all we need to do is turn down
the noise”—and not be so concerned with our locales and
institutions. But I
contend that until we remove ourselves from Neanderthal
surroundings, clothing us in the rags of unrighteousness, we will
only be able to discern the cacophony of banging and clanging wills
instead of the sweet sound of another human voice.
A
lady walked up to my table last night and told me that my logo for
“Spirited”—which has two small i’s with wings on
them—looked, to her, like “evil human eyes.”
In fourteen years I have never heard this statement before.
So
what do I think about her comment?
Well,
I think I don’t live in a cave, so I can listen to her and hear
one voice instead of an echoing in my ears.
I’m not going to change my logo over that one voice, but
the next time somebody hands me graphics, I will look a little
closer to make sure it doesn’t have some hidden meaning that
escapes my first glance. The
solution is quite easy. If
you desire to escape being a “cave person,” just refuse to
listen to two things at once. Two
people walk in the room talking?
Humbly request that they take turns.
Don’t listen to a conversation with your children while the
radio is playing. Turn
down the noise yourself. Crawl
out of the cave.
You
see, when you don’t live in a cave you can hear one voice without
thinking you’re being shouted upon.
And
until you leave the cave, you will feel like you’re test-driving
your coffin.
April
17th, 2010
Ben Tomlinson hated six-thirty A.M.—the hour required of him to
arise in the morning. It wasn’t so much that he hated
getting up in the morning as it was the particular time demanded of
him to do so. Because he needed to be at work at eight
o’clock, and having been on the job for twenty years, he saw no
reason to be there before eight-thirty, since no one ever arrived in
the park until nine o’clock. His company didn’t care.
All Ben wanted to do was rise at seven o’clock in the morning and
get to work at eight-thirty. But it was just not to be.
For
you see, it had been two decades that Ben had been working for the
city park system as a guard for the statue of William Putnam.
William Putnam was one of the founders of the town, and about
twenty-five years ago somebody had erected a statue of him in the
middle of the city park. It was a big weekend of festivities
and speeches that was tainted shortly after by the statue being
vandalized by some kids with red paint. It was quite a shock
to the community. So the city council voted to hire a guard to
watch over the statue so that no one would bother it. It was a
little odd—because the guard was hired to watch over the statue
during the day, when very little vandalism occurs, but in that
committee-gone-wild kind of way, it made sense.
So
Ben was hired to be that guard. For twenty years he
arrived at work faithfully at 8:00 A.M., setting his lunch to the
side in a cooler with his frozen iced tea, which just as faithfully
thawed by lunchtime, performing the double function of keeping his
sandwich cool and providing drink.
There
wasn’t much to the job. Ben, being a congenial sort, was
friendly to all the children and people who came walking by, but
guarding a statue doesn’t require much effort, ingenuity—or
exercise, for that matter.
Sometimes
Ben just sat on the bench and thought about his life. When he
was studying in high school and during the three semesters he took
at junior college, did he ever think that his final occupation would
be guarding a statue? Probably not. Bigger dreams.
Important aspirations.
He thought to himself, “If you do something that you have to make
seem important instead of having it possess an obvious importance,
isn’t that basically just the ultimate definition of
self-deception?” But deep thoughts were quickly diverted by
a request for directions from a passer-by or a little kid, lost and
squalling because he couldn’t find his mommy.
Guarding statues. It comes with a uniform, you know.
There’s a badge. There’s a fire arm, even though the
actual weapon contains no bullets. A symbol of authority.
A symbol of importance. A symbol, guarding a previous
generation’s symbol.
But now it’s six-thirty and faithful Ben got up to begin another
day. He made it all the way into the bathroom and turned on
the shower, when suddenly twenty years of inactivity on a park bench
caught up with him. Ben had a heart attack—one of those big
ones that grab you and take you home. He died on his bathroom
floor.
The funeral was held last Tuesday and a small article appeared in
the paper. They mentioned his children. They mentioned
that he had gone to junior college, although they got it wrong by
saying he had graduated. They mentioned all the people who
survived him. They even put in a little note that Ben had once
bowled a 262 game at the local alley.
But
a young writer at the paper was reprimanded later by his editor for
negligence, because he failed to mention that Ben Tomlinson, for
twenty years, had guarded a statue.
April 16th, 2010
Nine wonderful human beings attended my concert event last
night in
It
happens. Fortunately, not
as much anymore.
When
I first started out thirty-five years ago, nine people huddled
together in a coffee house would have been a downright mob.
Time presses on.
You
know, I really don’t have a problem with occasionally sharing in
front of a small audience. Matter
of fact, it has its own charm. For instance, intimacy is not a
profile, but rather a proximity effect.
What
I don’t like are the clichés that pop off of people’s mouths
following the sharing time. I’ve
always hated clichés. But
I especially hate clichés that have no basis in fact.
They are just things we say to each other to supposedly ease
the pain when, honest to God, a little pain would be a good thing to
feel. Let me give you four
that I often hear in these situations:
- “People are just so busy nowadays and
there are so many things going on…” Can
I be the first one to dispel the myth that people are really busy?
How could Facebook, You Tube, the internet and prime-time
television survive if people were really busy?
The reason people think they are busy is because they
procrastinate, find themselves doing yesterday’s work today,
which they also immediately avoid spending time on by worrying
about tomorrow. People
aren’t busy; they’re distracted.
Let’s learn the difference.
- The
second cliché that often pops up in these situations is: “It really doesn’t
make any difference whether it’s nine people or nine hundred.”
