The Smells of Joy

Been a couple of weeks since I have done my blog but have a few minutes to pull my thoughts together on this holiday.  Much has happened in my life since I last wrote but today, as my wife begins the cooking process for our family meal tomorrow, I am impressed with the wonderful smells of Thanksgiving.  I love the food we will be blessed to experience tomorrow but this day with grand kids running in all directions bringing in snow from outside after rolling in it, NO I NEVER DID THAT, having quality time with our children and their spouses in a warm home, I found myself just breathing more lightly, smelling the coffee, listening to the conversations and smiling about how great life really is!  Then to be manicured, pedicured, back scratched and a new hair do by my three grand daughters, well, you get my point!

 

Now that the herd has departed for Thanksgiving meals with the spouses' families, Alicia is now underway cooking for our family meal tomorrow. I love the smells of Thanksgiving that are almost as satisfying to me as the food itself; well, sort of!  But what I love more than any of it are the experiences of this life that may be very good or perhaps not very good but resolve in greatness. Wow, doesn't that feel great when that happens? ANSWER: YES!

 

I was greatly pleased to work two jail services yesterday with my great friend, Pastor Neal Wheeler, in which we were about to bring church to roughly sixty men. The presence of the Lord was so evident and it was a pleasing aroma to know hearts had been touched and, prayerfully, that lives will be changed due to the experience those men had in song, in word and in prayer.  The smell of coffee inside the chapel seemed especially lifting in retrospect.

 

Last week while at The Cove of The Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, NC. the smells of Fall wafted through the beautiful woods. The food, which was amazing, was part of the whole worship experience I believe but for me the food tasted even better with the beautiful contact with the people that served us at The Cove.  All were gentle, helpful, kind, funny and efficient plus that light North Carolina accent made the aroma of the whole experience even more of a blessing. 

 

So I have found joy in the woods of North Carolina, in the jail, in a beautiful Thanksgiving Eve service at my church last night and in my own home just in one week; wow, my smeller is overwhelmed but it is tempered with a deep sense of love for a God that provided all of this.  So on this day, take a deep breath, inhale the blessings all around you with family, friends and make it a point to call, text, email, smoke signal or scream loudly to someone that has made a difference in your life with their special fragrance!

 

For those of you that read this, please know how much I appreciate you and your touch on my life in word, comment, encouragement, and caring. Yep, feeling pretty blessed as I ready for my next major league inhale of some great smelling labor from the hands of my wife for I know she does it with her heart for our family; all smelling pretty good!

Kiwi --- Life is Good!

Many of you will know exactly what I mean by the title of today's blog for if you have been in the military, we know the aroma of Kiwi.  When I attended Officer Candidate School, the Alabama Military Academy in 1973-1974, I had two pair of Corcoran jump boots.  I did basic training at Fort Bragg, NC in 1970 which was home of the Airborne so loved seeing those guys in their dress greens and bloused pants with highly spit shined jump boots.  From that experience I worked very hard to learn the art of spit shining.  I love highly shined shoes but it requires work and focus.

 

Those two pair of boots had no telling how many thousand coats of black Kiwi. I learned the key to spit shining was a soft cloth, water and a light flame.  You put a heavy coating of Kiwi onto the shoe and then run a light flame over the waxed area to melt the wax into the leather. Then you take a very soft cloth like an old cotton diaper that has been washed about a thousand times, wrrapping the cloth tightly around three fingers, you soak the cloth and begin a circular motion on the shoe using plenty of water. You continue that process with increasing elbow grease until the shine begins to show.  Drying the remaining water, you cake more wax on the heel and the toe of the shoe and repeat the process again and again until you can count your teeth in the shoe. I am not being cute in saying that.

