My Religious Views

Most of my life, I have heard it taught that God loves us and when His Spirit comes within us, He enables us to love and live rightly.  In order for us to live this lifestyle, we need to discipline ourselves and to force ourselves to learn to love and to live according to the laws that were written in the Old Testament.

 But that is not what I believe.

I believe that God loves us.  When He comes into our lives via His Spirit, we experience that love.  As we live within that love, we learn what love is.  His love invades our hearts, our souls, our very being and as His love spreads through us, we start loving.  We first learn to truly love ourselves, then that love spread to others.

As we start loving others, we start treating them rightly.  As we interact with others from love, we have no need of law, because we will naturally do the things that the law wants us to do.  So that even though we are not under the law, we fulfill the law.  That is why, I often say that it comes down to living loved and loving others.

As we experience this love and how it causes us to act rightly toward others, then we become less demanding of others living up to what we picture the law requiring.  We start treating everyone with this life changing love.

As I read the Bible, I see Jesus (Who is the direct representation of God The Father) interacting with others in this way.  It was said of Him, that He loved being with tax collectors and sinners.  When the religious leaders of Jesus' day (who demanded everyone to live according to the law and to traditions) approached Him, Jesus told them to learn what it meant that God prefers mercy to sacrifice and if they had known this then the religious leaders would not go around condemning the innocent.

This is how and what I believe at this time.

My thoughts on the aftermath of a massacre.

The massacre that happened at a school on Friday Dec. 14 was pure evil.  I don't care to know who the shooter was or why the shooter did those things.  The only stories that I care about hearing from that event are the ones about the heroes,  like Victoria Soto who laid down her life to save the lives of her kids.

I also do not care to hear all the bad rhetoric that has come out since the event.  It just sickens me when something bad happens and people try to find excuses to take the blame off of the wrongdoer.  Circumstances can play a part of evil events, but that should not mean that we do not hold the wrongdoer  accountable for those actions.

Evil massacres like this has occurred all through history.  The Christmas story as well as the story of Moses have  massacres of innocents within them.  This shows that it is evil and not the weapons that cause these events.  (note:  People within the US do not own automatic weapons, so we do not really have pure assault rifles.  What we have here amounts to semi automatic hunting rifles that are replicas  of assault rifles.  I call them replicas because they are missing the piece that makes them automatic.)

God has not ever depended on school curriculum, policies, or intercom announcements to be in a place.  God is everywhere.  His message is spread through the changed lives of the people He inhabits.

The way violence is portrayed within the US could very well be a contributing factor in these events, but that should not excuse the wrongdoer for his actions.  He did what he did because he chose to do those things.

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me!

There is a line from the song "Christmas" from the Rock Opera "Tommy" by "The Who" that contains the this line:  See me, feel me, touch me, heal me!  It is a haunting line and it is the one line from that song that has been stuck in my head for about 40 years.

As you may recall, the Rock Opera deals with the life of a boy who was born deaf, dumb, and blind.  This line that I quoted deals with his isolation.  It is his cry for help.

I have seen this same cry from help from numerous others who struggle with isolation placed upon them, not by deformities, but by the cold shoulders of others.  It is a life lived in "shame".  A belief that everyone looks down on you.  A longing for a friend, but in a midst of people cannot find anyone to share their intimate soul bearing thoughts with.  This is a condition that I have experienced myself.

People living in this condition need to experience the love of a neighbor who lets them know:  "I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you."

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/mrrogersneighborhoodlyrics.html

From what I have seen, the love from this neighbor can lead the person to a love of themselves.  I believe that the proper belief about one's self can help overcome the shame that forces people into this bad type of isolation.  Also in the process, the person can also find the love of their Creator who also will help them.  Once again, it comes back to "living loved and loving others".   The Who's "Christmas": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmijD6jqHs My Neighbor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJz_vVkcFg

My experiences 7 months into being a Parrot Head.

I have been a Parrothead for 7 months now.  During these 7 months, I have been able to attend and be a part of 9 gatherings.  I must say that during this time, my experiences with the group has been totally different from what most non-members would think.

Right off the bat, I must comment on their acceptance of me as a non-drinker.  Parrotheads have a big reputation for being heavy drinkers and for me this has been a big issue.  I came into the group explaining that I do not drink and have even explained why I have not ever started drinking and they have not only accepted me as a nondrinker, but have supported my decision not to drink.  

Another thing that I have noticed is the support and love that is shown for others.  I have seen people, while going through their own hardships, working hard to help others who are going through their own hardships.  This has just blown me away.  There are churches out there that would do good to learn of this type of love that I have seen here.

One thing that I have noticed is the love that I have seen between certain couples in the group for each other.  You can see that love in their eyes as they look upon each other.  I see the way that these people interact with each other and the group and I know that these people can teach me about love and marriage.

In short, my experience has shown me that there is love here, as people accept each other, support each other, enjoy the company of each other, enjoy the same music together and love each other.  It has been the type of experience that draws me in and causes me to want to me a part of the group for a much longer time

The Perfect Season - My 8th grade football team at Sunnyvale

With the high school playoffs going strong and other leagues winding down, I have been thinking about the Sunnyvale Football team during my 8th grade year.  Sunnyvale was a small school back then; only having 8 grades.  They had to bus off high school students to North Mesquite after that.  The school was so small that they had to combine the 6th, 7th, & 8th grades, just to get 18 boys to field a team.   The schools that we played fielded teams composed of only 8th graders.  

