12249 Blog Feed: AllThingsBuck 2008-07-25 21:07:39 AllThingsBuck Your e-mail address 128127 2008-07-25 21:42:39 greater than you can imagine  
greater than anything seen  
fragile, unbreakable, brief and always
filling all space in between

in place before the beginning
and long, long after the end
forgotten, remembered, noticed, ignored  
One continues as your Friend

many are thinking "One" is God 
and that is certainly true  
God as Deity and Son of broken man
God in me, and God in you 

 God is Whom we stab in the back
as we gossip in churchly ways
He hides in the weak, the strange and alone
hides in those we never praise

God has filled the earth with glory
but entrusted it to the odd
the greatest Treasure in the known creation
hidden in human facade ]]> 127965 2008-07-24 10:52:53    always trying to be unbiased and fair, i shall now respond to yesterday's observations about women with a few observations about men. men are more guilty and less interesting than women. need proof? how many news articles do you read about female teachers and teen boys? now, how many of the people who are sex offenders in your area are male? ding~ding~ding~ding!!!!!!!!!!! you are correct! nine thousand male sex offenders and three teachers. yet the teachers' stories are the ones that come to us with HQ photos that you can click on to view life-sized. the teachers are beautiful, and the very few men they report on have pictures that look like satan had his horns removed by the photographer. i am not defending the men. they should leave the horns on in my view. i am saying it wouldn't hurt to ugly-down the teachers a bit. the coverage of these beauty queens who get naked with youths is not a discouragement to the behavior. after the pictures that you run of the women, the article could be about the death penalty being the punishment for having relationships with teachers and there would still be a line out the door.

   there are other media insanities to discuss. remember, however, that most of the things i am discussing are male-dominated decisions. just as mothers would not start wars, mothers of boys who might be drawn to seductive teachers would not publish flawless pictures of those teachers. the boys become folk heroes, and the teachers are one step shy of fully human. it is MEN who have attributed value to beauty and men who perpetuate that myth. venomous snakes are incredibly beautiful. where's the media attention of cobras and rattlers? anyway, one of the original teachers is now married to the student she seduced. he is legal, and she thinks marrying him should convince folks that she "really loved him." she is so wrong. she is the male version of that polygamy pig that they have on trial right now. he could say that the girls he married off are mostly women now and still married. that doesn't change the fact that practicing perverts put the marriages together in the first place.

   it fascinates me how men have erased stigma about things that they have left the female stigma thriving about. remember michael douglas' character saying, "greed is good"? that is considered a classic moment. now imagine virtually any actress in a role with piles of gold chains and jewels in front of her licking her chops and saying, "greed is good." kind of unclassy, huh? the percentage of pro football players who have served jail time is beyond imagination, especially considering that the bankroll for pro football is over a billion dollars. yet the women's world champion soccer team takes their shirts off to celebrate a victory and it seems like they were caught poisoning gay baby seals. who is that offensive to anyway? youngsters see breasts as dinner plates. teens get the same excitement while the women's shirts are on. adults know that there are more boobs than men on the planet, so they are at the most curious, but not enough to strain their necks to see. even janet jackson at the superbowl had a pasty on her breast during the wardrobe malfunction. i am grateful for clothes, but not because nudity is "bad." i am a clothing proponent because most people look bad naked. 

   eHarmony has a commercial on right now of one of their couples who got married. a man made the commercial. how do i know? because they picked a couple where the woman is a goddess and the man is a troll. good advertising guys have figured out that men hope that eHarmony has a line of women saying, "i want to marry an ugly man." the ugly guys have the money to do eHarmony because they can't get dates. for their part, the women get a thick wallet and all they have to do is shut their eyes during intimate moments and pretend the guy actually looks like me. HA! seeing if you were still awake. i forget where this poem comes from, but i will end with it:

women's faults are many.
men have only two:
everything they say
and everything they do. ]]> 127494 2008-07-23 11:34:58    i like women. my first best friend was named beth. she lived next door and was a tom-boy who could draw a lion that would get up and walk off the page. i don't think i ever realized she was a girl until my dad suggested i date her when we got older. puh-leez. like i am gonna date someone my DAD likes ... next in line was susie. she died from diabetes when we were just out of high school. in grade school, we went to each other's houses for lunch and stuff. i was still very vague on the differences between guys and gals. i do remember susie as being the sweetest person i had met. now that title would go to several folks in a tie: my daughter, susie, tammy williams and mary berry. after a huge life of incredible diversity, mary slipped into Heaven, too. i miss her horribly.

   i understand the frustration it must be for women to share the planet with men. women are in touch with their worlds through every sense they own. for home projects, i am kinda like, "wanna watch TV and draw?" women will bring out scraps of cloth, leather, breakfast foods and a glue gun. then they will say, "let's build a car today." what the heck IS that? there is a commercial on TV recently where because she feels good, a woman brings her kitchen containers and has the kids in her class do "music" by filling stuff with water and blowing on it and pounding it and ... there just seems to be a special gene that they have to enables them to see past the natural world and into the potential of things.

   having been alone for most of my adult life now, i have to admit that i have a special gene for blinking when i don't feel like noticing that the cats have dumped a potted plant into my clean laundry. at that point i think, "i have some clean clothes and this is NOT an emergency. therefore i shall wait til the clothes i am wearing are as dirty as the ones the cats just destroyed and then do a super load ... " i can forget about that load of laundry until the exact moment it needs to be washed to make it to church on time. i have been told that not hanging my clothes on color matched hangers is why i am not married. if a woman married me because my pants and hanger were the same color, though, she might as well marry me because i have a fly on my nose. i will not always have a fly, nor shall i always have the pants on the correct hanger. my pants are used to the freedom of having the entire floor as a playground, and i will not cage them in a closet!

   women have the secret power of the socks, though. i don't lose one sock. i lose both. i swear, when i was married, i had a sock DRAWER! now i have a pair i know i can find and that's the only guarantee. that pair is over the towel rack in my bathroom which is the only reason i know where it is. it was very expensive for my insurance company to buy me. several years ago i lost a shirt the day i bought it and never found it again. i opened it in my living room. i think i live in a clothing vortex, although nobody pretty has just had their clothes disappear off their body. THAT i would notice and savor. 

   i certainly enjoy women's minds more than men's. they have synapses where men have rock. one of my wives had a friend named gail. gail told me she would not get married because he would divorce her and she would have no furniture. she wasn't dating anyone. but in her mind, the guy she was going to meet was going to ultimately steal her furniture. i have another friend who has photographic memory for sales. we haven't talked in a couple years, but you could call her and say, "who has weed whackers on sale?" and she would know. if i filled my head with that crap i would forget my way to the bathroom. there are only so many things someone can hold in their head, no? i long ago dispensed with remembering names. all that memory can be used to store bigfoot facts or lenny bruce quotes. but my ex-wife could tell you the day of her first dental appointment. that ain't right, somehow.

   i think that life on earth was much more fun when women enjoyed being feminine. they ran the world while allowing men to think they had input. now women are just men in nicer packages. i was absolutely behind the quest for better wages that matched men's, better opportunities that matched men's, equal respect for equal accomplishment. but women took the worst parts of men on as their own: competitiveness, vulgarity, stepping on each other to achieve. ::sigh:: i guess i got born two generations late. see ya around campus. ]]> 126910 2008-07-22 13:21:17    okay. back to the "anatomy of an affair." or, more accurately, "two broken people finding each other." see? it isn't as exciting when it is called by accurate terms. we (humans) are not taught to stay healthy on a soul level. some of us are fortunate enough to discover this skill by accident, but most of us are a paycheck away from being homeless and a meaningful look away from being in an affair. i am an observer. i notice things that most folks let pass by their eyes without a thought. i know this because people ask me to turn "it" off around them. there appear to be things that most folks are afraid to consider. the question that folks avoid who are having affairs is, "what if i am actually broken?" see, if they get help, they will probably be told to get out of the affair. that would NOT be fun. they are also probably going to have work to do on their marriages. Work. that would also not be fun. can't everyone just lighten up? 
  