 

As the years have moved on and shoe styles changed, I basically left spit shining in my memory basket until about a month ago when I purchased two pairs of solid black Florsheim leather shoes. Yep, you know where I am going with this!  I have fallen in love with spit shining all over again. It is something very personal to me for it brings such great memories.  My daughter will tell you that I would have her stand in my jump boots when she was two years old so I could spit shine the leather out in the sunshine. I enjoy taking thirty minutes, now, to get the stuff out, take a deep breath from the wax and then smell it melting into the leather; ummmmmmmmmmmmm! I would then take Johnson liquid wax and coat the finished product of my boots.

 

Tonight as I did my shining, I let my mind think about the process in the context of life. We all want things we hold dear to be the best they can be, to feel a sense of pride that something fresh and special can bring but remembering it always takes work.  The work does not just happen for it has to be done via a process; cloth, water, flame, technique and energy expenditure. Sounds familiar to many things in life does it not?

 

Tomorrow will be a very busy Sunday for me but I look forward to seeing what God will bring into my pathway for I had a great mentor a few years ago tell me something that has remained with me ... if you are going to see the King, you should dress like you are going to see the King. Another great mentor told me once it only cost one more dollar to go first class.  Another said that if it is worth doing, it is worth doing it to the best of your ability.   As I finished with the latest session with the Kiwi, I must admit I sat the shoes in a bright light and found myself admiring them but admiring the fact that the process yet again worked. I felt very good about the energy burn and the melted wax. Nobody will probably even notice but I will know for when I dress for my day at church, I seek to be the best I can be. Our quartet is singing a great song in the morning worship service, AT THE RIGHT TIME. I believe that song will be wonderful fit with the sermon our pastor will bring.

 

So why did I choose this unique topic for my blog?  Simple, whatever is worth doing is worth doing the best you can.  My AMA brothers and sisters and many veterans that will read this will understand it immediately. It is not about the wax, the shine, the flame but it is about readying yourself to meet someone greater than yourself. I know God will be in the house at Canton Baptist Temple tomorrow and any of us being part of the meeting in worship should and will do their very best in every aspect of the worship experience. My shoes are ready, too! Ummm, love that Kiwi smell!!!!!

Reality when it becomes Real!

Last evening I had a wonderful experience with many part of that wonderment when I "dated" my eight year old grand daughter to a Father / Daughter Dance because her dad, my son-in-law was unable to go with her. Was I excited about loud music with a hundred screaming little girls?  Ah, perhaps not but I was ecstatic to have some real TIME with our Bella. She is a very quiet, low key young lady with wonderful manners and very sweet disposition.  She is the one of our grandchildren arrangement that we all feel is most like her Grammy at a personality level to which I fully concur.  It was two hours of blaring disco music, yep, DISCO, with hula hoops, scream sessions and all the things that  make a grandfather's ears to hurt and burn a bit. But it was a great night for many reasons!

 

One of those reasons was captured in a FB post I put up last evening:

 

Met a young Army Sergeant E5 in full dress uniform at a Father / Daughter Dance because he was just back from second tour in Afghanistan and his daughter wanted him to  wear   his unform. He is a drill sergeant additionally. I did my crisp hand salute which he returned, hugged each other and talked for about 15 minutes. Departed with another hand salute and a hug; thrilled my heart yet again. We talked about my days in uniform and about his time in Afghanistan. We have some great people pulling a heavy load. Tonight; priceless! (and he loves his daughter very much)

 

I have found myself continuing to process that time with that young E5 in watching the gleam in his eyes in talking with his very excited daugther all dressed up for the dance.  He stood out, of course, in Army Dress Greens with all his decorations and patches perfectly displayed. He was a combat engineer and was expert in demolition meaning he blows things up; a very dangerous job in a combat zone some of you will attest.  He was so happy to be home, to be with his family, to share that night with her and, hopefully, our fifteen minutes of "talking Army" was memorable to him also. I loved it for getting to render a sincere hand salute and hand shake and many times a hug is something that I love to experience. I have experienced many tears with veterans, wives of the veterans, family of the veterans as their pride for their own unique veteran is rekindled.