The home games were played on a field next to the school that had a couple of small bleachers that would not hold very many people, but it seemed like the whole town would come out to the games.  They would jam in close to each other and encircle the field.  Some would pull their cars or pickups up close enough to the field so they could sit in or on their vehicles.

I forget who all we played that year, but I do remember playing Forney, & Crandall (We played Crandall twice - once at their place and once at ours).  We ere supposed to scrimmage Vanston that year, but that was canceled after members of our team got into a fight right before the game.  We also played every 8th grade team in Grand Prairie.  There were other teams that I no longer remember without going back to the school and finding the trophy that lists all the games and the outcomes.

There was one game that really stands out in my memory though.  One of teams from Grand Prairie featured a group of boys that had played together since their peewee days and had never be defeated.  They had not lost even one game.  They were feared among all the other Grand Prairie teams. 

We played them at our field.  They came out and their team was so large that they practically covered the whole sideline.  They (as did most of the other teams from Grand Prairie) had shone arrogant smiles, chuckles and laughter at our combination of 3 grades just to come up with 18 players, not to mention that they also looked down on our stadium.  

Our game with them was the next to last game of the season and we had already beaten all but one of the other GP teams.  Everyone was wondering if this team of little"rednecks" could do what had never been done before.  There were people from the other GP teams there to view the game.

It was a very tough game and a lot closer then the score showed.  We scored the first touchdown, but failed the two point conversion.  They then scored on a big pass play and got there two conversion.  The turning point in the game would come just a little bit later as they launched another big pass for a score, but their receiver lined up offsides, and so the play was called back and they were penalized 5 yards.  They lined up and ran the same play again, but this time our outside linebacker (or end) hit their player and held him as the rest of us gang tackled him.  We would go on and hold them and we then had all the momentum, and we kept the momentum for the rest of the game.

I believe that the final score of that game was 20-8, with the Sunnyvale Raiders winning.  We would go on and also win the last game of the season against the one remaining GP team even though we were still emotionally flat after our big win the week before.  We ended our season with a 9-0 record.

Later on while working at a Warehouse, I met a man who was the backup quarterback for that "unbeatable" GP team.  I asked him what happened after that game and why did they not go on and dominate the high school scene.  He told me that a lot of the players could not take the way people went from worshiping them to laughing at them.  They got caught up into drugs and other stuff and quit playing football.

As for the Sunnyvale players, I only know of 2 that went on and played varsity football in high school (although there were 3-4 players that went to other high schools, and I do not know what happened to them).  No one from that team went on to play past high school.  We did not have a lot of talent, not to mention that there is usually a lot of difference in growth and maturing from the 6th to 8th grades but we did come together to be one team and we played our hearts out.  That team was something special and will always have a special place in each of our hearts.  The unified team that had the perfect season.

My thoughts on Halloween

I have friends who go all out for Halloween and I know some who refuse to celebrate it.  It is that type of holiday. I am somewhere in-between those two extremes.  While some probably do celebrate it as a Spiritual Holiday (like I do Christmas), I feel most people only celebrate the fun of it just as most people celebrate the fun of Christmas.  After all, most people like to dress up and pretend to be someone or something else.  I know that I would be included in that group.

As a boy growing up, I always dressed up in costume (usually a hobo), and my parents and carried me to Riggs Circle in Mesquite to Trick or Treat.  After I got married and a family of my own, we let our kids get into costume and my wife carried them Trick or Treating ( I never could get off work in time to go).  Now my kids are doing the same.

Really as a person who spent most of his adult teaching the Bible, I really like this time of year.  It is the one time of year that people are receptive to talking about the supernatural.  I love the Halloween stories and figures within the Bible.  I miss teaching those stories.

Saul (King of Israel) does not get any answers to his prayers so he consults a medium and she summons the prophet Samuel from the grave and the ghost of Samuel talks to Saul about his coming doom and the death of his sons.

At the time of Exodus, there are magicians in Egypt who for a while, match the miracles of Moses tick for tack.

During the life of Jesus, there are demon processed people who are even more terrifying than the girl in "The Exorcist".  And don't get me started about Lazarus or all the dead people who leave their graves and walk back into Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' Death and Resurrection.  I could go on for hours about these stories and characters.

Yes, I also like the stories of Stephen King, Ted Dekker and others.  I grew up watching the classics:  Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf-man as well as Godzilla, King Kong, and others.   A good story or movie is good, and a good Halloweenish story is still a good story.

So have a good holiday my friends and watch out for any houses falling your way (especially if you are the Wicked Witch of the East).  ;-)

The coming darkness

I did the grandfather thing  this evening as we all went to a carnival.  It was a beautiful day even through the temperature was about 10 degrees below the average temperature for this time of year.  The sun was out and the time had come for it to be going down in the West.  The full moon had already come up and was sitting in the daylight in the East.  

I kept quiet after noticing that and when it was time for us to leave, I looked again.  The sun was just barely over the West horizon and was casting a beautiful hue across the western sky.  After gazing upon that for a second, I turn toward the East where the exit was and saw a sight that I have seen a few times before and it astonishes me each time that I see it.  The full moon was sitting higher in the sky than before and below it was a beautiful belt of a pinkish hue going horizontally across the eastern sky. The hue was separating the daylight from the coming darkness of night.  

