Todays desk doodle

I've got this !!

Am I bragging? Nope, not at all. I'm not even talking about me. So, you ask, who's got what? I'm glad you asked. You can easily find out more HERE.

Just know that "I've got this!!" is huge.

Todays desk doodle

Behavior Spectrum

Is it just me? Doesn’t it seem as though the opposite ends of the decency spectrum are much more pronounced recently than they have been in the past? I’ve been thinking that this Covid-19 scare has brought out both the worst and the best of folks in much more visible ways than we are used to seeing.

On the one hand I’m hearing of and seeing what are some fantastic acts of kindness, often random in nature. There seems to be a greater abundance of them, and they involve more of someone(s) going out of their way to help someone(s) out. They also seem more along the lines of selfless acts, whereby no payback or acknowledgement is wanted or necessary. I could perhaps sum it up by simply saying bigger, more heart driven, often sacrificial acts of kindness are being done for more people.

On the other side of the spectrum it’s completely different. I’m seeing much more visual (and often verbal) evidence of poor behavior or behavior choices toward mankind. We saw it in the grocery stores in the panic buying. “Hey, I’m getting mine, screw you” type attitudes on stupid stuff like toilet paper. Hoarding! That and Purell and like products. There was clearly lots of evidence of this distasteful behavior on the part of some folks with their “screw you” attitudes…not just in buying, but in their disregard for the safety and welfare of others—particularly those more at risk.

Perhaps it takes something like the coronavirus to clearly distinguish between beauty and the beast., between ugly and beautiful, between obnoxious and kind, between disregard for fellow man and empathy for them. Is their hope for those on the wrong side of the spectrum.

Ah, human nature. A fascinating study.

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Out of alignment?

Sometimes all it takes is a short daily devotional. “To what?”, you ask. Allow me to answer a question with an unusual question. What happens when your car is out of alignment? Several things, starting with a steering issue—the car wants to pull one way or the other. Then there is the matter of the tires wearing unevenly. Essentially it becomes a control issue with the car.

So, back to your original question. Don’t people get out of alignment, perhaps even you? You know, just a bit off kilter—like when your head and heart aren’t quite in sync? When you feel as if you are being pulled and tugged away from what you know to be right, when you feel the tentacles of temptation pressing in…when you sense you are somewhat out of control.

What brings you back to the straight and narrow, that path not always the most easily trodden? Better yet, what helps keep you there? Yes, you may go to church. Is it once a week? Yes, you may be in a small group that meets. Is that once a week, or maybe every other week. Yes, you may read scripture. Is it mostly out of obligation, or do you really get into the Word? Yes, you perhaps associate only with like believers. How does that test your ability/desire to witness? I thought so. A short daily devotional can help you on your path in multiple ways; it is daily; it will usually have a life application aspect in each article, one that jives with the scripture cited; it will thus be typically relevant to you.

Short daily devotions do not have to be in printed/book form to accomplish their purpose. You are reading one of sorts now—an electronic version. Websites and blogs for the Christian abound and are readily available. Let your fingers do the walking!

HERE's a good start.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Egg-zactly !

Oil and water don’t mix, or so we’re told. If you’ve washed greasy dishes or pots in a sink, you’ve most likely seen the oily schmutz that floats on the dishwater.  Until, that is, you put the emulsifier in. That would be the soap, which emulsifies the solutions, so they work together for the common good—clean dishes and pots.

Mayonnaise, which has been around since the mid-1700s, is mayo only because of an emulsifier, one of the unlikeliest of sources—egg yolk. You see, it is the lowly egg yolk that allows the water and oil in the mixture of the batch of goo which will ultimately become mayo to work together, to join despite their opposing natures. Egg-zactly. Now you know.

You may now be asking yourself “what has this got to do with me?” I will share—it has everything to do with you. Unless, that is, you are a hermit, stranded on an island thousands of miles away, alone. Here’s the deal. Humans are made for relationship and community with each other. That’s how God made us and wired us. He also made each of us different, and it’s not uncommon at all for those differences to be like oil and water. It happens in relationships, marriages, group settings, churches, you name it. It happens because it is natural to mankind. Just as God designed it. But here’s the kicker. God has also given each of us an emulsifier, THE emulsifier—the Holy Spirit within us when we believe. It is the Holy Spirit which emulsifies our differences so that we can work together for His glory. I bet you never thought of the Holy Spirit as an egg yolk did you?

