God stuff – Page 10 – A Work in Progress

Burdens

I remember waking up after my rotator cuff surgery and being/feeling pretty wasted and confused. And in quite a bit of pain. The nurses were struggling to get my blood pressure down. I muttered something like, “my wife…” and then fell back asleep. When I woke up again, she was standing there. I was dazedly watching them drain off some of my blood into something like a little squeeze ball, and the pain was lessening.

Somehow, my pain became more manageable, and my blood pressure went down. I don’t remember getting dressed, but I became aware I was wearing sweat pants or pajamas or something and a button up shirt about 4 sizes too big was sort of draped over me with only one arm through the sleeve. It was time to go home, which was very close, but I couldn’t walk very well.

I got to my wife’s car courtesy of a wheelchair, but I didn’t know how I was going to make it into our apartment. Jenny ended up calling her dad to help, because she couldn’t lift me. I am no lightweight, but Ken held me up and helped me walk into the apartment, my arm over his shoulder. I was leaning quite heavily on him. He helped me to the restroom to pee, and I was afraid (probably he was, too) that I would need help with my pants. Thankfully, I didn’t, and I was able to do my business and get to the couch, where I would spend quite a bit of time over the next month.

I remember being grateful for his help; that he was there when we needed him. Ken and Linda have always been like that, and probably always will be, so long as they are able. They are always willing.

I remember my sisters pretty much taking over parenting duties after my dad was gone and mom was really starting to get sicker. I was a teen, and it couldn’t have been easy. But they all helped with whatever care I needed, and I’d like to think I turned out OK.

I remember when my gall bladder crapped the bed a couple years ago (on Valentine’s Day, no less) because of a gall stone that felt like the size of a watermelon jammed into the neck of my gallbladder. It hurt like the devil was poking me with a pitchfork. Jenny slept in a chair next to my bed for two days, and Ken and Linda kept the boys for two days while I was in the hospital.

I remember also texting with my best friend, who is also a pastor. He asked me if I was ok (because I was the one who messaged him first to tell him I was in the hospital and why). Told him I was a little scared because I had never gotten surgery. He said he’d grab his chaplain’s badge and be right there, which he did and was. And sat with me all night.

Those are just a few of the times I have felt like–and probably actually been–a burden to someone. Today I was thinking about that, I don’t know why. And it occurred to me that helping the people you care about isn’t necessarily a burden, even if in actuality it’s sometimes a hardship.

Today, our pastor posted a meme on Facebook about hardships, and how they involve (roughly translated) ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Certainly they have in my life.

I don’t know how good I have been at doing similar things, but I hope the answer to that is “ok.” I am, after all, an ordinary person. I am no pastor, no bible scholar. No hero. I am just a man, a person like you are, and I do my best to serve God, to whom I feel like I must also be a burden.

Yet there I go back to my statement a few paragraphs ago. “Helping the people you care about isn’t necessarily a burden.”

If that is true, then the God of the universe cares about me, which is an extraordinary thing. The God whose hands shaped the world and whose breath made it alive cares about me. He cares about you, too.

Don’t discount that, even it doesn’t feel true at times. Even if it feels He isn’t close. I promise you, He is near.

Time has brought me clarity and truth on a few things, and because you’ve stayed with me this long, please take another minute or so and don’t go just yet.

The first thing is that even when I stood in my mom’s hospital room when she was in a coma and weighed about 80 pounds, God was with me and with her in her haze of painkillers. I know because earlier on, I heard her ask him to be. The last two things I heard her say on this earth were “where’s Tommy?” and then “good” when I told her I was there.

He was with me when I was 5 or 6 and bad things happened. I saw and felt the truth of that as a grown man, kneeling at the side of the Colorado river.

He was with me when my friend took his life less than a half mile from my bedroom.

He was with me through relationships that ended, and jobs that were lost. He was with me when I was steeped in my sin, and had no idea he was even there.

My shoulders may have sagged, and I may have felt like I was alone.

He was there, much like when my father-in-law helped me walk from our car to the house, helping me walk with my arm draped over his shoulder.

He was there for me, carrying my burden. Carrying YOUR burden, in the form of a roughly hewn cross.

I wasn’t a burden to him, because helping the ones you love isn’t a burden.

You aren’t, either.