Really? I
can give you eight hundred and ninety-one reasons that there is
a difference. If we
really disrespect ourselves enough to think that our talent and
gift as an offering is just as viable with nine as it is with nine
hundred, we are either desperately in need of a boost of
self-worth, or viciously lying to ourselves about our feelings.
I am more than happy to share my full measure of ability
and love with nine people I
am not going to pretend that it shouldn’t have been nine
hundred.
- Number three is the God’s Will Syndrome.
“I just guess it was God’s will.” I
learned a long time ago the difference between God’s will and
man’s failure that we blame on God.
Or my failure, for that matter.
Jesus tells a parable about God holding a great banquet.
Two things strike me about that parable.
God is not satisfied with the crowd until His house is
full. He calls them
from the highways and byways.
And secondly, when some of the members of the audience
decide to show up not dressed for the occasion, He kicks them out
because of their apathy. I’m
sorry—that just doesn’t sound like a guy who is not concerned
about numbers.
- And
finally—and this one is a classic: “If
just one person was touched, it was all worth it.”
Here’s a school of thought:
if we can come up with something that can touch one, just
think what it would do for a hundred.
I would never withhold blessing from one person because I
impudently was frustrated or disappointed with attendance.
But I will not lie to you and tell you that disappointment
is unimportant. Disappointment
is often what triggers the passion to do better.
So
please take your clichés away from me and let me learn from my pain.
I will never give less than my best no matter what.
But I won’t hide behind lies and deceptions to disguise my
desire to see things better.
Pastor
Nancy, I admire you very much because you knew that last night was not
acceptable. And because
you knew that and registered that, it probably will never happen to
you again.
April 15th, 2010
“How was your day?”
People ask me that all the time.
Of course, I am smart enough to realize what they want is a
quick, positive answer. “Great!
How was yours?” It
would be downright annoying if I took an extra minute or two to ask
them what they were looking to find out or explain to them what I
think constitutes a good day.
Politeness. Politeness
is the way we choose to act to avoid being different.
Because after all, “different” is a frightening
possibility. So we have a
society that feverishly works to maintain a status quo—bouncing
between unfulfilling and undesirable.
“Different” is what it takes to create the change that
makes us understand why we weren’t happy in the first place.
Instead, among our populace, happiness is perceived as a
transitional phase, while diligence is extolled as the preferred
practice.
Hogwash.
If this life isn’t about happiness, count me out.
And happiness is always in the power of discovering difference.
Jesus said if you’re going to be poor in spirit, you still
have a responsibility to find the tools to be happy.
Even in the action of mourning, there should be the production
of an internal jubilance. Feeling
meek? Well, get your
thinkin’ cap on and get ready to inherit the earth.
But
our politicians jockey for notoriety and pander for votes.
Meanwhile, our theologians try to set the temperature of the
waters of baptism perfectly to the taste of the sinner.
And our corporations squeeze a little more profit out of every
dollar by shrinking the size of their products and their workforce.
Can
anyone else see that these trappings of commonality and repetition are
not making a better world? Why?
Because they lack
difference. Originality
has become optional. My
God, let me change that. Originality
has become suspect.
In
a culture of conformity, difference becomes the only crime worthy of
exile. In a realm of
repetition, creativity becomes the casualty of clogged traffic.
In a world of worship,
spirituality is shuffled away to a closet to pray alone.
Many,
many years ago, I trained my heart, soul, mind and strength to feast
on a diet of “difference.” I’m
not speaking of being “different for different’s sake.”
I’m not promoting the idea of rebellion in the midst of a
peaceful terrain. I am
suggesting that the only power we truly possess is to do those things
we know are right in our heart and soul—and damn the critics.
Why can’t we just stir the pudding until it thickens?
Why are we satisfied with liquid results when solid conclusions
are attainable? It will
require us to not only listen to different ideas, but attempt some of
them as well, knowing that some failure is inevitable.
Caution
is the battle cry of the damned. The
power of being different allows for a great shout of jubilation at the
end of the day—with the wonderful byproduct called peace of mind.
For after all, don’t you think you should use a piece of your
mind to achieve peace of mind? Makes
sense to me. Of course,
you’ve got to forgive me. I
believe in the power of being different.
It’s
not that anybody else agrees with us.
It’s not that the productivity of our efforts is so immense
that the masses stand back in awe.
It’s that we know that we’ve done the thing that has made
us happy. It didn’t hurt
us, it didn’t hurt anyone else and there’s a good chance that if
it were done by others in their own different way, the world just
might be a better place.
It’s
the power to be different.
It
won’t make you rich and it sure won’t make you famous.
But it is the only true way to feel you’ve contributed to the
planet’s well-being and to possess, for at least this one day, true
peace of mind.
April 14th, 2010
I’ve said some nasty things over the years.
I’m not proud of it. I’ve
worked to rectify the rampant slashings of my tongue against other
human beings. In doing so,
I have discovered that the poisonous pellets spewed off my lips
usually boil down to one of two beginning proclamations—either
“You can’t…” or “You aren’t.” Or
some combination of the pair.
When I was a kid we had a saying which I sincerely hope is
still around.
“Who died and made you boss?”
For after all, the most egregious sins that humankind can
commit are during the times when we tell other people what they
can’t do and what they aren’t.
King George told the American colonists, “You can’t
have a say in deciding your own taxation, for after all you aren’t really British.” Big
mistake. What you might
say, not King George’s cup of tea.
Those
same American colonists turned around to the black folk and said,
“You can’t be free.
For we have decided you aren’t a complete human.” Hundreds
of thousands of deaths later, the Civil War concluded they were wrong.