 

But the point that has most embossed my heart is seeing the blood and flesh of these young men and women that go to fight with their lives and the lives of their loved ones for us.  The gravity of that came back to me in so many hues last night as he and I spoke.  These people we hear about on TV as numbers or statistics can become just that to the watching / listening public. I remember the body counts shown on news casts during the Viet Nam War and, in retrospect, feel almost guilty because I did not give the due respect to the implication of those numbers multiplied by a factor of family members and their hurt and loss.  Seeing this little eight year old daughter all dressed up in her formal dating her dad in his Class A uniform made it all so very real to me yet again.

 

As I have stated many times in my writings, I am very displeased with this Administration, the Congress that has grown dysfunctional and the decay of our society eroded by growing entitlement and government spending and corruption are all increments of a nation moving backward on the global stage. But looking more deeply, in the coal black eyes of that Sergeant last night, I was reminded that it is they that must "carry the water" for a nation. Frankly, they deserve much better that we give them.  We are nation that is tired of war and in that exhaustion I fear we are losing the warm blood of true patriotism-driven emotion from We the People for what they are doing for us.

 

I did not intend this for "Veterans Day" hoopla but the experience last night with that E5 made it all so real to me again and thus reliving losses I expressed in friends not that many years ago in that faraway place nobody could find on a map that made names like Khe Sanh and Highway 1 household names.  War do that you know. Who on earth ever heard of Gettysburg or Sharpsburg or Verdun? Nobody until much American blood was shed and families torn apart for generations.

 

My ending will be to thank each and every veteran I have known, have taught, have saluted, have shook their hands, dabbed our tears of thanks and memories knowing the end of not to be seen for the Bible is quite clear that there will always be wars and rumors of wars; that is the human endeavor.  We are blessed as a nation so find a veteran and thank them with your HEART!

Love the Chill

Good morning on this very cool still dark morning with a busy day in front of me.  This has  been a pretty good week and many things are running through my brain this morning.  One thing that still amazes me is about dreams.  I have always dreamed when I sleep but the amazing thing for me is that now being retired from Goodyear over ten years, ninety plus percent of my dreams are still Goodyear-central.  I have pondered the why and the what of that but, of course, there is no definitive answer but it makes me realize that what is truly foremost in your life, your drives, your aims, burns into the hard drive of the mind that apparently is indelible over time.  There are some real lessons to this fact I am seeing each night for the most part in my own life and mind.

 

So I guess the question that begs to be asked is; what is central in your life?  A friend once told me if you want to know what is important to a person, look in the trunk of their car.  That sounds a bit weird but go check in the truck of you car and see if it mirrors what is important to you. I know, right now, in the back of my car is a music stand, three books of song lyrics and probably ten CDs. Hum, what does that say?  So I challenge you to visit your trunk this morning for some inventorying and then step back to do a deep assessment of what is important in your life.

 

I think much about my nearly four decades of global work with Goodyear; a Company I dearly loved from the first day at the Gadsden, AL plant in 1967 to my last day in 2003. I can count on only one hand the number of days and nights I longed to not be there so I realize I did love what I do.  But then, what is important to us is what we love to do, isn't it?

 

It is my belief that it is good to truly love what you do especially if what you are doing is utilizing the gifts God has provided you.  People that know me in the last decade know I love to sing. I realize in retrospect that for far too many years I loved to sing for the joy of singing and ego feeding.  I further, now, realize that using God's gift for God's glory will always manifest itself is a much richer and deeper sense of worth and value than simply feeding one's ego.  I sang at another funeral Thursday morning and was unbelievably honored to be ask to be part of a home going celebration. Having done that now many times, it is still such a blessing to see how the song is soothing and lifting spirits that are hurting, pained and worried about what happens now. I get to be part of something good and that makes it all more good; a synergy I guess you could call it.