Maybe a more accurate statement would be to say, you don’t mind bearing a burden for someone you love, or helping them bear it. Even when that burden IS the person you love.

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Top 6

So today I want to take a few minutes and not think about a few things that really have been bugging me lately, and concentrate on what I feel is really important, that I am so very grateful for.

For some reason, God sees my usefulness, even when I do not. He has seen fit to allow me to be part of an amazing and spirit filled congregation, at a bible-believing and bible-teaching church, with a pastor I have known for nearly a decade, and consider a personal friend. I get to serve with people I love and respect, and that’s awesome.
At this moment, I have two young men I get to be dad to in my life. They challenge me greatly. They frustrate me sometimes, but at the end of it is a blessing—always, always a blessing and a reminder of God’s love for me. That he chose me to be their father. Me, with parental relationships cut drastically short by life, and only a couple of good, effective fathers (my brothers-in-law) for example in my younger years. I struggle at times, but I know it, and I can pray through it. That’s what I plan to do—concentrate my effort on that area in a way I haven’t always done.
My wife—my lovely, talented, and inspiring wife. I say lovely not just because she is a pleasure to my eyes, but a pleasure to my inner self—to my heart and to my soul. God sent her to me in her boldness, and in her faith. She believes in me, even when I don’t believe in myself. Who does that? Jen does. Even when I’m a giant hairy toolbag.
My job. Everyone who works out here complains about it at times, and that’s understandable. The elements are unforgiving, and the hours are sometimes long. So long that eventually it wears on every part of your life—except maybe the checkbook. And that’s what happened to me. I got weary, complacent, ungrateful, and laid off. Three days later, I was rehired. In a job capacity that suited me and my skill-set. Working for a boss that is a very decent and family oriented man. Working with people that are 4 oddballs, and very colorful characters, but quite the team. I really like them, even when they tick me off with the pranks.
Similar to my first point, for some reason, I was extended a hand to help pull me from the muck my life had become. This hand from a God who welcomed me into the family, but first defeated me in my rebellion, which so desperately needed to happen. See, the thing about abject capitulation; the thing about supplication, the thing about crawling to his feet, with the world dragging behind you like a parachute, is that when you get there—head down—he tells you to look up. He sees you, the real you. The you of addictions, and sin, and meanness, and sarcasm, and misuse of your gifts, and he tells you to look up. He reaches down and lifts your head. He lifted my head—he does whenever it goes down. (this last one is partially inspired by the poem linked at the bottom)
My life, without changing anything

Today, this very morning, I felt like God told me to start living my life with more abandon, and less inhibition. So I’m going for it. Life is pretty good. Make of it what you will. Believe it or not, and any other cliché you want to insert here.

I don’t know how the execution of this inspiration will work out, or how successful I will be. But I do know that while I am not perfect, I also don’t want to be the guy who gets to the end and wishes he’d tried harder.

I’ll leave you with this poem. It’s wonderful, and powerful, and means a lot to me.

Heart Problem

It seems like everywhere I look lately, there is violence. There is a thesaurus of words related to violent acts. Words like “shot,” or “shot to death,” or “murdered.” Sometimes, refreshing new expressions like “racially-motivated attack. Any incident involving a gun, though, definitely brings out the worst in people. Take the Bataclan shooting in Paris a little while back, for instance. Not going to go too far into specifics, because that isn’t really what I’m after this morning. Today I’m just amazed that so many are doing the blame-game thing already. Just as they did in Paris, and so many other places.

Making the situation a political talking point. It shouldn’t be that at all. For “either” position.

Blame is apportioned and absolved for violent acts. Guns will be taken away, and people will live. Or guns will be taken away and people will die. It’s radical Islam. It’s gun enthusiasts. It’s Wal-Mart. It’s George W. Bush. Skynet has become self-aware.

I do not believe it’s the fault of the gun, however. Or the knife, or Colonel Mustard and the candlestick. I think somewhere along the way, people forgot the value of a human life, if they ever knew it at all.

Violent things are just…expected in this sad world. It’s “the way things are these days.”

It doesn’t have to be.

I didn’t expect to, but I was flipping through one of Stephen King’s Gunslinger novels, and I found a statement I mostly agreed with regarding gun violence, and violence in general:

I believe our culture in this time has made it commonplace to deny responsibility for our actions, and blame our circumstances instead. Maybe the people we hang out with, or used to.

