another river

I couldn’t get any of the David Wilcox videos to play on YouTube this morning.

There was blockage.

Maybe it was the universe telling me to “lighten up”….I was going to use a song of his that talked about spirituality and the church….and our relationship to God….and to each other…and….

And….maybe it’s better that I couldn’t make it work.

Sometimes I need some kind of intervention. I’ll force it all if I have to….make something that may not be right in the moment work if I want it to.

I will force the universe’s hand if I think I can get away with it.

Anyway, the heavy and deep videos wouldn’t work….so I decided to use a lighter video.

Just kidding.

This is one of the most beautiful and heavy songs that I know.

And this is a beautiful interpretation.

One guitar….and one good voice….some class….what a great version.

Sometimes I reach for some kind of understanding….that doesn’t completely come…ever.

So I dance around deepness….all the vocabulary and posturing that I think might get me somewhere….trying to understand….working too hard at figuring something out.

But when I stop and just let all the simple things just “be”….I think that I get a lot closer to understanding things.

Maybe it’s not “what you know”….it’s what people “think you know” that matters. Maybe that’s what gets you through.

Knocking on an open door forever doesn’t get you into the next room.

This song, “River”…how many times have I listened to this song?

How often have I supported my own melancholy with this song?

Hard to say….but it’s not hard to say that it’s a great song….and one of my favorites.

I don’t know Liz Longley’s music.

Until I couldn’t get David Wilcox’s videos to play, I’d never heard of her.

Hooray for technology problems.

Don’t Get Tired

tired

I get up at 5 in the morning and fall asleep on the couch at 9 at night.

What do I do to get so tired?

Maybe it’s just a matter of getting “relaxed”?

When the day is pulling to a close….and the kids are in bed….and the television show is a rerun or kind of boring….I guess that it makes sense that I’d be getting kind of tired.

I’d be relaxin’.

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land poor

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Poking around the internet this morning, I came upon this quote from the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. This was in response to the question “what surprises you most about humanity?”

“Man.
 Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
 Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
 And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
 the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
 he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

I found the quote on a website called ouropenroad.com .

I guess that you do what you think you have to do.

You do what everybody else does.

Right? Continue reading

The Best Genie

aladdin

I like Joel Osteen.

I think that he’s a great motivational speaker.

It’s inspiring to listen to him.

And there’s just enough “God Talk” to make me feel good about it all the time.

It’s a good veneer of spirituality.

It’s just enough.

He just launched a channel on Sirius that I listened to for the first two days of its operation. It’s (so far) a collection of his past sermons and some studio interviews, call in comments from celebrities, and a constant celebration of the ministry.

I guess that it should be a celebration of the ministry….a Sirius channel is a big deal. It’s a chance to reach a lot of people with your message.

I love a good positive message….and this channel is full of them.

But, listening to it, I started to think that maybe there was something a little screwy about it all.

I thought that it seemed like these people were looking for the best genie….that they’d been led to believe that if they thought of God in a certain way, that God’s blessings would pour down on them and their worries would be over.

Now, I believe that we are constantly blessed in ways that we miss all the time.

We are BLESSED….you have to write that with some emphasis….highlighted and bold.

It’s a given…it’s a truth….it’s constant.

We’re blessed.

But it’s not because of something we do….some good trick….some alliance with the right guru who can stand on a stage somewhere and hold up a “blessed” and a “cursed” hand and encourage everyone to move under the “blessed” umbrella by changing their attitudes about tithing.

There’s probably a lot more to it than that….but….

God is not the fulcrum that you use to manipulate.

God is not a good “genie”.

He doesn’t give us things because we rubbed the lamp in the right way.

He gives us more than we need because He loves us.

It’s not what we do….it’s who He is.

I have friends who probably stopped reading right about now…..”Oh, GOD….more GOD TALK!!!! Goddddd…..”

I don’t understand God any better than most folks who aren’t standing on a stage.

I believe that I am loved.

Most times, that’s enough for me.

The Bible leaves just enough room for tweaking that people can get away with a lot in the “name of God”.

The Hare Krishnas that I met at the airport were pretty open to a lot of things.

I guess that I still like Joel Osteen…but his ministry has me a little curious about what’s really going on out at Lakewood.

I don’t need to hear a bunch of celebrities call in with their congratulations to think a ministry has validity.

“Big” isn’t a measure of success…not when it comes to things of the spirit.

I guess that it’s all about gratitude….and appreciation, anyway.

You find what you can see.

I guess that I like Joel Osteen….but I know that God is not my genie.

I just don’t think that it works like that.

“Psalm 61” Matthew Ward

the fish

big carp

Someone on my mail route said, “Buy the biggest ones you can buy….the birds eat all the little ones.”

When I called the lady at the fish company, I said “I need some triploid grass carp….about 4 of them….but someone said to buy the biggest ones I could get because the birds eat them. How big are the fish you sell?”

“They’re 6 to 11 inches. How many did you say that you wanted?”

“I think that I want 4….how much are they?”

“Let me check my book…..the triploid carp are fifteen dollars each…”

“I better stop at 4!”

She laughed when I said that. I guess you had to be there.

That was the funniest part of our conversation. Continue reading

Marky Mark’s House

Jenny says that he doesn’t like to be called “Marky Mark”.

As if he called her up and asked her, “Hey…could you ask Peter to quit calling me ‘Marky Mark’? That was a long time ago…..I go by ‘Mark Wahlberg’ now…..”

As if he called her and told her that….

He didn’t call her, did he?!!

I don’t know….maybe it’s my semi-aggressive way of putting him in his place….he’s a pretty good-looking guy….got big arms….a good personality.

Maybe a sneering, “Oh, yeah….MARKY MARK!! I know who he is!!!” makes me feel better about her knowing who he is…..

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my newest, latest, most fresh and vibrant, everlasting and omnipresent….fear.

Rescue-Bots-FF1_2_2_21-e1349989908987-930x375

I don’t know much about ebola.

It’s not something that touches my life at this point.

I could say, “I don’t have a dime in it” and just move on….ignore it and remain oblivious….if I wasn’t watching the news and didn’t take the threat seriously.

But….from what I understand, it’s moving….slowly and surely…moving, moving, moving….coming across the oceans…coming for me.

This morning we’re watching RescueBots.

So far, they haven’t mentioned the danger of contracting ebola.

Continue reading

lifting the needle

buckingham nicks

There were two reasons to lift the needle back when we listened to vinyl.

The first reason was to get beyond a song that you hated.

You couldn’t just hit a button and jump forward….you had to physically jump over the grooves to escape a lame song.

We listened to a lot of lame songs back in the day.

Who wanted to get up all the time to escape a bad tune? Continue reading