 

There is so much in our world today that makes you, at times, want to throw up your hands in disgust and just ignore it. Deaths on the news of children, young teachers, mass shootings, suicides are horrific but we are becoming, I fear, deadened to the real awfulness of such acts for they are coming more frequently it seems.  We are in a fallen world and have been for centuries so why should we think it gets better before the return of Christ, right?  I realize more and more that some of you reading that will say I am just an old relic of an era now gone, Bible-thumper, etc but age means nothing to the reality of God's Word for that Word is immutable.

 

I want, so badly, for my dream menu to be changed away from my Goodyear world to a new place where I can awake having enjoyed a memory of seeing a person's life changed or a remaining spouse or child flourish from the values borne from the love of the person now gone.  That is what I want to be dreaming about and not long days and nights in faraway places, jet lag and politics of the work. 

 

So on this still dark, cold morning, I wish you the best in the week ahead as Christmas churns toward us and all the craziness of that wonderful, precious with family and friends.  We are working diligently on our Christmas cantata at church, even this morning for two hours, and cannot wait to be part of the blessing of singing this wonderful piece for I learned it now two years ago. And On Earth, Peace, is a beautiful selection of songs beautifully arranged into the story of the birth of the Christ child.  Maybe I will start to dream about that!

 

Be blessed this weekend and thank you for taking the time to be part of my life through my words. By the way, each of you are a blessing to me so thank you!

The Calming by the Moon

The American people and the world markets have been under another blanket of worry, fear, concern and doubt by the 24/7 media circus of our political leadership and their corporate ineptitude and callous disregard for We the People. Yes, I said that for not one of them is exempt in my slamming comment this early Saturday morning. I have a great lawyer friend that loves to speak in third person analogy about clowns, circuses with colorful names and iron fisted comments with this flawed silk glove covering plastered on FB but he is really more right that wrong.  You are welcome Mr. S.

 

Me, with this insatiable need to understand why things happen as they do, have been in a hyper drive of exasperation with the whole spectacle ignited more from our enemies both foreign and domestic seeing the weakness of this once great nation thus rendering us more vulnerable to their whelms and evil desires.  But then an amazing, God-sent gift was presented Earth last night and I believe to my heart specifically with that unbelievably beautiful moon.  As I gazed upon it returning home from Alliance, OH last night, I was simply staggered at its simplistic yet magnetic hold of my heart at that moment in time.  Believe me, that is a most unique experience for me but it was so calming and warming made more calming and warming, I would imagine, by the craziness of this week.

 

As I pulled into my driveway last night I actually slowed down for a moment to get one more look and then stared at it even more once in the garage.  The majesty that only God could create the ball of beauty and present it to me at a time when I did not realize I needed that gift was staggering.  We so easily and far too often forget or oversight the phenomenal gift of Creation God wrought upon His people.  To see the beauty in a smile, a tear from a deep hurt, a sign of relief from an embedded concern, to enjoy the taste of food in a very special way and time uniquely, to find great joy in a word of encouragement or a hug, a handshake sincerely given by someone who really cares, a card of thanks, a requested song through tears and have no idea the hurt or need that person is feeling .... all those and a million other Man-expressions to others are as powerful as the moon God gave us to enjoy last night.

 

Posting on FB last evening about 9 pm Eastern time in the US about that moon and to begin receiving response from South Africa, Turkey, Japan, Poland, etc, from friends I have throughout the world about that same moon only added to the glorious reality that God reigns everywhere, all the time! With things going on our lives, in my family that create concern and worry, to know we have a God that is immutable, never absent, wants the best for each of us and the most valuable component of that list is that we deserve none of it is, well, beyond value!