Except that’s crap, and everyone knows it, whether they admit it or not. Our hearts have become withered things, nearly immune to effect or influence from the death on every side. It’s our hearts, man.

We can’t seem to recognize wrong anymore.

Our circumstances in life can certainly influence our thoughts and opinions, but saying your actions are not a choice–even in a passionate moment–is patently false. We may not be able to affect what happens to us in life to a very large extent, but I believe it is a fundamental truth that we always, always choose our actions.

I grew up in a very blue collar neighborhood in a very blue collar town. Lots of my friends experimented with all kinds of things, and got into all kinds of trouble. You would hear people say things like “he ran with a bad crowd.” Or perhaps, “It’s no wonder that happened. Did you ever see his parents?”

Listen, friend. There are times it may not seem that way, but we really do have the ability to choose our actions, and “I couldn’t help myself” is only as true as you make it. Viktor Frankl wrote that “between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

I believe that statement is true. I know it’s true because with adulthood and the advent of Christ in my life, I find myself making much better choices. I think it came with the ability to stop putting myself first so freaking always. It wasn’t necessarily because I hung out with different or better people. It wasn’t because someone dumped a bucket of “smart” over my head.

It was because I started making better choices, and I stopped believing (and doing) the stupid things people told me to do because it was what they thought was best for me, or true about me.

For example, when I was in eighth grade, I had a teacher tell me privately he thought I should stop hanging out with my friends because they were bringing me down, and minimizing my potential. I didn’t think so then, and I don’t think so now.

I didn’t say anything to him then, but I wanted to tell him to screw himself. The friends he was talking about ended up literally saving my life, just a few years later.

I learned a lot about the value of a human life during my teen years, in lots of ways. If you know me at all, you know that story. If you don’t, ask me and I’d be happy to tell you about it. I have links on here somewhere to my Facebook and email accounts.

I wouldn’t change a thing about my life, good or bad.

My life got me here. It was very hard at times, but it was worth it. And I don’t think I began to explore my true potential until I took the offered hand of a carpenter, rough with calluses and scars.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to realize my full potential, because God made us all to be perfect, and sinless. Our very ancient family chose differently.

So I will never be perfect. Neither will you. Practicing social justice might make you a better person, but you’re still going to make mistakes. At the core of you, and the core of me, we may always be the same person. That does not mean we make the same choices.

From an old Everclear song, “I will always be weird, I will always be lame.”

That may be so (it is with me), but with the growth and freedom that Frankl mentions, and with faith, and maturity, and the ability to love comes a little wisdom, along with the ability to choose wisely. And we can begin to work on our heart problems.

So that’s me. And yes, to re-iterate, I think we, as a society, have a heart problem.

And I think we can fix it.

I think the answer lies in what this coming weekend is all about–Easter. It’s not about chocolate, or caramel, or finding eggs. It’s about how a man came, who was really a lot more than just a man. It’s about how he gave his life to fix our heart problem, and came back so we could understand why.

You may know me, and you may not. You don’t owe me anything, but I’d like to ask you for a favor, whoever you are.

Find a house of worship this coming weekend. You will hear a message there that could change your life, and help to fix your heart problem.

Please, give it a chance. Go there, wherever “there” is.

Hear the message, and respond. It will really change your life–maybe even save it.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It appears I have found myself in a bit of a quandary this Valentine’s day. I wanted to do something original for my wife, so she could really understand what she means to me. So the first thing I tried to do was sit down and write her a song. There were two main problems with that idea:

1. I don’t know how to write songs.
2. I have about a 2 note range, and I don’t know how to sing, so when I do, it looks and sounds something like this:

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or maybe this:

So my romantic idea of a sweeping, romantic love ballad was dashed on the rocks.
Next I thought about a Valentine’s Day breakfast in bed thing, then I remembered:

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So that was out. And a light turned on in my really big, peach fuzzy head.
Why don’t I just tell her how I feel, and embarrass her publicly.
Check. I can do that. What better way than Hall & Oates memes?

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Oh, wait, that’s Beyonce.

Here’s another idea:

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I could do that, but, really, this is a good way to describe how I feel:

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Just a couple more truths.

