For Lack of a Better Idea...

Something's missing...and I don't know what it is...

2011-03-20T22:29:00.002-05:00

Tonight I'm sitting in a forgotten chair, pushed off in the corner of my small living room. Before tonight it was covered in magazines and papers...lost publications from month's before. After cleaning my living room thoroughly this weekend I found this chair that I hadn't sat in...well probably once since moving in.

The chair is pushed into a corner beside the TV, making sure that no one sitting in it could pay attention to the screen. Tonight, however, the TV is dark. We got rid of cable a few months ago...we decided we wanted to live our own lives instead of spending time watching other people live theirs. The only view is that of the couch, and my wife as she reads a magazine. She's wearing my t-shirt. I love her.

John Mayer comes on the radio singing about how his life is missing something:

I'm not alone, I wish I was.
Cause then I'd know, I was down because
I couldn't find, a friend around
To love me like, they do right now.
They do right now.

I'm dizzy from the shopping malls
I searched for joy, but I bought it all
It doesn't help the hunger pains
and a thirst I'd have to drown first to ever satiate

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
something's missing
And I don't know what it is
At all

When autumn comes, it doesnt ask.
It just walks in, where it left you last.
And you never know, when it starts
Until there's fog inside the glass around your summer heart:

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
something's missing
And I don't know what it is
At all

I can't be sure that this state of mind, is not of my own design
I wish there was an over the counter test, for loneliness.
For loneliness like this.

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it...

I understand him tonight. I have the love of my life, a job, money for rent and food, and a family that loves me...but something is missing. Something that used to drive me and make me long after life and it's abundance. Now I feel that each week passes just like the one before it...

What does it all mean?

A Road Too Often Traveled...

2011-02-21T00:34:00.002-06:00

So here I am again, trying to find Adam. I am now almost 18 months, 862 miles, one beard, and about 30 pounds removed from my last real post to this blog and I don't recognize the guy in the mirror.

He is timid...discouraged. He worries about the future and does nothing to prevent his demise. He is not the man who started this blog...or the one who was searching for truth. He is one who has decided that (like a friend once said) he has already been as good as he was ever going to be.

My one saving grace is that I've decided to write again. They aren't going to be great, simply because I'm out of practice.

It's been 5 years since I set out to find myself...and I found a man I loved. He was strong, friendly, giving, and loving. He did good and walked with God.

Now I set out to find him again...on the road too often traveled.

Oh God, Father in Heaven and Earth

I call to You like

Deep calls to deep over water

Show me Your endless measure of grace

Let tender mercies

shine once again from Your holy face

Deep in my soul there's a craving

To please the One who has saved me

Oh God, though I have fallen so far

You know that I'm still

A man after Your own heart...

Pain vs. Suffering...

2010-01-20T09:47:00.001-06:00

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." ~ M. Kathleen Casey

Lest we forget...

2010-01-18T09:58:00.001-06:00

Pruning...

2009-09-03T22:24:00.002-05:00

I've recently hit a spot in my life where I actually slipped in a "Why God?" in a prayer. I'm going through a rough patch financially, vocationally, and really just in general. I sat down tonight after a quick prayer and opened my Bible. What follows are the verses I read and my thoughts to myself so forgive the personal pronouns. I just thought it was good enough to share.

Adam

___________

John 15:1-17

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”

What a way to start a metaphor. To state that everything in life springs from you…and that your Father controls what happens not only to you, but to Him as well. This should remind you that everyone is subject to God the Father...even Jesus.

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Seemed simple to me the first 1000 times I read it. If you bear fruit, you stay; if not, you go. But this time I found more. If you don’t bear fruit, you’re still gone. However, this time I saw that even if you bear fruit, you still go under God’s knife. I’ve watched my mom prune her roses and it’s not an easy process for the plant. You hack away the dead buds, leaves, and debris. What seems even worse is sometimes you remove living parts of the plant because they would impede the overall growth of the plant as a whole. So as a person in this metaphor, even though we bear fruit for God…He’s going to cut away the dead…and sometimes the living parts of our life…for the purpose of bearing more fruit for Him. That’s hard for me to understand. Going through the situation I find myself in, I sometimes sneak in a “why God” question in my prayers. Why is this so hard? Why do I suffer this way? Why are you pruning so much of me away? So you can bear more fruit for Me.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me,he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

He took everything from a metaphor to the harsh reality of it. He said, “Hey…if you didn’t catch it the first time, I’m talking about you and me here. You are nothing without me.” I can’t do anything on my own except take one more step towards my destruction. But there is a promise in here too. If I stay with Him…He’s going to stick with me. Companionship. I’ll never have to face life alone. That’s a promise.

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

So the first part of the section above says what happens when I don’t choose to abide in Jesus. This part reinforces the promise of what can happen when I choose to abide in Him. I will bear much fruit, bring glory to God, and He will grant me the desires of my heart.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My comandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s comandments and abide in His love.”

So He tells me, “I love you as much as My Father loves me. Here’s what to do...follow my lead.” Jesus loved God, followed the leading that God gave Him, and God was pleased with Him. Jesus is telling you to simply follow Him and abide in Him, Adam.

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

So why is He telling me this? Because HE KNOWS!!! HE KNOWS you’ve asked the “why”s and He knows you’ve spent nights agonizing. He is telling you, “Hey! Relax! I’m pruning you so that one day you’ll stand as a better man, a better husband, and a better father. I don’t settle for mediocre. You’re abiding in Me, so let Me do my good work in you. Keep your joy. I am in control and I am committed to you. Take My joy in you.”

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

So here’s the meat of His message. For this entire passage He’s referenced “following His commandments”. So what does He command? Love. This isn’t about lying or stealing or idolatry or murder…if you can follow this one commandment everything else will fall in place, Adam. Just love. And not just any love. Love, as I have loved you. WHEW!!!! Selfless and sacrificial. Lay your life down for those around you. And not just your life, but your time, and your talents, and your funds, and your heart. But why me, God? When did I sign up for a lifetime of painful pruning and self-sacrifice?

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.”

…He chose me. Out of all the people in the world, He chose me. Not just to pick on, but to make stronger because my fruit isn’t just going to be borne and picked and eaten…my fruit is going to last…it will remain when others do not. And because my fruit will remain, I have the privilege of going to the Father and asking Him anything in Jesus’ name and He will grant it. These are the words of Jesus. His promise to me. And, just in case you forget, Adam, my commandment is to love. NEVER forget to love. It’s so important that He put it in here twice less than 5 verses apart. Love.

“When I get where I’m going, there’ll be only happy tears. I will shed the sins and struggles I have carried all these years. And I’ll leave my heart wide open. I will love and have no fear.”

“Where I’m Going” – Rivers Rutherford

I will love without fear of the consequences.

The Forgotten Peppermint and the Encouraging Post-It Note...

2009-07-28T15:53:00.003-05:00

Sounds like a really bad kid's book doesn't it? "The Forgotten Peppermint"...sheesh.

I was running late for church, leaving work late, running home to take care of the dog who was (no doubt) dancing cross-legged in his cage by now. I didn't have time to eat.

I stopped in a Sonic right near my church and ordered a drink. Something caffeinated that would hold me over the few hours until I could race home to fix myself another Ramen noodle delight or a PB&J delicacy. The Sonic carhop was at my door in a flash with my "Route 44 Coke, Very Light Ice", 2 standard Sonic napkins...and a complementary peppermint.

"What?" I thought.

"Why do I need a peppermint with my coke?"

I threw the useless candy into the console of my truck and laughed again at the absurdity of them handing me a breath freshener with my beverage.

* * *

This morning I entered a room I hadn't been in for years now. My therapist's office sat pretty much the same. The walls lined with many leather-bound books, smelling of a rich mahogany. ;-) It really is a peaceful place though.

I sat down and accepted her cup of coffee and we spent the entire session in deep discussion over life and how I could better myself as a man. I finally rose to leave and walked out into the rain lost in thought and realizing my breath hung heavy and nasty with the black de-caf I had just ingested.

I jumped into my truck, barely stopping to open the door, trying to avoid the Biblical downpour that Nashville was under. I looked down at my console and saw the little Sonic peppermint.

No peppermint had ever tasted so sweet...

Sometimes we're given things in the present that we won't understand until the future.

_____________________________________________

My company is moving offices after 6 years. Condensing down and tightening the belt in the midst of hard times.

One of my many duties has now become "mover" and I gladly accept the work that breaks up my normal day behind a desk.

The last 24 hours have been pure hell and the past 2 months have been more than trying on my heart, soul, and body. I found myself moving with the motions and physically working while my mind worked feverishly turning over my problems in my head, looking for comfort and solutions.

I opened a desk that was supposed to be empty and found a few odds and ends rammed to the back of one drawer. Picking them out I pulled the long, skinny drawer out as far as it could stand to retrieve the useless items...and found an old post-it note taped to the bottom of the drawer, near the back.

It's edges were torn and beat up. The owner had taped all four sides of the post-it note down so it would not be lost. The words had been written and retraced again and again...sometimes in different colored ink.

It read:

"The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know Your name will trust in You for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You. - Psalms 9:9-10"

I felt a lump grow in my throat in the middle of this empty office.

No matter what you're facing...God is as close as the next random occurrence. Be watching for Him.

Adversity...

2009-07-23T08:35:00.001-05:00

We must get beyond the immature notion that God is interested only in making us healthy, wealthy and happy. More than anything, He wants us to be like Christ. And the road to becoming like Christ often leads through the wilderness of adversity. - Os Hillman

2009-07-14T17:49:00.002-05:00

Its amazing how often I play spiritual fetch with God. I give Him my burdens and cares, He casts them far away, and I go and find them and then bring them right back.

2009-06-03T18:54:00.001-05:00

One often meets his destiny on a path to avoid it.

2009-05-28T11:54:00.001-05:00

In three words I can sum up what Ive learned about life: it goes on. - Robert Frost

A Facebook Ad I Just Stumbled Across...

2009-05-13T09:18:00.003-05:00

I've seen fire and I've seen rain...

2009-05-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

For all those facing some tough times...

I'm Hurtin Bad...

2009-04-22T23:10:00.000-05:00

We've all heard of "dry spells". I've even heard of "ruts" and "writer's block".

This can only be described as a Grand Canyon of ruts and the Pittsburgh Steelers Offensive Lines of writer's blocking.

I have nothing lately.

My life seems boring and dismal.

I took off on my morning run today, I had my iPod in my ears and a sweatshirt on because it was deceptively cold for such a warm day.

I found myself thinking a lot about my dog Craig. I've written about him before...my little patience lesson.

I recently discovered a few ants here and there in my kitchen. Rather than waiting for the UN to send in inspectors to make sure they didn't have any WMDs I declared war and bought about 16,000 ant traps to spread around my small kitchen. You know how hard it is to put cheese on a tiny ant trap? :-D

Seriously though I spread them around the corners of my kitchen in a "better safe than sorry" hope that this would do the trick. The ants were attracted to the tiny pebbles of dog food that Craig would leave strewn about the kitchen as he attempted to carry mouthfuls of his food to far off places of the house where someone could watch him eat. He hates to eat alone...

Last night I was doing my part to keep the world free for democracy by killing some terrorists on XBox360s "Rainbow 6: Vegas 2" (yes, insert any nerd comment here) and Craig lay at my feet chewing on his chew toy. After being gunned down by an oddly Hispanic sounding Arabian gentleman with a shotgun, I looked down to pet Craig and found him chewing one of the ant traps apart.

...needless to say the next few minutes were composed of stimulating discussion and explanations on why it's bad for little dogs to chew on containers of insect poison.

...don't worry, he didn't actually reach the poison...just tore the plastic casing apart.

So after reaching a point where my head was light and the world was spinning today during my jog, I stopped to walk and thought how ironic it was that Craig was the source of the ants...and now he was eating the same poison that was going to kill them.

We all do it. We live our lives so boldly, brashly, and unabated that soon trouble finds its way into our heads, our hearts, our lives. And if we're not careful we end up eating the same filth that these troubles do. And it will kill us.

Craig now understands that these are not new toys for him. He was sorry.

The ants and I have begun peace talks. They are demanding use of the kitchen on alternate weekends and access to the wireless internet. I'm going to see if I can wait them out.

Anyone know Colin Powell's number? I need a treaty maker...

Tell Her...

2009-04-05T22:57:00.002-05:00

I had my iTunes on shuffle and a great tune from the 90s came on...Del Amitri's "Tell Her". There's a line in the song that says "...tell I need her more than clowns need the laughter of the crowds."

"What a strange thing to say to the woman you love," I had always thought. I feel I finally understood it tonight.

If a clown didn't get laughed at, what would he feel? if people simply sat there and looked at the clown with no emotion. He'd just be some idiot. Some fool out there jumping through hoops for someone who was apathetic. He had just poured his heart out and his pride was sacrificed for the payoff of the crowd's joy.