 

A simple song that was part of The Daily Bread devotional for this morning says:

 

Oh yes, He cares; I know He Cares

His heart is touched by my grief

When the days are weary and the long nights dreary

I know my Savior cares

 

The name of that great George Beverly Shea song is, Does Jesus Care.  I have sung that song many times and each time I come away touched by its powerful message.  The moon in my life last night millions got to enjoy as well was an exclamation point on a great knowledge that my Jesus does truly care in the good times and the bad, on the hill tops and in the rugged valleys.  Our quartet, The Pathway Quartet sung a concert Thursday night at a local assisted living facility. The audience was filled but it was especially filled with elderly people that loved the music but loved the fact that we for an hour got to feel the blanket of God's love through our songs and words. We were all especially blessed for our brother, Norm Farley that sings the tenor part, to show up and sing some of the songs with us; we were all in tears at the wonder of it all! What a blessing!

 

I will close with thanking God for His gift to me last night with that moon that got my mind and heart off the stench of the week and onto the sweet aroma of His Love for each of us.

"How Can I Change Your Day"

There have always been short comments invented by commercial or conversation when greeting a person or in saying adieu to a person. The infamous, "have a nice day" by McDonald's is a great example.  I am sure each of you can come up with fifteen of those short comments in two minutes. I find things like that intriguing and the measure of their effectiveness is twofold:  what is said and how it is said with the true assessment by me in answer to the question, "thank you, I like that!"

 

Recently I was speaking with a receptionist, actually calling this assisted living facility to speak with someone, and when this lady answered the phone, you could feel the smile on her face as what seemed the sun had just rose above the horizon. She sounded happy and made me feel the same and then she said, "how may I help you change your day."  Those eight words still resound in my head when I see the continuing angst that is television or encounter someone I know that is struggling or worried and in this subliminal voice I am thinking, "how may I help you change your day."

 

As this government shutdown continues and the media globally is abuzz with the doomsday predictions of generational disaster, like many Americans, we are simply growing numb to the noise.  I watched the veterans demonstrate in front of the White House about being barred from their memorials and, sure enough, the politicians could not get a mic in their hands quick enough for the cameras to cast disdain at all those "other" politicians. Then reality comes in the door ... all the politicians are part of the problem including Cruz and Paul and, you fill in the blank for the rest.  Five hundred thirty-sive in Congress plus pone POTUS is a right first step to assess blame.  

 

My heart is saddened that the world is mocking our nation and frankly, rightly so. Our enemies are plotting more fervently I am sure in this period of cancerous ineptitude.  Our national mores and values continue to decline via drugs, addictions, corruption, broken or nonexistent homes with little to no parental examples to be adopted.  As a nation we have blatantly turned from God toward ourselves and our gratification.  The very fabric of our nation is wearing thinner by the day. People outside America no longer fear America nor our arm of defense, our military.

 

We see China gaining strength politically, economically, diplomatically and militarily daily. Russia is now more and more influential than they were before the Cold War not because they have gotten stronger or certainly better but because American has gotten weaker and more corrupt.  Never in my life could I have imagined our nation in the state it now resides. There is more than enough blame to go around for each of us so I am not positing venom toward anyone or anything but this is a day we should all stand in front of our mirrors and question ourselves as to how we let this happen to us or it is we, after all,  that determine our ultimate destiny as a nation and as individually when we look at life past this life into eternity; a choice!

 

"How may I help you change your day..." has a ring to it and it is like someone saying to me when I ask a question, "thank you for asking", I like that for some reason for it resounds of sincere kindness. We are losing or sense of kindness toward each other I realize more and more.  I believe we a people are as social with each other as we once were. Social media does not count for I am talking about face-to-face dialog, sincerely seeking to know how someone is doing or feeling. Why is that important? It is important for people still want to know other people care and a LIKE or an UNFRIEND are not the medium to determine how a relationship is going or not; that is just sad but so true.

 

If we want to change someone's day, that begins at the heart and not the movement of air through a vocal cord.  I have come to realize more fervently in singing so much in assisted living facilities how a few songs sung from the heart, a few moments talking with each of the people that have come, watching their faces with smiles and tears are signs that someone's day has been changed. How succinct and yet how wonderful that is, isn't it?