   people are designed to be counterparts. whole in and of themselves, they have grooves and ridges built in that will mesh with the proper partners. affairs are counterfeit pairings. they are usually instigated by someone who has a miniscule amount of vision into other people's state of heart. i can tell you within minutes when i meet someone who is broken, who is needy, who is walking wounded. the most beautiful woman i ever dated volunteered that her husband had been killed in a car wreck, and for seven years, no one had sat with her long enough to let her cry over it. i was not her counselor, so it wasn't me taking advantage. i simply listened. however, her girls were all three as beautiful as her, and one was brazen about her flirtatiousness with me. "better a good run than a bad stand" i was always told. i decided it was better to leave that little family unit in as good shape as i found it and walk away. the daughter was 16, looked 30, and had wants as old as history. i was not her guy. 
  
   if the affair isn't a wildly desperate thing like people in a singles' bar with tan lines around where their hidden ring usually sits, it usually develops something like this: one of the people makes themselves important to the other. baby steps. little by little, the secretary may bring nice things from home. "here are some leftovers. i thought they might be better than a baloney sandwich ... " then the boss brings the secretary something nice that he "happened" to find in an airport gift shop. and each step is savored, thought about over and over, and do you know what that is called? it is called "falling in love." if you go to many counselors about your marriage, they will ask why you got married. they are not being smart-alecks. they are looking for the memories that are the base for your ongoing love. we have mental snap-shots that we fall back on during tough times. when i hated my last wife for the way she spoke to me, i would remember her talking to our kids right after they were born. i would daydream that i would someday hear that love in her voice for me. ahem. still waiting. HA! i crack me up. she has found a wonderful man to love. 
  
   sometime in the course of things, the affair snapshots take over the love slots. women almost intuitively know when that is happening, and often, during times of insecurity, say, "what are you thinking?" "a penny for your thoughts ... " i knew one woman who stayed up and listened for her husband to talk in his sleep. NOTHING said in sleep can be trusted as truth. many dreams are gentle hallucinations. so if you hear your husband killing a wooly mammoth in his sleep, that doesn't mean he is having an affair with the hairy waitress at Bob Evans. but probing too often will result in more intense non-communication of the partner. they didn't fall for you because you were nosy, and it is no way to stay married either. people do sometimes become strangers in a marriage, but guess what? you know how to overcome that problem. when you met, you were strangers!

   two notes: 1) when i quote something like, "women do less guilt than men over affairs," i am not targeting you in specific. some women do tremendous guilt. you should do guilt when you cheat. cheating is wrong. but studies have shown that on the whole, women make a more thoughtful choice about having affairs, and therefore seem to carry away less guilt than men. 2) men, being a cowboy only works in the movies. beating up her cheating-partner means he has beat you twice. going to jail is not the best form of revenge. and she isn't going to love you for being a beast. i was married to a woman who had a new affair at least once a month while married to me. i kicked one guy's rump. he was the next one she married. vengeance is not the big fat juicy party you think it will be.

   the bottom line is that if your spouse has had an affair, there may be several things broken. their view of themselves. their understanding of love and marriage (many people today think dating is sex and marriage is going steady. um, they are wrong.) heck, you may be one of the broken things as well. but affairs are a way to permanently break something that was fixable before random intimacy. "oh, but it's not random. we LOVE each other." SHUT UP! you love them as much as the fencepost you relieve yourself against. they are a diversion. and you are acting like a six-year-old. except instead of taking your ball and going home, you are taking your dignity and the most intimate, personal gift you can give your partner and showing it was too precious to be entrusted to you in the first place. if you stay involved with your affair long enough to get divorced and marry the affair, your wedding will be the emptiest, saddest thing this side of starving children. marriage is "other-centered." affairs are "self-centered." as you can see, there is a rather large canyon to jump from you rubbing yourself against someone to becoming a spouse.

   marriage isn't 50/50. i have a few friends right now whose spouses THOUGHT 50% was enough, and used the other fifty percent to marry other people! you read me rightly. i have more than one friend in the same fix at the moment. look, folks. marriage is as close as you can get to 100%/100%. people are not perfect, so some days we may be selfish. but selfish is leaving dirty dishes for someone else to wash, not staining another couple's marriage. if you stay with me long enough, you will hear this a hundred times. if your spouse doesn't know you cheated, then your silent guilt is the consequence you bought. you do not have the right to spring on them that you cheated just "so you can get a fresh start." liar. confession is a slap if you break a heart by doing it. i have a friend i love dearly who feels it is his wife's turn to come back to him because she left when he confessed a lifetime of affairs. so he was "done" with the damaging affairs and elected to break her heart with a confession. if you can't see how that's wrong, seek counseling. NOW!