When you're in love with someone who doesn't love you back...are you any less the fool?

Twitter

2009-04-03T15:00:00.003-05:00

It's official. I'm on Twitter...and I will be Twittering...a lot. Not because Twitter is so great, but because I can do it from my phone.

Hey! I'll be honest...there's a lazy streak that runs in me and having the ability to Twitter on my phone fits that streak. I can Twitter in the car, on the run, in the shower, from bed, from the office...in the middle of a movie if I want.

Check out Twitter and start to follow. It's going to be fun if nothing else. HA!

www.twitter.com/adamdspratt

Jo Dee and Clay...

2009-04-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Jo Dee Messina's new single "Shine" hit radios nationwide today. Great tune, check it out.

It was penned by my two good friends Megan James and Clay Cumbie, both phenomenal writers and people.

Congrats and much love to all of them. :-)

For a Lack of a Better Idea...

2009-03-22T20:49:00.002-05:00

...tonight I write.

I have no purpose for writing tonight other than I'm trapped inside myself tonight. I've got this feeling recently...the last few months, that the world is on top of me. I have a lot of friends who have asked me from time to time, "What's wrong?" and I assure them things are fine. Honestly they aren't.

Nothing seems to be going right as my life spins out of my control and even out of the reach of anyone who could save me. The paths that I have chosen...from my job down to the clothes I wear seem to all be wrong decisions.

I'm confused and paralyzed by the fear that so many wrong decisions will never come together to breed a right decision. So I find myself not making any moves. Like a person standing in front of a moving car suddenly and without the will to move out of the way...I'm just staring blankly into the growing headlights as I hear the tires screech and I tell myself, "...this could have all been avoided..."

I feel so unloveable. I feel that like the prodigal I've found my hog pen and yet I'm looking at the hog pen next to it wondering if it smells as bad as this one...I've hit bottom and I'm ready to start digging...

I felt if I was going to be a real person to anyone who reads this...then they should be witness to not only the things I want you to read, but witness to the real me as well. I'm human. I'm ignorant of my own fate. I'm full of fear and failures.

Tonight I'm just hoping that God still hears the prayers of those in whale's bellies...that the smell of hog manure doesn't keep Him from running down the road and grabbing me in his arms...and that a thief on the cross can still cry out "remember me..." when his last breath hangs on his lips.

I hope there is still hope for me.

Your Choice...

2009-03-19T09:46:00.002-05:00

I believe in life you will always either raise awareness or increase apathy.

Remember...

2009-03-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

Something So Common...

2009-02-28T21:10:00.002-06:00

"There's a lot of money out there, they're printing more of it every day. There are only five golden tickets in the entire world. Don't tell me you're going to trade your ticket for something as common as money." - Charlie & The Chocolate Factory

Heard this quote tonight while watching this movie with my little niece. I thought how we all have opportunities at 'golden tickets'. They're called memories...they're dinners at home with family...they're sunset walks in the park with someone you love...they're that weekend that you just up and leave for the beach for no reason other than to watch the sun rise out of the Atlantic...don't trade them for anything.

The Blanket Theory...

2009-02-25T15:02:00.001-06:00

"When you get the blanket truth...the big picture...you can relax because everything you could ever want or be, you already have and are." - I Heart Huckabee's

Tequila

2009-02-23T22:08:00.000-06:00

I, the Dreamer...

2009-02-16T22:35:00.000-06:00

I sat in my living room the other night, watching a documentary on the outbreak of AIDS in Russia when I felt like I had the next Good Will Hunting fall into my brain and crack through the literal bottom of my skull.

I jumped up and grabbed my MacBook and off I went into the most prolific and brilliant movie treatment in the world. After about 40 minutes of sweat, keystrokes, and muted smirks at my own brilliance…I sat back and read what I had so far.

...yep, I had Fight Club. So I cussed. A lot.

To say I was angry would have been like naming an un-neutered Pit Bull Britney. I was furious. I had spent forty minutes of creativity regurgitating someone else’s work and I somehow feigned to call myself “one of the greats”.

What a goob…what a maroon…what a fool…

I sat back dejected and thought my life was going nowhere, as one more dream seemed to pull itself back from me.

I grabbed for the computer again so I could close the document without saving it and decided to punish myself by making me read it one last time…and, of course, just to make sure that it might not be as close to Fight Club as maybe I first thought. (smirk, smirk)

…I destroyed the document as humanely as I could.

Still wrapped up in that wonderful blanket of gloom, I sat back on the couch and thought about the night. Realizing it was late I rose to go up to bed and putting the silver laptop on the coffee table to sleep. I made it half way up the stairs before I stopped…

Realizing…that I had never decided to quit writing.

I hadn’t promised to fail to have ideas or, even more, to sit and gain an idea with others.

I had refused to give up my right to be wrong.

I had failed…but I was still here.

I walked back down the stairs, glaring down the dark in the room as I marched and brought the the MacBook to life again, splashing light into the corners of the room…

And I wrote:

“I, the dreamer, promise never to stop...”

oops...

2009-02-15T18:37:00.000-06:00

We all hit that point in life. Where we feel we've made the most horrible, unforgiveable mistake known to mankind. We just know that our failure is the worst ever and that we'll be found out and our life as we know it will end.

Not so fast...

For all those who have heard their entire lives that God can use our mistakes, here is another one for you:

In the book of Psalms, the story is recounted of King David...a "man after God's own heart". One day the King is supposed to be at war with his troops. Instead he's kickin' it around the house, bored and looking for something to do. Remember, Nintendo Wii is still a few thousand years away. He wanders up on his roof to overlook his city...maybe to spit off the top and try to hit camels below...when he looks across at the next rooftop over and spies a beautiful woman...bathing. A long story ends up telling the tale of how the woman is married to one of David's troops. But that doesn't stop this good king. David has sex with the woman and gets her pregnant (and everyone says "D'OH!!"). To cover up the pregnancy, David gets the idea of calling her husband back from the war for a little "R & R" (IF you know what I mean). Uriah (the unsuspecting but honorable husband) refuses to sleep with his wife, citing that all of his brothers in arms can't sleep with their wives right now...so why should he? Uriah spends the night outside the city gates, sleeping on the ground like his comrades back at the front. David is furious and now worried more than ever that he'll be found out. So he does the unthinkable...and has Uriah sent to the front on a suicide mission. Uriah is slain in battle and David takes his widow as another one of his brides.

Pretty stupid right? The story goes on to tell how this becomes the undoing of King David and there is never peace in his house after this...at one point his children are actually locked in a civil war and murdering each other. A HUGE mistake that caused this once noble king to commit adultry and murder.

Ever murdered anyone? Didn't think so. So my mistakes seem small compared to David's.

Fast forward to the New Testemant. Jesus Christ is about to bust on to the scene so Matthew takes a moment to provide the proper lineage of Christ from Abraham (a big deal to those of the Jewish faith). Right smack dab in the middle of Christ's lineage is this line:

"...Obed begot Jesse. and Jesse begot David the king (remember him?). David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon begot Rehoboam..."

...wait a second. The illegitimate son of the "good" king and his married mistress are a key part of the lineage of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Yep.

God can use our mistakes for His and your good.

Just step back and let Him work.

Profound Truth...

2009-02-06T11:27:00.001-06:00

The opposite of a true statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth can be another profound truth. - Neils Bohr, physicist

Who Do You Say That I Am?

2009-01-26T11:04:00.002-06:00

Author: S.M. Lockridge

Wait before you worry...

2009-01-06T20:05:00.003-06:00

"Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision."

- Dean Hawkes, Columbia University

The Journey...

2008-12-26T23:31:00.001-06:00

If I had already arrived at where I wanted to be...then where would I journey to?

Olivia Marie...

2008-11-27T20:02:00.003-06:00

Thanksgiving has long been a time of family gatherings and over-eating.

This Thanksgiving we actually added another member to our family. Olivia Marie Spratt was born at 7:55pm, weighing in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 inches long.

Mother and child are both happy and healthy. Father is too moved to speak much right now. :-)

My prayer for her life is that she finds who she is and understands how special she is. And that her life has a great purpose to change her world for the better.

Love you Olivia.

Uncle Adam

Thoughts From TV

2008-11-23T13:53:00.002-06:00

I was home alone on Friday night (sounds like a Mayer song) and ended up watching more TV in a 4 hour span than I had in the previous 4 months.

Here are a few thoughts I took from different programs that night:

20/20 Interview with Ashley Dupre - Ashley Dupre is the "call girl/escort" that brought down New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. When asked why she never uses the word "prostitute" she kept correcting the interviewer saying "no, escort". She was finally aked what the difference was and she got quiet...then replied, "there isn't one."

When asked why she moved from suburban, girl next door to New York Escort she said through tears, "It was never about the money...it meant something more to have them there."

Ashley's father left her and her mom and brother when she was only 3. Ashley was asked whether she thought her father not being there had anything to do with this, she surprisingly replied "no". She did interject though that there were things that a father is supposed to do for his daughter, like keep her from dating losers, protect her from harm, and be her example...those things weren't there and she felt like she was unprepared for being a teenager.

The Mentalist - The plot of the story isn't important. A young girl is murdered and her even younger brother sits in front of the shows main character telling him how the boy will use his hatchet to kill the man that hurt his sister.

The Mentalist answers the boy saying, "We will catch who did this and we will not kill them, but we will make them very sorry. Death is not revenge. You kill someone and they die. Everyone dies. Very few people live through the rest of the their lives genuinely being sorry for something they did."

I thought that was a very true statement...and worth dwelling on. If you've done something wrong...please ask forgiveness and live the rest of your life genuinely being sorry for that act...it will find you a better person from that day on.

Time to move on...

2008-11-11T23:57:00.000-06:00

I wonder how long Adam and Eve sat outside of Eden, staring back in, longing for what once was before putting it all to their backs, striking out for something more than just memories?

...at least they had each other.

The Decline and Fall of...Democracy??

2008-11-06T23:49:00.002-06:00

Edinburgh University Library Photo

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse* (see footnote) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

- attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, 18th century

*According to dictionary.com, largesse means "generous bestowal of gifts".

A Dog Named Christmas

2008-11-06T11:35:00.005-06:00

The Nashville Agency is proud to present A Dog Named Christmas. It's really an incredible book for the holidays and I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who loves dogs, loves to read, or just loves the holidays. Below is a short description written by All American Mommy.

A Dog Named Christmas, written by Greg Kincaid is a novel that will touch your heart and have you reaching for a tissue! The story begins when Todd, a developmentally disabled young man, learns of a local shelter’s need to provide homes for their dogs during the days leading to Christmas. After tenaciously convincing his parents that this is an idea worth pursuing, Todd chooses the perfect dog – one whose personality wins over the entire family – and names him Christmas.

Todd and his new friend are two charmers and it doesn’t take long before they inspire an entire town to find holiday homes for all the shelter’s dogs. What follows from this small act of kindness with teach Todd’s family – and his community – about peace on earth and goodwill toward men – and animals.

Click here to purchase a copy

Watching Airplanes

2008-11-05T21:39:00.005-06:00

I believe that life is a lot like taking a flight...

It doesn’t matter much how you arrive at the airport, just that you make it on time. You develop some awkward relationships at first with strangers who you soon find are sharing your flight…and if you’re lucky…maybe one or two will be close to you the entire trip.

You put your trust in a pilot that you may or may not ever actually see or hear. Your life is sometimes interrupted by changes and movements…turbulent times, but you’re never far from a steward who arrives just in time to care for your every need.

You arrive on time usually, and the landing is always scary going through, but brings a secret joy and peace once over. And when you finally get where you’re going, you realize that it’s not about the flight you took, or the people you knew, but rather all about who’s waiting there for you on the other side...

...and somehow they always lose your baggage.

Photographer Unknown. Leave Photographer in Comment and I will post.

A New Spirit

2008-11-05T13:28:00.004-06:00

The polls are closed...somewhere there are people still counting but the decision has been cast. Senator Barack Obama from Illinois will assume the role of our 44th President.

I sat in my living room under my blanket as I watched Sen. John McCain silence a crowd of booers as he pledged to work with "his President" Barack Obama to make this nation a better place. Shortly after I watched Sen. Obama extol Sen. McCain for his unimaginable sacrifice for the country he loved. The two men, divided by time zones and political leanings set it all aside finally and united in one common goal...their country.

President-elect Obama spoke in front of almost 500,000 people in Chicago as he reminded America that this election is not the change they were working for...but only the opportunity to enact that change. That now the real work would need to begin and he called upon every American to join in and help rebuild our country. Sen. McCain from Phoenix told his supporters that now was the time to be Americans and support America and its President...to work towards liberty and change.