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Monkeys throw poop

If you have ever taken your young children to the zoo, you’ll know exactly where I am going with this. Kids always love to go see the monkeys. One only needs to refuse to go to that area of the zoo with the kids to get to observe ugliness you never imagined possible in your kid. Hey, monkeys are fun to watch. They are always busy doing something, they are typically active and entertaining. But, and yes, it’s a big but, one must be prepared to see spontaneous acts of off-limits behavior (well, certainly for humans that is) like picking their butts and masturbating. If that’s not bad enough, they also throw poop. Their own poop. And any other monkey’s poop. And while they are no Sandy Koufax’s, they nonetheless can toss some rather good fast balls, er, fast poops.

While listening to a Christian radio station this morning, I was enjoying the topic of conversation—fear and overcoming it. As you might imagine, the call-ins were robust. There was story after story of fear that folks faced, what it did to them, and how they overcame it. It was a great biblically based couple of hours on the topic.

Toward the end, the host shared one of his stories about himself in his younger days when in college. The long and short of it was that he was all but paralyzed with fear on an on-going basis and couldn’t seem to shake it. He ultimately met with a campus Christian psychologist. He shared that after he addressed his concerns with the gentleman, the psychologist looked at him, pausing for a moment, and then shared three words with him as his response; “Monkeys throw poop”. That was golden! That was sage advice.

You see, in truth, throughout our lives we will be pooped on, and most often we never see it coming—just as when we are visiting the monkey cages at the zoo. We need to know that it will happen, that we can expect it to happen, and that we can get messed up by it. That’s simply life. We can thank that first couple in Eden for that. But throughout the Bible we are told repeatedly, 365 times to be exact, that “I am always with you” (including other similar wordings). God is always with us. And when the monkey throws poop we have the choice of either fearing, or having faith in that God who is always with us.

Don't toss the trash

I’m not into genealogy—it’s not my thing. But I’ve engaged in conversations with enough folks who are really into it to sense that most likely all our family trees could be called nut trees. There always seems to be, somewhere in the lineage, at least one crazy one, and undesirable or two, maybe a criminal, or any number of jaded, twisted or wicked folks should one go back far enough. In some cases, they are the relative that no one wants to acknowledge or talk about. Some might say that they are the family trash. Can you relate? I sure can. I have an uncle, who all I know him by is Uncle Bill, who I never, ever, learned anything about, because no one talked about him at all. Period. He was simply a name in the family line. That’s it. I’ve often wondered why, and I’ve always been under the impression that he was the family “trash”, but I have never known.

If you have read the first chapter of Matthew, perhaps you found it to be, well, rather boring. It’s genealogy at it’s finest. It offers to the reader, the full lineage of Jesus, name by (in some cases) unpronounceable name. And, you know what?  If you were to do a bit of study on the lineage you will find that it isn’t pretty, just like our family trees. In fact, it’s quite ugly. There’s some real trash in there by today’s standards, which, in my humble opinion, would have made them very, very undesirable folks back in those times. There were adulterers, a murderer, prostitutes, an outcast, and an idolater. Since this isn’t a Bible Study piece, I will leave the exploration up to you, but know this—there were no less nuts and undesirables (trash) in Jesus’s family tree than there is in any of ours, and perhaps more.

I think the point Matthew was making (excuse me, the Holy Spirit through Matthew) was two-fold:  1) God always has a plan, and He never fails to execute it, and 2) God’s plan involves everyone, those who we might label trash, and those we wouldn’t. Matthew didn’t toss out the trash in his narrative for just that reason. We shouldn’t toss out the trash for the same reason.

Todays desk doodle

A big job!

