A Very Sad State of Affairs Indeed

Yesterday the realities of the POTUS elections found themselves into my home as my wife and I voted absentee ballot here in Ohio and we were faced with the decision about electoral votes in the lead up to the November elections. There in black and white were the selections to choose from which were the same band seen far too much on TV in these last months. So realizing I am taking much more seriously these elections I found myself deeply pondering and praying for God's person for each of the ballot markings.  The sad reality not only for the electoral selections but for all the choices for the many positions caused me to realize a person's true personage, faith and beliefs  are never clearly known if at all.

Very much I would prefer to blanket vote for people of faith but the only way to know that is if you know the person personally which, of course, the great majority of the voting public do not so re rely on a bill board, a word of mouth or a gut feeling not ever really knowing the worth of those we are voting for.  The POTUS electorate has divided our already divided nation to a degree I never recall.  

Social media has provided and enabled people to vent, criticize, challenge, abuse, slam the candidates as well as those having the guts to express a thought or an opinion knowing regardless of who you are or what you stand for or believe, once you reduce your thoughts to social media, just wait for the criticism will begin momentarily. I am not saying that is all bad but what it does do, I realize, is deepen and widen the fissures of an exasperated public toward the process, the candidate and toward each other with what I am sure will be long lasting results.

We all have opinions, ideas and hopes.  That is a great thing. But what social media has done either intentionally or by surprise, is grant written voice on issues, concerns, people which ultimately and sadly creates the embers of anger to be expressed and many times in name calling and downright assaults on integrity, faith, etc. In other words, if we could put the genie of social media back int he bottle, I would vote for that. The sad, really sad dimension for those of us that call ourselves Christian is seeing the poisonous and venomous rants posted when someone states a choice or an opinion. 

Hey, at least we can now have a means to step out of the shadows of silence and disgust and express our thoughts and I think that is a great thing.  But as the far too many debates are televised generating billions of dollars for the networks and advertisers, the net results if an every widening span of angry and frustrated voters breaking into deeply divided factions along party, racial, ethnic, lifestyle, etc, lines then the shooting war unfolds in FB posts at each other and less about the core issues we are processing as correct when all too often after the fact we learn the weapons were wrong, inaccurate or downright biased and intentionally wrong and misleading. But by then the hurts are deeply driven into the heart and friends are divided.

My concern, my core concern about all of this is that all of this now IS our nation. We are an angry, frustrated, divided people for we are now able to see and with an enabled means to express.  I frankly feel the Party system is archaic and needs revolutionized and feel that will be one of the positives that will fall out of this very public debacle.  I do not feel good about a single one of the candidates regardless of ticket; there, I said it. I will not create a list of whys but the snarling, lack of decorum, bullying, attacking, misinformation, knit picking simply has soured me on the whole process. A great part of that souring is the reality of the amount of money these people must raise just to begin the race opening the door then to the candidates being beholder to the givers and that is, for me, criminal but so very true.

My heart is deeply troubled about where we are as a nation. I see America as becoming very godless in beliefs, standards, expectations and drives. Trump examples an interesting chemistry which fundamentally is a metaphor for the long silent majority of Americans and I am one, that is sick and tired of poor POTUS leadership, weakening and overworked military, no regard for the Constitutional system, scandals galore, arrogance on a grand scale. 

Americans want America back and Trump sadly looks like the tallest of the pygmies to create wide scale change in Washington, See, at the aggregate of this whole blog is the degree of absolute sickness of Americans with anything in Washington. Bloated payrolls, ineffective servicing the population. Social Security being robbed, IRS attack dogs, VA, Snowden, ISIL, Iran and the list grows daily. THAT is what Americans want cleared and cleaned up. Do I think Trump can make a difference in turning the propellers into a new direction as POTUS or Cruz or Mickey Mouse, probably not. Why? 

For I believe God has stepped back from America and is allowing us to wonder in the desert and we are seeking a Moses but there is not one to be found. Why? Because God created Moses and his work and it is my thoughts at this juncture not a single one of these men or woman has the skills, courage and vision to lead this nation for we have turned our backs as a nation on the principles, boundary markers the Bible talks about, and have turned to an array of satanic ways and means never before imagined.