President-elect Obama spoke saying, "...although the Democratic party has won a victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have long held back our progress."

I implore you...as I will charge myself too...whether you believe that God is on the throne or Rome is in power...let us summon that new spirit of unity that both these great leaders spoke of and get down to making this country the place we want to raise our children in...and not the world that we have to raise them in.

President-elect Obama quoted part of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. It's a great quote that again has found itself fitting in this time:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

In the last 100 years, our nation has been attacked, beaten, and bloodied on foreign and domestic soil. We've been financially ruined and internationally mocked. We've set ourselves up for perpetual failure and hardship. But each leader tonight reiterated the spirit of America...one of never-ending hope and the backbone to face the hard times with a determined heart.

So when Russia is moving missiles into Europe, when the stock market is crashing, when wars are stretching us around the globe, and people are homeless and starving within miles of our own homes...when the question is whether or not we will survive...

...yes, we can.

God Bless America and God Bless our new President.

Most Important Lesson Today...

2008-11-04T14:00:00.002-06:00

Hang a Question Mark

2008-10-29T00:14:00.000-05:00

"In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." - Bertrand Russell

My Dog Tuffy...

2008-10-28T23:35:00.005-05:00

The yellow lab was named Tuffy. My grand pun on Sean Combs aka Puffy aka Puff Daddy aka P Diddy. I would change my dog's name ever time I called him: T Diddy, Tuff Daddy, Tuff E, or just Tuffy. I got him as a graduation present from a friend. He was big, fluffy, and so playful. He never barked, ever. Swore he took a vow of silence in 2001 right after birth to mark the 50th anniversary of Mark Hamill's birth. We never questioned his religious beliefs. He was nice enough.

When I left for college, he stayed with my parents on their property. He said he wanted it that way...the city was no place for him. So I left him with my parents and saw him every time I came home.

He put himself to good use, organizing the yard and keeping each sunny spot of grass well slept-in. He tolerated the little dog, Hershey, trying to teach him deep moral lessons about being a dog like which bushes to pee on. He even became quite the auto mechanical consultant as he would crawl underneath all our vehicles with my Dad and offer advice about changing oil, rotating tires, and even transmission repair from time to time.

My Dad loved that dog...truly viewed him as a friend. Tuffy loved him too. They had this quiet understanding about my Mom. :-)

One day I got a call that Tuffy had been wondering the neighborhood, as usual, eating food from all the neighbors, catching up on the gossip...then he was gone.

My Dad drove all the back roads...up the streets in the neighborhood...every alley. They never found him or a body.

My guess? Someone saw him on the road with no collar. You see, Tuffy was a hippy...a lover, not a fighter...and a flower child. He didn't need a collar...or so he told me. Said it infringed upon his right to run free. I tried to explain to him that yes, that was the purpose of a collar but he would hear none of it. So I relented.

No, my belief is someone saw this beauty of a dog, uncollared, unbathed (don't get me started on his stand against baths), and lumbering down the road and thought he was a stray, abused and lonely...and offered him a sandwich.

Tuffy never could turn down a good sandwich...so he hopped in the truck, asked them to turn the radio up and roll the windows down.

That's the last I heard from my dog. My Dad still gets a little quiet when people mention him. All the neighbors came by asking if he was okay "on the count that I hadn't seen him in a few days for his breakfast" (no lie).

He was a neighborhood gentleman who never turned down a free meal, a home garage mechanic who would watch you work and talk more than actually doing anything, a hippy puppy who thought jumping in the ditch was considered a bath...and a loved member of my family.

I miss him.

...but I hope, wherever he is...that he's happy.

Rebel without a cause?

2008-10-22T10:02:00.003-05:00

...or someone who figured it out before we did?

"Dream as if you'll live forever...live as if you'll die today." - James Dean

photo credit unknown...apologies to the photographer

Bears? What bears? No one told me there were bears...

2008-10-20T21:42:00.000-05:00

Scott, Clay, and I decided there was still time for us to earn some much needed merit badges. With determined hearts and pre-fab firelogs we set out to tame the wilderness known as Henry Horton State Park.

Upon arrival at the camping grounds which Scott assured us would be "near deserted this time of year" we discovered a Boy Scout convention was in town and nothing says getting back to nature like 100 kids running around with pocket knives and the knowledge on how to start fires.

Setting up the tent came without hassle and only two injuries. We failed to bring along a hammer to drive the tent stakes so Scott and I improvised by using a baseball bat. During the process somehow we thought it would be a good idea to use our feet to hold the tent stakes straight and hit them with the bat. Two whacks with the bat later, Scott and I both had a sore foot and the tent stake harmlessly fell to the ground. Swear I heard laughing too, but Clay was down the hill foraging for fire wood so it couldn't have been him.

An "Airhead" in the wilderness...

After setting up the tent we left to go play 27 holes of disc golf on one of the most beautiful courses I've ever played. The fairways were well groomed, the holes were challenging but not impossible. They were shorter but offered more finesse shots and less brute strength in the throws. I didn't do too bad...shot a +23 on the first nine.

Starting the fire was actually probably the easiest part of the night. I built a simple A-frame fire and it always helps when you buy your firewood from Kroger and it comes prepackaged and doused in lighter fluid. Eyebrows grow back, right?

I forgot how fun it was to sleep on the ground...or the valuable lesson of cleaning up your campsite before laying down your tent. I slept all night on a twig that by 3am felt like a felled Redwood. I kept thinking of Chinese water torture and how simple that was...wondered if I should call them and tell them about the twig under the sleeping bag technique.

Clay prompted us as soon as we got up that it was time to go home. So we roasted some pop-tarts over a newly rebuilt fire and packed up camp. The trip home was a pleasant one...sunny mixed with the smells of the campfire still lingering on everything we owned.

But seriously, I had an incredible time getting away and spending time with two of my best friends. I found it interesting too how when you're away from the comforts of modern civilization how pleasant the day can be. How quickly your priorities shift from the worries of the world to the simple and lifesaving task of keeping the fire going all night. Trying to stay warm in the dropping temperature replaces worrying about your investments. Making sure a bear doesn't run off with your food or your friend is much more important than who made the World Series.

How simple life is when you really have to work to just survive.

Sometimes I wish we still had to...

When does 'life' begin?

2008-10-19T23:43:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not trying to get into a theological or political debate. I know where I stand. I simply pose the thought for consideration:

When does 'life' begin? Many would say at conception, some say at birth...I say real life comes long after both those occurrences.

Life begins when:

1) you realize that you exist as a separate entity
2) you realize that you have the power to make your own decisions and
actions
3) you understand that your decisions and actions have consequences on those
around you...both good and bad.

A lot of us aren't living yet...

Time is but a flash...

2008-10-14T21:57:00.003-05:00

"...undeserved suffering is redemptive..." - Martin Luther King Jr.

This last Friday I was able to attend Frank Warren's speech at Vanderbilt University. Frank created an art project that has turned into an international movement.

Started as an art project in the streets of Washington D.C., Frank would hand out simple blank postcards with the words, "Hi, my name is Frank and I collect secrets."

On the postcards was Frank's home address and three simple instructions:

1) Take a postcard or two.

2) Tell your secret anonymously on the back.

3) Stamp and mail the card.

He handed out maybe a thousand. Nearly five years later, Frank has collected over a quarter of a million secrets from nations across the world. In the process, Frank caused people to search again within themselves.

Over the course of his speech, Frank shared more cards with us with secrets ranging from a woman who compulsively shakes up cans of soda at the grocery store to a 10 year old who wrote "I hate my life" on a post-it note for her mom.

Some make you want to cry, some make you want to laugh, and as a friend of mine once wrote, some just make you wanna pray.

I've read through one of his books prior to the event and frequent the PostSecret blog so I knew what I was getting into. Knowing these things forces me to see...to literally see the pain that we all face. It's no longer this unknown thing we're taught and told that people deal with...their "pain". It now has a face, it has a name, it speaks and it has feeling...and it's made me want to be a better person. I want to treat everyone that I meet with compassion. God forgive me for the times I failed to.

A young girl came to the microphone after the talk when Frank opened the floor for questions...she came to the stand and adjusted it nervously, clearing her throat all the while. Finally in a somewhat quivering voice she addressed Frank in front of the 600 or so that filled the auditorium: "A year ago, I sent you a postcard with a picture of my pregnant stomach...8 months along I had written 'I hope you're stillborn.' on my stomach. She's almost a year old now...and I want to know if I can take that postcard back?"

Others came forward to share secrets of pain, loss, regret...each person was met with at least one hug from someone on their way back to their seats. The full auditorium was quiet and attentive every time someone spoke. It was surreal...

At the end of the night, Frank closed out the event by showing us one more postcard. It was his secret. He had made the postcard and mailed it out...of course it came right back to his address but he said the process was healing.

When Frank was in 4th grade, a charismatic boy convinced two other boys to hold Frank down on the ground...and they took turns spitting into Frank's eyes...

He said, "If I could go back and avoid that incident...I wouldn't. Because I never would have started PostSecret...and the healing that has come out of this is greater than that moment of pain."

Please visit PostSecret's blog either by clicking on one of the two hyperlinks in this blog or by finding the link in my "Life Changers" area of my blog to the right side of your screen. Frank's books are available in all bookstores (Barnes & Noble, Borders, Walden, etc).

Share a secret maybe...

No More 3x5s...

2008-10-12T14:01:00.001-05:00

It's hard for me to describe what my life is like. It's a clutter of beautiful 'non-plans' that take me from metropolis to Mayberry and back again. I know that I am blessed, not just by my life, but by the people within it.

So, in an effort to share with you, the reader, the last year. I downloaded all 500 photos off my camera phone and mixed a short collage of them to some music by one of my favorite musicians (don't sue me, John).

Love you all,

Adam

PS. Recommended you expand it to a full frame size. ;-)

Loyalty...

2008-10-05T21:42:00.004-05:00

loyalty - noun. "the quality of being loyal to someone or something."

loyal - adjective. "giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution."

Clay and I went to see a movie tonight. We watched the new western Appaloosa with Ed Harris and Viggio Mortensen.

The plot of the movie is unimportant to what I am interested in. The movie protrayed the relationship of two men who have lived, worked, and fought together for "longer than [Harris] could remember". They knew each other, liked each other...but more importantly respected each other.

Genuine respect.

At one point, Mortensen's character's integrity came into question when he is accused of assaulting a woman. Harris turned to his partner and, Mortensen, without meeting his gaze softly said, "I did not."

Harris looked back at his accusers and said, "He didn't."

No pause, no hesitation, no questions for his friend.

Loyalty. Respect.

"...a firm and constant support..."

Firm...not passive or soft...without waiver...without excuse...without falter.

Constant...not every once in a while...when you feel like it.

Support...holding up in times of need, usually at the cost of your comfort, time, and energy.

To be loyal is to actively and strongly, day in and day out, rain or shine, better or worse, sickness and health, bad and good...uphold the beliefs, trust, honor, health, vitality, and very life of a person or institution...even when it costs you.

Who or what are you loyal to?

________________________________

PS. After a western, I think I'm a cowboy. Stopping at a gas station later, I swaggered up to the door into the neon lit saloon and I reached for the door, stepping aside with great flair to let a woman carrying a lit cigarette into the store ahead of me. She looked up at me with some weird look and I touched the bill of my Vandy ball cap and said softly, "Ma'm."

She rolled her eyes and walked into the store. I smiled and thought, "these small towns...can't wait to ride out to the next one."

:-)

Two Things to Ponder...

2008-09-29T23:44:00.002-05:00

Many people will write pages in my story...but I only know of a small few who I want to write chapters.

All of this "follow your heart" talk is meaningless unless you first lead with your heart.

Too Many Good Things...

2008-09-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

In the night dark I drive…
My headlights marking a back country road in a big city…
The stars above to remind me where heaven begins…
Clapton changing the world on the radio…
And only then do I realize…

That love is indestructible, undeniable, unstoppable in every way…
If you will just drop your pain and let it…
Be…

Just be…

The Little Dog...

2008-09-25T20:01:00.004-05:00

He feels bad...for everything

Everything I own is destroyed in some form or fashion. If it's not broken it's missing...even then it's probably somewhere in the house in pieces.

I asked God one night for understanding...He sent me a dog.

About 6 months ago I got a call from my little sister...whom I love(d). She said, "Guess what?! I got you a dog!" I don't think hearing any other words (with the exception of "I'm pregnant") could ever cause such fear, prayer, and confusion in one's life.

The bundle of joy came to Nashville by way of my parents who looked all too happy to hand him over. My Dad couldn't hold back the chuckles as the new puppy christened my white carpets in under 10 minutes. My Mom, just said, "He's only a puppy and it won't always be like this."

...it's still like that.

I yelled, screamed, cried, begged, bribed, cussed, and even paid the dog to grow up but he still chews, poops, pees, and barks at night.