History
note after history page reiterate the fact that any time any group of
people, or any individual, decides “you can’t” or “you
aren’t” or the combination of “you can’t because you
aren’t” or “you aren’t because you can’t”—well, anyway,
anyone who pursued that path ended up a failure and a fool.
A
case could be made that even God, in the Garden of Eden, by telling
Adam and Eve “you can’t eat
the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” opened
the door to the tempter to tell them “you aren’t allowed to eat it because God knows you will become like
Him.” Well, I think
you know how that story ended.
Human
beings just never respond well to “can’t” and “aren’t.”
I know there are those who would leap in at this point and
remind me that we MUST have “can’t’s” and even some
“aren’t’s” in our society to maintain the dignity of law and
the righteousness of our nation. Then
let the law speak it. Let
the nation proclaim it. And
let God be the judge. But
leave you and me out of it.
Knowing
that I am human and tempted to express my superiority by telling
others they can’t do things or they aren’t what they think they
are, I purposefully hunker down in my bunker of humility and insist on
focusing on the things people CAN do and the things that people ARE.
Because I know this: the
minute I—mortal that I am—decide that something can’t be done,
or some individual or groups aren’t worthy of consideration, God
will break my mystical spell of self delusion by granting these
rejected fellows a higher place than me.
It’s
the reason I believe in God and it’s the reason I love God.
At heart, He’s a renegade and a rebel, refusing to be
manipulated by tradition or religious practice.
If you want to get on the right side of history and you want to
be free of the condemnation that comes from judging others, then stop
telling anyone they “can’t” or they “aren’t.”
If
you find it impossible to encourage them with a “can” or a “you
are,” then choose that most holy profile possible—silence.
Now,
you certainly don’t need to listen to this advice and you surely can
pursue the anger of the day or the prejudice of the masses.
I am merely telling you, you will find yourself on the wrong
end of history and at the judging end of the finger of God.
|
You
can’t. |
|
You
aren’t. |
|
You
can’t because you aren’t.
|
|
You
aren’t because you can’t.
|
You
fill in the possibilities. Or
better yet, run like a scared little tot from a horror house and
escape the true tragedy and depravity of such stupidity.
April 13th, 2010
Yeah, I made up another word.
So shoot me. (Well,
I guess I shouldn’t say that in the present climate of our society
today. Somebody might
actually take me up on it.)
Which brings me to the point of cleansversation.
You might have figured out by now that it’s a blending of two
words: cleansing
and conversation.
I
contend there is a dialogue that occurs between people, or even among
them, that is both enriching and enlightening—a
conversation that cleanses. I
bring this up because it seems to me that we have lost a piece of
priceless interaction, at least temporarily.
I remember a time when people would sit and talk and there
would be some variance of opinion.
But there would be moments when each person involved would
become silent, deeply contemplating the reasoning and thoughts of
another. It was like
having your thinking polished by a great discussion.
The reason it stopped, or has temporarily been delayed, is that
we have ceased to use the correct phrasing in sharing with others.
For
instance, it is always permissible to say, “This is what I’ve
seen” or “This is what I’ve heard.”
This is personal experience.
But rather recently there has been a promotion of a trio of
approaches that changes discussions from times of discovery to raging
debates.
May
I say that the following three approaches to conversing with others
are completely unacceptable if you expect to be taken seriously, or
anticipate any learning curve on your part at all?
1.
“Experts agree.” Please
don’t tell me what experts say.
People are experts for this moment.
In the next moment, knowledge will come along and change the
flow. It is an unfair,
ridiculous maneuver to try to get unseen intelligence on your side.
2.
“The
Bible says…” May I
please point out to you that the Bible itself warns that there is no
private interpretation? In
other words, no one knows exactly what everything means at any given
time. So when I do bring
up the Bible, I choose to pose it in a questioning mode.
“What do you think the Bible means by this?”
But “The Bible says…” closes the conversation down to a point
where we’re supposed to listen only to your voice, as the most
recent oracle of God.
3.
And finally, “I believe.” What a
conversation killer! What
a prohibition of being cleansed! Am
I supposed to continue to talk, thinking that I am going to be able to
change your belief? My
discovery is that the greatest weakness in the human spirit is believing
too much and seeking too
little. At no time did
Jesus say, “Believe, and it shall be given unto you.”
It was “ask, seek and knock.”
And in another case, it was “Believe and don’t
doubt in your heart.” The
phrase “I believe…” stalls interaction with other human beings.
To
have a cleansversation—a
cleaning talk with others—simply requires that we share what we’ve
seen and heard and know that what others have seen and heard may very
well enhance our experience. Until
we can return to this verbal shower of blessing, I think we will just
stand across the room and shout at each other until we become hoarse
and lose our voices and then, try to merely glare and stare each other
down.
Think
about it. Tell me what
you’ve seen. Tell me
what you’ve heard. And
I’ll tell you what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard.
And
we’ll have a cleansing conversation.
A cleansversation.
April 12th, 2010
Sitting at my table yesterday morning signing books for folks
in
After
thirty-five years of traveling and pursuing artistic endeavors, I am a
bit paranoid about notes that are handed to me without comment.
I really don’t know why—most of the things that have come
in my life have been blessings, but there have been those moments when
people have decided to jot down bits of nastiness, hoping to leave a
bad taste in my mouth for later. So
I stuffed the note in my pocket, deciding to peruse it at a different
time.
Arriving back in my motel room about an hour later, I reached
into my pocket and pulled out the folded message.
I opened it and read:
I
am fifty years old, lost in so many ways.
But today I felt a spark—the hope that all I’ve been
through in my life should give me purpose.
I left an abusive relationship of thirteen years—pain and the
feeling of being left behind by God and my faith.