I just stood there for a moment and kept my eyes upon the coming darkness.  It was coming toward us as an invading blitzkrieg conquering the land.  It would be just a few minutes until the darkness would overtake us all.  

As I was driving home, I kept monitoring the situation.  By then the darkness was upon us and already past the Moon.  No matter how hard the darkness tried though, it could never blot out the Moon.  The darkness tightened its grip upon our land, but the more that it engulfed us, the brighter the Moon became. 

As I viewed this phenomenon, I started thinking about life.  It reminded me that the darkness that overtakes all of us from time to time and brings sorrow and hardship into our lives also makes the love from others glow that much brighter.  The bleaker our situation, the brighter each good and kind deed stands out, just like the Moon in the darkness of night. 

Random thoughts from a late night sleep deprived mind

These next few thoughts may be from a couple of nights of insomnia, but I this is what I have been pondering.

If we can understand how to hate cancer or other terminal illnesses and love the victim of these diseases, then why is it that we can't understand this is how God feels about sin and all people.

A person can only give you true love when they are allowed not to love you at all,  it is only then that love is freely given.

Of every emotion that we process, none is as powerful as love.

Our need for privacy is part of the curse and not the cure.

When Jesus described the Kingdom of Heaven, He described it as a celebration with food, drink, loud music, & dancing.

When we have the ability to acknowledge ourselves and to laugh at ourselves, we remove any pleasure that certain others may get from making fun of us.

Escapism can be an attempt to return to life in Eden, even if is it only in our imaginations.

A person grows best when they are allowed to fail.

There is an indescribable joy that comes when another person asks you to come with them as they step past their fears to experience and grow by doing something new.

There is also an indescribable joy that comes when someone-else comes with you as you step past your fears to experience and grow by doing something new.

Being the round peg in the square hole.

It seems that I have spent most of my life feeling like I did not fit in.  With the exception of my grandparents (Papa and Dodo), any feelings of fitting in have been short lived.  That goes for family, school, friends, work and church.

I was born into a family that followed a strict set of religious rules and attitudes.  These rules and attitudes were meant to cause people to "come out from among them and be separate".  This is a very popular notion that has been proclaimed in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  The problem in following these rules are that no one ever measures up to them.  So, I spent most of time not being around a lot of people my own age while growing up because of that.

This in turn caused me to be socially behind when I reached NMHS.  It also put me into some positions where I was taken advantage of.  Because I did not know how to relate to others (along with some other factors like my speech impediment), I ended up being a shy and quiet guy.

However there were some good things that came from this.  From a very early age, I started trying to learn about what was right and wrong and I didn't stop there as I also wanted to know the why's behind those rules.  This has been a life long process and I am not through yet, but as I have gone through this journey, my life has changed and is still changing.

These changes in what I believe have had one bad side effect though.  As I have changed what I believe about things, I have come into areas where my new beliefs do not mesh with what others believe. There are areas where my beliefs do not agree with the status quo and traditional thoughts that have been passed down through Colleges and Seminaries.

So once again, I find myself being the round peg in the square hole as I feel the same way that I did earlier in life, but different also.  It is different because my beliefs are grounded in something other than what someone told me to believe.  That makes a world of difference.

What Labor Day means to me.

There is a lot of hard feelings towards Labor Unions today, as everyone views them as related to themselves or how they have been told and programed to view them.  I realize that and so I am not trying to change anyone else's opinions but rather just state my own opinion.

First thing that I believe is that the Middle class status that covers most Americans today is a result of Labor Unions and not anything that the government has done.  In the early 1900's America was basically a two class society.   Even a Civil War that freed slaves, did not change that.  The rich who only viewed the bottom line and not the people who worked for them, and the people who labored under bad conditions.  It was when workers banded together to end the abusive conditions that they were being forced to endure, that caused the Middle Class.

Since that time, I believe that most of us have benefited from that movement and it makes no difference if you have ever been a Union member or not.  It has resulted in better pay and benefits for Union workers as well as non union workers as competition in the market place has force companies to offer better benefits in order to keep good employees.  You only have to look at the difference between jobs here and the conditions that workers in India, China, Mexico and other such places endure to see how much better off we are here.

Even though one can point out some bad things that have come about as Unions have themselves become big business,  I believe that we are still better off with them than without them and that some things that are promoted are really false misconceptions (After all being Union does not mean being government ;-) ).  First thing, Union Members work just as hard as non-union members.  UPS demonstrates that as the company is made up of Teamsters, but is still regarded as hard working people.  Even before I became a Teamster,(when seeking to get someone that I did not know to do a job) I preferred to hire Union Electricians,  Plumbers, etc because experience had taught me that the job had a better chance of being done right with them than though a non-union worker.  Being part of an Union today usually means that you will not need to enlist in either SNAP or have a Lone Star Card to provide for your family.  It means better health care and retirement benefits.


The observance of Labor Day really shows how the best changes within our country have come from the bottom up.  That is from the common people to those in power and not from government down to us.  We are better when we do not seek to depend on government to solve our problems, but seek to help each other.  It also shows me that we have never really been a country that promoted love (even though some loudly proclaim that we are and have been a Christian nation), because if we really loved each other we would not have experienced the Civil War or the bad working conditions that caused Labor Unions to come into existence.