I'm not one of these people that refers to myself as "daddy" to this mongrel. I refuse. I own this dog, I did not father him. But I am beginning to understand the burden of being responsible for another life. How much time, effort, love, and discipline that actually takes...and this is only a dog...maybe I should have started with a plant...

Walks are fun. They're only considered walks in the sense that other people walk by and laugh at me. He lives at the end of the leash, pulling as hard as he can...looking like a sled dog on the Iditarod, he mushes down the sidewalk, wrapping himself around trees, pedestrians, other dogs, and fire hydrants.

He hates baths. I am quite skilled at accomplishing this however. I have many years of practice trapping small animals and holding them into place. It's the same motion I use when I'm wrapping Christmas presents: put the object in the middle, then grab the paper as quickly as you can and smother the object like it's trying to escape, add tape, a bow, and then blame it on letting your 5 year old niece help you wrap...people think that's cute.

Meal time is fun. He refuses to eat unless you sit there and watch him. Leave the room? He'll follow you. You turn around and he asks, "where are you going? I have a meal to eat...come watch this." Amazing...

Of course, being a little dog, he thinks he's 10 feet tall and bullet proof. One night while cleaning a mess out of his crate, he escaped out the door and down the street...and ran head on into a Pit Bull. Now most grown men stay away from these...things (that we refer to as dogs). Not my little pup. He growls and throws himself into a fly scissor kick at the monster. The Pit Bull was either in disbelief or too busy laughing to care. He shrugged off the smaller dust mop and kept moving down the road.

What does all this have to do with understanding God?

I am that little dog.

God has a plan for my life. He sets out with me on His leash and down the road we go together. It's not long before I decide I want to do my own thing and I strain at the end of His love for me, trying to pull Him in directions I want to go. All the while the prayers of my mother and God's never-failing mercy and grace keep me tethered to Him.

I'm constantly making a mess of my life. Tearing up the blessings He's given me, messing in my own cage and refusing to let Him clean me up.

I race head-long into the most dangerous situations, assured that I can handle it...only His understanding that is so much higher than mine, saves me at the last second from my own sure destruction.

...and most of all...no matter how badly I screw up...no matter how many messes I make or mistakes I've committed or times I've fought Him as he keeps saying "STOP IT!"...I wake up every morning to His beauty in my life.

And as much as this little dog looks at me with awe, respect, fear, admiration, hate (sometimes), and love...I look at God the same way. I don't understand Him, but somehow I know that the things He allows me to go through...the things He puts me through...and the things I put myself through...will all work out...because He's on the other end of that leash and He's still walking down the road toward the plan He has for me.

Well...I better go, the dog is looking at me...he just threw up on the carpet...I can hear his voice now, "dude...that was insane...you should have seen it...it was like slow motion or something..."

I love you God. Thank you for sticking with me...through everything...

"I didn't deserve it..."

2008-09-23T22:41:00.001-05:00

Photo By: Rich Pilling/MLB Photos/Getty Images

Today, September 24, marks 30 years since a murder at the intersection of 5th and Jackson in Gary, IN.

That in and of itself doesn't say much...people are murdered every day all over the world. Even important people like the then highest paid athelete in major league baseball, Lyman Bostock.

Lyman's death was a tragic end to such a promising life and career. He played for the Twins and then later the Angels before his life was taken in a drive by shooting at the age of 27.

Over his short career he would find himself behind only one player in stats every year...future Hall of Famer, teammate, and friend Rod Carew.

When Bostock was traded to the Angels, he received a contract making more than 40 times his previous salary playing for the Twins. When in his first season, Lyman hit a slump in his batting, he came to the Angels, offering his salary back to the organization, citing that he was not performing up to his ability and therefore didn't deserve his paycheck. The Angels organization refused to accept his paycheck.

So Lyman donated the over $40,000 to a local charity instead. He wouldn't take money he didn't earn.

His stats rebounded, as did the Angels.

On September 24, 2008, after going 2 for 4 in Chicago, Lyman drove with an uncle down to Gary, IN, to visit a childhood friend. After meeting the friend at her home, Lyman, his uncle, and the friend drove downtown to drop this friend off. At the intersection of 5th and Jackson, the estranged husband of Lyman's childhood friend pulled up beside the car and shot into the backseat, striking Bostock in the head and killing him.

Why is it that we can't find people of this magnitude of character and integrity anymore? When no one else is looking and no one will find out...what do you do?

Lyman Bostock took pride in what he did, and refused to do it any other way than extreme excellence. That is the mark of a true artist.

His actions, mark him as an inspiration to me.

______________________________________________________

To read more on Lyman Bostock and his career and untimely death, please read a story written by Jeff Pearlman for ESPN.com here.

An Apology...of sorts...

2008-09-16T21:16:00.000-05:00

To all those who thought I might have been a little too harsh on Vince Young...and to Vince himself...

Yes, I am bitter. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I was hurt. Now? Not so angry or hurt...or bitter.

I apologize if it was too harsh, but I wanted to shock you into realizing your potential and your blessings.

“Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness” - Henry David Thoreau

Peace and Love,

Adam

Dear Vince Young...

2008-09-12T15:59:00.001-05:00

Dear Vince Young,

Sorry to hear about your knee. I’m sure things will clear up and they’ll rehab you as good as new...hopefully better.

As a fan of the Titans (and a fantasy football league owner who has you riding his bench right now) please know that everything I say comes from the desire to see you play to your fullest and start earning me points. And there’s the whole “making you a better person” angle...jury is still out on whether I care at this point.

I wasn’t worried when you went missing on Monday. I wasn’t even worried when initial reports spoke of SWAT teams and negotiators and that they found a gun in your possession...knowing your aim, they would have had to call in Kerry Collins to finish the job anyway. What did worry me was your press statement last night.

I sat in my modest townhouse in Antioch which I entered into a contract with the devil and Chase Manhattan to afford, exhausted after a long day of work. You know what that is right? Work? It’s sorta like slavery, except with lunch breaks? Maybe not...”homework” and “work” aren’t synonymous...that means “the same” or “similar”.

I sat there in disbelief as I heard you state that you were “not able to handle being boo’ed like that” by the hometown crowd. Not knowing what to do you left your house angry at the world and sought refuge at a friends house.

Wow. You’re right. How do any of us deal with negative feedback? I’ll give my 23 year old cousin a call to ask him. He should have some good anecdotes about negative feedback from the year he spent being shot at in Iraq. Or I could ask a buddy of mine who spends every night shift being called every racial and hateful slur you can think of as he stands behind his shield and vest protecting the downtown area of the city you live in (Nashville, not The Governor’s Club). I’ll give you my father-in-law’s number and you can call to see what it was like returning from Vietnam after two voluntary tours there...if I remember correctly most people didn’t like Vietnam vets at first.

I’m sure I don’t fully understand the pressure you operate under...knowing that if you lose a game on Sunday they take you out back and shoot you like Old Yeller. That’s what they do right? I’m still trying to figure out where Ryan Leaf is...thought he was buried over in California somewhere. Maybe it’s more like the mob...throw an interception and they break a hand...lose a game and they kill one of your relatives. ??

I’m trying to understand how a “man” at the age of 25 could be so emotionally insecure and immature that he can’t pull his head out of his own ass long enough to notice that he’s paid the gross annual income of a small African nation to play a game once a week. The fans will always do what’s best for them. They cheer you when you score and boo you when you’re intercepted. They chant “MVP” after a 4 TD game and “Over-Rated” after a 4 INT game...most times in the same season. A philosopher once wrote, “the mob is fickle...therefore strive to be thick-skinned and tender-hearted”. For the men I mentioned above and the millions of the rest of us who grind out a living working for just enough to pay the bills...grow up and maybe grow a backbone in the process.

While you’re wallowing in self-pity, do me a favor and retire, clear up my cap room, and get a job. Then when your supervisor rips you a new butthole over the TPS reports, you can go home to your new townhouse in Antioch and we can play Madden 09 on Wii together and I’ll listen to you tell me stories about winning games at Texas. Maybe afterwards if we can afford it, we’ll order a pizza and watch old game film of you running the ball through defenses...remember running the ball?

Alright, well I’ve taken up enough of your time and I have to go. The house needs to be cleaned, the laundry has to be done, the dishes are piling up, and my dog needs to be walked. Yeah, we don’t all have maids to do this stuff for us. But if after this season you’re needing some extra cash...I like my whites bleached and no starch.

Or I have a warehouse position here that my company is trying to fill. $10 an hour sound fair?

Adam

Doin' The Dirty Kentucky...

2008-09-09T21:31:00.004-05:00

Clay's song "The Dirty Kentucky" continues to gain fame and fans in Kentucky as students on UK's message boards begin to share the news about the new hot "tailgate dance song".

Check out the video below to see it performed at a wedding by co-writer Canaan Smith.

www.claycumbie.com

www.myspace.com/claycumbie

Long Line of Pain...

2008-09-08T21:46:00.004-05:00

"I come from a long line of pain...

My family suffered greatly for my gain.

And I think a lot about

How my Daddy died, so I would not live without...

And his heart is in my song

but the melody comes

and just as quickly the melody is gone...

And I'm back alone...far from home...

Now my momma is on her own
I try to call her and see her when I’'m home
After all that she’s been through
All the doctors say, there ain'’t nothing we can do.

And her heart lives in my song
But the melody comes
And just as quickly, the melody is gone

I’m back alone...far from home...

There's a bird outside my window

takes his song where he goes

and just leaves it there

like a dead man's rocking chair...

And tonight I’m feeling lost and
Headin'’ down the highway out of Boston
I get the sense I might lose it
I thank God tonight for the light I got in music

‘Cause my heart lives in this song
But the melody comes
And just as quickly, the melody is gone

And I'’m back alone...

...far from home..."

- Amos Lee Long Line of Pain

Fun-To-Say Football...

2008-08-28T14:14:00.001-05:00

A good friend of mine and his brother started a Fantasy Football blog. Being a rabid...umm, avid FF-er I think you should check it out. It's worth it's weight in gold...and since websites weigh nothing....

HA!

Fun-to-Say Football

Small Minds...

2008-08-27T09:11:00.001-05:00

"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt

The Cleaner

2008-08-26T22:46:00.001-05:00

I ended up watching an episode of A&E's The Cleaner last night. It's a new series loosely based on the life of Warren Boyd, an extreme interventionist whose "whatever it takes" mentality has seen him help thousands of addicts over his 20 years of work. Boyd, a recovered addict himself, has worked with everyone from strangers on the street to high profile celebrities (such as Mel Gibson, Courtney Love, and Whitney Houston).

In the show (and in Boyd's actual story) he makes a deal with God at the birth of his daughter where Boyd asks for another chance to be clean and off drugs. If he can, then he will dedicate the rest of his life to helping people. Boyd gets his chance and makes good on his end of the deal.

In the show, "William Banks" (Boyd) is played by Benjamin Bratt. Throughout the episode I watched, Banks has several on-screen conversations with God. He prays openly asking for help, guidance, and strength. As a recovering addict, father of two, and husband to a family that has seen him the lowest of lows...Banks has a lot to pray about and deal with.

One such conversation hit me harder than the rest...I'll try to record it here as verbatim as I can remember it:

"They say 'that which does not kill us only makes us stronger'...but that means if something doesn't make me stronger...it kills me. So, which are you trying to do? Make me stronger...or kill me?"

________________________________________________________

Watch The Cleaner on A&E. Check for local listings or visit the official website here.

Stronger...

2008-08-24T17:57:00.001-05:00

"The world breaks everyone and afterward, many are strong in the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Don't Save it for the Funeral

2008-08-18T23:39:00.000-05:00

I recently read a story sent to me by a man named Alan Smith...

An elderly man lay dying in his bed. In death's agony, he suddenly
smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up
the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself
from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out
of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down
the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands.

With labored breath, he leaned against the doorframe, gazing into
the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought
himself already in heaven: There, spread out on the kitchen table
were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies. Was
it heaven?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the
table. His aged and withered hand made its way to a cookie at the
ed ge of the table, when his wife suddenly smacked it with a
spatula. "Stay out of those," she said. "They're for the funeral."

The point is, if you care about someone, let them know. Let them know today how much they mean to you. I heard once that "the wealth of king's is wrapped up in wills". It's the same with our feelings. We keep them tied up in emotional probate...hiding them deep and giving lots of reasons why we can't express them. Then, before you realize, those people are gone. Maybe it's death, maybe they move, maybe you leave that job...whatever the reason...all our reasons mean nothing once that person isn't in your life anymore.

So, find someone you care about today and let them know.

"Jesus said 'love one another'. He didn't say love the whole world." - Mother Teresa

Goals, Obstacles, Fears, Dreams

2008-08-18T23:30:00.001-05:00

"Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears." - Les Brown

"Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal." - E. Joseph Cossman

The Wisdom of John Steinbeck...