Two years ago, I left with my eight-year-old son and I still
wonder where my God is. I
am jobless, surviving on less than four hundred dollars a month.
Sometimes I want to give up.
Today, you gave me hope. God
bless you.
I folded the note up and put it in my drawer.
There aren’t many times in our lives when we clearly know,
beyond any shadow of a doubt, that we should keep on going.
I just experienced one of those.
So to you, dear lady: you gave me hope. And God bless you.
April 11th, 2010
I am seriously considering suing my right knee for non-support.
I’m sure some athletes have thought of it.
Probably a dancer or two. But
do you think there’s a legal precedent?
I’m not sure what assets my right knee actually possesses,
but I do remember when I was younger that I could hop around on it
like a Mexican jumping bean on crack cocaine.
After all, I was going to live forever and I assumed that my
right knee planned on joining me in the mission.
But I cracked it real hard during a fall a few months ago and
since then it has decided to become a bit of a weenie.
Even though my left knee continues to mock it to shame and the
rest of my right leg is quite embarrassed to live in the same
neighborhood, my right knee continues to remind me that time presses
on.
So my knee that used to allow me to hop around now has
become… well, un-hoppy.
If I had known this when I was more youthful, I might have
saved a few hops for later life. That’s
what old people should do instead of being grouchy and
sticks-in-the-mud—they could explain to younger folks how parts of
the body begin to pack up and check out early, before the rest of you
is ready to leave the room.
Yes,
I guess we kind of fall apart in pieces.
I’m fully alerted to this.
I’m treating that left knee with more respect than it
actually deserves. I have
a pair of hands that play piano and write, which I have begun to
pamper, because I find them quite handy.
And my brain—there are rumors that it can begin to unravel,
so I’m using it as creatively and pungently as possible before it
turns to a cranium of gray mush.
I guess the greatest advice you can give to anyone who’s
young is to enjoy it as much as possible.
Make it count. And
never fail to keep an eye on your mortality, even though you deem
yourself eternal.
I have no regrets, and of course, I will never stop motoring
along on my legs until they completely collapse.
I just move a little slower and try to make it look dignified
instead of incapacitated.
It’s
just fascinating to me that the penthouse of the human body sits up
there on top and never realizes how important the tenement hovels are
below. So much like us
all. So proud of our
brains—but not so careful with our knees.
Yes, it is the less significant parts of our body—and our
society—that ultimately “kneed”
our attention.
April 10th, 2010
Walking through the forest.
I don’t do it enough. Actually,
I do it so infrequently that I become overly-pious about myself when I
actually accomplish the feat. It
has a certain Edenic sensation to it, as if you’re the only human
alive, cavorting among the marauding beasts.
Well, not really, but it sounded good, right?
But one day I was walking through the forest and I came upon a
hole in the ground. I
paused. Actually, my brain
punched my “writer’s time-clock” and went into overtime.
I
mused. What was the source
of the hole? It wasn’t
natural because the edges were too symmetrical. It
certainly had been dug for some sort of purpose.
But looking around the region, no obvious mission leaped to
mind.
Was it a camp fire? Like
none I’d ever seen. Perhaps
someone was planning to dispose of some garbage and left the task
incomplete.
Was
it a grave? No carcass.
Maybe
someone was thinking about laying a foundation for a cabin and grew
weary in the task.
Why
was the hole in the ground—an abandoned hole?
It was left without completion, not filled in again and no note
of explanation. “Sorry
about the hole. Decided
against it.”
If I had been absent-minded I could easily have fallen in.
Well, fallen in may be over-wrought.
It wasn’t that deep. But
certainly wrenched an ankle.
I suddenly found myself becoming perturbed over someone who
would dig a little piece of a hole and then leave it.
I mean, if I had come upon a hole that had been filled in, I
would have thought a project had been attempted and then a decision
was made to move on. Even
if I had come upon a hole with a shovel sticking up out of the ground,
I could conclude that work was being done and that I had happened
along in the midst of a break.
But a hole without explanation, without evidence of further
progress and certainly not having the dirt replaced does create a
mind-teaser. Of course,
eventually nature will fill the hole with leaves, twigs, broken
branches, soil erosion. But
that will take time—an extra effort that Nature does not need to
take on, considering her busy schedule.
Yes, I cam upon a hole in the middle of the forest,
meticulously dug and then abandoned without explanation.
I thought to myself, this is probably why we have so many
problems in our society today. Because
after all, it’s not problems that perplex us so much.
It’s the aggravation over incomplete adventures. They tend to
accumulate, don’t they? We’re
continually coming upon abandoned holes that no one took the time to
fill in or dig further or even leave a note of explanation.
We’re just supposed to work around them and accept the
inadequacy as normal. It
causes us to be fussy. It
makes us a little bit less tolerant for the next project because
sensing a lack of fulfillment, we feel trepidation over starting in
the first place. It is the
last hole we dug which we abandoned, leaving behind an unexplained
defeat which makes us overly cautious about digging again.
Abandoned holes—little projects begun and walked away from
quietly, hoping no one notices. It
not only creates caverns of misunderstanding, but deeper cynicism in
those who pass by.
Can you dig it? If
you can’t, fill it back in.
Or
leave a note. “I tried.
It’s your turn.”
April 9th, 2010
It
is an abiding axiom in the business world that if you want to get
rich, just build a better mousetrap, the thought being that the
consumer will breathlessly beat a path to your door to acquire such an
ingenious contraption.
Perhaps this would be true if people’s mindsets were geared
to search for improved solutions or enhanced gadgets to expand their
horizons. But alas, we are
creatures of habit. Worse
than that, we are cone-heads of conformity.