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And this, from me, but through the immortal words of pop artist and ladies man, Rick Astley. Things I am never gonna:

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But seriously.
You are proof that the Father answers prayer. Look at our kids, and our home, and our life.
I love you, pretty girl. Happy Valentine’s Day.

The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen

Still image from video shows men purported to be Egyptian Christians held captive by the Islamic State kneeling in front of armed men along a beach said to be near Tripoli

I took a picture a couple of years ago, and the object I was photographing nearly took my breath away with its subtle beauty. I looked at it again today, and it made me think of how easy it is to find beauty when you least expect it.

I also saw the image above, and it took my breath away, too. 20 men–all ostensibly believers–about to die for nothing more than believing in a God a large group of extremists hate with a violent passion.

I have seen a lot in my life. There has certainly been a lot in the News this year–plenty for Conservatives and Liberals to chew on, and get angry about. For my part, the image at the top is the most terrible thing I have seen all year, and maybe all my life.

These men are Egyptian Christians. Taken captive by ISIS for more or less doing nothing other than worshipping what this group of individuals thinks is the wrong God. I think the terrorists called this video something like “A message signed in blood to the People of the Cross.” Erudite, these people are not.

I found the image online, as well as an article and an accompanying video I will never be able to unsee. I didn’t intend to watch it, but the article mentioned the men crying out at the end, and I felt compelled to bear witness to that. They are marched down a deserted beach, and made to kneel on the sand. The man in the camo with the knife gives his shpiel and near the end, mentions who the men are (without naming any of them), and what’s going to happen to them. He tells them to cry out to their God. They do cry out here and there, and then are forced into a prostrate position, and their heads are sawed off with knives.

There was even a link to an article quoting Pope Francis that mentioned the men crying out to Jesus in their last few seconds.

They really did die for their faith. Scripture promises they will be raised up again in Revelation 4. After Jesus, I want to meet these people and others who died for the God they believed in (I am not numbering the multitudes of idiots who blew themselves up for Allah among them).

Anyway, that image really made me think–long and hard–about what’s coming. I know many of you don’t believe in a literal bible, and that’s your choice.

That doesn’t change what’s coming, for those who believe and those who do not. In the movie Return of the King, Aragorn says something to Théoden like “Open war is upon you, whether we would risk it or not.” And that’s where we are today. It doesn’t matter much what the President chooses to do (or more accurately, not do), I don’t think.

And I have been wondering all year, what would I do for my faith?

Will I die for it?

Would I cry out for Jesus as some jackal with a knife executes me?

I hope so.

And then I’ve been wondering where all the beauty in the world went off to? Is there any left?

Turns out there is, and it’s everywhere. The world is terrible and wonderful at the same time. And amongst all the strife abroad, or here at home, there are nuggets of beauty among the ashes. I will do my best to consider the beauty that still exists, and the God that has a hand and heart in everything. And I will wait for whatever is coming, knowing that I will not go through it alone.

The image at the bottom of this post is what I was talking about at the beginning. I took it on a patch of dirt and gravel, next to a pile of old and rusted metal and a dumpster.

Beauty amongst trash. It exists. And it’s comforting. It comforts me because to me, in my heart and mind–it is evidence that God also exists. I didn’t need it, but it’s wonderful to see.

And it makes the rest…more bearable.

Remembering Ol’ Blue Eyes

I heard noises coming from my kitchen this morning, or at least I thought I did. They were not the kind of noises from someone breaking in, or stealing, because I know my otherwise worthless dogs would have barked up a storm, and they were not making any noise at all. It was not my wife, because she was sleeping next to me. It seemed more like the sound of someone moving about and getting ready for their day—the sound of small dishes clinking together, a radio coming on softly. I looked at my bedside clock and it was 0330 exactly (shortly before I normally get up).

I got out of bed and wandered down the hall in my boxers, because why not? I immediately saw a light on in the kitchen, and when I came around the corner, my mother was there in a bathrobe, frying something in a skillet. She turned to look at me and said my name, “Tommy.”

I haven’t been Tommy in a number of years, but this morning I was. I started to respond, but then I realized my bladder was really full, and I rolled over and looked at my clock, and it was exactly 0330.

Although I realized it was a dream right away, it also occurred to me that I hadn’t seen my mother since 1987, and the last time she’d been in a morphine coma. She looked pretty good today, all things considered.