To me all of this shows the need for us to love each other.  For if we ever truly love each other, we would witness almost all of our country's problems and crise solving themselves.

Scatter-shooting

I have a serious problem with people who condemn homosexuality but see nothing wrong with a man being a serial molester.

I believe that giving someone the cold shoulder is no different from someone having an outburst of anger.

I really have not followed college football very much (there have been a few exceptions) since the day that the Southwest Conference broke up.

I love music, especially those songs that are honest about life.

I admire those people who can look down into the abyss and examine what is there and what it is like and can come back and tell about it.

The Dallas Stars are now my favorite pro team.

Even though I will vote, my hope for this country rests entirely upon people learning to live loved and from this will be able to love others.

A true leader never has to make a willful effort to lead, but will make an effort to serve and enable others.

I believe that the bailout as well as Obamacare both provide for the wealthy at the expense of both the lower and middle classes.

What love do part 2

Do people who have never been under the religious laws of the Bible need to be put under those laws? If they are not placed under those laws how can anything but lawlessness abound?  These are 2 questions  that come from many church leaders today.  My answer to both questions is no and here is a brief look at why I say that.

This has always been an issue from the very earliest days of the church.  When Paul was writing to a group of Christians in Rome (most of whom he did not know), he wrote this:  NLT© 2:14 Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it.  2:15 They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

Now Gentiles just means anyone who is not a Jew.  So, Paul is really saying here that people who have never been subject to or have even heard these religious laws started doing them instinctively.  If they had never heard of these laws, what caused them to start doing them?  This is what "living loved and loving others" causes one to do.  Love is the fulfillment of the religious laws.  These laws just show what the byproduct of love really is.  

Love was written on their hearts and so they started doing rightly.  Love will guide, accuse and confirm their actions within the heart.  So I believe that when people start behaving badly towards another, they are just really showing that they do not love those people.

If bad actions show that love is misplaced, then why do we focus on coercing laws upon them instead of guiding them towards love?

What love do

There is a story in the Bible that tells of a time when people living under Roman rule and social beliefs [Which are very similar to the way Western Society (including the USA) lives today].  They also lived under the religious rule and commands that are very similar to what the religious right tries to force everyone to live by today.  This passage speaks to me because it shows the spontaneous response of people living in these conditions to "living loved and then being able to love others".

Here is the story from the NET Bible (emphasis mine):  Acts 2:42 They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship,  to the breaking of breadand to prayer.  2:43 Reverential awe  came over everyone,  and many wonders and miraculous signs  came about by the apostles. 2:44 All who believed were together and held  everything in common,2:45 and they began selling   their property  and possessions and distributing the proceeds  to everyone, as anyone had need. 2:46 Every day  they continued to gather together by common consent inthe temple courts, breaking bread from   house to house, sharing their food with glad   and humblehearts,  2:47 praising God and having the good will  of all the people. And the Lord was adding totheir number every day   those who were being saved.




Verses 44 and 45 speaks volumes to me about how love reacts to those arounds us.  Now before I go any further, let me say that I do not believe this to be socialism or at least how I've seen socialism played out in society.  Socialism has always been forced upon people and this is a spontaneous outbreak that is not forced.  


As I read this, I see a people who did not demand Government to take care of them, nor did they seek to form Non profit organizations to oversee who would get help and who would not.  This was a case of those who had stuff exchanging it for money so that anyone and everyone who had a need had that need met.


Also, they loved being together and not in the traditional religious settings, but house to house and eating and sharing time as well as their lives with each other.


It seems to me that in a world of good, better, & best; this is the ultimate way for people to live and it is simply the by product of living loved and loving others.

Life since the robbery

Yes, I am calling it a robbery.  There was not any material possessions taken at the time, but something that was more precious to me than anything that I owned was taken.  I am talking about relationships.  The relationships that I had with friends and family.  Of those relationships, only the family ones have really hurt, because I have always figured that I could and would make new friends anytime I lost old ones.

This all happened in the 1990's when some Seminary graduates came into our lives.  Before then, we had lived 20+ years married.  Oh we had our faults and were working through baggage that we had brought into the marriage, but we were committed to each other and would work through anything that came up and as it came up.  The Seminary graduates however started exploiting those faults in order to gain control and to authenticate their position within the church. ( I often refer to these people as Jim Jones wannabes, because that is just what I think of them).  To summarize what I have already blogged about, they used their influence to make sure that everyone gave me the cold shoulder, including my family.  They even told my wife and kids that they should only talk to and heed the Seminary Graduates and only listen and heed me when I am saying what they wanted to hear.  That has continued through today.

I want to make it clear before I go any further, that I am very proud of my family and that in no way are they bad people.  I am dealing with the relationship between me and them and nothing else.  

 That has been over 12 years since those events culminated.  I am still married to the same woman.  I still love her and all my family, although I usually feel like their feelings toward me are no different than   a tick's feeling for a dog.  There is not a day that goes by even now that at some point I still feel the pain and hurt of what I have lost.  This has affected me in other areas as well.

Whenever I am in a position of being with families (who are enjoying being together with other families) tends to remind me of what I no longer have.  A real problem for me is the hurt and the feeling that I do not belong, because my family will not come with me.  This first showed up in church.   Most churches are established for people in come in wearing masks of being ok.  You ask someone how they are doing there and they will say something along the lines of I'm ok.  Most churches can't handle people not being ok, especially those with long term problems.  So, if and when I show up, it is obvious that I'm not ok.  This causes me to be shunned or they feel the need to lecture and come down on me, because since I'm a man, it must be my fault and I should be condemned.