So a better mousetrap is more often than not greeted with a
yawn instead of a cheer.
Why?
Would you allow me to submit four possible reasons for such
apathy?
1.
To accept a better mousetrap into your household, you have to
admit you have mice. That
particular confession comes with a whole litany of conclusions.
It probably means you’re not a very good housekeeper.
Obviously, dirt must be everywhere.
And you are so oblivious that you failed to notice that Jerry,
of Tom and Jerry fame, has cut out a little hole, a doorway, in the
corner of your woodwork. For
after all, like most things that expand us, they are usually preceded
by an admission of being deflated.
Who likes to do that? Who
wants to be the person who actually “needs” a better mousetrap?
2.
You have to be willing to kill
a mouse. In our
politically correct world, we have many folks who would like to corral
mice, hogtie them and herd them off to a safe place in the woods where
they could develop great fellowship with their neighbors and second
cousins, the squirrels. Get
used to it. I do
believe the conclusion of the normal mousetrap is the inglorious
execution of a mouse. Then
the true horror—who will dispose of the carcass?
3.
Tradition. You
know, the old “if it was good enough for my grandma, it’s good
enough for me. When I was a kid I saw my mother snap her fingers in a
mousetrap and it was so funny, I must repeat the scenario for my
offspring.” Good ideas
always suffer under the burden of both being new and being
replacements for nostalgic standards.
Jesus phrased it well when he said, “People will taste the
old wine; they will taste the new wine, and they will insist to you
that the old wine is better.”
4.
Finally, the new mousetrap demands a learning curve.
We hate learning. It
creates brain pain. Even
if you insist it’s easier than the previous version, the small page
of instructions will baffle the dunce stumbling within all of us.
So even if you package it, promote it and advertise it on the
Super Bowl, it still must survive the lethargy of the lug-head.
It’s just easier, sometimes, not
to be smart.
So
in this great country of ours we often suffer, not from a lack of
ideas or a dwindling quorum of inventors, but from a marketplace that
is slow to admit need, overly conscious of things that don’t really
matter, bound by traditional practices proven unfulfilling, and a bit
frightened of firing up the gray matter with new concepts.
We
certainly should continue to encourage our mousetrap-builders, but
perhaps simultaneously, we should stimulate our politicians, ministers
and educators to chip away at the iciness of stubborn repetition in
the culture—to make room for new ideas that could warm our hearts
(and kill mice, for that matter.)
April 8th, 2010
Pete and Repeat were running down the street.
Pete fell down. Who
was left?
Repeat.
Pete and Repeat were running down the street. Pete fell down.
Who was left?
Repeat.
You know the drill, right?
I think everyone has fallen for that rhyme at least once in
their life and if you’re reading it for the first time—honestly,
you should get out more.
I arrived back at my home on
But
this morning it was time to go back out on the road to tour to
It is the struggle that all
of us have between righteousness and grace.
It is the “Pete and Repeat” of life.
If we don’t find out how to become Pete, we certainly will
end up playing the role of Repeat.
It is the same way with
righteousness and grace. There
has to be a certain measure of the awareness of righteousness to make
grace work. Otherwise, we
begin to believe that grace is our only
righteousness, and we live a life of ignorance about what really
works on the planet earth and also what really works for us.
If we live a life solely of
righteousness, we are constantly living under a self-condemnation due
to our failures, projecting the same onto others because of our
frustration.
The balance between
righteousness and grace, to me, is the sole goal of lifespan travel.
I must have enough consciousness of righteousness for myself
that when I am extended grace, it is received with gratitude rather
than expectation. I must gratefully receive grace with as much
humility and, dare I say, a hint of despair over my lacking, that I
want to repent and pursue better righteousness.
Because it is clear that
even though the grace of God is a magnificent mechanism of the deepest
chambers of His heart, it is not
without end. The Bible
makes it clear that “God is not mocked—whatever a man sows, he
will reap.”
I share this with you today
so that you, along with me, can understand the nature of our quest.
Please remember it simply in this three-fold statement:
|
I work to be better.
|
|
I humbly receive grace when
I’m not. |
|
I give everybody else the
same measure. |
It’s
the only way I know to avoid the Pete and Repeat syndrome
April 7th, 2010
I was twelve years old at church camp.
Twelve years of age is a very delicate time in a young man’s
life. In a strange way,
you can feel the hot pursuit of puberty breathing down your neck (and
other parts, for that matter) while simultaneously, your brain is
still playing reruns of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.
The word that comes to mind is “impressionable.”
I bring this up because we were staying in rustic cabins in the
middle of the woods. I
don’t know why church camps are like that.
I guess we all think that we’re closer to God when we don a
Daniel Boone persona, although I never heard of Mr. Boone being
particularly pious.
Anyway, back to my story. The
mattresses were old and green, which we were immediately informed was not due to mold, but were also instructed to quickly put bedding on
top of them before sleeping. The
whole building smelled like wood dipped in a little bit of grease that
had spent at least a fortnight in a bear latrine.
I have never duplicated that smell, though I have traversed the
earth many times. But we
didn’t care. We were
wild and free and young—on our own, away from our parents, on a
quest for God and maybe our first peek at a girl’s panties.
(I know it’s an interesting blending of quests, but I’m
sure even those who hunted for the Holy Grail required a bit of
distraction.)
While unpacking, one of my bunkmates shrieked in horror, which,
at twelve years of age, has absolutely no distinction between either
male or female. We ran
over to discover the source of his outburst.
It was a big, black spider.
At least, that’s what we told the camp counselor, who arrived
in response to the scream, expecting to participate in a death toll.