   next time we'll look at how to fall "out of love" with your affair and painlessly turn that attention back to the one who has your "commitment." if we can't fix it, it will at least give you enough time to leave your spouse and have some integrity. it is the definition of love that you can't love intimately two people at once without violating love itself. affairs do not and CAN not have anything to do with love, because love comes from a clean heart. read 1 Corinthians 13. see you on the flip side.   ]]> 126585 2008-07-21 23:03:24 i am a child of the King,
accepted as a son,
celebrated for little details that make me: me.
i am a child of the King,
recreated
to grow into His image.
when the cold and dark crowd me,
i shall draw tighter the Comforter
and draw closer to the Light.
i am a child of the King.
my faults disappoint Him 
because He hopes for my joy, 
but my failings will never repulse Him. 
when fear of death tries to speak, 
i will grasp the hope of Heaven like a shield. 
when pain overtakes me, 
i will do all that i know to remain silent about it. 
i am a child of the King. 
i don't approach Him like the Wizard of Oz. 
i hide in His robes. 
i bury my face in His shoulder.  
He hasn't given me life to "accomplish things."
He hasn't given me life to chase wealth.
He hasn't given me life to impress men.
He has given me life to share with Him.
He has given me life to walk with Him.
He has given me life to love His kids.
He has given me life to enjoy Him.
i am a child of the King.
and this is where i need right now to be born again.
yes, i have given my life to Him.
but i have spent my adult life resisting enjoyment.
"we must be mature."
"we must be good ambassadors for Him."
"just because you are with a kid,
do you have to act like one?"
but, I AM A CHILD OF THE KING.
i will always be His child,
so i will take pleasure in it.
i will be patient with the angry, for they are also afraid.
i will be gentle with the panicked,
for they lash out because of their confusion.
i will be happy because i know Who walks with me.
i am not just an ambassador.
i am a prince.
i may be Prince Not-so-Charming,
but i am a prince none-the-less.
i have not, i fear, behaved as royalty.
with such life as i have left to live,
i will not forget that
i am the child of a King.
there are many kings.
my King rules them all.
and i get to roller-skate in the throne room
and build Lego castles by His throne.
the King is my Dad, you see.
and listen ...
the stories you hear about Him being harsh and stuff?
lies.
been with Him between forty and a hundred years (HA!),
and He has yet to be harsh with me.
join me.
there's no court and no foster time.
just say yes to Him and you're in.
it is so much nicer than "out."
see ya around campus. ]]> 126122 2008-07-20 23:19:36 welcome to our series, "Mad about Affairs."  
there are those who are mad as a hornet.
there are those who love to have them.
then there are the multitudes who get chewed up in the gears of affairs.
but for now we are talking about mechanics, not morality.
this is a classic example of first grade logic.
whether the affair is merely one of the heart over dinners and coffee,
or even if it sinks as far as sex,
there is an elementary school thrill of "this is us vs. them."
a complete train wreck from one of my churches
tried to start a ministry for male sexual purity.
his marriage was then a casualty of an affair.
i lived with a pastor's family.
every time he preached on healing, he got a cold.
you will be attacked in any area you attempt to live morally.
it may be your own mind attacking you.
~the alcoholic wakes up saying, "i will NOT drink today."
~by noon, it is, "i will Not drink today."
~mid-afternoon, it is , "i will not drink today."
~end of work, it is, "i think i'll get a drink."
the point is, it is often moral people tripping over their own rules
that gets them into trouble.
that does not excuse them.
but it is true that the Woodstock generation
made its own rules as it went along.
"do your own thing."
"make your own kind of music."
"if it feels good, do it."
little thought was put into, "this affects a LOT of people."
so these two emotional children in adult bodies
think that their backs are against the wall.
the first thing they convince themselves of is the "need."
"i don't know what i would do without you."
"you will never have to find out."
"my heart would turn completely off if not for you.
you are good for my family because you make me happy."
"i've never had anyone listen like you do."
deep. blah. meaningful. blah, blah. fate. blah, blah, blah.
they believe that they are inventing love.
they believe that people will HAVE to accept it
simply because it is inevitable.
they believe it is justified.
a woman i read about once was divorcing her husband.
he had never blown gently on her face during intimacy.
he DIDN'T KNOW she wanted him to.
folks, may i save you ten thousand dollars in therapy?
there ARE NO MIND-READERS.
(some idiot is saying, "i knew he would say that ... ")
even if people can read minds, they can't do it all the time.
this woman considered affairs away from home
because her mind wasn't read at home.
see? this is where honesty gives your spouse a fighting chance.
and the sick part is she would tell her affair she wanted him to blow on her face.
date nights and vacations are crucial for marriages
for keeping the "us together against the world" atmosphere.
so many marriages are dissolving around me.
so many of the causes are screamingly stupid.
people should be arrested and forced to write papers
on what they love and adore in each other as they date.
those papers should be framed and hung on the wall.
viewed daily, they say,
"before you cheat, remember her love for talking with you til dawn."
"before you cheat, remember how he sang to you in front of hundreds of people."
if things cool off, hang with a counselor.
it is usually a small adjustment to become comfortable again.
more next time on how affairs have two broken people finding each other. ]]> 125961 2008-07-20 13:41:35 i have a game i play when my kids and i go out to dinner.
i predict what couples are going to do next just on a quick sweep of the restaurant.  
i predict things like arguments, bored frowns, loving touches about to happen.  
i can tell you immediately who was arguing on their ways to dinner.
that one is funnier at church.
i love people who argue to and from church.
you're doing it wrong. HA!
anyway, the skill i have at "reading a room" comes from working at a prison.
but i had an acquaintance, a womanizer, who could read a room better than me.
he was one of my brokers, and the fellas he hung out with would talk like he was a hero.
his thing was to get everybody else introduced to a woman and then get one for himself.
you walked into the bar and he said, "who do you want to meet?"
the few times i was anywhere outside of work with him, i was also amazed.
but i saw how he did it, and this leads into another doorway to affairs.
men are single-minded.
"kill the wild boar before it kills you."
"get the football over the goal line."
"land the big account."
so if a guy gets a notion that he's of a mind to make some mookie,
he goes to the bar "looking to score."
he works for years to create the perfect pick-up line.
it never happens.
but what my broker did was a murky kind of genius.
instead of picking one focus (ie: "you've got beautiful hair") like most guys,
this guy would approach the woman.
the most attractive male attribute according to a recent survey of college coeds
is attitude: he is relaxed.
so this guy would approach women like they had been friends for years.
before he was my broker, he sold Porsches.
he knew how to approach acting casual.
within minutes he had names, jobs, hobbies, and trust.
he would then say, "meet my good friend ... " and the night was a historical fact.
did the women know he was a player?
that was the weird part.
they absolutely did.
but he was classy in his interest.
they weren't chum for a shark.
his questions, posture, eye focus all belonged completely to her.
they were at the bar to meet people.
you can do worse as a woman than a classy guy who is interested in you.
now let's move out of the bar to real life.
affairs rarely happen the day you meet someone.
that is a fling, not an affair. 
affairs happen by little steps. 
the man creates a mosaic of the woman's life from pieces of conversation. 
after a while he has a full picture of the woman, not just her figure or her smile. 
and it is his vision and understanding that take down her barriers. 
women are complex beings who long to be loved in total. 
hubby tends to become single-minded and single focused. 
they talk about home maintenance and what the kids are doing. 
the average married conversation about things other than that
is less than 15 minutes a week. 
i have often thought that i would rather be the man she talks to
than the guy she just has sex with.
in one situation i so loved the woman that i considered helping her cheat.
it was fear of losing our ability to talk that made me say no.
i will close this one with one more thing men don't get:
for women, an affair is not an impulse thing.
she has thought it through.
she knows the cost.
you may be revenge for an affair hubby had.
you may be the thing that makes her empty life bearable.
she may want to get caught to wake hubby up.
in that case, pray he doesn't own a gun.
she is not planning to live her life with you.
you are a diversion.
in divorce, she will close her heart to everyone but her kids.
you will be a casualty of the divorce that was suppose to make you a couple forever.
she may genuinely love you, but there will be loved ones she says goodbye to.
i still love my ex-mother-in-law.
i don't get to go to her house without notice anymore.
you were part of the picture because of failed love, and you have that tattoo now.
if she has a conscience, you are a guilt thing.
she loves the convenience of you.
she will stay with you as long as you are convenient.
affairs are VERY inconvenient during a divorce.
okay.
we are studying the pedigree of an affair.
that stuff had to be said.
more next time.
see ya around campus ... ]]> 125656 2008-07-19 14:57:28 i shall stick with the men-folk for another post.
men, as you have noticed, are quite sloppy when it comes to affairs.
if the truth be told, men are quite sloppy at living.
it comes from living life in constant competition.
men WANT you to know what they are doing.
if they are winning, they want you to see that.
if they are losing, they want you to see how hard they are trying.
everything, everything, everything in a man's life is competition.
a guy can come home from work having made a million dollars that day.
wifey can say, "betty was telling me that jughead built them a deck."
blam-o!
the million dollar day is erased, and hubby is thinking, "i gotta get us a deck."
in the meantime, veronica, the little hussy secretary is saying,
"archie, you do everything so well.
no wonder you are the boss.
this place would crumble without you."
and the waitress where he usually eats says,
"i would quit this job if not for you.
you are my favorite ... ahem ... giggle, giggle, blush ... customer."
hubby goes out to hear his buddies in the band play at the bar.
of course he buys the band a round or five.
the waitress notices that he isn't
the usual un-bathed alcoholic that comes out on fridays.
he says please and thank-you and tips big.
so she gladly flirts with him for a bigger tip.
so right there we have three potential affairs
who never complain about trash he forgets to take out
or a mortgage he forgot to pay.
is it fair?
heck no.
but remember, in such situations, he has very limited focus.
at this point to his wife he is saying,
"do you always have to talk to me like i am a child?
can't you compliment me about anything?"
wife says, "oh. so now i don't compliment enough?"
and when secretary, waitress or barmaid says, "you look down. you okay?"
he will come back with, "she just doesn't understand me."
at this point, depending on how busily he likes to juggle,
he has one to three affairs blossoming.
men enjoy brazen women if they don't embarrass us loudly.
but more, we enjoy the woman who quietly adores us.
i had a married woman kiss me in front of an entire church
and i was the only one who knew it.
i don't cheat and i don't help married women cheat,
but i remember that kiss from ten years ago as if it were yesterday.
her warm breath. the brush of her lips on my cheek. her whispered "i love you."
it didn't get me in the sack, but i know men who it worked on.
many men have consciences that they can manipulate.
it isn't bad if they TELL themselves it isn't bad.
so at this point the thinking is:
"it isn't bad if i don't get caught.
i give and give and give all day.
i deserve a little 'me' time."
by the way, many mega-ministers do this.
it is called "word-faith."
God "blesses" them, so if they say it, it must be true.
so do you wanna know how to combat this in your husband?
i assume that is why some of you are here.
1) greetings and farewells are crucial. kiss him goodbye. really kiss him. and don't say, "remember to call the guy about fixing the thing." do NOT greet him at the door with how the kids have been turds and he needs to spank them. let the kiss be the last thing he remembers in the morning. give him 15 - 30 minutes to really share his day when he gets home.
2) remember the "competition." women whose checks he signs or whose tip he provides are going to say that anything he does is great. don't patronize, but find some great stuff to appreciate about him or you've lost him. his barmaid will compliment doodles on a napkin as high art. nothing is more irresistible to a man than being adored.
3) get silly again. write in the steam on the bathroom medicine cabinet that you love him while he takes a shower. plan a romantic evening with the kids away at the babysitters. write him a poem or make a message in one of those cards with no writing, just a picture on the front. make his favorite food just to celebrate him. act like you are dating and you actually like him. it may turn out that you actually do. 
 
