Browsed by
Month: January 2020

The Stone

The Stone

Comments 1 comment

God has made a home in the heavens for the sun.

It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding.

It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race.

The sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end.

Nothing can hide from its heat.

 

Wow.

Maybe the greatest poet or song writer ever, even better than Dylan.

David.

I have been reading Psalms lately.  Those words are from Psalm 19.

So cool but he is all over the place.  Sadness and joy, hope and desperation, all in a handful of lines.

I think if David were alive today he would surely be on Xanax.

I had a band I used to follow who I have mentioned before called Lowen and Navarro.  They used to joke at their shows about how depressing their songs were that they wrote.

I get that, I think I have that tendency too.

I guess sadness, loss, and desperation evoke emotions that need a way to be processed.

It’s therapy.

April 17, 2017, Easter Monday, I wrote a post called “Good Friday, Easter Sunday…What Did Jesus Do On Saturday?”

The day before, Easter Sunday, I was all proud of the fact that I had my entire local family in church with Kim and me.  I think we filled the pew.  In that post of April 17,  I wrote about the sermon from that Easter morning.

In that sermon, the preacher asked who will roll away the stone.  That stone referred to in Mark 16 of great weight blocking the way to Jesus in the tomb.  The stone, the preacher said, that represented all those hard times in our lives; times of tragedy, divorce, loss of a job, an unexpected diagnosis, all things that were tough in our lives.

At the time I knew that message spoke to all those sitting in my pew.

But at the time I didn’t know just how much.

On the way out of the sanctuary that morning we were each handed a small stone to remind us of the weight of our troubles and that Jesus was just on the other side.

About a month later I got a call from Hayley who was in the pew that Easter morning.  She needed help.  She was ready to make the decision to remove herself from the physically abusive marriage/relationship that she was in and that we were unaware of.

Over the next few weeks, she would be safely removed from the problem, begin to initiate the legal requirements necessary, and start the process that continues today of healing and living in a safe environment.  Life for Hayley today is finally starting to return to one she can build her dreams on once again.

The relevance of all this is that Hayley’s decision to muster up the courage to finally end the mental and physical abuse she was experiencing in her relationship,  resulted from the message she heard that Easter morning.  According to Hayley, she finally got the strength she needed to roll away her stone from the words of that preacher.

That sermon saved her from mental anguish, physical pain and bruising.  That sermon, in my opinion, literally saved her life.

On a day in the months after, I shared this story with the preacher who delivered that message and thanked him for saving Hayley from a life of torment or even worse, death.  Thoughtfully that day in his office, he asked if he could pray for us, and he prayed.

Hayley still carries that stone that she received leaving the service that morning.

I share this story with you now because the life of the preacher who delivered that life-altering sermon was tragically taken from us this week.

Early Wednesday morning Pastor Steve Vineyard passed away, too young, and very unexpectedly.

I probably have many things to thank Pastor Steve for but none of them will ever come close to giving my daughter her life back.

For that, I will be forever grateful.

 

Tomorrow the sun will rise from one end of the heavens and follow its course to the other end.  We can’t hide from it, our lives will go on.

But we will all be carrying another stone.

 

P.S.

The photo above is one of Pastor Steve and me on a “typical day” at work.  Our work, as you can see, is awesome, but never typical.  I was reminded of that this week.

Rest in peace, my friend.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

David’s last verse of Psalm 19.

That works for me too.

Hayley sharing her stone right now and the National Domestic Violence Hotline number 1 800 799 SAFE (7233)
Surface Tension

Surface Tension

Comments 4 comments

I had a house full this Christmas and therefore one of the rules of the Christmas season in my house this year was no talking about politics.  I wanted to keep things festive.

So with politics off the table, the debate immediately shifted to something more near and dear to my heart yet equally as volatile…

My toilet paper.

Yup, my choice of toilet paper came under attack.

“It’s too rough…it’s not soft enough… it’s too thin,” yeah I heard it all.

I don’t really care about any of that when it comes to my toilet paper what is important to me is…

Surface Tension.

Now I realize from my Respiratory Therapy days that the true definition of surface tension relates specifically to a liquid.

But I like to apply those same qualities to my toilet paper, you know, binding together, like an elastic membrane so that nothing breaks through.

 

And as you know I don’t usually like to venture into commentary on what may be construed as political. I like to write about important things like meatballs, making fart noises, The Dave Clark Five, and Publix employees snapping my French bread in half, and even toilet paper.

You know, real cutting edge stuff.  But there are recent events that I find are more troubling.  But not necessarily from a political aspect, I don’t really care whether you are a democrat or a republican, or a socialist, or whatever.  My concern is more about our ability to stand together as Americans, bound, strong, like an elastic membrane. Impenetrable.