Transgender, same sex anything, abortion, movements aimed solely at racial divide thus using race as an agent of change which become incendiary and dangerous; people like Sharpton and worse is the counsel sought by our POTUS and POTUS candidates is, well, deplorable but certainly not surprising is it?  We the People have allowed and fomented this which we see for we are all culpable to varying degrees so, in other words, we are pretty much getting what we have created via lethargy, playing around the edges spiritually instead of boldly taking a stand on these aberrant societal values eradication. So why should any of us stand surprised? I certainly am not for I have been culprit to exactly what I just outlined under the mantra of, well, I am just one so I cannot make a difference thus we have become a nation of wimps and accepting the worst of or fellow humans.

All this has been freshened for me in having conducted two chapel services last night at county jail to about fifty men and as you spend a few minutes with them personally, research crime reports as to what put them into the judicial system you are reminded of the breadth of the death of societal norms. 

Once great athletes and sports heroes locally not tarnished for life due to a needle or crack pipe and a band of friends all lined up to help them down the pathwath of destructive behaviors thus destroying those that admired and looked up to them. Crack cocaine, heroin, meth, prescription drugs, alcohol far outweigh the minority of really mean, cunning, dangerous men and women in our jails and prisons.  Drug addiction is the spear of destruction of the America we once knew and the general population is oblivious to the magnitude of the evil that abounds all around us as accepted behavior. We as a nation are destroying ourselves from the inside thus we do not need Iran, Russia nor any one else for the fatal injection for we are doing it to ourselves.

Yes, I am a most angry American and I refuse to be silent, I think each of us should self examine who we really are, what do we really stand for and what are we willing to do to return our nation to a long gone time.  Two parent homes are now a relic and I am convinced that that is the root of what I have just described. Today multiple partners, missing parents in a familial environment creates a class of confused kids that fall prey to the drug pushers, social media bullying that are part and parcel of the cancer now wholesale consuming our nation's essence of what once was. 

So you see, this is all much, much greater than who you vote for or who you can attack on social media for stating an opinion or a hope. This is about us and it is US that is losing this war. No individual will ever magically lead us out of what we ourselves have walked ourselves into. I learned that from the Japanese many years ago and it is so very true.

"Good morning, Vietnam"

Most of you will know exactly where that came from which is the Robin Williams line in what otherwise was a sad, tragic movie but through his comic genius made the watchers, like me, forget the gore that was abounding lifted us for a few precious moments.  For some strange reason when the world saw the video of  Bernie Sanders going to Al Sharpton, I refuse to use the title Sharpton likes which is Reverend, that movie line came back to me.  A Liberal voter I am not but then I am not necessarily an assigned voter and never have been. My voting life I have sought to vote my heart for the office seeker, referendum, etc and not align solely to a party. Sanders, at best, I guess, is less bad than his competitor Hillary and believe me, that is a really sad state of affairs in a nation and a world blowing up around us daily.

I believe my greatest worry or concern about this nation resides in the angst and ever-fueled issue of race.  Never in my lifetime do I recall that divide being wider and the deeper I search to understand why it is so bad, the trail of crumbs seems to always lead back to Washington DC and the period of worsening seems to be almost to the date of the swearing in of our POTUS.  There are those that will criticize my comment as me hating Obama or being a racist but those that know me know that is not a proper description of my heart and beliefs.

The sheer use of the term "race" changes the coloration of processing what is trying to be expressed.  Having been a child of the 1960s in Alabama, I saw first hand racism in its raw and ugly form. Having spent considerable time in South Africa post apartheid, I had another dose of racism unfolded before me so I am certainly no virgin on the matter.  But what has been allowed, encouraged, celebrated and fueled in our nation by an array of politicians, celebrities, entertainers, events causes me to really fear a race-driven insurrection feasibility in our nation.

Last night as I was driving to church, I saw a billboard that stated ..." real love is having a CCW" which, of course, means encouraging citizens to seek a concealed weapons certification. What hit me was using the term "love" in such a way was a total turn off to me in that moment.  But then I read the statistics of gun sales gun ownership, CCW applications all linked to more and more violent killings robberies, etc perpetrated usually by African Americans, the calculus incites me deeply.  My thought is that in working with well over three hundred thousands prison inmates in the last several years of my life conducting worship services and seeking to get to know each of these men and women at a spiritual level, my sensitivities are biased in favor of these poor souls.  You never, however can forget, that it is they that put themselves behind those bars by bad choice and most times drug and alcohol fueled and gang driven.