see you around campus ]]> 125160 2008-07-18 12:46:44 just for the purpose of a small break from the ladies,
why do men stray?
most of the time, it is for comically simple reasons.
not that it is humorous, especially to the survivors.
but comical because of its stupidity.
guys want to be heroes.
i proved this a thousand times at the prison.
a well-timed compliment is gold.
if their cell was a mess, i complimented their "neat" ceiling
or the perfect squareness of their window.
then i said, "let's make the rest of the room match."
they chuckled, shook their heads, and cleaned.
but to motivate a man, the order is:
1) compliment,
2) request.
the smart secretary, for instance, will start the day by complimenting his tie.
"that's a nice tie; is it new?"
it resets his day.
while he courted his lady, she complimented him sometimes.
i got one girlfriend hundreds of cards because from time-to-time,
she told me i picked "the best cards!"
another girlfriend liked maybe three of the poems i wrote her.
i gave her a hundred to get complimented on the three.
men have insecurity issues, and the most arrogant have the biggest issues.
donald trump has to reassert his alpha male stuff every minute of his life.
so the previous night, hubby has to spank a kid cuz you are mad at the kid.
men hate that.
then you and hubby go another round arguing about money.
you both hate that.
you go to bed mad.
he begins to reach out several times.
he thinks better of it having experienced what touching you during arguments
has done before.
with women, intimacy is the door to climax.
masters and johnson said that women must be ready
physically, emotionally and spiritually. (emphasis mine.)
men, on the other hand, climax as the door to intimacy.
so while you are thinking you may never touch him again,
he needs your touch more than any other time.
sleep doesn't cure the anger issue,
and your frost melts off of him as he heads out to his car.
maybe he stops for breakfast
where a cute young lady flirts for a bigger tip.
maybe he goes straight to work
where a fresh faced smiling secretary brings a cup of coffee,
perfectly prepared.
men have affairs because in their minds,
the affair is more fun, more manly, more courageous,
simply more ...
than what he has at home.
notice four lines up i said "in their minds"?
in relationships,
men are not "big picture" people.
he may be in an affair because she calls him "johnny" instead of "john."
he has never asked anyone to call him "johnny."
that would feel dumb.
but because his affair partner calls him that,
he feels special.
soon after the wedding, many men discover
that their wives thought they bought a "fixer-upper."
men hate that.
the most solid marriages i know have a man who is accepted "as is."
an enjoyed man is much more likely 
to be a monogamous man.
more about men later on.
next, back to the ladies. ]]> 125100 2008-07-18 10:31:20 we are looking at why your wife is sleeping with me.
okay, she isn't, but we are looking at why she could be.
coming close to the numbers of under-touched women,
one of the next easiest to nail is the under-appreciated wife.
when you were dating, you cared.
before you got in bed the first time,
you were fascinated by her stories.
if she had someone bugging her at work,
you volunteered to clobber them.
if someone was mean to her,
you held her in your arms and let her be safe.
you loved seeing her in new situations.
you offered to rub her feet or her back.
you offered to carry things for her.
the only way she took out her own trash is if you weren't there.
if you live where it gets cold,
you started her car to warm it up,
and you scraped her windows.
if you live where it's hot,
you went out early to turn on the air-conditioning and air out the car.
men compete and women network.
it's part of why women live longer.
but while in the "falling in love" part of things,
you actually listen like her girlfriends do.
you'll miss part of a football game to listen to her talk about folding clothes!
ladies, the first time you sleep with him is the last time he'll do that!
he was listening,
but he was listening to win.
the prize was sex.
what most men are too thick-headed to think about
is that she still has the same drives and needs AFTER he "wins" as before.
so if hubby doesn't continue to appreciate her,
if hubby doesn't work as hard in year five as he did in year one,
an opening is created for those waiting for a chance.
most often it is not an immoral wife who is cheating.
most often it is an emotionally starving wife who is cheating.
i am not one of those folks who claim to know what Jesus was thinking,
but what he might have been thinking
when they brought the woman "caught in adultery," is,
"wait! where is the man?
and where are the spouses of the adulterers?
did they 'stray' or were they pushed?
how does one woman, by herself, commit adultery?"
but you know what?
it is quite possible that one of the strongest contributing factors
was that she felt like one woman by herself.
i am unshockable,
but i am continually surprised by how many women
are saddened and/or furious that their husbands
don't figure out that they are cheating.
you heard me.
women would volunteer to be caught if it meant that
their husbands would emote at all.
men don't want to "get caught,"
because they are being bad.
women don't mind getting caught
because they are compromising anyway.
she doesn't cheat cuz i am better than you.
cheating is a step down for her,
and she wouldn't do it if her love needs were met.
and here is the irony:
if she has talked herself into compromise,
she will respond to her affair simply trying
to show he cares.
his effort is evidence
that she is still worth trying to love.
how sad is that?
i'm not a better lover than you.
she would rather be with you.
but i win cuz i try.
you lose because you don't even attempt to appreciate her.
more next time ...
]]> 124861 2008-07-17 21:08:46 except for one or two folks whom i am pretty sure no longer read me,
i am unknown on this blog site.
so i am going to do something i have long threatened to do.
i am going to spend a few posts on a subject called:
"why your wife is sleeping with me."
now, to start with, i am sleeping with no one's wife.
but i could.
i have counseled thousands of people,
and i know why people cheat.
perhaps if i tell you what i know,
one person may be smart enough to pay attention.
my sister has watched me work with people
who had enormous transference.
her comment was that if i wasn't so good at my job,
i'd be married.
i adore women.
they are more evolved than men.
men couldn't be pregnant.
the baby would kick the Budweiser cans off their stomachs.
(sorry. i think in pictures.)
a few facts:
women have less guilt over affairs.
they know what they are risking but they also know what they need.
especially if they are mothers,
they are changed, altered forever because of you.
and the "thanks" some of them get
is a syndrome i made up called "post-partum repression."
men get turned off by pregnancy.
no, not all men.
some actually like it.
but there are men who become afraid to touch.
blam-o.
easiest affair in the world.
the "under-touched woman."
holding the door and putting a guiding hand on the small of her back.
having coffee during a break
and reaching out to touch her hand to make a point.
a gentle look under lowered lids and she knows you are hers.
am i teaching how to do it?
only to moral slimebags.
i am explaining how to meet your wife's needs
so she doesn't need to do it away from home. 
these are needs, baby. 
women need touch that isn't foreplay.
i am not talking about a couple of days when you two are fussin'.
i am talking about a woman who is consistently under-touched.
will it be easier to swallow your ignorant pride and fix it,
or to divide property and have custody arrangements?
cuz here's how you fix it:
TOUCH HER, MORON!
kiss her goodbye and hello.
open the door and use YOUR hand to guide her.
hold hands during TV times.
hold her hand while you look at the darkness before sleep.
my grandma and grandpa held hands to watch TV til they were separated by death.
he would wake up and say, "how's our love today, Julia?"
he had a farm.
he knew that what was tended grew strong and healthy.
he tended to their love. 
if you spend the weekend gassy and crude,
there is a guy at work who will be all showered and excited to see her monday.
there are men,
obsessed, committed, aware of what i am telling you.
you can see in a woman's eye if she is adored.
if you habitually forget to adore her,
how do you think she will react if he writes her a poem
or buys her a thoughtful gift?
we treat marriage like it is a permission slip
to be habitually thoughtless.
i can't guarantee she'll stay if you love her.
but i can guarantee she will stray if you don't.
she needs love like you need food.
she needs love like you need water in august.
she needs love like you need her, cowboy.
man up and love her like there's no tomorrow.
perhaps that will keep you in fresh tomorrows.
more next time ]]> 124655 2008-07-17 11:45:10 it may be bad for a counselor to say,  
but "self-improvement" is impossible.
changing habits is possible.
but driving on a better road doesn't make you a better car.
to become a better car,
someone who knows a LOT about cars
has to make a fundamental alteration.
losing weight,
quitting smoking,
combing the gray out of your hair ...
compared to the universe called "self,"
such things are spit in the ocean.
i do believe, however, that humans yearn to improve.
the cult of self-improvement takes lots of space in bookstores.
the cult of scientology sucks you in
on the promise of bettering yourself.
the serpent played to this very yearning
when it told Eve she could be like God.
all she had to do was change her diet.
the world's great religions (not spiritualities)
promise "better" in the afterlife
from small crowds of virgins to reincarnation as something nicer.
neat-o.
here's my problem.
how come they offer things that are so tailored to who we are now?
they appeal to greed or selfishness and say it is our "reward."
sorry.
i expect greater things from God
than what my ego can imagine.