Adam, of Genesis fame (no, not the band—the Bible) had a big job. Were you aware of that? He was tasked with naming all the animals that God had created. I can almost visualize how that went. I picture Adam sitting naked on a rock there in the Garden, perhaps in the shade of a luscious tree, surrounded by the most beautiful flowers ever seen gracing the banks of a casually flowing stream of crystal-clear water. The scene brings a smile to my face as I try to envision how he may have come up with such names as elephants, hippopotamuses, and gnus. Or perhaps why he didn’t name those striped animals striped horses instead of zebras. But none of that is the point, which was—he had a big job to name all of the animals, which included birds and fish and every living thing. Wow! I wonder how any of us might have handled that job.

The truth is, we all have big jobs, jobs that were not only given to us by God, but jobs which God commanded us to do, probably just as He did in assigning Adam his job. Frankly, I can’t see God saying to Adam, “Hey Adam, can you please do me a favor and name all the animals?” I’m sure there were no caveats such as “when you get time” or “if you’d like to.” He hasn’t done that with the jobs He has assigned to us either.

Here’s the deal. The big job God has assigned to us is, in my opinion, far easier than Adam’s big job, and yet we fail miserably in doing it. He’s given us all the tools necessary to do it, and yet we don’t use them. Our simple, yet huge job, is to love God, and love others. No more, no less—and yet we find excuse after excuse not to do it. Do we really have it that bad that we wont just do our job?

I almost shudder to think what might have been if Adam hadn’t done his job and done it right. Would we now have giraffes as house pets? As regards our big jobs, I’m inclined to think Adam did much better than we are doing, sad to say.

Todays desk doodle

It's in the publishers hands

Dog Walk Talk: while I'm walking, God's talking

The manuscript and all necessary materials were submitted to the publisher yesterday evening. Now the wait begins as the production phase kicks in. Hopefully we will still see it launch at the end of this month, but there is a slight possibility that it may not due to some delays in getting a few things necessary for the submission process. 

At any rate, the book is inching ever closer to becoming a reality. It's exciting to know that a process that started in October of 2018 is coming to fruition.

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Is your kid worth $300K a year?

So the question is....is your child worth $300,000.00 a year? He or she is to human traffickers. Were you aware of that? Did you think that the trafficking victims are simply victims so that the perpetrators can have unrestricted sex with them? Sure, that is a horrible thought. But, it's not the reason for the industry (yes, it IS an industry--a dark one) to exist. It is ALL about the money. Each victim is worth an estimated $300,000.00 per year to the perpetrator because they sell the victims out for sex, and when the victims get worn out, they are sold as property.

So many folks act like they have blinders on when it comes to this problem, and yes, it is a problem. A huge problem, because it revolves around a crap ton of money! So many folks act like they ignore the problem because it hasn't affected them or anyone they know, or they think that it can't happen in their sanitary little suburban communities. Well, it does happen, and it is happening--because it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. Read about it HERE, and please wake up!

Route 66

A true piece of nostalgia is anything Route 66 to many people. It’s an iconic piece of American history. Thousands, and perhaps millions, of stories revolve around some aspect of that cross-country route of days long gone by. To me, from days when I was much younger, it provokes memories of purity and simplicity. In those days when I was on and around Route 66, my life was simpler, and much purer. At the time I certainly didn’t think so, but now I can grasp retrospectively that indeed that was the case. There is a catch to that thinking, however. The simplicity and purity of those days is the same in todays time, and it is available should we choose to grab it.

I’m not one to live in the past, though I know many who are and seem content in doing so. Living in the now simply allows me to be more aware of where I am at (inside) in the present. The present that I long for and strive for most consistently is that present when heart and my mind are in sync with each other. That is when my soul reminds me with its loudest affirmation “it is well, it is well in your soul”. I sincerely think that most of us humans are like that. We seem to innately have that desire hardwired in our DNA. God saw to that in His infinite wisdom.

When I am clear about where I am in this present moment, when my heart and head are in sync with each other, when my soul is reminding me that “it is well”, I am experiencing that same simplicity and purity of days gone past. I’m simply on my now Route 66.

You can as well.

Todays desk doodle