I have said all of that to get to my point.  America has lost our smile, our desire to belly laugh for fear to offending, being on the wrong side of a reality or being accused of racism. Terminologies change from some source and thus today what you say is accepted and the next you are a racist if you use the same term.  Hearing the deafening sounds of my childhood such a Black Panthers, watching on global television such as the Super Bowl, an array of black entertainers we know now with songs and subliminal messages on these caustic, unproductive movements all serve to cause me to want to just turn up my music on my laptop and ignore the whole mess for a mess is preciously what it is.

Ferguson, for me, is a class example of what I am so frustrated about. Endless protests burning, always looting, police hating and killing all, ALL fueled from an over sized videoed thug robbing and assaulting the store owner and then blatantly not acting as a responsible citizen by not following a policeman's order to get out of the middle of the street and then attacking the policeman in being the well known bully Mike Brown was known to be and voila, it is all the policeman's fault, is it society's fault; it is everybody's except where the real culprit resides, Mike Brown.  Again, this incident is a microcosm and a sad metaphor as to where our nation as arrived and I strongly believe its root of the insurrection resides in the White House.

Here is where my heart is this early morning ... I want America, my nation, to be comfortable and to be able to smile about life, about hope, about investing a person's life into something good. Where we are, however, is the enveloping Entitlement mentality and Big, Overreaching Government. It is that term that causes me more and more concern now with Sanders, a proclaimed Socialist, the front runner to replace Obama on the Democratic side. Then there is Clinton that is, well, not worth my time to write words to describe my dislike for the very name Clinton, the Machine.

Then I look at the continuing GOP posturing and jockeying with seemingly every pundit and talking head tearing away at Trump, the overwhelming GOP ticket front runner and you wonder why as we see the flocking, finally, away of the lower level candidates to the exit door.  Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe a word he says or not; one thing is for sure, his numbers do not lie. He has tapped into the long silent majority of Americans are fed up with the American this POTUS has led us to be which filled with anger, distrust and shadows of darkness about the future. That is sinister, sinful and scary; and it is all in a master Liberal plan I am convinced.  And please know that I am not nor have I ever been a conspiracy theory nut job.

Our nation is sick, broken, broke! Those can will lead the nation to the sunlight are challenged to look beyond the rhetoric of hate and discord so abundantly being cast on We the People. It is not about the number of CCW applications, guns owned and desired, it is not about beating up on people that even smile or question the Second Amendment; it is about somebody having the courage to step up and lead, make tough decisions, implement the decisions through a convoluted legislative system fueled by special interests and money.

I want to laugh again as to Americans!

Competencies

Many years ago at an off ramp in my life, a great and very wise man made a comment that has returned to me many, many times in watching issues unfold, ball games, relationships. The comment simply stated:  If the only tool you have is a hammer, then ever problem looks like a nail.

In putting on my reflection hat this early morning, my mind goes back to some of those very real leaders I watched closely and how they seemed to have an endless tool sack of questions, thoughts, statements, emotions that would be rolled out based on the situation at that moment in time.  

I see the adage often watching basketball games with young age boys and girls when you may have one shooter and four watchers and the whole team is slaved to that one shooter.  If that shooter is hitting the shots, that is good but for me in observing team play, the game is never just about the score at the end of the game.  In every trip up and down the floor, the fundamentals some amazing coaches grilled into me come screaming from someplace deep inside me.

Comments in my hard drive that are indelible:

• the baseline is your best friend or your worst enemy
• effective rebounders are ruthless and attack the ball all the time
• why do you have to dribble when you can pass
• blocking out is the secret to winning basketball
• watch the ball always
• when guarding watch the eyes of the opponents; they never lie

That is a very short list that, for me, forms a body of knowledge that becomes active the moment I walk into a gym, sit in a meeting, watch a situation unfold for those comments have emotional application regardless of where or what you are doing.  Another great one for me that is innately part of my life is called "looking away from the ball."