Like my toilet paper.

Hayley gave me a book to read called Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare 1500 to 1865. In his book, author Wayne E. Lee looks at issues like race and ethnicity in war and also how culture, strategy, and logistics determined the nature of the fighting.   I recently started reading this book and though I am no scholar of war, you don’t have to venture too far into it to find meaning in current events. Lee says, “War is intended to convey specific messages to an enemy; only rarely in history has that message been merely ‘die.’”

You see the elimination of this most recent terrorist with minimal collateral destruction, sent a great message.

Unfortunately, the actions of a rather large number of Americans to align themselves with the enemy afterward, to apologize for this military action, and to even maybe try to limit our future ability to protect our country, sent an entirely different, not so great message.

“It is always distressing to find American citizens who benefit from the protection and assistance of this government lending their voice in any way to governments such as the [enemy, whoever that might be] distressing indeed,” said State Department spokesman Charles W. Bray, according to a July 1972 Reuters story.

That statement was made in 1972 in reference to Jane Fonda’s support of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) who was at the time our enemy.

This most recent action against terrorism seems to have generated a lot of Jane Fondas.

 

The attacks on America by the terrorists on 9/11 in 2001 brought our country together and since that time we have been in a war against terrorism.  Last week another terrorist responsible for the loss of American lives was terminated.

Unfortunately, those sentiments that brought us together in the early days of this war have waned quite a bit.

 

Today is Donny’s birthday.  He would have been 33 years old today.  I remember watching the events and the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks unfold on TV with Donny.  I remember his passionate support for the country and the fact that even at the then age of 14 he was ready to sign up for the military and join the fight.

I remember a lot of passionate support for our country back then.

We had surface tension.

But this is America where we are free to pledge our allegiance to Charmin or Scotts; the USA or Iran.  You are free to choose.

Times sure have changed Donny, that passionate support for our country that you had is not as popular now.

I hope someday, out of respect for those who have paid the price of defending us these last almost twenty years, we can get that back again and stop the urge to lend our voices in support of our enemy governments.

To be impenetrable once again.

 

 

 

Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

Comments 1 comment

Well I’ve never been to Hawaii.

But I kind of like their shirts.

Well they tell me I was born there.

But I really don’t remember.

What does it matter?

 

Well you all know that’s a bunch of crap because I was born in New Jersey.

I guess I just got caught up in the moment.

 

The fact is I do have a jones for “Hawaiian” shirts.

The fact is, I have forty-six of them.

I just counted.

 

This is the time of the year I like to get organized.  I have been working on my closets.

Fun stuff, right?  Livin’ la vida loca is my 2020 motto.

Last week I worked on my bedroom closet.

Today it was my laundry room closet where all my Hawaiian shirts reside.

 

I knew I had a lot of Hawaiian shirts, but I didn’t actually know how many until today.

Some are special, some are not as.

Five of them were actually made in Hawaii.  One of those is my Christmas shirt with Santa, a couple of reindeer, a jalopy, and a surfboard.  Another of my Hawaii Hawaiian shirts is the one with the ships sunk in Pearl Harbor depicted on it.  Alexa and Namaan bought be that one on a trip to Hawaii.

I have nine Tommy Bahama shirts.  Those are expensive.

I have one Tommy Bahama that is a Disney Tommy Bahama with Mickey Mouse on it.  I am sure that one was crazy expensive, but lucky for me, that was gift,  as were three or four others.  I found a couple of Tommy B’s in a thrift store, which is more my speed.

There are other special ones.

My unofficial good luck racetrack Hawaiian shirt that has thoroughbred racehorses charging down the stretch on it.  Though I always get a lot of attention when I wear that shirt to the track, I usually don’t get any good luck from it.

I also have one that is an official Kentucky Derby Hawaiian shirt and I have an official NFL Steelers Hawaiian shirt too.  I wrote about that one once before.

One of my favorites was designed by Steven Stills.  I bought that one at one of his shows.

I have another one that has the Christian fish shape on it.  I like to wear it to church.

The rest I have accumulated in one way or another and some remind me of beach vacations, weddings, or other nice memories.

 

And now that I have organized my Hawaiian shirts my next project is my office and shredding my unwanted 2019 financial documents while I prepare for taxes.

Can you feel it?

It must be real.

It feels so good.

Oh, feels so good!

 

I hope your first weekend of 2020 is going as well as mine.  Remember my motto for 2020?

 

By the way, my word of the day today was Jabberwocky.

 

Jabberwocky: Writing or speech that contains meaningless words.

 

So,

How did I do?

 

(Lyrics lifted from Never Been to Spain, written by Hoyt Axton)