That feeling of not belonging is not limited to church though.  There have been times when even within the alumni group where people have been harsh with their words, because they  can't understand why my family does not want to have a relationship with them (even though there are some who know both me and my wife and she has no problem with the relationship with them apart from me).

 I still feel it at other times also.  I felt it Saturday at the Cedar Creek Lake.  I did really enjoy being with and getting to know new friends better as well as meeting people that I had never met before.  As the day wore on though, I was really feeling it.  It was a full day of families being together and enjoying other families.  In middle of that, I was there alone, knowing that my family wanted to avoid the group as well as any mention of the group or my friends within the group.  So I ended up leaving the restaurant where the festivities came to a climax early, not because of the heat, but because of the isolated feeling that ate at me & was really hurting within me.

I write this for two reasons, first as therapy for me.  When I am hurting, it helps me to write about it.  The second would be that if me expressing these thoughts can help someone else, than I am all for it.  We all have grown up in a society that doesn't know how to handle pain and disappointments.  We have all shunned people from time to time, not because we don't like them, but because we are put into situations where we don't how to handle the experiences that they are going through.  So I hope that this helps.

My thoughts about relationship with God.

I have this wonderful friend named Cindy.  Many of you know her or at least know of her.  She is a beautiful person both inside and out.  For those of you who do not know her, you are missing out on having a good friend.

So, how do I get those of you who do not know her to be her friend?  Would it help if I coerced and/or manipulated you into saying that you wanted to be friends with her?  I don't think so.  I really think that would make you not want to be her friend if that were to happen.

What if I just limited my friends to those people who were her friends also?  Would that make you want to be friends with her?  Again, I don't think so.  I would just lose out on having some amazing friends.

I think that the best way is to just be friends with both Cindy and you.  If in doing this, you find out what an amazing person that Cindy is and want to be her friend, then that would be great.  If you choose not to want to be her friend, then that is your choice also and that would not affect our relationship.

It is funny to me that we can see this in our dealings with people but cannot in dealing with God who is a real being also.  I really believe that "Christians" have really pushed more people away from God than drawn to God just because of these actions.  Oh you may be able to get people to recite some incantation that is called the sinners prayer and notch your Bible for a conversion, but that does not mean that a relationship has been formed.  People who do these types of actions, I believe, just push others away from God as well as themselves making this whole process nothing but a stumbling block.

So here is my deal.  I have this friend who is God  and I do not want to deny our friendship or kinship.   Nor will I push this relationship onto anyone else.  If you do not want a relationship, then that is up to you, just as it is up to you about a relationship with Cindy.  If you see something in the relationship that I have with God and want to know more, than at that point I am more than happy to talk to you about it.  That is no different than my relationship with Cindy.  If you notice how having her as a friend has really been beneficial to me, and want to be friends with her then I would be more than happy to talk to you about that also.

I love having each and everyone one of you as a friend and I don't want to lose that friendship by coercing my beliefs and relationships on you.  For me it is really all about living loved and loving others.

Some of my heretical beliefs as a man of faith - pleasure

I have been labeled a Christian and a heretic for my beliefs, but few people know what I believe and what I believe is a changing paradigm and not a static one.  So I thought that might be a good thing to go through some of what I believe.

Here is my view on whether God is for us having pleasure or not.  I have heard many a sermon over the years about how wrong it is to experience pleasure in our lives.  How that pleasure keeps us from God.  However I disagree with that premise.  I really believe that God wants us to have pleasure.  Before anyone ever did anything wrong by eating a certain fruit, there was a naked man and a naked woman in paradise and the first words that we read that were spoken to them basically said that they were to go have sex and keep having sex until there was not enough room on this Earth for another person to be born.  To me that shows that we were created to have pleasure.  God wants us to have pleasure.  I believe that God is happy when we are having pleasure.

So what then is the deal with all the "Thou shall nots"?  I believe that God did not put those in there to punish us or to keep us from pleasure, but those are to keep us from getting hurt and/or hurting others.  It is a lot like us teaching our kids not to stick their fingers into an electrical socket.  They might think that is fun to do such things but we teach them differently because we know that sticking your finger into an electrical socket will hurt you.  I do not believe that God is wanting to keep us away from pleasure, but wants us to enjoy it without getting hurt or hurting others.

Another aspect of these "rules" are that they are the natural result of true love.  If we truly love then that love will cause us to act rightly towards others.  It does not diminish pleasure, but it makes pleasure more pleasurable.  I believe that pleasure that flows from love is the highest form of pleasure that we will experience.

Dennis

Lollipop Moments

I just recently saw a video on Youtube by TEDxToronto that I thought was great and really started me thinking.   http://youtu.be/hVCBrkrFrBE?t=8s  is the link and web address.  If you see the 6 minute video, you will know what is meant by "lollipop moments".

It seems that we look to people who can do extraordinary things to lead us and change the world.  What this man says that I find intriguing & like is that we need to change our definition of leading to one that leads by "lollipop moments".  It is the "lollipop moments" that we do  and probably have no memory of that makes a real difference in people lives.