So I sat on the couch, and I read a little. I had a couple microwave pancakes. I was restless, and I couldn’t concentrate, so I pulled up an episode of Hawaii Five-0 on Netflix. Kono was lost at sea on a catamaran trip she began in honor of her mother. There were a lot of flashbacks with Kono and her mom, where the mom would relay this…homespun Hawaiian wisdom to her that helped her survive. “For crying out loud,” I thought. What on earth kind of morning was this going to be?

I guess I was supposed to think about my mother. Which I do almost every day, anyway. So that is what I’ve been doing.

I don’t have a lot of stories of mom passing along wisdom—I don’t remember her that well, honestly.

But I remember she loved old-school country music. In San Diego, the station was called KSON. I don’t know if it still is.

I know she liked to dance—I remember seeing her cut a rug with her brothers when I was very small. We have a couple home movies as well.

I remember rainy picnics on the kitchen floor. Sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating PB & J as my mom sang “rain, rain, go away.”

Other times she taught me this snippet of a George MacDonald poem called Baby. “Where did you come from, baby dear?”

To which my response was “out of everywhere into here.” My sister tells me she had this old book, and it came from there.

I do have one of her old books, though, and I really treasure it. It’s an old and falling-apart Living Bible, featuring marks she made with a fading felt-tip. It was given to her by my aunt Cathy back in 1979. I don’t know how much she read it then—I don’t remember seeing her with it until the months before her death.

There was one psalm she underlined in several places, and I just found that a couple of weeks ago. 31 years after she died. Amazing. And very comforting. Here is Psalm 116, which she underlined in purple, at some point before the end.

“I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. ²Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath! ³Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave^[a] overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow. ⁴Then I called on the name of the Lord: “Please, Lord, save me!” ⁵How kind the Lord is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! ⁶The Lord protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me. ⁷Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me. ⁸He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. ⁹And so I walk in the Lord’s presence as I live here on earth! ¹⁰I believed in you, so I said, “I am deeply troubled, Lord.” ¹¹In my anxiety I cried out to you, “These people are all liars!” ¹²What can I offer the Lord for all he has done for me? ¹³I will lift up the cup of salvation and praise the Lord’s name for saving me. ¹⁴I will keep my promises to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

¹⁵The Lord cares deeply when his loved ones die. ¹⁶O Lord, I am your servant; yes, I am your servant, born into your household; you have freed me from my chains. ¹⁷I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. ¹⁸I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people— ¹⁹in the house of the Lord in the heart of Jerusalem.”

So today I will remember my mom all I can. I will thank the Lord for the time I did have—18 years. Not all good, but good enough. There were struggles, but there were also a great many blessings. I’m grateful for them. If anyone I know reads this, I’ll show you that old bible next time you’re at the house. It’s awesome.

I just remembered my mom used to talk to people on a CB radio my dad put in the kitchen. Her handle was “Ol’ Blue Eyes” to my dad.

That’s awesome, too.

Not trying to be sad, or make anyone tear up. Just remembering Ol’ Blue Eyes.

A good thing to do.

On Extremism, and Starting a Conversation

Not everyone dressed like this is a terrorist, or (according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation) radicalized Muslims. A hijab and a taqiya are just articles of clothing.

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These people were, however, and did carry out their plan, although probably not to the degree they wished, thanks to a hail of bullets and a tactical vehicle.

For some reason—although they were known to the FBI very soon after their deed was done—it was determined by someone not to release information regarding their identities right away. I can actually imagine why without straining my brain too hard. The powers-that-be did not want to create anti-Islamic paranoia while blood was still hot over what had been done, which was, of course, murder motivated by terrorism and perpetrated by people taken captive by a hateful ideology.

No, I am not talking about the GOP. In spite of what many of our liberal friends might think.

(I am not planning to address Donald Trump’s remarks here. That’s for another post)

Personally, I do not know any practitioners of the Muslim faith. No, I do not believe they all want to kill me. I would say, of course, that some do. It would be foolish to deny that.

But certainly not all, and nowhere near a majority.

That said, what do we do? Do we round them up? Kick them out of the country? I don’t know. It makes me think of Japanese internment during WWII to an extent, and that was wrong. It feels the same way here.

BUT.

Radicalized Japanese people were not coming to the U.S. under a peaceful guise and murdering people at office Christmas parties.