 As a spectator I will quickly transition from watching the boy with the ball to taking a broader, deeper view of the floor game to watch that players without the ball are doing, are plays being set up, are the players cognizant of ball location and movement and when the ball is shot, what does that trigger in both teams at that crucial moment.

So I never just watch casually a basketball game nor do I casually listen to dialogue or conflicts emerge or direction given for I look past that for the deeper motivation, intention and desire.  I played for an interesting, unique, at times frustrating, fundamentals coach in high school.  His philosophy was a highly controlled offense and an attack defense.  That was uncommon during those mid 1960s and made even more alien with the inception of the three point shot that changed everything.  Then came the era of the Michael Jordans and all the crazy dribbling, amazing passing and shooting. While more entertaining at the time, I began to watch the game and the game of life shift from fundamentals and team play to run and gun, single player dominance and the rest of the team fed that player.   For me the game took a giant step backward for the fundamentals of team player quickly evaporated in the mist of fancy play making, living and dying by the three pointer, etc. 

Leaders are just as good as their tool sack of competencies. Effective leaders constantly are seeking ways to enhance and to increase the objects in the tool sack so that when that moment of need comes the right tool, comment, question, approach is ushered for but all the time focused on maintaining the teamsmanship. So many times I have been on the giving and the receiving end of such effective leadership and likewise, have been in the situation where the need for effective competencies or the situation was muffed with much collateral damage.

This blog, for me, is about Life.  As I get older, I find myself thinking about situations, actions, leaders, non-leaders effectiveness, damage, anger long term impact, etc. Having coached many young leaders on my journey as well taught several thousand college students, I never forgot the purpose of a coach which is to find the key to each player at a very individual view to move that player out of the shade of complacency into the warmth of effective leadership of others. Oh it is so sweet to watch that transformation plus I know it will last a lifetime and affect thousands of others; the beneficiaries of the transformation. 

So here is my challenge: what really is your tool sack holding as tools to be used when needed?  Think about that and be objective in your inventory. Are you hammer for, if so, there will be an endless supply of nails around you on life's journey.  

Our New Year Unfolding Strangely

Here we sit at the eve of the second month of our new year and as I reflect on our January, I find myself really dumbfounded with events, direction, leadership and yes, politics.  I think the first bunt should be to speak to the Trump-ness of our political landscape since he is defying every convention known to Americans since the Party system was inaugurated.  

Brash, bold, bully, braggart, pioneering, fighter, can take a punch and will respond with a more potent punch; sound familiar?  He is one of those characters that you truly love or truly hate and apparently many Americans are loving his unconventional, non-apologetic approach to running for POTUS. As I have watched him and looking past the bravado but really listening to how he is atop the real concerning events of our day and answers the mountain of questions frankly, abruptly and factually is, well refreshing. What he has brought whether you like him or not, is a fresh view of the institutional instrument of career politicians and how the jargon, language and approach to the issues of today Americans face and fear are scrubbed into a language none of us can really understand.  So Americans like a fighter and Trump fills that billing well. My term for it; Refreshing! It is my hope if he does not ascend to the thrown that whoever does will adopt the approach to problem-solving Trump has been trumpeting as the core weakness in our political system.

Cheap oil is really scary for it carries such a globalized implication for all of us.  Link this to the escalating tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Shia versus Sunni, all of which are dependent on oil, and you have an elixir of explosiveness fueled by the conundrum of Syria. I never take my eyes too far from Israel for I still believe Israeli military action will be the spark that explodes the kingdoms and dictatorships existing in the Middle East. I am absolutely convince the US cooked up nuclear deal with Iran will be the worst disaster to unfold in the remaining days God gives me life and into the next generation.  Persia longs to be the dynasty she once was Biblically and we have empowered that greatly but now with nuclear capability.

My personal greatest concern is with the craziness we see as our societal values continue to crumble.  People living with each other thus shirking the Biblical mandates for what marriage is, same sex relationship and being celebrated from the White House is frankly sickening to me. The millions, MILLIONS, of children being murdered via abortion is accepted and as well celebrated is classic example of where our nation has stooped to and that is a fundamental shame.  God will punish this most harshly I believe.