My mind goes to four different areas every-time I hear this.  The first thing I wonder is if I have ever done any "lollipop moments"for others.  Has anyone been positively affected just by being around me.  The second is how many times have I been beneficially affected by other "lollipop moments".  Also, have I told them about it.  The third is how if we love others then "lollipop moments" would flow naturally from us.  The four thought is one that I believe that will happen sometime after I die.  I believe that when I am in Heaven, that God at some point will come up and maybe put His arms around me and review all the "lollipop moments" in my life.

If we love then we do not have to worry about changing the world, our love will provide "lollipop moments" that will change a few and they will have "lollipop moments" that will change even more and all of this will go on until the world is changed.

Hatfields and Mccoys - a reflection

The "Hatfields and McCoys" was a mini series this week on the History Channel.  I thought that it was great.  A true "must see" for everyone.  

Really the only bad thing that I can say about the series is the way that it will jump around.  It jumps from place to place and from time to a later time without any warning.  That can be distracting at times.  That said however, they were putting about 60 years of history into a 5-6 hour show, so I think that is understandable.

So reflecting back upon the show, I have been thinking about what I could take away from this experience.  The first thing that I thought of was unchecked anger.  Let me say up front that I do not believe that anger in of itself is evil.  Anger is our natural response when the object of our love is threatened.  If you look that what is threatened when someone gets angry, then you will know what it is that they love.  Another thing about anger is that if left unchecked, it will fester and turn into an evil series of events.  The feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys just shows how bad, bad can get if left unchecked.

Another thing that I thought of is blind family loyalty.    Being blindly loyal to someone is not the same as loving them.  At times they can be opposite of each other.  When you love someone, you do not deny the truth about them.  You don't attack others in order to cover up the evil done by the beloved.  True love will cause you to confront the beloved at times in order to stop them from doing evil.  A cliche  that is often used demonstrates this quite well.  It goes, "Friends will not let friends drive drunk".  Blind loyalty will not only let them drive drunk, but will also attack the person that gets hurt from being in a accident with the drunk and accuse them as being the bad guy.

I love it that Mr. McCoy was shown as a Christian.  You see going to church, knowing the Bible, and the ability to preach to and pray for others, does not exempt someone from theses wrongs.  History has shown that many times those who appear to be the most righteous are the ones that are most likely to show this type of anger and blind loyalty to a certain "righteous" cause.

It is easy to see how things would have been different if the two families had loved each other.  The hard thing is to be able to see that in ourselves.

My Mother's Day Tribute to Ruth Miller and Dorothy Lowe Shuff

I know what it is to hurt on these "Hallmark Holidays" when everyone is honoring their Valentine or their Father and knowing that the family that surrounds you couldn't care less about you.  So I feel like I know what many women go through on Mother's Day.  What I have discovered is that when I seek to honor those who have enriched my life and do not focus on any accolades that I feel that I may deserve, it really helps and that keeps my focus in order.

I have been fortunate in that I have had both a Mother and a Grandmother who played very big roles in my life, but there have been others as well.  Ruth Miller was my Sunday School teacher in the 7th, 8th, & 9th grades.  She became a second mother to several of us as we spent time at her house with her family.  She really cared for all of us.  I cannot accurately put into words the impact that her love for us helped us to survive the well-meaning micromanaging done by our parents.  Her influence on me and my Mother actually helped strengthened  the relationship between my Mom and me.

Dorothy Lowe Shuff was my Mom's oldest sister and never had kids of her own, so she focused her love on her nieces and nephews, as well as her school kids (She taught Elementary School).  She and her first husband, Charles Thomas Lowe were my role models growing up.  Those that had the privilege to know both them and me can point out the little things that I do that were picked up from being around them.  It was their marriage that became the role model for what I wanted my marriage to be.

I mess these ladies as well as my grandmothers very much and would love to able to tell them as well as my own Mom -  Happy Mother's Day.

Music and me

Mom:  "Joe, was Dennis happy or sad when he got home"
Dad:  "I don't know, I was sleeping.  Why do you want to know?"
Mom:  "He is in his room singing and he only sings when he is either on top of the world or in the dumps."
Dad:  "Is he singing happy or sad songs?"
Mom:  "He sings the same 3 songs either way."

That was a conversation that I heard my parents having one night when I was a working teenager.

I have said in the past that for a song to be really good enduring song, it must have one of the following 2 characteristics.  It must either have soul touching lyrics or a good beat to dance to.  A truly great song has both.  I believe that soul touching lyrics is what separates a really good song from a novelty song.  Soul touching lyrics are those lyrics that deals with issues of the heart.  Novelty songs are about trite issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzzdPfQ-tK8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLBEBBC1D021710CF4


Idonwannabe by Kelly McGuire  is an example of a song with soul touching lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzoUu7w-YM


The Streak by Ray Stevens is an example of a song about a trite issue, although it is a fun song that has a beat that you can dance to.
I do not believe that there is anything around that can express the soul like music.  Whether it is a "Song Sung Blue" or if it expresses a happiness that inspires you to "Go Tell It On The Mountain", music can lift and express the soul better than anything else.

You see, even in the darkest times of my life music has always played a very important part of expressing and comforting my soul.

From Trop Rock music fan to Parrot Head

After writing my previous blog "The lure of Trop Rock, The call of Eden", I was friended by a friend of Cindy Bates who is also in the San Antonio Parrot Head Club, whose name is Carol.  I also had questions about Parrot Heads.  It seems like the impression that I had gotten about them is a common one.  That they are a Jimmy Buffett fan club who live out their whole lives like they are on college spring break.