 

I will close as this day begins with a statement of sincere belief in our nation and its people; that would be us.  I believe we can be a great nation again only if we return to the teachings of our God that created us.  Never have I been more convinced of that.  When I see thousands of examples in students or prison inmates coming into my presence with no real value system due to their upbringing; it is very saddening to me for the scarring is clear.  If children are not provided example, good example, where will they learn about values? From others that in many cases only wish to take advantage of that person is the depository for those values most of which are negative in nature.  When men and women seek to find a mate to marry, they are looking for traits they saw in their mothers and fathers so if neither are there or if the examples are wrapped in drugs, addictions, etc, where will the traits be learned?

 

It is my hope that my blog this day will cause each of you to pause and reflect on my heartfelt words.  I believe it is all our challenge each day to seek to change someone's day in a very positive direction. A call, a card, a smile, a word most of the time is all that is required and the lasting impression remains for a long time. I think the sad testimony of all of this today is that we are losing our sense of love and respect for each other and hiding behind that reality via keystroke on a computer, electronic thank you cards, LIKE, etc,  I am recommitting myself to doing less of that and more face-to-face, kinetic interface with our fellow inhabitants in our rapidly changing global village. Join me, please!

Politically Incorrect in Today's World

I will, no doubt, lose some friends, relatives, students in my words this day but I believe these words must be penned for they have been burning in my heart for several weeks now. Our pastor has preached powerfully in the last two weeks about our world in the 21st century as viewed by political correctness versus through the lens of the absoluteness of the Holy Bible.  His words have pierced my heart and my soul on Christians today via acknowledgement or, even worse, quietly accepting the wrong that resides all around us, has brought to me this keyboard.  I am always amazed to learn of the rather wide array of people that read my blogs and comments on FB. It is always an honor to have someone call, walk up to me or email me with kind or sometimes unkind words but still, I know people, you, read.  Please know that I am writing from my heart and not just to take an alternative or argumentative position on a controversial topic.

 

As my life has unfolded, especially in the last decade crafted primarily from time with thousands of college students in my teaching and hundreds of thousand of prison inmates, my heart has been drawn more powerfully to the Bible and its immutable teachings. People can rationalize the Bible in many ways including ignoring what the Bible says but rationalization is just that; cognitive dissonance reduction. Translated, it is Man's mental capacity to find a way to mentally round off the squared edges of wrong.  Frankly, I am quite tired of that and even more tired of seeing it each time I turn on the TV, watch our politicians, seek to understand why things happen as they do.  In that decade, five guiding principles have evolved in my life journey as I view into my seventh decade on this earth. They are:

 

1. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten
2. If you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything
3. If you do not know where you are going, that is exactly where you will end up
4. Whatever it is you are looking for in life, you will most certainly find it
5. Right is right and wrong is wrong and no amount of wrong will ever make a wrong Right

Given those five avenues to what I consider the Truth, I am reminded over and over again that life with no foundation will always crumble at some point.  As I read those five principles in context to me and I believe to Man as a whole, my heart pounds with the wrongness I see so evident on every hand.  The Bible is quite clear on its position on gay, lesbian homosexuality. The Bible is blatantly clear on the institution of marriage.  The Bible is unequivocal in its Commandments to Man in how to exist correctly with God in the first Four and how man can live properly with each other in the remaining Six of the Ten Commandments. As with the issues today we are watching in our Congress and our POTUS, I think we all need to go back and actually READ THE CONSTITUTION.  Likewise, therefore, I implore you to invest yourself in the word of God for its teachings are incorruptible, not misleading and stand unchanged through the flow of history to date and in the days before us. I stand on that Truth! I stand on it for it, the Bible, is God's Inspired Word to His children; that would be each of us.