My heart is, even through this above, blessed to be where I am, getting to do what I get to do and loving it.  Seeing my children mature as professionals and as parents is such a joy.  Watching my grand kids grow and mature is much greater than I ever imagined it could be. Seeing my grandsons play basketball with passion is such a personal joy for me!!  Just this week I was amazed by a FB conversation with a man I did not know that caused me to take pause as he unpacked some very complimentary comments he made in have seen me play basketball in high school, clear details of a jump shot that was rather unique, and other points which all gave me this warm sense of perhaps having contributed something to a great basketball team and tradition at Emma Sansom High School. 

Remaining in contact with vast numbers of college students I was honored to teach over a decade still thrills me. When my advice is sought, requests for letters of recommendation, conversation; it thrills me!

As our new year unfolds as part of  troubling century, I am ever reminded that God is in control, He knows, He will adjudge the guilty of the wrongs from His Holy Word. I have never understood that more clearly than I have in the last few years.    Seeing so many hundreds of people trapped in a jail or in a physical or mental restraint from aging has touched me and changed me and given me a renewed sense of the blessing of this thing call Life. 

My challenge for you today reading this is to do an inventory of specific things in your life that bring you joy and the warmth of a blessing!

Vietnam

Last evening I watched two back-to-back programs on TV called Vietnam in HD. One featured the Battle of the A Shau Valley and the other on the Tet Offensive.  The programs were unique in that they used rich amounts of home camera footage as well as combat footage and the carnage was more real than most military programs.  

As I sat glued to the TV screen and my wife a few feet away, I realized she was staring as me as I was laser-locked on the scenes. She asked, "why is watching that so important to you?"  By the way, certainly not the first time I have been asked that for there is still this intrinsic hunger to want to understand, to feel, to get inside, to know what happened in Vietnam and why now so many years behind us but still tainting to our adult culture. There is no easy answer to that still pertinent question.

Many that know me know I served my country honorably even though, with the draft lottery, I did not have to serve but I wanted to.  To this very day, there is this gaping, hollow hole in my soul that feels like I should have experienced that combat, in retrospect. I lost so many friends there and later had the honor of working with and commanding so many returning Vietnam veterans in armor and cavalry units. 

I would drill deeply into these men blatantly touched and scarred by the experience for I was insatiable in wanting to feel, to know, to understand what it all meant. That hunger is powerful to this very moment I realize as I watched last night the Huey medivac in-bounds, the door gunners, the long barrel artillery pounding, the stacked corpses of both sides; an endless array of whys for me.  As I watched the home protests, the testimonials of returning veterans finding themselves disdained by people at home thus ditching their uniforms touched me deeply. I actually emailed a great friend that went and returned as a completely different man that I knew so well to ask if he was the target of ill will by people upon his return. Why? It was and is still important to me.

Teaching a few years on the Kent State Main Campus and very close to the location of the May 4, 1970 shootings that always resonates in my brain in wanting to know locations of students and troops, angles of fire, the pagoda.  Recently my wife and I returned there one Saturday afternoon for me just so I could walk the pathways of the shootings, the memorials where the students died; I just have this need deep in my soul as strange as that may sound or even be this number of years hence.  

As a man of passion, my wife has stated many times that had I gone to Vietnam I no doubt would have been killed in taking the point or the leadership of the unit or the mission; perhaps true but fact remains, there is something missing in my journey for not having experienced that. I have studied the battles, researched the strategies, endless hunger to want to see footage, hear and see the stories both there and in parallel here at home as the confluence of home and her came crashing into a cataclysmic tarnishing of an entire generation of men and women still dealing with the deep internal hurts, anger, frustration of the experience. 

Our current loss of national prestige, I am convinced, as the great policeman on the beat is driven in large part by POTUS and Congress scared to death to not repeat the Vietnam experience. The reality and results is, of course, the world no longer trusts nor believes in the effective use of the military asset American possesses thus our intentions are questioned and our long term commitments doubted and rightly so!

Yes, at almost sixty-eight and as much as I was invested in the military of my country, the gap in my soul concerning Vietnam is real and doubtful will ever be fully filled. I am sure there are many others that feel the same and likewise, many reading this will assuredly believe I have lost my mind. Oh well!