The spider wasn’t actually black; it was kind of an ugly,
muddy brown. And it really
wasn’t that big. I mean,
if spiders did such things, this one probably could have hidden under
a nickel. But I think when
encountering a spider, exaggeration is not only expected, but a bit
necessary.
Well, the camp counselor reached over, squeezed the varmint
with his fingers and killed it, laughingly saying, “Come on, boys!
At least it’s not a tarantula.”
Really? “At least it’s not a tarantula?”
And what is that supposed to mean?
My encounter with this
philosophy did not cease with this incident at church camp.
For instance, sometimes there will be a very bad rainstorm with
hail, thunder, lightning, trees falling—and some bystander will pipe
up with, “Well, at least it wasn’t a tornado.”
Or there will be a tornado, and a near-by survivor will be
interviewed and will proffer the statement, “Well, at least we saved
the family Bible and the cats and dogs.”
Really?
One of my personal favorites is people who share insight when
trying to comfort you when you have a broken leg or an upcoming
operation in the hospital by suggesting, “Well, at least it’s not
cancer.” I don’t know
why we think the best way to comfort someone going through a
difficulty is to bring up a worse tragedy that could have happened,
and therefore, by comparison, making the present situation look like a
blessing in disguise.
Why can’t I have a
moment to be upset and impressed with my spider?
Why is it necessary to make me think that I was foolish to be
frightened because it wasn’t a tarantula?
Why can’t I be a
little bit put out and frustrated that the tree fell in my front yard
during that really bad thunder storm?
Is it necessary for me to displace that vision with the
destruction of my entire house by a tornado so that I might conjure a
bit of perspective? After
all, during a thunderstorm hundreds of tornadoes are often formed, but
rarely touch the ground. Rain
and hail, on the other hand, are destined by gravity to hit me.
Is it really advantageous to remove the sympathy I might
require during a fierce bout with the flu, or a sprained ankle, to
inject the vision of a creeping disease which can only be cured by
radioactive isotopes?
I know people mean well. But
sometimes the nicest thing you can say to someone, instead of limiting
the scope of their pain, is “Wow.
That sucks.”
For after all, tarantulas are not indigenous to most church
camps and tornadoes don’t touch down nearly as often as thunder
storms blow over trees. And
cancer is a really rotten comparison to my poor, achy head.
It doesn’t hurt to be empathetic.
Balance is not always the best thing to bring to someone who is
feeling imbalanced.
Sometimes it’s better just
to offer a cup of tea, a nice chair, a pair of ears and an agreeable
nod.
April 6th, 2010
It happens so infrequently that we begin to believe it to be a
figment of our imagination—a flicker of light in the corner of our
eye with the illusion of the presence of yet another dimension, filled
with revelation in a millisecond of time in the midst of a dream where
we are suddenly aware of all knowledge, only to be awakened to our
more mundane surroundings—lying in bed alone at night, staring at
the ceiling, when suddenly everything that was so dim and poorly
understood comes into sharp focus.
Clarity.
It ranges from being a sharp burst of light nearly blinding us
on our slippery slide to stupidity to a gentle, glowing illumination,
softening our hearts to deeper awareness.
It is the piece of God placed in us in
Clarity—when for a simple moment of time, all things become
clear—or at least all things that seem to matter, granting us a
comparison. Do we continue
to pursue our present path, knowing there are better choices and
therefore transform our ignorance into delusion?
Or do we allow the moment of clarity to grant us the insight to
permanently improve our situation?
Some call it the voice of reason.
Some believe it to be the voice of God.
Others attribute supernatural, angelic proportions to the
occurrence. And there is a
contingent that would even insist that it’s just good, common sense.
Whatever it is, clarity makes things clear even if just for a
second of time. How we
utilize that clarity determines either our failing or our rising.
Clarity.
It is brief because if it dwelt within us too long, mortals we
are, we would certainly cease to exist.
April 5th, 2010
Manhandled.
Are you familiar with that word?
I ask because sometimes there are words indigenous to your own
area of birth, or even your particular family’s quirk, but I am
pretty confident that most people know what “manhandled” means.
It is an aggressive, often violent intervention or attack by
human beings on one another. It
can by psychological; it can be spiritual; it can be mental; and of
course, we know it can be physical.
Yet it always leaves fingerprints.
I guess that’s my problem when I get around people who feel
their spiritual report card has granted them insight to instruct other
folks in righteousness or even claim the higher moral ground.
Here’s a quick point—if you ever get tempted to be part of
one of these “committees of righteousness,” who decide it’s
their business what other people do in their personal lives or
bedrooms, please take a precious moment to remember your own back
story.
Can I give you a clue? If
you have anything that resembles the iniquity, mistake or immorality
in your own history, it does disqualify you from becoming an umpire in the great game of
life.
I
know there are people who would disagree with me.
But when it’s all played out, there are really very few ways
to end up looking like a loser in this life. If you make mistakes and
repent of them and even try
to set a new direction, most people will root for you through all four
quarters of the contest. If
you happen to be a person who is blemish-free and hasn’t partaken of
the particular notorious naughtiness, and you decide not
to be judgmental of others, most folks will be willing to bestow
sainthood upon you.
But if you choose to become God’s new moral hound dog,
sniffing the world around you for blood and proof of perversion, and
then later it is found out that you have nibbled at the smorgasbord of
sinful pleasure, well then, you become a hypocrite, which, in the
realm of human travel, is very similar to being a dart-board in an
Irish pub. Hypocrisy
is the one thing we will not tolerate in each other.
So
the next time you find yourself wanting to manhandle some situation
based upon your great understanding of God’s mind and your tender,
moral conscience, please consider that it leaves fingerprints.