Also, I understand how left-leaning purveyors of social justice might be worried about citizens getting all exclusion-y and prejudiced regarding Islamic people in the U.S. I get that—and they probably should worry, to an extent. Many people do and say stupid things, especially when people have been murdered.

I don’t know what the answer to that is. I don’t know how to keep people from feeling like they are the arbiters of justice, social or otherwise.

I think this is a dialogue the country needs to (and hopefully will) have.

But I also think it is liberal-minded folly to behave as if NO Islamic extremism has occurred in the U.S. since 9/11.

Sure, the U.S. can be held captive by ideology, too. It isn’t just GOP, though. Extremism exists in every country, every faith, and it is beyond dangerous.

I’m just trying to recall the last time folks from the U.S. got dressed up in their cowboy hats and baseball caps and took their game to Islamic countries….nope, I got nothing.

We just need to stop denying what’s going on. And we need to have a reasoned conversation, and not a blame party. Are we honestly supposed to believe San Bernardino was because of the NRA? Come on, folks. Pretending there is no danger domestically, doesn’t mean there is not. It just means it isn’t only ostriches who bury their heads in the sand.

Let’s put our respective agendas aside, and figure this nightmare out.

Blue Collar Love

Lately, when I have a moment or two, I’ve been thinking about love.

Not in the way you might think—this is not one of those gooshy, “I love my wife sooo much” posts (although I do).

Rather, I have been thinking that there really is a pretty big difference between the sort-of star-struck love you feel while dating, even leading up to your wedding and the real, deeper, blue-collar love you feel after you’ve been married a while, and the work of marriage begins.

Star-struck love gets you to the altar; blue-collar love keeps you together, and growing closer.

It isn’t that the romance ends when you tie the knot, because it doesn’t. It actually gets better.

Personally, I don’t think a soulmate is someone you slow-dance with your entire marriage, and say things like “you complete me” to at every opportunity, while staring into each other’s eyes and sighing.

That crap is for the movies, and it isn’t real marriage—it isn’t blue collar love.

I think a soulmate (if there is such a thing) is the person you can come home to and say “my day was crap,” and then they sit on the couch with you, drinking a beer and not talking about it, while the kids destroy the rest of the house.

A “soulmate” is the person you can just be with sometimes, and that is enough. It doesn’t have to be a Bruno Mars song all the time.

A “soulmate” is someone who can see you in all your morning magnificence and still give you a kiss, then tell you your breath smells like ass.

Blue-collar love is not perfectly arranged, candlelit dates at fancy restaurants. It’s driving to Dairy Queen barefoot at 10pm for a blizzard because nothing else will do.

It’s making your whiny, complaining husband a pie that everyone else in the free world hates, because his mom made it for him, and when he has it he remembers her.

Blue-collar love is not running off when things get tough, or when you have an argument or disagreement. It’s rolling up your sleeves and working that stuff out.

Blue-collar love is being able to say to your spouse “I don’t have it right now. Everything feels wrong. Can I just…talk a little? I need someone to listen.”

Or sleeping sitting up in a Hospital chair while your spouse gets emergency surgery on Valentine’s day.

It’s having common goals; the same things are important to each person. It’s hitting your knees and doing the work of real prayer when it needs to be done. Battling together for your kids and your marriage.

Sometimes blue collar love is cleaning up messes you didn’t make so they don’t have to.

Or calling them out when they fart worse than you.

Or knowing when to offer input or just listen, even when your day was just as bad as theirs sounds.

Blue collar love is ugly-crying and not being embarrassed, because you know they will probably tease you after you get it out, and that is awesome.

Blue collar love is goofing around in the kitchen until you almost fall, then falling anyway, grabbing onto each other the whole way while screaming with laughter (and then groaning like you took a hit from Warren Sapp afterward).

But blue collar love can also be work, and that makes it even better. Marriage is not for the faint of heart.

If neither I nor my wife was willing to work at things, life would be wretched.

But I also think if everything was easy all the time, life would be crappy, too.

It isn’t until we face adversity of some kind that we learn what we are capable of, and how strong we are as individuals and as a couple.

I may not be the most romantic man in the world, certainly not the most observant. I forget things. I’m bad at planning things for my wife-who is conversely the bees knees with all that stuff.

My wife knows this well, and let’s me slide with sucking at it.