 Cindy sent me an article via email, " Article from Central Texas Parrot Head Club August 2010 Parrot Droppings Newsletter, written by Doug Hall, Vice President, CTXPHC"
which answered a lot of my questions.


I also followed through with questions to both Cindy and Carol.  Here are some excerpts from those chats:
Cindy
" a Parrothead is a person who enjoys music, the idea of a tropical lifestyle, being with friends and has a charitable heart. I can be myself with my SA Parrothead friends and they embrace me, no matter what."


Me:
 I thought a Parrothead was a member of a fan club. I do enjoy music, and the ideal of a tropical lifestyle, although the closest that I have been to that lifestyle has been a few trips to Galveston. I love it there, although I do not really believe that is really a tropical lifestyle there. I also like being with friends and I hope that I have a charitable heart. :  


Me
 I have a Parrothead question for you.Can someone be a Parrothead if they prefer listening to Kelly Mcguire and Jeff Pike over Jimmy Buffett?


Cindy
Of course! Parrotheads are predominantly Buffett fans, but what draws so many of us to Buffett is his sense of tropical escapism.


Carol when asked the same questions
To me a Parrot Head is someone who enjoys the tropical laid back lifestyle, Trop Rock music, and likes the charity work "helping others" that Jimmy instills in others. It's not so much a fan club but a way of life for the enjoyment of others around you and knowing you can feel good about yourself when you go to sleep at night.
I am a huge Areosmith fan and they are my boyz so yes you can truely be a parrot head if you like someone else over JB...
I hope you'll join the club and get involved with helping others.


After this I learned that 2 of the 3 musicians that I fell in love listening to their songs on Spotify, were doing a concert in Lewisville.  While trying to find out more about the concert, I came into contact with Randy Morgan, who is the vice president of the Lone Star Parrot Head Club.  He told me that LSPHC was providing the show at no cost and the public was invited.  He also started talking about some of get togethers that they have.  So, after finding out everything that I could, I made a decision to go the concert and I know that meant that I would be there by myself with a club that knew each other and that I would be like a fish out of water being with that group.


I had liked what I had read, plus what Cindy and Carol had told me about being a Parrot Head, but still had some concerns about joining the local group.  So, I made a list of three things that had to happen that had to happen that night before I would join.  1. Would they accept me being there as one of them.  2. Would it be beneficial  for me to be a member of a group when my job, my family, and the distance to the gatherings would prevent me from being very active.  3. Could I pay my membership dues by cash that night?  


The concert was to start at 9, but I had gotten a message from one of the performers that they were going to try and start at 8 to allow for more time to play.  So, I got there at 7 and found a seat as close to the stage that I could get.  As the place started filling up, Shannon and Sue walked up and asked if the seats next to me were taken and if I minded if they sat there.  Then Patrick came over and said hi to them, so Shannon and Sue introduced me to Patrick. I did not mind at all!  After introducing our selves to each other, Sue sat down and saved their seats while Shannon went and got food and to meet everyone there.  So while me and Sue were sitting there, we started talking to each other.  She told me a lot about the club and what the club meant to her. She was great to sit by as she made me not only feel welcomed, but a part of the group.  


Later when "Bubbles" got there, I scooted over and let her sit by Sue.  Bubbles also started talking to me and told me what the club had meant to her.  The one thing that Bubbles and Sue had in common is that they both told me that they could not come to everything but that the club still meant a lot to them.


Then when they decided to let people move the tables and sit on the dance floor, Shannon, Sue and Bubbles made sure that I was included as we all moved there together.  As we set on the dance floor I met John and Cathi as well as Beverly and John.  Great tends to be an over used word to describe experiences like the one that I had, but in this case great is an understatement.


After the concert, Sue pointed out Randy and I finally met him face to face.  he echoed everything that Sue, Bubbles and Shannon had told me and accepted my money to join.  


This is not the end of the story, as I am still a newbie and still looking forward to making friendships there like the ones that I already have in the alumni group.  I found out several years ago that there is no such thing as having too many friends.  

My philosophy of life

For what it is worth, I believe that I can simplify what my viewpoint of what life is about with one cliche':  "To live loved and to love others".  That is it.  I believe that one thing will cure most of the problems that we face and what it doesn't cure, it will make bearable.   Let me explain.

To begin with, I think that we all need to be loved for who we are.  I mean that all of us should know that we are loved without trying to fit in, or without having to fulfill some agenda, without pretending to be something that we are not. You see as I get to make new friends and get involved in their lives, I am not seeking to change them or to coerce them or to try to make them pretend to be something other than just being  them  (Ok one possible exception to this is if I see someone trying to hurt another, but even then I believe that if we truly loved them we would not want to them to harm another person).  I just want to get to know them and to let my love pour out towards them. 

When we are loved in this matter, it changes us.  It frees us to love others.  When we love we act differently.  We do not mistreat people.  We seek the good of others and we seek to go along beside them when they are struggling.

I believe that if we as a people loved each other then there would be no health crises.  There would be no energy crises.  There would be no poverty.  Our jails would be close to empty.  There would be no frivolous law suites that drive up the cost of everything for the rest of us.  We would be living in a place that would be the closest thing to an utopia that we can achieve in this lifetime.  Those problems that can't be cured like disease and death of love ones, would be more bearable by the love of those around us.  When something happened to one of us, everyone else would chip in with repairs, money for bills, and to walk beside us giving a shoulder and ear for the other person's grief. 