i can pay a dating service to make me un-lonely.
only God can lead me into actual love.
medicines can mask my symptoms
only God can actually heal.
scientists can and do make life in test tubes.
only God can form a soul.
computers can be programmed to write stories.
but to write with passion takes that God-formed soul.
we humans can plan special moments.
only God can weave a biography.
humans can plant seed.
only God can crack that seed open
and coax life from its core.
every healthy child is a pure miracle.

man rehabilitates.
God simply says our names in explosive love.
man runs until he runs out, 
collapsing in a panting heap. 
God walks and NEVER stops. 
while we dream we have escaped Him, 
we sleep cradled in His love. 
we sweat and scrape and weep for gold. 
we won't accept His gifts of billions 
because ... well ... we have our pride, thank you. 
God alone grants lasting wealth. 
if we are seeking money to avoid Him, 
our fortunes will not be steady. 
money is stored up life. 
wealth is acquired power. 
 
a reckless heart can drive power into a wall.
it is good to ask why.
"why was i given this gift?"
"why am i using it this way?"
being giving and loving is addicting.
you don't have to give your entire life away.
but one or two of the millions in need
would have been you with the right breaks.
help them step up.
" ... inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren ... "
how we treat each other is how we treat Him.
see you in study hall ... ]]> 124346 2008-07-16 21:02:34    when i want to know "Christian thinking" on a subject, i have found that the best way to start dialog is to take a stand. it is part of the nature of spirituality to want to share your beliefs. so i am going to take a stand. i am willing, but not easy, to have my mind changed. this issue has weighed on my mind since the first days of my faith. what, exactly, is the "Christian" view of sex? i'll start with my situation and work from there.

   i am an ex-spouse. sure, i agree to whatever you say about abstinence because i don't have any opportunity anyway. but i know the feeling. it isn't like i am a virgin waiting in rapt anticipation. i am at an age where medicine is saying that simply being touched is a life-saver. it seems to enhance the immune system and reduce stress and help balance moods as well as being so absolutely cool. now i am serving a life sentence of being untouched because my wife left me. let me explain that again. my spouse, who recoiled at my touch, left me. she has a spouse. she gets touched. her hand gets held. and i watch the days pass by like driven snow.

   i see long term unmarried couples with children at church. when i lived with women, i didn't go to church. married yeah. cohabitant no. yet the first person Jesus admitted He was Messiah to was a cohabitant woman at the well. was He giving a vote of approval to living together? i doubt it. i see it more as Him responding to her huge potential for love. only God could fulfill her.

   so what about it, church? you can't "just say no" to me if you have intimacy in your life. what IS the church's stand on non-married sex? to actually be the church's stand, it must include compassion, understanding, empathy, love ... should i "look for love," or should i pound my head with a porcupine? i dare ya to answer. ]]> 124102 2008-07-16 11:28:07 " ... except when to do so would injure them or others ... " 

   a very specific group of folks immediately recognized those words. i will reveal where they are from after i talk a few moments about their importance. they are out of an outline for fixing broken lives. after explaining the immeasurable importance of absolutely rigorous honesty, this outline talks about going to people you have harmed to make things as right as possible. and that is where these words are placed.

   i am an avid blogger. i enjoy a communication method i had nothing to do with creating. C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would take their manuscripts into the moors and drink beer and read to each other. can you imagine how much fun they might have had with the capability of blogs? i share my thoughts with people i couldn't have met outside of the internet. i have actual conversations going on with people from Europe, Australia, places my fear of flying pretty much guarantees i will never see. i like weird people. there are multitudes of them in the blogosphere. there are multitudes of normal folks, too. don't get me wrong. you can find anything you are looking for in blogs. just when i think i have seen everything, a blogger expands the definition of "everything."

   it is the nature of blogging to open a door or maybe just a window into your mind. blogging is sharing. soldiers share the miracle of birth thousands of miles away. some folks with web cams actually have phone calls like the Jetsons. solitary folks on one side of the world can meet like-minded folks from the other side of the world. it is a revolution and a miracle. it is also being eyed by those who would sell you the air you breathe if they could, so i pray they are unable to take the internet over. free speech rarely stays free for very long.