2008-08-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

"For a million years we had a purpose -- simple survival -- the finding, planting, gathering, or killing of food to keep us alive, of shelter to prevent freezing. This was a strong incentive. Add to it defense against all kinds of enemies and you have our species' history. But now we have food and shelter and transportation and the more terrible hazard of leisure. I strongly suspect that our moral and spiritual disintegration grows out of our lack of experience with 'plenty'".

"Now we face the danger which in the past has been most destructive to the human: success -- plenty, comfort, and ever-increasing leisure. No dynamic people has ever survived these dangers. If the anesthetic of satisfaction were added to our hazards, we would not have a chance of survival -- as Americans."

The Cinderella Man

2008-08-10T17:00:00.003-05:00

James J Braddock. An Irish boxer who rose to some fame in the 1920s before the Great Depression hit and Braddock broke his right hand in three places during a fight. Unable to box he worked as a longshoreman on the docks trying to raise money for his family of three kids. As times grew worse, work became more scarce and Braddock was given a last fight for $250. Taking the fight, and winning, would earn Braddock his famed nickname "The Cinderella Man".

If anyone has seen the movie starring Russell Crowe then they know the basic story.

There are two things that amaze me about Braddock. When times became too much to bear, he went on public relief...one of our countries first welfare programs. When his luck changed and Braddock was being paid to fight again, Braddock returned to the public relief office...this time to return the almost $400 that he had received while on welfare. When asked why he did it, Braddock replied, "I believe in this great country we live in...it believed in me when I needed it."

After his boxing career would come to an end due to arthritis and age, Braddock and his long-time manager Gould both enlisted in the Army to fight in World War 2.

Give me more celebrities like Jim Braddock. Screw these fools today...

Read more about James Braddock at his website or rent the movie "The Cinderella Man".

www.jamesjbraddock.com

Florida, Day 2

2008-08-07T20:27:00.006-05:00

My hole in one...

Sexy beach modeling...

Pretty Beach Sunset

Wish you were here...

2008-08-06T19:49:00.003-05:00

On vacation in Florida, just south of Tampa.

Check out the quick video clip of the beach.

Flat on the floor, looking back...

2008-08-01T23:25:00.004-05:00

As I thought of John Mayer talking of Friday nights alone writing love songs for no one, I found myself silent and still in my old recliner, like lying in the arms of an old friend we reminisced of days gone by and how life passed by as we shared times together in the laid back luxury of apathy and brown cushions.

So it has come to this, another year passes, more full and yet more empty than the last. I find myself watching NPT on a Friday night alone except for a small furry creature that occupies my peripheral vision as he dozes to the sounds of Matchbox 20 playing "Unwell" in the background.

I reach for my Dad's guitar recalling sitting on the edge of my bed with "Yourself or Someone Like You" blaring through my boombox as with blistered fingers I struggled to find base chords. So tonight again I played with Rob on calloused fingers and dreamed I was on stage in front of an empty room making music for no one.

Tonight I can't help but feel that my life has been like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book that I've always kept my finger back on the decision page, so I could always go back in case the tale ended unfavorably...and now I'm just realizing there is no going back. This is my adventure...and I alone am to blame for its twists and turns.

Armed with Mt. Dew and a guitar passed through a generation I attempt to pass the next thirty minutes so I can say goodbye to another day that I did not follow my heart to something better.

I wish I could see what it is like to live in a world without obsessions...

"When my smile gets old and faded...just wait around, I'll smile again...shouldn't be so complicated...just hold me again." - Bent, Matchbox20

Few thoughts to ponder...

2008-07-29T23:36:00.000-05:00

"A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is." - Seneca, Roman philosopher

"The meaning of life is a concept that concerns the possible purpose and significance that may be attributed to human existence and/or one's personal life." - Wikipedia.com

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" - Matthew

"In much wisdom is much grief; he who increases knowledge, increases sorrow." - Ecclesiates

Patience, Pain, and Purpose

2008-07-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

"You'd be surprised how much a person can endure when there is a purpose to it all...or how little they can handle when there isn't one."

immortality...

2008-07-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

"Everyone dies. The goal is not to live forever, but rather to create something that will."

And they went Wii, Wii, Wii...all the way to the bank...

2008-07-16T23:00:00.001-05:00

I read an article this morning about the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, and how Nintendo has come to create this gaming phenomenon known as "Wii".

Having already sold 28 million units worldwide, Iwata said, "Five years ago when I was appointed I thought that if we didn't do anything but took the same route there would be no bright future for the entire industry. So we started thinking about people who weren't playing games and asked ourselves why they were not interested. And why had some stopped playing despite playing in their youth? We decided we needed to increase the number of people gaming."

With such a simple solution to the problem they set out to their work.

If we can't make what we need to make with our current audience, just increase the audience.

As a business person (and I use that term loosely), I understand the idea of "markets" and "audience" and "demographics". They threw all of that out the window and said, "Let's make people who aren't interested in gaming...interested in gaming."

The president of my company (who I will just say is in his 50s) had never touched a gaming console before...but he loves Wii.

There's nothing deep or insightful about this blog. Just amazed at the creativity and unabashed disregard for "the ways things are done" by the people at Nintendo.

Congratulations on a great product and keep up this thought process.

__________________________

The article I referred to was written by Darren Waters for BBC News and the entire article with video interview can be found at this link.

A friend among many...

2008-07-14T22:48:00.000-05:00

We are discussing a financial book in our group this time. Written by a wealthy, self-made man, the author extols his methods for being financially savvy while trying to inspire the reader to do the same.

I sat daydreaming. I don't give much thought to finances except when they're not there. Maybe that's my fault and I should be planning better.

The thing that keeps running through my head is...when I die, I don't care if I die rich. I don't care if I live wealthy. I could care less about fame.

There's a documentary out through HBO about the 101st Airborne Division called Band of Brothers. I think I've blogged about it before. At the end there is a moment where the narrator explains what happened to each surviving man after the war. One such soldier went on to be a construction foreman. The narrator reads, "...and as a testament to his character, 1600 people attended his funeral."

1600. That's a number reserved for celebrities who die young. Not for construction foremans from Wisconsin.

That's what I want. I want to die with the most friends. Keep your money, keep your fame. Give me a life filled with relationships that matter.

Then, and only then, will I be truly rich...

"Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry." - Mark Twain

Neither Rich nor Poor...

2008-07-13T12:28:00.000-05:00

"No man is so poor that he has nothing to give...and no one is so rich that he has nothing to receive." - Pope John Paul II

"Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full and deny you, and say, “Who is the LORD?” or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God." - Proverbs 30.7-9

Please Read this Blog...

2008-07-08T17:04:00.003-05:00

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com

Funny...funny...funny...

...and true. :-)

And yes I know it has an extra "f" in it.

Don't Quit Too Soon

2008-06-29T13:42:00.000-05:00

I recently sat down with a friend of mine who was making plans to give up on a life pursuit. One year was the deadline she sat on her life's dreams.

My advice to her, and to anyone thinking of giving up...don't quit too soon. For one day, we'll stand (whether on this earth or some other unseen plain) and account for our decisions today.

"Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison

"The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity." - L. Ravenhill

"Prepare, my soul, to meet the one who asks great questions." - TS Elliot

Confessions...

2008-06-24T00:50:00.000-05:00

"The architects of the Apostles' Creed believed their confessions. We, their successors, often merely confess their beliefs." - Robert Smith, Jr.

Don't worry...it's working like it's supposed to...

2008-06-15T23:51:00.000-05:00

Whether or not it is clear to you, have no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

- Max Ehrmann

Live with intention...

2008-06-15T23:48:00.000-05:00

live with intention.

walk to the edge.

listen hard.

practice wellness.

play with abandon.

laugh.

choose with no regret.

continue to learn.

appreciate your friends.

do what you love.

live as if this is all there is.

- mary anne radmacher

The "Truth"

2008-06-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

The more satisfied you are with truth, the less you have to scream about it.

Love and Diamonds

2008-06-13T10:30:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting here on my couch. My baby sister is upstairs getting ready for a big day on the town here in Nashville. I can hear Dashboard blaring from one of the upstairs bathrooms. She's really special to me so this is going to be a great weekend.

As I'm waiting for her to come down, I've got morning television on...which is a new world to me because I'm never around to watch it. It was one of the 14,000,000 court shows that come on in the morning. The story was one of a young girl getting played by a guy who ended up taking money from her. She said "I thought he loved me"...he said, "I never said that." In the end he owed her the money but the judge gave this young girl some advice I wanted to pass along.

[as much verbatim as I can remember]

"You've learned a rough lesson. Love is like the diamond market...if you don't withhold it until the right time...no one will value it."

Although I'm not a huge fan of the diamond market and the way things are run there....I appreciate the analogy.

Clay Cumbie - The Right Now

2008-06-05T00:43:00.000-05:00

Here is my buddy Clay Cumbie at a benefit for Alzheimer's.

Check out the message of the song and try to live it everyday.

www.claycumbie.com

One Year to Live

2008-06-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

I was recently asked what I would do if I knew I had only one year to live.

I didn't have to think long before these things started pouring out of me. Maybe that should tell me something...that I have so many things inside that I want to do now...before it's too late.

As you read what I said...ask yourself...what would you do? And as I'm asking myself now...what's keeping you from doing it now?

What wouldn't I do? (forgive the blunt honesty, but I only have a year to live...there's no time for pretense):

1) I'd find my ex-wife...and hold her one last time...tell her I'm sorry for any of the things I did...and tell her I forgive her...hopefully she would do and say the same.

2) Spend a month on the farm with my Dad up North. Just me and him. I want him to know me...the real me. I want him to know the man he raised. Hopefully he would be proud.

3) I wouldn't spend a day in a church. I would want to spend time with God...not people. I would find Him in the quiet of my bathtub...or the comfort of a long walk on a summer day.

4) Love on a certain blonde I know.

5) Laugh until I cry every day...then cry until I laugh every night.

6) Find peace at last...

When a body meets a body...

2008-06-01T02:29:00.002-05:00

We spend so much of our lives doing things, buying things, owning things, and moving from place to place...all the while, trying to find...ourselves.

Waiting...

2008-05-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

How much of human life is lost in waiting?

A Good Mantra...

2008-05-21T21:47:00.000-05:00

Life is short...

Break the rules...
Forgive quickly...

Kiss slowly...
Love truly...

Laugh uncontrollably...
And never regret...

My Old Friend

2008-05-18T13:25:00.001-05:00

My old friend, I recall
The times we had hanging on my wall
I wouldn't trade them for gold
Cause they laugh and they cry me
Somehow sanctify me
They're woven in the stories I have told
And tell again

My old friend, I apologize
For the years that have passed
Since the last time you and I
Dusted off those memories
But the running and the races
The people and the places
There's always somewhere else I had to be
Time gets thin, my old friend

This weekend I went back to the real hometown to celebrate a late birthday and an even later Mother's Day. As chance and scheduling would have it, I found myself driving at 1 am across Kentucky with one of my best friends, Clay. He had the weekend free and on a last minute decision decided he wanted to see the Spratt homestead so we took off.

When I die, I won't remember the profits (or losses) of whatever company I've worked for. I won't lament the passing of another Cardinal baseball season without me making a game. I won't worry over building funds for churches or what style of clothes I wore.

I'll remember last Saturday, at 25, finding myself in the lot beside my childhood home. The same field I first put on a glove and began to learn how to field a ball. Where I learned how to hit. Now, almost two decades later, here I am again...my Dad hitting me and Clay fly balls. The weather was incredible. Sunshine, breeze, and laughter filled the air as the dogs ran at our feet trying to get the ball before we could.

The sun began to sink and we fired up the grill. The smell of steaks, brats, and burgers mixed with the fresh watermelon as our back deck became the most important part of our house. Friends and family gathered as Clay brought out his guitar and played a few songs for us.

The night ended in starry brilliance in a way only a country skyline could.

...and I want to live for those moments...because when I do die...they are all I will have.

My old friend, this song's for you
Cause a few simple verses
Was the least that I could do
To tell the world that you were here
Cause the love and the laughter
Will live on long after
All of the sadness and the tears
We'll meet again, my old friend

____________________________________

My Old Friend by Craig Wiseman and Steve McQuinn

Great Quote

2008-05-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to get back in to blogging more. Occasionally I just have a great quote I want to share without having a huge story to go with it so I might just post quotes I like from time to time.

"The future is no place to place your better days." - Dave Matthews, Cry Freedom

Someday...

2008-05-07T23:37:00.001-05:00

"Dreaming of a better life someday will always leave you dreaming of a better life someday."