As a Christian, my own personal belief is that this starts with us realizing the love of God towards us.  That He actually loves us this way.  It is His love that can change all of us.  When we live in this love and let it flow through to others, then there are no need for rules or commandments, because love will show itself to be better than any commandment can make us.

What is a Parrot Head?

This is a question that I asked multiple times to Parrot Heads before becoming one myself.  This is a common question that everyone asks when they first hear the phrase.  For me the best answer to this question is on back of my Lone Star Parrot Head Club that I received today.

It says-

We are Parrot Heads because:

We love the ocean.

We love our planet.

We love to have fun.

We are not afraid to be silly.

We are not afraid to act foolish.

We are not afraid of love.

We like scantily clad members of our favorite sex.

We like playing in the sun.

We like singing songs that say all of these things.

We believe the best things in life are free.

We believe sharing the best things makes them better.

We believe in the innate goodness in all of us.

We know shared joy is increased.

We know shared pain is lessened.

We know a good friend has value beyond measure.

It just so happens, that Jimmy Buffett sings about all these things.  So, we are not Parrot Heads because we are Jimmy Buffett fans, we are Jimmy Buffett fans because we are Parrot Heads!

In 2011 the lone Star Parrot Head Club Members raised and donated almost $44,000 to our many charitable organizations and volunteered 1,500 hours of service in our communities.

So what did I gain after making this Easter a 3 day weekend.

I used one of my personal days at work this past Friday to make this Easter weekend a 3 day weekend for me.  So as I sit here on a Sunday night, I find myself reflecting on whether or not it was worth it.  I did not really feel that I got many, if any of my felt needs met; but even at that, I believe that it was worth it.

So the questions are "how did I come to that conclusion" and "is it a valid one'.  To answer those thoughts, I need to go back to Friday and go through the weekend.  As we go through, I will point out the pros and cons as I currently see them.

For the past 30 some odd years, my parents have been having a group of people over on Easter afternoon for a get together.  Back in the day, there were a lot more people who came, but deaths, divorces, spats, & people moving have caused the number to dwindle down to about 36 which is about how many we had today.

I made plans to take Friday off over a month ago when I learned that my parents were going to go ahead and have it again this year.  I did this because their health is going down and I knew that they would not be able to get things ready on their own.  Now my brother and sister also put in a lot of work on this also and I don't want to diminish what they did, because without them the event would not have happened.

I went out there Friday and basically just cleaned up the driveway and found out what needed to be done on Saturday.  Even though that does not sound like much, that took up most of the day.  By mid afternoon, my Dad wasn't feeling good and so we called it a day and I went home and did my weekly yard work around my house.


I was hoping to be able to spend that evening meeting and deepening a relationship with some new friends that I had just met the Saturday before, but that did not happen as my oldest son and his family came over and I stayed with my family and took my wife, kids, daughter in law,& grandchild out to get Mexican food that night.  That meal did not close the gap between me and my immediate family, but the gap did not get any wider either.

So, Saturday came around and I went back out to my parents and spent the day over at my parents trimming trees so that people could drive, park, and walk under them.  That took all day and I only got the trees in the side yard where people park and along the driveway.  As I drove home, I realized that I only had 2 pairs of jeans that fit me and both of them were now dirty ( I did not have access to the washer/dryer to clean my clothes).  I ended up going to Walmart to get a couple pair of Wranglers in the smaller size so I had something to wear.

Now we come to today, which is Sunday.  I went over this morning to my parents house and helped my Dad clean out the carport and get it ready to be used as a covered picnic area.  Also, I got a couple of ice chests cleaned out so they could be used to ice down drinks.  I did this and came back to my house to change clothes knowing that my brother and sister would set everything up when they got there.

I came back and changed clothes, got my camera and headed back to my parents house.  You would think that after 30 years of getting together, the people who came would be extremely close, but that is not the case.  Oh, there is some mixing.  We all greeted each other and would want to find out what was going on in each other lives since last Easter, but once that was done, people generally headed back to their own groups.

There are certain exceptions to this though. Two of the people who come are NMHS grads:  Rob, who graduated in 78 and his wife Donna, who graduated in 81.  Rob either is or should be a part of our alumni group.  I am happy to have them both as friends.  Donna's son (Rob's Step-son), Daniel is also the lead guitarist for the group, Dan McBride and the Drifters.  I got with Jeff this evening and hopefully they can get a gig at Kickers, but more will be said about that later if and when they get it.

So although I did not feel like anyone reached out to me, I feel like this weekend was a good one.  If I hadn't done the stuff around my Mom and Dad's, they would have gotten hurt trying to do it all.  My Dad was having a hard time getting around today as it was.  I do think that the people who came out did have a good time and I think that the pictures taken there and posted shows that.  Also, I am hoping that the alumni and anyone else who will come, will have another get together at Kickers as a family member of a couple of alumni will (hopefully) be playing there.

Now comes the part about God.  I believe that even though I did not attend any worship service on Easter, that God was with me, encouraging me to do what I did.  You see this weekend was not about me.  It was about others and now as I look back on the weekend and reflect on what I did,  it was all about loving others and that is always a good thing.