   all that having been said, may i point something out? if your sharing hurts someone else, your writing is dung. i have written over a thousand very personal newspaper columns without destroying one reputation, without implicating one other specific person in my mistakes. i write posts calling for spiritual responsibility and listing my failings again with no reference to with whom i may have "sinned." "tell-all" biographies in any media that rely on name-dropping tied to pants-dropping are actually telling only one thing: that a bore wrote them. nobody is shocked by shocking stories anymore. c'mon. we had janis and jim morrison. we had wilt chamberlain and O.J. you really can't shock boomers with stories about dropping your knickers. we truly don't care whom you shacked up with.

   in addition to the "i broke up with jimmy and now i know he is a booger-picking, zit-popping, completely evil doo-doo head" type of writing, there are the "coming clean" type of missives. this is like hugging someone with ... oops ... a dagger under your arm. they are one last stab. these happen frequently in blogs under the guise of someone "sharing their pain." sometimes they will pretend to be writing to the offending party: "dear so-and-so, now that you are gone, i need to say a few things ... " sometimes they start like this: "i don't know where to turn so i am sharing with you all ... " and sometimes folks actually write straight to the person, "privately," so the sharing is "okay." except it isn't. its purpose is to take one last opportunity to hurt. a cheating spouse gets religion and tells their loyal and so-far unaware spouse about their affairs. it costs the faithful spouse a broken heart to "clean" your conscience? guess what. you are disgusting. there is a married-but-disintegrating couple who are warring in my blog community. they both keep sharing the "true" story. the truth is they fell out of love. so shut up and do what you need to do. sheesh.

   it is the nature of some mistakes that your punishment is to live with the guilt. you don't get to get off easily. "honey, i cheated on you. do you forgive me?" "i forgive you for cheating, but not for telling me about it. that was just mean." truly. what could your motive possibly be? it isn't "coming clean" to highlight the dirt in your life. if you have been a cheater, the only way to make that right is to become monogamous. if you have been a secret gambler, quit. if you have stayed drunk or stoned without the knowledge of those you love, it won't take any more time to become sober or straight just as privately. bragging about it is so old now. people have been getting sober since the 1930's using the same 12-steps they use today. by-the-way, the quote at the beginning is from the 12-steps. "made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." amends with injury. fixing it by breaking it somewhere else. by definition, you are not fixing it.

   it is an irrevocable law that any insults hurled at an ex-spouse are thrown into a hurricane force wind. no matter how bad they were, you talking about it makes you exactly the same level of wrong. i used the twelve steps for another problem, but i have studied Alcoholics Anonymous. before Al-Anon, spouses were approached with the same fervor as the drunks in a family. instead of for drinking, they were confronted on self-pity, anger, fear ... all the things the drunk had to confront also. no matter how "right" you are, the wrong that is there can still be deadly. some wives of alcoholics are known to divorce their now-sober husbands and marry another practicing alcoholic. they only know how to be martyrs. they are really, really good at being codependent. predictable pain must be better to some folks than worrying about surprise disappointments.

   just to make it impossible to misunderstand, any "relationship fix" that causes more pain is doing it wrong. you can't fix people by hurting them. you can't fix you by hurting another. healing is found in gentleness. you don't have to yell to be a healer. peter's shadow falling on people healed them. peter's shadow never yelled. cause as much disturbance as a shadow and you will be doing it correctly. see ya around campus.

]]> 123823 2008-07-15 23:39:10 the hall that my kids ... and wife ... walked in
is now home to two kittens and their scolding mom.
the rooms we said nightly prayers in are now silent.
the house that raised a family
now reeks of single guy.
"clean" is a strange goal.
i ask, "clean for whom?"
no one lives here.
i merely wander ... lost ... from room to room.
this is the land of broken furniture.
this is the locker of broken dreams.
but i get to start over.
every day i can begin anew
because i affect no one.
how do people do it who are locked into their nightmares?
how do child-slaves wake to meet another day?
where do abused wives find courage in their broken hearts
to smile for their children and hope for their spouses?
i worry and i have great kids.
how do parents make it who have self-destructive kids?
how do children make it
when parents seek unlived life through them?

God is silently planning for all of these in His love.
every tear that is shed is collected.
every bruise gently tended.
every disappointment evicted by hope.
music invades our silences.
dreams accompany us into sometimes stark reality.
the smiles of strangers paint our days.
the absolute poorest dream of a roof.
those with slightly more dream of a floor.
my daughter helped build a one-man box-home
for a homeless man in the islands
who, like me, will always think her an angel.

He splashes the sky into ghetto lots
through the miracle of chicory.
city streets have the song of the country stream
in the music of children's laughter.
life awakens with the sunrise.
the soul is awed to silence at the sunset.
the artificial fire of our many screens
burns into the nights.
we must hunt ... through plastic drawers ... for our food.
i am a great hunter.
the point is that He sneaks beauty and joy
into the fabric of our lives.
at every level,
He keeps the dream alive for better.
every day He dreams for us a better tomorrow.
He is silently planning for us in His love.
if we can't see Him, it is our vision and not His presence
that is missing.
He sneaks to bless us.
how much more will He willingly help
if only we ask?
He longs to give us greater dreams.
amen ]]> 123051 2008-07-15 12:03:41 thank God i don't have the "fire" i watch some TV ministers express.
there is no joy for me in calling other religions blind or evil.
i didn't "get religion" to be "right."
many have tried and failed to make me feel "wrong."
my relationship with God is not based in "right and wrong."
you don't need a living God to have a right/wrong life.
you could get that life from a cereal box.
"these are the rules: they determine if you are right or wrong."
puh-leez.
people like to make up rules.
one of my ex-wives yelled, "that's not where the forks GO!"
i responded, "says who? God? who makes the 'fork rules'?"
(did i mention i have a few problems staying married?) 
while some religions profess to hating rules, they still have 'em.  
a conversation that always cracks me up
is when people argue that their religion has "better rules."
yeah? that's like bragging that your cell has prettier bars.
people say that God threatens us if we sin.
does He threaten us if we do righteousness?
because the "do's" are set up exactly like the "don't's."
"do this" and your life will be good.
"do this" and your life will be bad.
the same mouth that speaks blessing speaks curses.

the thing about having a living God is that life is continually surprising.
i love God's words, but more than that, perhaps, i love His ways.
watch marriages that you know are matched-up by God.
c'mon. you know when you see one.
and there is no "greater" or "lesser" mate.
they are counterparts.
complete and very different people who "happen" to match up perfectly.
both Pastor Don and Pastor Vern have marriages like that.
they both have strong, independent wives.
and both relationships are joined at the heart.
computer matching can be adequate.
but the best they can do is join you at the brain-level.
only God can fit hearts together.

here's another of God's ways that i love:
He empowers the gentle to do whatever He asks.
humans give power to the strong and assertive.
history has always been made by those with "positive mental attitudes."  
but not all of history.
there have also always been those who don't "fit" the roles of leaders,
but move nations.
without God, Moses would have been a mechanic.
he stunk as a public speaker.
without God, Abraham would have been just another anonymous rich guy.
he had a huge, successful life before God said hello.
even Jesus said He did whatever He SAW the Father do. (emphasis mine.)
with strength of will and body, you can capture some power.
but the gentle, the meek, can be trusted.
so they are entrusted, empowered, because Father can direct or guide them.