It was the year after I graduated high school and the summer was coming on strong. We were in a peach orchard that oddly enough had very few peach trees in it. The house we were building sat in the middle of field under no shade. The heat seemed to billow up from the concrete floor and wooden skeleton of the behemoth that we were framing. I was lucky enough that day to find myself up on the unfinished roof as we laid OSB board down to "deck" the roof. The wind would blow sometimes up there making it almost bearable.

I was studying "Pre-Medical Sciences with an emphasis in Biology" at a local college interspersed with beating the crap out of my hands building homes in Southeast Missouri. I kept telling myself, "Someday...someday I'll make it. It'll be worth it."

She drove up in her black Ford Explorer Sport and stepped out carrying a grocery sack full of Mt. Dews for the crew. From on top of the roof I smiled at her and she returned my eyes with a goofy grin. We connected. She told me to call her. I told her I would.

Two years from that day I found myself drinking Mt. Dew from a can trying to wake up at midnight. This time in a warehouse in Nashville, TN, rolling newspapers and putting them in double bags. It was raining tonight which meant that I would be soaked by the time I got home around 6am. I drove down the road with the window down in that black Ford Explorer Sport throwing the newspapers out into the rain and (hopefully) onto driveways. I had a family to help support now. So it was school by day and "Carrier" for The Tennessean by night just trying to pay bills. I just kept telling myself, "Someday...someday we'll make it. It'll all be worth it."

Two more years come and go...it was still hot. It was July 4th and I sat on my driveway in Spring Hill, TN watching the neighbors' kids shoot off fireworks. I was now running a booking company in Nashville. I had a house in the suburbs with a built in sprinkler system for it's manicured and sodded lawn. It's 4 bedrooms easily accommodated my entire family when they visited for New Year's just a few months earlier. I was "successful"...

...our divorce would be final in a few weeks. And as I sat in my driveway, drinking my Mt. Dew, I looked at the scars on my hands from those years building homes and told myself through the pain in my heart, "Someday...someday I'll make it. It'll all be worth it."

Another two years have passed now and it's getting hot again. I'm still with the same company but I've given up the house in the suburbs and moved into town again. Another milestone in life comes without ticker tape parades and another relationship fades much like the sun that day on top of that house. I find myself in my bigger office thinking at my current life and I catch myself saying, "someday...it'll all make sense."

I recently gained a new friendship with a man that many consider very successful. I stumbled across a note he wrote once and I wanted to share it. Craig Wiseman is a professional songwriter and philosopher. :-) So giving him his credit. Here are Craig's thoughts on success when he was asked once:

You know- I remember thinking it was going to be like walking into another room- success and all-
but really it's like a room being built around you-

you take the first boards and pieces of floor for granted because you see the other grand rooms around you-
then at some point people start saying you have one of the cool rooms- you still kind of doubt it-
but at some point enough people say you ahve a cool room that you go ahead and accept that- but since you've seen all of the imperfections that were barely painted over and know that the chair is hiding the bad rug spots- you still wonder- then you realize that everybody elses cool room is probably just as shabby as yours- and that the whole 'cool room thing is a bit over rated' though still far far better than no room at all.

You're right though- these years that you dispise and want to rush through so quickly- gold-
when you look back you realize that you were already in the dream when you thought you were just chasing it-
it's all a dream- if you're here- doing it at whatever level-it's light years beyond where most can take it-
you are already that successful person you seem to be so concerned about- well??? how is it?????
see???? this "better room" shit is for the birds- there is always better and always worse
If you're looking around a bunch it'll drive you crazy-
find joy in the days work- that's all there is 99% of the time-

Give up hoping for "someday". If you're doing it...then do it. "Success" is not a benchmark, but a state of mind. Success is a socioeconomic synonym for another word we have trouble with...contentment.

When you reach the level that you are content with who you are...what you've accomplished...and how you've done it. Guess what?

You've made it.

Congratulations on being successful.

are you big enough?

2008-04-23T00:12:00.001-05:00

I found myself scratching my head again…sitting in my pinstrip, dark suit in the stadium seating of The Grand Ole Opry. I had been given a free ticket because of a friend of mine who worked for GMA to their annual Dove Awards…it’s like the Christian Grammies. I was sitting in the midst of a group of blood-bought, spirit filled gospel loving people who would stand up and shout if the singer hit a note they liked. I kept checking the aisle to see if my friend would be coming soon to sit next me.

I love God. Over the last few months, I’ve felt a separation that can only be brought on by the whale’s belly trial. When you find yourself cast overboard after trying to run from God. Sitting in the depth of that loneliness I have come to question if He still hears me. My pastor spoke the Sunday before that the most dangerous place to be is not when you begin to think there is no God…but rather when you begin to believe that God exists in an evil form. I was beginning to wonder if God even cared what happened to me.

I enjoy some Christian music…the rest seems a little too formulaic for me. A group that I enjoy began the show with the performance of their hit song right now. I don’t listen to Christian radio so it was all new to me…

Here I am Lord and I’m drowning, in Your sea of forgetfulness
The chains of yesterday surround me, I yearn for peace and rest
I don’t want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind
Keeps me awake tonight
I know you’ve cast my sin as far as the East is from the West
And I stand before You now as though I’ve never sinned
But today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
From You leaving me this way

I’ve grown to feel like my sins are too much…that the pain I carry is too great even for God…that the years of tears and the days of nights are too much for Him to carry. I listened intently now as he sang of a place in life similar to mine…

Can you show me just how far the east is from the west
‘Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been
Rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
‘Cause You know just how far the east is from the west

I sat next to this same group of people as this group, Casting Crowns, received the award later for this song. Lead Singer and songwriter, Mark Hall, simply said to the crowd that he has had to learn that doing good things is not why God cares for us. God cares for us because He is good…not because we are.

I tried not to cry…I’m an emotional little guy sometimes. The lady sitting next to me leaned over and said, “It’s great to hear other people understand that God is faithful…even if we aren’t. When we are faithless, He is faithful.”

I drove away from the awards ceremony, in my suit, asking God, “…are you really big enough?”

I know You’ve washed me white
Turn my darkness into light
I need Your peace to get me through
To get me through this night
I can’t live by what I feel
But by the truth Your word reveals
I’m not holding on to You
But You’re holding on to me…

______________________________________

Visit www.castingcrowns.com or iTunes to purchase the new CD The Altar and the Door

Small thoughts...

2008-04-17T21:56:00.002-05:00

I sat in line for the McDonalds drive through at 9:30 tonight...yeah I know, eating late is bad for you...well so is a lot of things.

I had my window rolled down on my truck, letting the cool breeze from the night blow in...it was amazing. It was also amazing to hear the people in front of me order. Something inside of a person's head tells us we need to yell into the speakerbox to be understood.

A younger girl in a car ahead of me ordered a double cheeseburger with no pickles...the lady behind her ordered her sandwiches with extra onions. I sat in my truck and thought, "...we are so different."

...and yet we want to be the same.

If it's not race/ethnicity, then it's our religion, or our height, weight, hair color...or our income level...or our music or food tastes...everyone is different. No two people are alike. And yet we still gravitate towards those that are just like us. Our friends walk and talk like us...they believe the things we do, they enjoy the same music and movies. When we look for that "perfect someone" we're looking for our "soulmate"...someone who believes our same core beliefs, who has the same dreams and goals...someone who "gets" us.

Ever notice how Jesus did the exact opposite? As a carpenter, He surrounded Himself with fisherman, a tax collector, tent makers, and a doctor. As a Jew, He spent more time with Gentiles, Samaritans, and others. As a healthy and fit man, He spent a lot of time surrounded by the sick and in-firmed, the lepers and the outcasts.

It's easy to show love to someone just like you...they never challenge you.

Just some small thoughts in line for my hamburger with extra pickles and large sweet tea...

Love and Hate

2008-04-04T00:13:00.002-05:00

Tonight I sat with my group of guy friends as we huddled together in the wood-floored lounge of one man's home. We gathered around the marble fire pit table that we had filled with ice to keep our drinks cold. We gathered like this every other week to talk about our lives, the lives of others, the world, religion, politics, war, peace, love, hate, joy, sorrow...all in an attempt to understand ourselves, even if only for a brief moment.

It's usually in these times that I find at least a small glimpse of wisdom in the insanity...

I recently saw a commercial on TV. I can't even remember the product but I remember the commercial vividly. An executive boardroom is filled with suits and ties as they learn the competition has launched a new and better product. The boss yells at his vice presidents, "WHY DIDN'T YOU THINK OF THAT!?"

The Vice President goes to his department head and yells to them, "Why didn't you think of that?!"

Department heads travel down the hall to managers and yell, "Why didn't you think of that?!"

Slowly managers go to supervisors and finally supervisors to employees, all yelling and blaming...finally one lone employee goes home that night and asks his dog, "Why didn't you think of that?" The dog replies, "I did."

I heard a similar and yet greatly different story tonight from one of my friends. My friend had just finished playing a gig in his hometown in Louisiana and the band that played before him was still sitting in the bar. After a few introductions they all struck up a conversation where my friend learned that this band had no hotel and planned on sleeping in their van...during the summer in Louisiana. My friend said, "No, why don't you guys come stay at my house."

Not knowing these people he shared a piece of himself with them...a piece of something good.

I don't know the end of this story but I have to believe that love and hate follow the same path. It's not spread over the world by rainbows that shower flowers on everyone...just as hate is not carried by bombers that level cities. It's something that is passed from person to person...like a virus, it catches and spreads.

I believe that the band that stayed with my friend will now be more aware of those around them in need. There were no speeches, no fundraisers, no commitments of any kind. My friend saw an opportunity and chose to love...and changed the course of those people's lives forever.

Hardship or Opportunity?

2008-03-24T23:44:00.002-05:00

I'd like to consider myself an "avid reader" although most days I only get to read emails. I do, however, subscribe to some really great email newsletters that I would recommend to everyone. One of them is Dan Miller's "48 Days" Newsletter.

Today's newsletter included a story that I wanted to share. Hope you enjoy it but also learn something from it.

__________________________________________

Lornah Kiplagat learned to run because she did not want to be late for school. Each morning, this little Kenyan girl would help her father milk the family cows as soon as there was enough light from the rising sun. Then she would run the 14 miles from her home to school – where she was an eager student, knowing education was her best option for a better future. At the time she did not realize that her running was laying the foundation for her world-class status as a long-distance runner. She ran because she was poor – but in the process she developed the discipline and stamina to rise above all competition in running.

Could it be that there is an opportunity in something you consider a hardship right now? Most inventions, great books, and leadership skills emerge from those tough times in our lives when we needed a solution or the fortitude to just survive. As I look back on my own early farming days – yes, those days of just looking forward to leaving the farm – I now realize the value of having significant carpentry, plumbing, electrical and mechanical skills. Those insights have saved me thousands of dollars over the years and also opened my eyes to innovative solutions in business. My writing draws from the challenges I’ve faced myself in career and business.

Is the “running” in your own life just a means to an end or is it teaching you and preparing you for something great? Maybe that long commute is giving you time to learn a new language or better parenting skills. Maybe the broken machinery at work is providing you the opportunity for the next great invention. Perhaps your constant struggle with fatigue is positioning you to discover a nutritional breakthrough.

Lornah, that little Kenyan girl is now 33 years old. She holds four world records. She has also established an academic foundation for other little girls in Kenya. They are trained in athletics but also in academics and personal development. Lornah is committed to putting an end to the enduring tradition of female subservience in Kenya and recognizes that her running has given her the opportunity to be that force for change.

Wait and See - A Blog to Myself

2008-03-05T23:36:00.003-06:00

To my many faithful reader(s).... ;-D

Some have noticed that the last month has been a "dry" one for my writing. I'm not dead, not yet. Life has thrown me some curves as well as caused me to re-evaluate a lot of my current situations. It has also brought me great joy in the midst of trial. I have become equipped with a circle of people who both support and depend on me. Through this time we are standing together to make each day a beautiful occurrence...with purpose, not just by chance.

I heard from several people wanting me to write something and I began to think about what I could write after so long that would be helpful. I signed into my blogger account and saw several unfinished blogs that I had started and never had the heart to hit "Publish Post". I was amazed at how many times fear of sounding 'stupid' had kept me from saying what was on my heart.

The one that I've included below is for me. I hope it helps you, but I wrote this one today for me. My recent situation is teasing and tempting me with the thoughts of "waiting" on things to happen. And although I believe that patience is a virtue, patience does not imply passivity. So, without further rambling...here is a Blog to myself. And what I pray will be the story of my life: something written a long ago, just now brought to fruition and purpose.

Thanks for the notes and emails. Your support is what keeps me going.

Adam

_____________________________________

I was just typing an email a few minutes ago to my sister-in-law. She and I had been carrying on a conversation through email, as most conversations do happen nowadays, and I hit a point where I was about to type the phrase "wait and see".