Individually, we probably have issues. Everyone does. But they aren’t deal-breakers, and they do not lessen what we have together, which isn’t a perfect marriage.

But it’s a great one. We love God, and love each other. We put in the OT when it’s needed (which is always), and always extend the extra Grace.

Because without a little work every once in a while, the rewards aren’t as sweet.

My wife is the only person I have truly loved, in the way people usually mean it. She is, to me, proof that God loves me. She is—literally—an answer to prayer, and will be my pretty girl until I look like this:

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And even when I come home from work or anywhere smelling like a herd of rabid buffalo, she gives me a kiss…then tells me to go wash up, because I smell like trash, or whatever I happened to be into that particular day.

Or for my part, I can come into the bedroom while she’s using the w.c. and prance around the bathroom door in my Superman chonies. Or take a picture of my rear with her phone and make it wallpaper. It’s all good. She just laughs at me, and that’s a good thing.

You want to know my secret to staying happy? Be willing to sacrifice your dignity for a laugh every once in a while.

Come to think, we laugh a lot. Seriously, a LOT. That woman is funny, and I am more than willing to embarrass myself, especially in front of the kids. I want to teach them how to one day love their wives.

That’s the least I can do.

We have a blue collar love, and we are happy. Even when it’s hard, and life is being lame.

And, before I forget, I might add that it’s fun to freak out the kids every chance we get, too. If you don’t know what I mean, try giving your spouse a kiss in the presence of your children. You will usually get the wedge, or told to never dance again (I’m never gonna dance again…guilty feet have got no rhythm).

That’s another thing my wife has to put up with–constant and random 80’s song references…

It’s work, man. But it’s the most satisfying you will ever do. home

LIfe’s Too Short, So Love the Ones You Got

You know, I was just sitting here at my desk and thinking I am really grateful to have a job. After all, my boss did take a bit of a chance on me—considering I’d just been laid off from my former job. Nonetheless, he hired me. I was told later he wanted to say something about it at the big “party” where the bunch of us were cut, but couldn’t.

That’s OK, I guess. I was unemployed for 72 hours, and then I got the call from HR. Cool.

So like I said, I am grateful for my job, and toward the company I work for, even though they laid me off. I’ve seen a lot of things while working here—really awesome things. I’ve seen a Phalanx fire at night—with the tracers looking like a laser beam. And it was oddly beautiful.

I’ve driven over the Panama canal every day for a month, and that was beautiful in its own way, too—a beautiful work of man.

I’ve been to Alaska (which looked an awful lot like Narnia), seen the northern lights, and eaten a moose burger. I also left quite a bit of my blood outside a hockey arena. It was cold, and made me think of God more than any place I’ve been my life.

I jogged along a pretty cold Washington river. I saw llamas in their natural habitat—a Yakima Army base.

All those things—every one—that I’ve seen, no matter how strange and beautiful, no matter how amazing, made me feel anywhere near as complete as this does: coming home to my strange and beautiful family–especially my wife. My kids. My growing church–I didn’t realize how much I needed that family until I was away from it for weeks at a time. It’s difficult to imagine being on a deployment. Not to minimize the importance of my friends, but I don’t have very many pictures, because I am usually busy enjoying life when we all get together.

You never know how much you really miss home until you are away.

It’s only been since 0445 today, but I am ready for some Wilkins-style crazy tonight.

It’s a Hard Heart That Kills

Back in February: “U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday described the deaths of three young Muslims gunned down in North Carolina this week as “brutal and outrageous murders” and said no one in the United States should be targeted for their religion.” No doubt to most people, that situation was a textbook hate crime.

In my opinion, there is no doubt the events of last week, where college students were asked if they were Christians, and then executed if they answered in the affirmative (though this man killed some other folks as well, there was no doubt some special viciousness reserved for those who claimed faith in Christ. Hard to imagine being the second person asked that question after the first was killed. It is, however, certainly a testament of faith). Still, you’d think the President would at least acknowledge this.

Or that a young man and former soldier ran at the gunman and tried to stop him. He could have gotten out of there, as he helped others evacuate.

He didn’t. He was unarmed, with little hope of success.

He still did something. That man is a hero.

Seriously.

Instead, the President (not to mention former Secretary Clinton) made the situation a forum for more gun control political speak. It makes sense, of course, with the election coming and all, but talking points are, after all, just talk.