a favorite teacher some thirty years ago
described faith as "coming in on a knock-out."
in boxing, you go out on a knock-out.
but in faith, you gotta understand that you lost
before you can accept what he won.
once again, the humble receive immeasurable treasure.
this is the answer for those of us
who wonder, "what do i have to offer?
i'm not billy graham or kenneth copeland or don young."
God uses them, no doubt.
but sometimes God uses empty stables as maternity wards
and shepherd boys as kings
and crosses as the raw materials for thrones.

if God can transform or use such things,
God can use us.
would you rather be anonymous and friends with God
or famous and alone?
i would be overjoyed to be non-famous
and fully aware of Him.
we can not fully love God without fully loving man,
so i do not wish to be completely alone.
but fame is a mist, not a goal.
my goal is to remind as many other "nobodies" as i can
that to God, we are somebodies.
in God's eyes, we are to die for. ]]> 122310 2008-07-12 11:59:35 i have had friends who jumped out of airplanes for sport.
i have had friends who played music to thousands.
i have had champion martial artists for friends.
some of my friends have preached to millions.
one of my more idiotic friends
tied himself to a tree with a steak hanging from his gun
as his own live bear bait.
(i watched TV that day.) 
it is a thrill sometimes to tempt fate. 
otherwise explain John Glenn and George H. W. Bush 
being an astronaut and parachutist 
at ages where many are having trouble getting out of bed. 

 there is a group that i see as braver
than these amazing thrill-seekers.
those would be the folks who risk their hearts.
i am not speaking of eHarmony and dating service junkies.
i am certainly not speaking of those who risk their families' hearts
through the thrill-seeking of affairs.
that is sleazy.
you do not love your married "lover."
married lovers don't love you.
protest all you like.
affairs are purely and completely self-centered
and self-serving.

heart-riskers are people who gamble on love
as a healing and life-affirming expression.
gambling on love has nothing to do
with being loved back.
it has to do with the belief that love plants itself  
and sometimes long after
bears fruit.
ideally, God created family for this purpose.
humans have turned from marriage in masses.
canadian geese still mate for life.
too bad geese can't preach.
heart riskers make a commitment to love
when nothing says it will work.

everything good i know i have stolen
so if i speak in first person
it is with gratitude and not ego.
there is a poem about a group who draws a circle
that fences the writer out.
the writer is not content with that
and draws a circle that takes them in.
commitment is drawing the circle that includes.
it may be inconvenient, but i will include you.
you may find me repulsive, but i will include you.
your behavior may be stupid, but i will include you.
you may hurt me, but i will include you.

it is stepping into that commitment
that makes it safe for folks to let your love heal them.
there is no room for negotiation.
trying for a rent-to-own love
where i take a step and then you take a step
is trying for love with a guarantee.
it isn't love if there is a guarantee.
love has promise, not guarantee.
what is the promise?
that if you love, you are doing God's work.
not everyone loves God back
so not everyone will love you back.
sorry.

we are ambassadors.
can you imagine our government
taking someone from a foreign country
who knew neither English nor what America was
and saying, "this is our ambassador"?
okay.
our government might.
God's government doesn't.
we carry His government with us.
i wouldn't even spit on God's lawn,
but i have made a joke of His kingdom.
i wonder what the world would be like
if i behaved as the ambassador i am privileged to be.
see ya around campus. ]]> 121504 2008-07-10 21:21:36 i am profoundly lonely. my son stopped by for a minute and a half earlier and my daughter is off to a mission trip. my church is starting right about now and i have no transportation. TV on thursday is nauseating. and my head is arguing with itself. "aren't you the guy who says he loves being a hermit?" "yes, but i am a hermit by choice and right now i am shut in with no choice." but you know what? i was not very compassionate toward folks with physical problems until i had them. instead of choosing to be compassionate, i chose to turn a blind eye to the problems. now compassion is the only option that makes sense, so it doesn't count as something cool about me. if you share a problem with someone and have no empathy for them, you are self-centered to the point of being a human black hole. i do not wish to devour people. i wish to feed and encourage and help them.

as i get older, i realize that self-centeredness and love do not coexist well in the human soul. in generations past, marriages had a taker (usually the guy) and a giver (usually the gentle-hearted lady). women's rights groups have unfortunately taken the worst of males and demanded it for themselves. so now there are two takers, and marriages don't last. it will work with two givers. it can work with one main giver. but with two takers, ain't nothing can save it. there is a Scriptural description of this dilemma: "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." perhaps a little background would help. "the flesh" doesn't mean the stuff we have holding our guts inside and the world outside. medical definitions and Scriptural definitions often differ for the same word. "the flesh" referred to in Scripture often means "the result of man's strength," or "works of human origin and willfulness." the result of this spirit/human-willfulness battle most often end up with self-centeredness winning. stand on a chair. try pulling someone up on the chair while they are pulling to bring you down. if they are equal strength, they will always win. it is easier to be pulled away from spirituality than toward it, even if it is our own minds pulling us down.

can self-centeredness be beaten? are you nuts? of COURSE it can be beaten. God, by Himself, is a majority. i am nowhere near as selfish as i was before having children. i am far less selfish than i was as a barefoot hippy for 19 months. my self-centeredness has changed clothes. i used to be indignant quite often. my so-called anger was masked as social conscience or being a pacifist or whatever. for the first twenty years of my faith, i thought people would automatically like me cuz i was a "good guy." when someone didn't like me, i reacted with immense self-pity. what was wrong with them anyway? but i have figured out that sometimes people don't like ME. it has nothing to do with my faith. much of my "being persecuted for righteousness sake" was because i acted like a selfish pig with my faith. i told people what to do, how to live, what to think, and then i was surprised when they pushed back. and each time i lost face or lost a friend. it chips away like a sculpture with a stone.

i remember reading about a sculptor saying he took a stone and carved away everything that didn't look like his statue. a little bit at a time, no more than we can handle, God chips away to take us from complete train wreck to glorious masterpiece. people who meet me today meet a much nicer man than when i worked in prison. when i had money i bought friends. today you meet a man who realizes friendship is more than buying stuff. and again, i would have never learned that if i had always been rich enough to buy loyalty. today you meet a man compassionate about lost love. if i hadn't lost the love of over half my life, i never would have had such compassion. i tolerated empty-nesters with some irritation until i sat weeping one night looking at my son's chair and my daughter's couch sitting there empty. looking at a life without them was worse than when their mom left. i wanted more time with them. i want more time with them. why CAN'T the skies open and give me more time, dang it?

i have prayed for people in the hospital and they died. i distrusted my entire faith because i couldn't raise the practically dead. but i can reach the hearts of delinquents faster than you can microwave a pizza. i just never realized how much of a gift that was. pastor don and pastor vern have convinced me that sometimes i write kinda cool stuff. that is why you are reading this. the point is that it took other people looking at me with love before i could even recognize my gifts. more often than not, it is the mirror of your eyes that shows the ones you love how exquisite they are. did you know your eyes could do that? pretty magnificent gift right there, i'd say ...

hey, thanks for stopping by. i feel much less lonely because of our little visit. thank you. ]]> 121245 2008-07-10 11:41:58    okay. for no real reason, let's weed out the "casual observers." ready? if you don't love people, you don't love God. gasp! burn him! banish him! heretic, i say! um ... problem ... i didn't say it. another John said it. i so didn't say it that for probably twenty years i saw the "work" of godly people as condemnation; point out those sins! yell about how the republicrats were godless cads who only wanted to expand their already nauseating egos. whine about TV programming and the awful folks who don't want teachers to have faith ... in the schools. avoid sexual sin by thinking about sex constantly. ("boo hoo. but God, You said it isn't good for me to be alone, so what gives?") 
   