It's a common phrase. We use it as a command to impatient people as well as a personal mantra for when we, ourselves, are a little on edge. We believe it's a sound philosophy and support it with stress studies as well as religious belief systems.

As I finished typing it out, I was hit by a thought of remorse for saying that phrase.

Wait...and see.

Waiting implies passivity. We wait on our food to get to the table. As we make conversation with friends, we enjoy life sitting on our butts, firmly planted in the belief that someone else will come from the kitchen and deliver us exactly what we ordered. We wait on the bus. We sit on a bench and know that right on time, the driver will arrive to pick us up and take us to where we want to go.

I erased the 'wait' part and wrote a new word in...'work'.

I told my sister-in-law that I would "work and see" what happened. Working implies action, it says that even though I have no fear of what will happen, I'm not going to wait around for it to show up. I'm going to pursue what it is I desire and if I never find it, it won't be because the waiter went on break or the bus broke down.

I will no longer wait and see...I will continue to work and see. Not just belief in action, but belief as an action.

Oh, so smart...

2008-02-03T11:44:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning again at the crack of 11am. Too many late nights catch up with you quickly.

I turned on my TV and started watching the movie Patch Adams. It's the true story of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams and his trip through medical school. If you've not seen it, rent it...definitely worth watching.

At one point in the movie, Patch is questioned by a skeptical friend by asking, "You're never serious, are you?"

Patch looked away and you see a small, yet knowing smile creep up on his face as he responded, "No...I tried it for many years and it never worked."

After hearing Patch's admission, I was reminded of another one of my favorite movies. This one is a classic. It's called Harvey and it stars Jimmy Stewart. In the movie, Jimmy's character has an imaginary friend named Harvey...Harvey is a 6 foot tall rabbit. Jimmy's character however is the nicest and most well-respected man around, although his sister throughout the entire movie is trying to get him committed.

At one point in the movie, he turns to a man that's he's just met and he says, "In this world you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant. Well for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me."

For years I've tried to be smart...and I believe that at some points I'm still trying to be smart. I take myself SO seriously and let 'life' and its many stresses lay heavy on my mind and heart. Like Hunter, I let the problems of my past and the fact that I've lost direction at times drive me mad. You see, Hunter's story begins when, as a young man, he commits himself to a mental institution. It's in this place that he meets a man with a leaky coffee cup. As a token of just mere boredom more than a desire to change the world, Hunter puts a bandaide on the leak in the man's coffee cup. The man, delusional on his best days, becomes coherent for just a moment and looks Hunter in the eyes and says, "you fixed my cup, Patch". In that moment, both his nickname and his passion for people were born. He leaves the institution and goes to medical school.

I want to be more like Jimmy Stewart in Harvey. Devoid of intentions other than just wanting to live a pleasant life of hard work and caring for those that you meet day to day, he is unencumbered by pretense...unaffected by the stress that hustles around him down the street as he walks slowly, hands in his pocket, just enjoying the morning air.

I want to be pleasant...I want to not take myself so seriously. I love it when people laugh at me and call me a "goofball". It reminds me that the things in life don't make up one's life.

Smile a lot today. Laugh even more. Love most of all.

Quiet Desperation

2008-01-25T00:15:00.001-06:00

I joined my usual Thursday night group as we all straggled in from the cold. Laughing and removing layers of coats, one by one we found a spot around the ice chest table and made small talk as we fixed coffee or opened a beer.

After an hour of discussion closing our latest book, the topic turned to a question that seems to plague everyone...why do we quit?

One of the men there spoke of high school and his football team. He said that he would quit 2 or 3 times a season before finishing it out. He remarked, "I wanted to play the game, I just didn't want to practice...I didn't want the running and the working."

I wrote down his comment as I thought, "that's all of us."

We want the game, we want the glory of the lights and the fans...we just don't want to put in the practice time in the heat of the day with no one but critics looking on constantly yelling at our flaws. We don't want someone to train us...we just want to be trained. We quit sometimes because it's easier than admitting that we don't want the result if we have to go through the cost.

At the end of his story, I made a small remark and we were both reminded of Thoreau when he wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." We live out our lives in silent meaninglessness. Unable to attempt our dreams for fear of failure...we don't even quit...we opt out. Thoreau talked of how you have to leave the city and go into the country and live off the courage of muskrats for they are one of the many species of animal that lives without the fear that someone is borne into man from the dawn of civilization.

I had heard that quote many times and have liked it for some time. It wasn't until a few years ago that I went back and read the context of the verse and found an even more amazing quote.

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

As a high school student, I was told by someone that I would do great things. I kept that in the back of my mind. The entire time I laid my dreams and life dormant to support my family and to get by, I kept in the back of my mind the small flame that I was going to accomplish great things.

I think about how that candle burns in many people that resign themselves, as Thoreau described, to just killing time...too afraid to try.

We have a cure for cancer, we have the next Bach, the next Edison...they work next to you every day. They attend your schools. They sing next to you in the church choir. How did we think we could kill time without injuring eternity?

Please...attack the fear in your life and dare to follow your dream.

R.I.P. Heath...

2008-01-22T17:18:00.001-06:00

I'm sure the news is "old" by now. That's the curse of our messed up society. Heath Ledger is dead. Twenty-eight years old, found dead in an apartment.

I never met him, don't know much about him past a few movies I saw him in. I read he was nominated for an Academy Award...I didn't know that. So I'm not about to act like he and I were great friends and I respected him as an actor or anything...I just wanted to let you know that I mourn his death.

I mourn the death of anyone taken long before they should be. He left a two year old daughter behind...I didn't know that until a few minutes ago.

If he wouldn't have been a "star"...you nor I would know anything about this. But I still mourn the Heath's and the Wes Bonham's of this world...the one's we as a population of one world lose.

If I could reach Heath's family, I would send my condolences...my heart-felt pain that he's no longer here...but it has nothing to do with anything but the fact that a daughter lost her daddy today. She'll never walk down the aisle on his arm.

That, in itself, grieves me.

Baby Drew

2008-01-16T16:23:00.001-06:00

Well, I'm an uncle again. My brother and his wife welcomed baby Drew into the world on Monday. Congrats!

He's already looking ruggedly handsome, just like his Uncle Adam. :-D

"You never feel like it..."

2008-01-13T22:40:00.001-06:00

I've been struggling lately. Not with some huge addiction or trouble, but with the simple act of writing. I have no drive to write these days. I want to. I have the ideas. I just simply can't drag myself down to the keyboard to spend 15 minutes copying down the contents of my head.

I sat down before Christmas with a client of ours who is a noted songwriter and we were talking a little business intermixed with a lot of personal chit-chat. I like and respect this man a lot. He is one of the few clients we have that I don't want to personally strangle. HA!

He knows that I write a blog and has encouraged me before to continue writing. At this particular meeting we were talking about writing and I told him how hard it was for me to sit down and write anymore. He told me this:

"Everytime, it seems, that I sat down to write a song, I never felt like a songwriter. Talk to any of the great songwriters or authors and they'll tell you the same. You never feel like it. You always feel like you're not doing it right."

That's been my struggle. Every time I sit down to write, I hear that little voice in the back of my mind that screams out, "no one cares". It tries to remind me that I'm probably the only one who reads my blog. So I close my computer and swallow the idea I had down the depths of my mind to be forgotten right behind my long lost trumpet-playing skills.

Tonight, someone posted a comment on my blog (which I love by the way...writers love getting feedback...bad or good). A girl had "accidentally" stumbled onto my blog while googling a movie. She began to read and kept reading. She found a certain blog that had something in it for her. She was encouraged and she left me a little note to say "thanks". I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell her, but if/when she reads this (and you know who you are)...thank you.

Thank you because you gave me the encouragement I needed to keep doing what I do. Even when I don't feel like it.

I like when things work that way...it's the way it should work. It's a circle. The encouragement I have is not for me...it's for me to give to others...and the encouragement you have in you is not for you...it's for you to give out to others like me.

Love one another...and in doing so...fulfill the law.

13 Paradigm Shifts

2008-01-08T23:14:00.001-06:00

While working on a website for a friend of mine, I found myself looking Donald Miller's website (www.donaldmillerwords.com).

Miller is one of my favorite authors and speakers. His book Blue Like Jazz revolutionized the way I think about my faith and my relationship with God. I have many of his audio files downloaded and I was eyeing up a few of his video files when I found a downloadable pdf file called "13 Paradigm Shifts".

I do not know if they are original to him or not, but I wanted to give credit to Donald and his website for where these came from.

They are incredible:

Thirteen Paradigm Shifts we encountered doing Christian ministry in a pagan
environment...

1. Other People Exist: Simply coming to the understanding that the world does not
revolve around “me” but that everybody is having an experience, created by God,
loved by God, and that we needed to repent of showing partiality...

2. Nobody will listen to you unless they know you like them: We began to
understand that people, subconsciously, merit a religious or philosophical idea not
on logical conclusions, but on whether or not the idea creates a “good
person”...the definition of a good person being whether or not a person is kind to
them, tolerant and understanding, able to listen without arguing and so on.

3. Nobody will listen to God unless they know God loves them: We came to believe
there was usually a hidden pain behind hostility, that many people have been hurt
by the church, or people or perspectives they believed to represent God. Many
times its as simple as an interview they saw on CNN, but an apology and kindness
went a long way in helping people understand God was loving.

4. Other people have morality and values: We came to understand that Christians do
not own morality, that everybody lives by a moral code, not always informed by
an ancient text, and yet it is there. Calling people or even thinking of them as
immoral was, then, inappropriate. In fact, we often found that people who did not
know Christ lived a morality close to his heart in many areas we had ignored, ie;
community, tolerance, social justice, fairness and equality, freedom, beauty and
so on and so on.

5. Find common ground: Often the morality of others overlapped Christian morality,
and we came to understand that in these cases, we would focus on the overlapping
issues. We came to see this as kindness, just as though we were on a date or
making friends, we did not focus on what we didn’t have in common, but rather
on mutual feelings about life. We would not say or do anything to combat people
unless they knew we loved them, and this takes a great deal of time.

6. Define terms in their language: We were careful about Christian sayings and
phrases that might be offensive: Crusade, sin, immorality....we came to
understand that concepts were more sacred than terms...

7. Telling somebody about the gospel is about them, not us: We were careful not to
try to “build our organization” and respected peoples freedom and space. Sharing
the gospel became an exercise in friendship, rather than an attempt to grow a
machine. Often, people feel used if they feel they are being recruited. The gospel,
we learned, is really about them, their feelings about God and truth, about sin,
about life

8. Don’t let spreading the gospel feel any different than telling somebody about a
love in your life, about your children or a great memory: We realized that in
telling somebody about Jesus, we were telling them about somebody we have
come to love and need, and about something that had happened to us, an
encounter. This keeps us from sounding preachy, and allows us to share part of
ourselves in a friendship.

9. Include lost People in Your Community: Our organization was not exclusive. We
invited non-believers into the community if they wanted to be invited. We were
careful not to not be ourselves with them, but they were certainly invited and
enjoyed being a part of the group. We explained terms that we used, what we
believed, but other than that, continued as normal.

10. Apologize for what you represent: We discovered that many people have been
offended or hurt by what they perceive Christianity to be. We allowed ourselves
to stand in the place of “Christianity” and apologize whenever necessary.

11. Be authentic: We discovered the need to be as honest about our lives as possible.
We did not feel the need to sale Jesus, as much as share what He has done in our
broken lives. We had no problem sharing our doubts and fears about faith, along
with our commitment and appreciation for what God had done.

12. Pray for the Salvation of others: We discovered the need to pray for others. This
would insure God was working in peoples lives, as we asked Him to. We
discovered the work of evangelism is something God lets us watch, but very little
of it is what we manipulate. We repented of not believing evangelism was a
spiritual exchange between a lost person and God, rather than believing it was a
series of ideas we were supposed to convince others of.

13. Ask people if they would like to know Christ: We decided to initiate, whenever
the relationship called for it. We were not afraid to ask people if they would like
to know God.

Ask yourself how many of these you do and how many you fail at doing. Speaking from experience, I've seen these shifts time and time again in dealing with people, but never have I ever seen them written down.

I just needed to share them. :-D

Hope

2007-12-25T00:32:00.000-06:00

There's a fire cracklin in the wall behind me. The Christmas tree beside it lit with soft glow, stuffed at the base with presents wrapped in deep greens and reds. A warm puppy curls up on my lap...I feel him breathing in and out.

I watch my brother's cat slowly stalk in the shadows. He's unsure of the little dog so he stays a distance away, just out of the firelight. I can only see his eyes shining by reflection.