 

I certainly, on a very personal level, am not holding myself up as anything worthy of example for I have failed at friendships, I have disappointed and have been disappointed. I have sought forgiveness on my life on many occasions of people I have offended, worked for, friended and I pray God never takes that sensitivity to others away from me.  I have failed my family but am forgiven by them and by my God; that I know. I strive each day with each breath to never disappoint my God nor my family nor my array of friends ever again. I long that for every person that sees me or knows me to leave with a fresh sense that they can see something different, something unique, something Godly in my dealings with them.

 

As a reader, if you are one of those I have offended, I sincerely am sorry.  But when it comes to the teaching and commands of the Bible, I will no longer simply ignore the  ungodliness of homosexuality, same sex marriage and the whole matter of racism sickens me and I pray I have never been accused of being racist in any way with anyone.  But let me state here that we live in a time and in a world where it seems we are all supposed to be "tolerate" of everyone doing everything or anything they choose to do. Simply, ABSOLUTELY NOT.  It seems to be the world today is growing tolerate of every ideology and whim and wrong except Christianity.  We all do not have every right to do anything and every thing we may choose to do. That is exactly what Satan would have us all to believe and strive for as a way to life.  There are rights and there are wrongs; they are all in the Holy Bible just so you can know.

 

Wrong friendships have become far too easy with the advent of social media. What an easy, dangerous trap to fall into isn't it? I see it and hear it all too frequently and have seen firsthand the dire result of pursuing relationships via the cyber "vapor" of anonymity.  Let me remind each of us that NOTHING entered into a computer is ever fully erased due to detection technologies of today; NOTHING! Web sights clicked on, emails, FB messages, tweets; just look at TV when a crime happens and witness the  unbelievable nature of science that unearths messages via hard drives, cell towers, etc. Yet many proceed like there are little walls to hide behind in messaging. As I think about it more and more, that is a great reality. Somebody is always capable of seeing for light makes darkness dissipate, right!

 

Those of you that know me know  I am not bashful about staking a position and defending it with fact to the best I can. I do not write this to be combative for I write this in hope that people that are staggering around in the forest of wrong of mores, societal lies will cast aside the blindness of Wrong and choose a path that God has ordained. I implore each of us to assess your lives through that lens. Will we lose friends? Probably but it is a worthwhile thinning of the herd of wrong I have become convinced of on so many fronts.

 

Our world is simply in a terrible economic, political, diplomatic, and military mess and looking at the world from God's view, why would it be any better, I believe. Our own nation, a nation founded on the principles of Godliness, has forsaken and trampled those principles in the dust of equality and everybody having the right to do whatever they want.  I will forever believe the HIV/AIDS disease was brought on by the sickening reality of homosexuality. The Bible is vivid on this very point when men turned to men in lust and women burned in lust for  other women and disease came on those that chose to be in that number.  Look it up; it is THERE!

 

It is my sincere belief that God has pulled back from America for America, as a nation, has pulled away from God. I believe God is giving our nation a taste of what life without Him can look like.  I am not a preacher but I am a man, a husband, a father and a grandfather.  I realize that amazing mass of people I have had access to in my lifetime and how many of those I have failed to be a Christian example before. I seek forgiveness on a grand scale for allowing that to happen. 

 

As I sat in church this morning listening, I was moved strongly to put into words the pounding in my heart and thus what you have read.  What do we stand for? Where are we going? What are we looking for? Why do we keep doing what we have always done knowing it is wrong?  Four questions I ask you to deeply analyze at a very personal level.  I hope more than you know that my words will be received with the heartfelt love with which they have been written. I hope even more than that if you see in your own life, as I have, the wrong, I did not say politically correct, but the wrongness of decisions in your own life that there is still time to correct that vector to that God would have you pursue.  If you would like to discuss this with me, I would be honored to have that conversation.  

 

Like I tell my children and close friends, if I did not care, I really would not care. I care for each of you more than you perhaps can begin to understand. It is my greatest hope that this blog will be a beacon in a world of darkness. I prayed before I wrote that God will give me the words. I will pray before I publish this that these words will touch many hearts as He would have that heart touched.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my heart!