Though there will be much more of that to come, no doubt.

Because guns kill people. We have to “get them.”

But it isn’t just politics, folks. Real lives are at stake. I was thinking about that—the tendency to politicize a tragedy to advance an agenda—and the logic confounds me. If so and so didn’t have such and such, he wouldn’t have done it. Or if so and so DID have such and such, he could have stopped it. But though these sentences have truth to them, it isn’t that simple.

Praying isn’t enough, I think the president said. He’s right. But neither is rhetoric. Nor is there any conceivable justification for stumping on the backs of murdered students, children, Marine Recruiters, or anyone else.

So stop trying. Have a little respect for the dead, not to mention yourselves.

Of course, guns do fall into the wrong hands. So do cars, for crying out loud. If you were determined enough to kill people—maybe even a lot of people—I think you would be able to find a way. Look at Timothy McVeigh, folks. He literally used bullcrap to take out a federal building. If someone is nuts enough or determined enough, and wants to kill people enough, he will find a way. It made me think of a line from the Bodyguard, when Frank says “If someone is willing to swap their lives for a killing, there’s no stopping them.”

Also, consider this clip from the movie “Full Metal Jacket, and note a short line in the middle: “It is a hard heart that kills.”

It’s a hard heart that kills.

A movie line, of course, but it rings with truth. And I believe the problem we face with guns, and killings (mass or otherwise) is a heart problem and not an access to firearms problem. I do understand the appeal of that argument, however. It absolves the person blaming the gun from personal responsibility.

And make no mistake, one chooses to fire a gun. A Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm, for example, has a 6.5 pound trigger pull weight, against a weight of 1.6 pounds for the weapon. It does not fire on its own.

Consider this excerpt from “The Gunslinger’s Creed,” taken from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower:

I do not kill with my gun, he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father; I kill with my heart.

And that’s where we are as a country. We kill with our hearts—our hardened hearts. We’ve got a national heart problem. At the root of having respect for life is the acknowledgment that all lives have worth. Not just minorities of one sort or another—one religion or another.

We need to start teaching the value of a human life, indiscriminately. All life is valuable, and worth more than jewels. We need to work on softening our hearts toward the plight of others.

All lives matter, not just black, or white, or gay, or transgenital, or octocurious.

Life doesn’t mean anything to so many people these days. Murder often becomes arbitrary. Or in some communities, almost a rite of passage (look at Chicago murder statistics if you don’t believe me).

We can make guns as hard to get as we want—we can take them all away and melt them into camping ware.

The change it would bring to the epidemic of violence in our country would be negotiable, at best. Because our hearts are stone toward people not like us. Not all the time, but often enough that things like Oregon keep happening.

And if those with left-leaning tendencies stopped to think about the situation, they would realize that so many people doing terrible things with a gun are more likely to get them from someone’s closet, or car trunk than from Bud’s Guns. Statistically speaking, it’s pretty easy to fact-check.

There’s no waiting period or background check on the black market. Or maybe the person concerned would not use a gun at all.

For pity’s sake, the United States wasn’t invaded because (roughly quoted) the enemy feared “every citizen would be hiding behind a blade of grass with a gun.”

Of course, there are people who shouldn’t have guns. There’s a lot of crazy out there.
But gun free zones featuring one security guard carrying a can of mace in an active shooter situation are about as useful as teats on a bull.

It would probably be great for controlling hippies fighting over a chia and watercress sandwich, though.

I never thought of myself as a particularly violent person, but I think I can say truthfully that if I was somewhere where my life or the lives of those around me were threatened I would do whatever I had to in order to protect those lives, or at least try.

I think anyone would hopefully do that in the same situation.

“I’m sorry, active shooter. I would like to confront you, but I believe only police and mil—“

I pray that if that day ever comes for me, I would have the courage of my present convictions.

I would want to have the courage of that second person who confessed Christ after watching his or her classmate shot in the head.

I would want to be the congressperson who voted to defund, even at the cost of shutting down the government.

Because forgive my hate speech, but all lives matter. I realize that in my heart and acknowledge it fully, because Jesus lives there, too. But because I am human, I realize the quandary.

I would still kill to protect my family. I don’t want to, but I would.

I would kill to protect your family. I don’t want to do that, either.

But I would.

That’s because to some people out there, no lives matter.