It's Christmas...after midnight. And it is silent here. Tucked out in the woods, I've stepped off my back porch to feel the cold against my face. No snow...just cold. I can see my breath escape my body as I exhale in a deep sigh. I've written it before, but why do the coldest nights always seem the clearest? Every star ever created is in full brilliance...how am I supposed to find the one to follow?

I feel...and yet I feel nothing. I try to look back on the year...2007. It seems like it took a lifetime to end. Financially, career, church, family...they all seem the same...like I've accomplished nothing but I feel like I've lived another life. In 31,536,000 seconds I wonder if I'll be in this same place...walking down a dark gravel road trying to find the North Star?

I don't know what you believe...or even if you believe in anything at all...but this season is about hope. To a Christian, the world was dark and cold. It was inhabited by the broken and the sick...everyone was in need. And hope came in the form of a baby.

For everyone, I want to believe, we can consider the end of the year as a time of hope. A time where we can look back on the mistakes of the year as lessons to improve upon. A time where we can see the triumphs and trophies and put them in frames on mantles. A time where we can try to heal the hurt, give life to love, and forget the faults of ourselves and others.

Every new day is a beginning, but there is something comforting to me about a whole year drawing to an end. Like the thick, white blanket of snow that I hope covers your yard as you read this...it's a blank canvas. A washing away of everything that we held dear in the past year. It forces us to relinquish our "control" and to work hard to gain the things that matter most.

My Christmas wish for you is that in 2008 you become a person of thought, love, and integrity. I pray that this year you will ask yourself the tough questions in the mirror...that you won't settle for "status quo".

Let hope guide your thoughts, love guard your heart, and your needs always be second to those of everyone else's. It's only in this that we truly can receive everything we would ever want or need.

To my family and friends - I love you...more than life itself. There is nothing for me here if not for each and every one of you and how you enrich my every day with purpose, purposeful pain, and pleasure for no other purpose. You are my life blood.

To those who might stumble on this page that I've not met - have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and good luck in 2008. It will be what you make of it.

To quote an old addage: "Here's to the new year...may it be better than the last"

God Bless,

Adam

Teach me to love like that...

2007-12-12T23:23:00.000-06:00

What a week.

Sunday I found myself sitting in the break room of a nursing home in Antioch, TN. Clay stood at the head of the room playing his guitar, crooning the listeners with some James Taylor. The forgotten...

They sat quietly, some were smiling, one lady was crying because she was afraid. One little woman was confined to a wheelchair and spoke only Spanish. She looked at me with pleading eyes and tried to convince me of her sincerity with a statement that I couldn't understand. At the end of each song, those that physically could would clap. Others sat stoically...glazed over eyes seemed to mask the once brilliant fires that burned in their youth. One man, being wheeled out of the room, locked me in a gaze and turned a stroke-ridden half smile onto his face as if to tell me, "I too was young once...I lived once too."

The workers handed out stuffed animals to the men and women...something soft for them to hold. I soon forgot that Clay was playing as I watched a woman tenderly hold this bear up to her face. With arthritic fingers she smoothed the ruffled hair on the bears face and head. Her whole arm seemed to shake uncontrollably as she tried in vane to pick a piece of white fuzz like a blemish on the otherwise brown landscape of his stomach. Giving up she just looked at the bear and smiled...almost as if he were smiling back.

The week seemed to drag by as I tried to understand why we tuck our loved ones into run-down buildings at the end of cul-de-sacs in poor neighborhoods when they seem to bothersome to deal with.

My friend Scott found out yesterday that a guy he went to high school with was murdered a few days ago. While doing a good deed for another man...this 28 year old was stabbed to death. In an article about the story, the young man's father said, "I don't know where to begin in telling everyone...I guess I need to find his cell phone so I can tell his friends...I just don't understand."

No father should ever have to bury his son.

In a movie called I'm Not Rappaport, an elderly character says, "...the problem is not that life is too short...but in fact, life is too long."

Life is too long sometimes. It's going to be too long for the men and women in that nursing home. It's going to be too long for a father who will bury his son later this week. It seems too long to have to live with a life of not only our mistakes but the mistakes of others imposed upon us.

Andy Gullahorn has a song called "That Guy". I would encourage everyone to get on iTunes and buy it. 99 cents. The song talks about "that guy" and how God loves them...and how we overlook them...constantly.

...me on the otherhand I can write somebody off

like the last check for a student loan.

I can love when it's convenient

but it's not always convenient, it's not always the easy road.

Teach me to love, teach me to love like that.

The song ends with the writer talking of another person that God loves that we sometimes don't:

...he messed up again, wanted to disappear

but he can't cause he's easy to find

...I see him in the mirror.

God loves 'that guy'.

So teach me to love, teach me to love,

...teach me to love like that.

Teach me to love like that. Teach me to love myself. Teach me to love the murderers...teach me to love the forgotten. Teach me to love before you teach me to read, before you teach me to walk...before I understand anything else, teach me to love.

Carolina in my mind...

2007-11-27T22:30:00.000-06:00

It's always odd to me that it seems to be the coldest nights that are the clearest. The chill in the air seems to drive clouds away and allows the stars to really burn brightly. Sadly, most of them are just airplanes in flight...city skies...even the stars are fake. How can you wish on a star if they're all moving?

I'm listening to James Taylor pick out "Carolina In My Mind" softly behind me.

Dark and silent late last night

I think I might have heard the highway calling

A lot of times I've talked and written about being grateful for the place your in...not just physically where you sit now, but emotionally, financially, metaphorically...just be grateful for the time you have. Yet tonight I feel like a hypocrite as I listen to Taylor wet my appetite for a place I've never been.

As much as he speaks of Carolina as a real place, the place of his childhood, I have to believe that he writes too of a place of innocence. A place of childhood games, afternoon naps, pumpkin patches and puppy dogs. Where people still chase fireflies and sit out at night to watch the stars. Where loved ones are still alive and old friends never move away.

With a holy host of others standing 'round me

Still I'm on the dark side of the moon

And it seems like it goes on like this forever

You must forgive me

If I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind...

Surrounded by a beautiful and loving group of people in my life right now, in the place I'm at right now...I'm right there with you James...I'm still going to Carolina in my mind.

Visit www.jamestaylor.com to purchase CDs and DVDs by James Taylor. Go ahead, expand your music collection past Fall Out Boy and Timbaland...I dare ya.

Restoration

2007-11-25T22:02:00.000-06:00

Restoration…I think of an old house. Probably a kickback from my days as a builder, but I can’t help but see an old house, long past its prime, sitting on an overgrown lot. You can look at it and tell it was something beautiful in its younger years. The attention to detail that a master craftsman had put into building every corner, every room, every window.

The problem was not the craftsman. He did his job. He built a beautiful structure, strong and majestic. He designed it carefully to his plan, pouring his life, sweat, blood, and passion into making something with his hands. The problem was with the one he entrusted it to. The owner. After years of misuse, the once lovely home is now sagging. It’s roof shows holes, it’s siding is busted up and missing in places. The windows are cracked and broken. Time, another culprit, has caused wear and tear to show on its face. The family that once lived, laughed, and loved in this house has abandoned it to the ravages of nature…to fend for itself.

I pass by such a house every day on my way to work. My Dad jokes about buying it and fixing it up…just so he could live down the road from me.

The house is lot like me…a lot like all of us. The Master Craftsman put His life and His love into us. Then we moved in. We misuse and abuse our lives…living them selfishly…satisfying our carnal desires and our desire to advance our own needs and wants. Time passes as we wear down…”life” does its number on us as those random things that just happen in life come into our homes. Things like death of those we love, lost love, lost jobs, homes, friends…accidents and hurts. Pretty soon we’re beat up and beat down. We look like that house.

…I looked like that house. It was almost 2 years ago now that my wife first left me. During that transition, her father, a man I respected, spoke his final words to me. They were biting…full of hurt and anger. I understood, considering the situation we were all in…he was protecting his daughter. With the line drawn in the sand, he stood by his daughter… like a good Dad should.

But losing him, her, all of that family, left a pain in my heart that nothing seemed to ease. I saw him a few random times over the last few years. He still goes to church with my family. It’s odd sometimes…being 20 feet from this man that you used to call “Dad” and have him not speak to you…not even look at you.

This last Sunday I stood awkwardly at the front of the small church I grew up in, right behind my Dad as I silently prayed for him. I felt a hand reach up and touch my shoulder, then tightly grip it and begin to wrap me in a hug. Growing up in the church since age 5 I knew most of the people there and they all love and miss me. So I thought nothing of it and turned to hug whoever it was that was going to hug me.

…it was him. He had a few tears in his eyes as he gripped me in a powerful hug and whispered to me, calling me “son”. I didn’t know what to say…I stood there as the tears began to stream down my cheeks, burning hot as they came.

As quickly as the hug and the kind words came, he pulled away and walked down the front of the church to pray with one of his other daughters. I stood there, 6’1” of “man” and began to sob. I gripped my face tightly in my hands not only to hide the shame I was feeling…but really to hide the pain I was letting go of.

A beautiful woman I have known for years as a counselor, walked up to me, understanding the significance of what just happened, and wrapped me up in her arms and just held me.

After making it back to my seat, I sat the rest of the service staring over at him. He sat in a row by his family, all there for the holidays…just as I sat by my mother. After the service let out, he slipped out quietly and I followed him into the foyer. I grabbed his back shoulder and he turned around.

For a second we stood eye to eye and I had no words…all I could say, in a cracked and hushed voice was, “…thank you.”

He nodded knowingly, and told me in his Boston accent, “…you take care of yourself, now…ya hear me?” I nodded and he turned and walked out the door.

In that moment…I felt the paint on the broken house of my heart start to brighten. The roof began to close up its holes and the cracks in the windows seemed to fill.

Restoration…to repair, restore, re-establish…to give back something previously stolen.

Advice from the Devil...

2007-11-18T12:18:00.000-06:00

I just got done watching two different movies at once...funny right? The ability to change channels at the touch of a button and watch two different features while the other one is on commercial.

The Devil's Advocate and In Too Deep...Pacino stars in Advocate as a charismatic lawyer who is actually Satan himself in the flesh. LL Cool J plays a drug lord in Too Deep who calls himself "God" as he rules the inner city through his ability to supply drugs to the people.

In the climax of Advocate, Pacino reveals his true identity to his protege and asks him to help him conceive the AntiChrist. His pupil looks at him as if he's just now realizing the game...and smiles while he says, "...and you need me to volunteer to do this." Pacino, flashes a knowing and sinister grin and retorts with a shrug, "Free will...it's a bitch."

"God" drove through the streets he "owned" and commented to his lackey, "...look at these people...you know why they love me?" After the oblivious henchman shrugged, "God" continued, "...because when you're down and out...when you're at the end...you look for something to believe in...and here I am."

God and the Devil...two powerful characters in the cinema that was my bedroom early this morning. Two powerful beings in the cinema of our lives. Each one with their own agenda.

I'm tired. I got up after the movies and took a shower. I don't remember how long I was in there but I let the water run over me for so long that the hot water went away. I kept turning it on hotter and hotter, hoping that the scalding water would be able to somehow clean my soul and my mind the way it cleaned my body...thoroughly through pain.

I'm just tired...I'm tired of being a pawn in this battle that rages on another level that I can't see. I'm tired of questioning of whether there is something out there greater than myself...but I can't just believe it blindly. I'm tired of begging for the next hit of this drug called happiness that seems to be controlled by one being. I'm tired of being offered anything and everything I could ever want to have in this world, only to find it more hollow as the next. It seems that neither end of the spectrum is right.

The one thing I believe in...was that there was once a perfect situation...there was once heaven on earth for me. It's the only "truth" I have ever known and my life has been divided into two periods...before this time and after this time. Before this time, I was ignorant of what could be...and now after this time, I wish I could be ignorant of what could have been. I wish I could not remember.

Rain...I wish I could I forget the rain...and everything it meant...

Tony Lane is a songwriter...a crazy good songwriter...there are only a few of them still around. I am blessed to be friends with one. He wrote this...right now it's the most fitting song I can think that comes to mind:

Baby, what do you say when love comes down on you

Rainin' the blues on you

Like it's never gonna end on you

And all your dreams like leaves in the gutter go floatin' by

No, baby, I don't know why all God's children cry

I'll miss your skin, as golden as your wheatfield hair

And where you go I hope you find out there

A better rain

The kind that comes in off the coast and paints the sky

And lets you know that God's alive

A better rain

That'll wash me from your eyes so you can smile again

And be all right again

In a better rain

Someday is gonna find you in a sweeter place

Long after time has erased

All the words like razor blades

You'll remember you and me before the flood

Once upon a time in love, a beautiful 'us'

I can see you on some stretch of sand

Spinin' round in circles barefoot dancin' in

A better rain

That'll leave behind a rainbow in the sky

Lets you know that God's alive

A better rain

That'll wash me from your eyes so you can smile again

And be all right again

In a better rain