And when others come along to comfort those you have bruised,
they will find your fingerprints, and like good, little detectives,
they will track down all of your previous crimes.
So
you may ask me, “What should I do, Mr. Cring, if I run across
immorality, impropriety or any kind of im-in-progress?”
May I offer this three-step proposal?
- Always
make it clear out of your own confession what you have done wrong,
how you did it and how you have repented of it to this day.
Be transparent.
- Set
a new example by pursuing a different lifestyle yourself, and,
once again, doing that repent thing when you fall off the wagon.
- And
finally, wait for the question.
People who come to themselves and want to change their
existence are going to be looking for another fellow-traveler who
has been through difficulty, set a new path and feels mercy
towards those who are struggling.
Anyone but a man-handler.
It
will surprise you to find out that righteousness will succeed without
your involvement or your judgment.
If you really believe in goodness, you will know that it is not
a decision by the weak and the untempted to stay pure, but rather,
goodness is the selection done by those who have come through
difficulty to gain survival.
So
if I can be so bold, let me say that if Jesus said that he could judge
and his judgment would be true, but that he wasn’t going to, I think
it is safe to assume that he would probably frown on our less-than
one-hundred-per-cent pure efforts.
Fingerprints—the
evidence left behind when we manhandle another human being.
Remember—God has His detectives.
April 4th, 2010
It is the only part of the story that really makes any sense to
me, yet the portion of the tale that leaves the skeptics scoffing and
even the faithful quietly reverent instead of leaping for joy.
Of course, Jesus rose from the dead.
It is the final poke in the eye to religious short-sightedness.
Let’s look at the whole story:
|
Jesus
was supposed to be born of the seed of David, and instead, God
side-stepped the pompous male lineage by birthing his promise
through the “seed” of a woman.
|
|
Jesus
spent his formative years in the perceived heathen-land of |
|
He
joined himself with a renegade movement near the |
|
He
refused to follow religious practices and the liturgy of the day. |
|
He
ignored the pretense of Sabbath and healed the sick. |
|
Jesus
cleansed the temple, which the pious deemed to be the seat of the
holy of holies. |
|
He
mocked the leadership and befriended the outcast. |
|
He
embraced women and children as equals into his tribe of the
bizarre and bungling. |
|
Jesus—Jewish
on his mother’s side, eternal on his Father’s, human in his
heart. |
|
So
he taunted their prayers, ignored their fasting, belittled their
financial giving, challenged their definition of happiness,
questioned their uniqueness, rebuked their unforgiveness, mocked
their nationalism, and finally, wept over the city they called
holy, declaring it lost and desolate. |
In
the end, the people did the only thing they knew how to do—the
accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of fervent, religious study.
They killed him.
A sacrifice for sin? Really?
For the turtledoves, sheep and bullocks were sacrificed in the
temple swiftly, with one stroke of the knife.
No torture. No
ridicule. No prolonged
suffering. And even in
this quick death as a symbol of the remission of sins, the Bible says
God hated it. For as you
well know, Jesus said that one sparrow could not fall without the
Father knowing. So a
heavenly Being who found such great distaste with the sacrifice of
animals would suddenly permit, and even condone, a human sacrifice?
God forbid—and I’m sure He did.
So you can continue to believe that Jesus was mutilated to
satisfy a cosmic need for retribution against human sin if you so
desire.
Not me.
Holy week is simple for me.
Friday is what man does to truth.
Sunday is what truth does for man.
A clear choice.
A warning.
One last parable from the non-conforming Prince of Peace:
Religion sucks.
God lives.
April 3rd, 2010
I was broke.
That is a bit misleading—for saying I was broke would denote
that I had once had some money which I no longer possessed.
The truth of the matter was, my situation was quite
normal—without any finance whatsoever.
I was living in an upstairs apartment—a hovel—and that is
by the literal definition. I
was two months behind on the rent when one morning there was a knock
at the door. I knew who it
was. It was the landlord.
I was young, without means of payment, and scared to tell him
so. I didn’t know
whether he actually had a passkey to come into the apartment or not,
so I decided to hide in a tiny coat closet in the corner of the living
room. I managed to stuff
my bulbous behemoth in and close the door, creating a very black
surrounding. The landlord
knocked for at least five minutes at varying intervals as I held my
breath, partly to cover the sound, mostly because I was so cramped
that within seconds I had used up all the oxygen in the little
cubbyhole.
I was so ashamed. Here
I was, twenty-one years old—hiding in this tiny compartment because
I was afraid. At length
the knocking stopped. He
didn’t come in. But I
stood there, very still, for a few more moments, thinking about my
position. It was weird.
I felt like I was in a coffin.
Everything was so quiet. The
lack of oxygen made the air thick, hot and heavy.
It
got me to wondering about—well, it got me to wondering about Easter.
Because it was Saturday. And
the next day was going to be Easter.
My little room felt like a tomb.
Just like Jesus was locked up, put away and literally left for
dead, here I was, fully alive, in a self-imposed prison because I was
afraid.
I realized then and there that there are different types of
caskets. There is the
burial place we all will habitate, where we await resurrection.
And then there are little graves we dig for ourselves to hide
in because something has frightened us from truly living.
I was sad, enlightened, hot, frustrated and a little jubilant,
all at the same time. I
slowly opened the door and came out of my enclosure.
I did what I’ve always learned to do in those moments where
self-revelation brings the opportunity for either honesty or
deception. I sat down and
I wrote.
It was 1973 and I wrote the sixth song that I had ever
composed:
Notice the man
on the middle cross
What does he
mean to you?