   real life has real players. i am from a football loving town. some folks here would even qualify as having football for a religion. our local college coach is the pope. our two-time Heisman trophy winner is still a hero 30 years after his accomplishment. we have our football saints and martyrs. one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game coached here. and he knew this truth: you don't do any better in the game than you do in practice. words are fluff if not backed up by action. since i blog a lot, here's one i see a LOT: "i am a writer." yeah? what have you written? "oh, i don't have time to actually sit down and write. but i have a book in me, i just know it. maybe two." honey, you aren't a writer. why? because a writer ... writes. it's what we do. i am unable to not write. anything is an excuse. hot sunny day? better to stay in the air conditioning and write. blizzard? thank God i have writing to keep me company! daytime? write while you've got natural light! nighttime? hmmm ... i can watch an info-mercial about a carrot peeler that makes little statues of the saints out of carrots, or ... i can write! and tens of thousands of pages later i can truly say: i am a writer.

   time to step on a few toes. as a believer of forty years plus and counting, i would like to make a suggestion. my suggestion is: if you say "i am a writer" and don't write, you are like folks who say, "i share God's love" and don't love. "oh, but i DO love. i can't help it. you should meet the people from my church!" i will meet them ... eventually. but if you only love people who are good to you, how can that be sharing God's love? God's love has defined itself. God's love continues in spite of being misunderstood. God's love continues in spite of being misused. God's love continues toward the people who killed His Son, even while they killed him. great religions have come and gone and God's love hasn't been affected at all. God loves the smelly kid with rivers of snot on his face as much as the well-groomed kid who blows his own nose. God makes it rain the same in my yard as yours. God loves people with dandelions and weeds as much as the well-landscaped folks. and here is what God says about OUR love habits:

If anyone boasts, "I love God,"
and goes right on hating his brother or sister thinking nothing of it,
he is a liar.
If he won't love the person he can see,
how can he love the God he can't see?
The command we have from Christ is blunt:
Loving God includes loving people.
You've got to love both.

   loving God includes loving other people. the person who wrote this was so close to the Water-Walker that most educated folks agree he is the one called "the disciple whom Jesus loved." at the last supper he was literally sitting with his head resting on Jesus' chest. if anyone had access to Jesus' thoughts on an issue, it was this guy. and he says that "loving Jesus" is not enough. "oh, but john, God said it. i believe it. that settles it." goodie. in truth, if God said it, THAT settles it. you don't get to "vote" on it. God isn't waiting for your okay to consider it settled. but God also said that the acid test is how we treat each other. if i don't love you, i can't love Him. it's like football. if i haven't caught a thousand passes in practice, you are not going to trust the big game to my inexperienced hands. in fact, what few folks remember is that our two-time Heisman winner fumbled at the beginning of his career and they yanked him off the field. judgement begins in the House of God. if you fumble on love, He'll yank ya. your ministry can sit on the bench til you learn love. active faith is active love. active love means love for God AND people. i bet if we got that sorted out, people would be much less resistant to faith.

]]> 120748 2008-07-09 11:47:53 mrs. clinton wrote a book called, "it takes a village" ( ... to store all her money from sales of that book!) i have no beef with her. anything she does shy of putting a letter opener through his male parts impresses me. i thought bill was going to be the first president assassinated in office ... by his own wife. if mrs. clinton had put "the bill" on an island with some women, he wouldn't have screwed up her opportunity to be president. hindsight, what a concept, eh, mrs. clinton?
 
so what is the "it" that takes a village? is it that our little bundles of Heaven don't hear "i love you" enough? puh-leez. i have a cartoon that i never miss. so my TV is on during "cartoon day" while i wait to hear the theme song for the greatest dragon saga of all history. actually, he is a little looney and laughs all the time. that's why i love him. (Jane and the Dragon, for the other believers in the room ... ) but during this saturday morning display of the cartoon creators' craft, i hear "i love you" a hundred different ways. strange stuffed animals the size of Venus say "i love you" on PBS. heck, our schools have bumper stickers we can buy that say, "my kid is special and yours is a booger" or something. i always kinda figured i had the kid IN the car so i didn't need to put headlines on the OUTSIDE of the car. your child is an honor student? how nice. my kids are artists, dancers, one is a math whiz, one is an entrepreneur, they are both funnier than rodney dangerfield on speed, and they are my best friends. i don't want all that info messing up the paint on my car, though, so if you see us in traffic, i will just point at them, cool?

what takes a village is teaching them to live successfully. we live in the era of, "i don't want to get involved." and then we are shocked when people die in hospital waiting rooms or get mugged while other people just walk by or even watch. i jump in. i get hurt sometimes. i have been ejected from places for defending the defenseless a little too loudly. i got fired from a prison job for exposing a drug ring that included too many staff for the director to replace. oh, yeah. true story. and why do i get involved? because that is how my neighborhood lived. i can think of a few neighbors right now who could have grounded me, and my parents would have gone along automatically. we kind of all just lived together. our houses were our different "rooms," but we all shared. there were constantly friends at our house for dinners, coffee, parties ... we were scandalous when my mom's inner-city schoolteacher friends came for dinner. they were black and our neighborhood had some haters. but i learned something: involvement. take who you are, and share it.

do you know what mentoring is? it is being a friend. do you know what "Big Brother/Big Sister" consists of? being a friend. do you know what "Meals on Wheels" is? society being the friend of the infirm or shut-in. do you know what counselors are? we are paid ears. friendships for hire. many will deny this, especially the folks who charge for counseling (i counsel for free), but a friend is a much better listening post than a shrink because they have the context. the friend knows YOU rather than the circumstance. the shrink can dress your wounds, but the friend can love you back to health. that is, IF they aren't afraid to be involved. involvement can come in many forms. Pastor Don and Pastor Vern involve themselves by encouraging. i have friends who involve themselves by laughing at my jokes. i have friends who involve themselves by worrying about my health and broken car. i gravitate toward other caretakers. very few of my friends would let a woman die in an emergency room waiting area.

because i have a LOT of caretaking friends, i can say with assurance that good people still get involved. people who "cover their own ... backside" ... to avoid being sued should be shot. "that horrible man was hitting that woman. i would have tried to stop him, but he might have hit me." if he doesn't, i will. got a cell phone? bet ya do. got a voice? bet ya do. draw attention. call the cops. don't just stand there thinking that if you do nothing, you have no guilt. by that measure, parents who don't feed their children are guilt-free. 'round these parts, the law ain't too friendly toward parents who starve kids. nor do i have any respect for folks who let friends starve for love. friends are useless if they are only friends for the good times. i had LOTS of friends when i had money. then, as my beloved friend Lloyd Stump used to say, "the Lord burned my barley field." now i have true friends. not too many from when i had money, but people who see me as something other than a walking wallet.

the only way to improve society is to jump in. you can change things from inside out, but rarely from outside looking in. people are lonelier than ever. the world doesn't need any more judges. the robes and the trappings get in the way. besides, God's people have judged the world more harshly than God ever would, so the judgement thing is played out. i truly don't know why i always thought people would care about what i condemned. but i was wrong. people care about what we love. they reflexively defend what we judge. if i could only get my tongue to remember that ... wanna help the country? get involved. wanna make lawyers get honest work? get involved. wanna make a difference instead of just making waves? get involved. if you want your kids to make a difference, you have to show them that you make one. give them something to emulate. see ya around campus. ]]>