Why is he
dying there?
Is this a way
to show that you care?
In earlier
years, as a boy he would run
Laughing and
having fun
Warming
beneath the sun
Telling the
world a new day’s begun.
Notice the man
as they lay him in the ground
Can’t keep a
good man down
This is the
truth I’ve found
The seed will
sprout
When spring
comes ‘round.
Oh, death!
Where is thy victory?
Oh, grave!
Where is thy sting?
Hosanna,
hosanna let the people’s praises ring!
For the one
who is the life, the truth, the way.
Resurrection
Day!
Yes,
Resurrection Day!
I’m happy to report I never hid in a closet again—even when
I was behind on my rent.
Because
after all, you can’t keep a good man down.
April 2nd, 2010
He wanted to be known for his words.
There is no doubt about that—he made it clear.
He wanted his ideals, passions, feelings and notions to be
thrust to the forefront so that all mankind could benefit from the
insight and soul of his heart’s journey.
Yet he possessed a being full of mercy and gentle
understanding, so his hands became a conduit for delivering the
miracles to people’s lives, beckoned into existence by their faith.
And after all, miracles are just more flashy and memorable than
speeches, don’t you think?
So even though he continued to faithfully teach and share his
stories with the multitudes and they were dazzled by his authority and
presence of mind, it was the miracles and the divine intervention of a
loving Father in heaven that drew the crowds.
He did not become bitter. He
did not resist. His entire
being became an instrument of flow, allowing for God’s will to be
accomplished in the manner that was most pleasing to the needy.
But still burning in his soul was a disdain for those who
deemed themselves superior—a fierce resentment for the hypocrite and
a ferocious hatred of religious pretense leading to nothing but
rampant piety.
So he spoke out. He
spoke out for the common man who was the victim of rules that only
brought restraint with no fulfillment.
He spoke out for those who were constricted by tradition and
refused place in a kingdom supposedly available to all.
He spoke the common language of the street rabble, risking that
it would generate great criticism and cynicism from the elite.
He wanted to be one of us so that he could help all of us.
In return, he was often abandoned, ridiculed,
overly-investigated and ultimately, relegated.
When
he insisted on continuing to share his message while rejecting the
authority of the elders, a plot was devised to end his outreach.
They killed him. It
seemed the right thing to do, having gauged the political climate of
the day and having reviewed the polls.
If
that was the end of the story, we could call it a tragedy that was
turned into a triumph by God applying the injustice to become a symbol
of our redemption. But
unfortunately, the murder continues.
Every generation seems to produce a new batch of serial killers
who are determined to keep the message of this fine, young man in
mothballs in preference to a continual re-telling of his merciless
death.
We
re-crucify him, certainly yearly.
A case could be made that it’s weekly, in our little funeral
chapels of memoriam. The
dynamic proclaimer of good news and human joy has been cast into the
role of a hapless sacrifice—a sheep sent to the slaughter.
On
this Good Friday, I just wanted to stop for a minute and remember what
he wanted. He wanted to be
known for his words.
I
shall celebrate his life this day by remembering them.
I shall commemorate his death by living them.
And I shall overcome the stupidity of his murder by hunting
down the criminals who would still steal and kill his spirit.
April 1st,
2010
When you’ve lost faith for the A game, a quick, nervous, and
often tentative decision is made to move to Plan B.
Change is scary, you know, especially when it’s not
accompanied by a roomful of comfortable furniture.
Because I will tell you most assuredly, nothing that is
important, valuable, lasting or even human-friendly is ever initially
attainable.
It’s how we get fooled. It’s
how we all get off our A game and end up with a B- Trade.
We
look at what’s going on and we suddenly discover it’s not popular.
No one told us we might have to stand alone.
No one warned us that new shoes always pinch our toes.
No one informed us how unpopular transition was going to be.
We became frightened of being the odd man out.
And of course, we had absolutely no concept that this new
project would not be profitable. Great
ideas never arrive with a paycheck.
Great ideas always demand an investment.
When is the payoff? When
is there going to be a dividend? Not
only is it not in sight, but rarely promised.
And finally, we had no idea that the A game was going to be so
inconvenient. Isn’t
there a possibility in the process of producing reformation and
correction of the error of ways to keep at least one
of my ideas and favorite habits?
Why does it seem that everything has to be abandoned and a
sense of awkwardness has to enter the situation to create
transformation?
Case in point: how
absolutely bizarre must it have been for the first black man in 1866
to walk into the general store in Birmingham, Alabama, and buy seed to
grow crops on his own land? I’m
sure some people just rejected the notion of integration because it
seemed so unnatural. But
remember this: if
change were natural, it would have happened before you and I thought
of it.
B-Trade—it’s
that little chill that runs down our spines when we feel like we’ve
picked the wrong horse and we’re dangerously positioned to bet it
all. How do we know that
we’re involved in a B-Trade and not just walking away from a
ridiculous notion?
1.
Am I making a deal with what caused me to leave in the first
place? If you’re going
back to what was originally unsatisfying, it probably hasn’t gotten
any better while you were gone.
2.
Does the B-Trade involve just me?
Or does it end up costing others?
Sometimes when we decide to abandon our dreams, we leave our
fellow-man with nightmares.
3.
Is something that I know is truly righteous being lost in order
for me to get something easier? Keep
in mind, the present situation is only easier because those in power
control the cards. How are
you going to fare when time marches on and there’s a new dealer?
B-Trade.
One thousand nine hundred and eighty-one years ago a man woke up in his home and decided to abandon the A game and create his own B-Trade. His name was Judas. And because of his decision, nobody can name their babies after him.