To the men and women that served there and to the families still marked by the names on the Wall, the nearly 60,000 that died there and the countless millions still fighting the ravages of Vietnam via drugs, alcohol, treatment centers, prisons, hospitals; please know my heart and my prayers are with you.  It is still so very painful and yet uplifting to stand at The Wall seeing names and touching the names on The Wall of close friends that were part of my young life. Yes, I should have been there!

For those that served, you did not serve in vain for you served this nation honorably in a transformative time in American history.  For each Vietnam veteran I know, see and hope to see, I salute you for what all you and your families did for all of us! Thank you.

Clash of the Titans

It is snowing and so very pretty; I love the snow and especially the first of the winter.  I love seeing the fat cardinals perched in our trees staring into our home with tears flowing waiting for t-bone food pellets that, well, never get there so they fly off in disgust. Speaking of disgust ...

The rapidly unraveling powers in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran, is what I call a clash of titans for those nations are centuries old with long standing cultures and wealth and thus networks. This entire ISIL and the other thug groups are at the core Muslim and claim either to be Shia or Sunni. This is a millennial conflict so it will not simply stop. 

The division is very real with centuries of drastic killings and bloodshed.  Things are terrible with the ripping apart of Syria and all that goes with that. But now with the Saudis and the Iranians breaking of relations one must factor Turkey into this equation as well as, yes, Israel.  Turkey, as I have said many, many times, is the strategic balance of the Middle East culturally, geographically and economically.  

Having worked and traveled extensively in Western Turkey, I grew to love the Turkish people and their amazing journey began by Ataturk's reform after WWI.  With the diplomatic meltdown between Iran, the spiritual temple of Shia and Saudi Arabia, the spiritual temple of Sunni, Bahrain has now, this morning, joined with her huge neighbor Saudi Arabia, in breaking relations with Iran. 

Never forget there is a bloody civil war with another SA neighbor, Yemen, that poses as the military triggering mechanism for the entire Middle East to go up in a nuclear cloud; literally. Therefore, that small, uniquely quiet, nuclear nation of Israel as well must be factored to this cataclysmic cauldron of dissent and death.  I have long contended that Israel will hit Iran and her nuclear plants and arsenals when the world least expects it for that is what Israel does and does very well. Add to the fact that Israel has more to lose than anyone and you can imagine the strategic planners and diplomats sweating bullets. I further contend that the United States is doing something or a lot to keep Israel away from the military option that one day we will know.  The chilly relations spearheaded by Obama is of great concern to me as the backdrop to this paragraph.

It is so very hard for me to not waltz down the trail of the political aspect of all of this but I choose not to make that journey. We are walking on shells of embers long glowing and hot but made hotter with the oxygen generated from the diplomatic falling apart the world must be studying closely. Interestingly, I still wonder where China is in all of this.  Too large, too potent and too quiet the Chinese are and that troubles me greatly.

I will close with the fact that I realize I have only stated the blatant obvious but in that stating, my level of concern about America's stepping back from the table of leadership that has historically quelled issues in the volatile Middle Eastern region has gone missing and the US leadership is solely to blame.  

The world is facing a morbid and growing fundamentalist reality with the Muslim world and I say that in knowing so many Muslim people I admire deeply. But the fact is, it seems, is that the Islamic world is standing on the sidelines watching the death, destruction and migration patterns of what is a slice of Islam, ISIL and the other radical militants. I very much want to see the religion of Islam get radicalized to stamp out this cancer that is sweeping the world with fear and discontent and lack of trust.

Seeing Europe fundamentally shutdown in fear, places I have been many times with many friends in those nations, has been disheartening to me thus the threat of ISIL has carried the day for fear has caused the EU to shut up and shut down their civilization. That is very, very sad!

We must all watch in the days ahead the Sunni / Shia divide with the break in diplomatic relations but as importantly, never let your view shift too far from Israel and China. I think we now clearly know what the US leadership reaction and response is which is fundamentally nothing. To have allowed this to fester and explode as it has is simply criminal but we have what we have and we are what we are and again, I find that all very sad from the greatest nation the earth has ever known; well at least we once were.

The Days Ahead

Here we reside now facing into the mist of a new year. For some it is with trepidation, for some joy and excitement, for some fear and discouragement.  The year we are just finishing has shown We the People that our world is more sinister, more violent, more corrupt than any of us could have ever imagined.  Many are pained by the leadership of our nation and I am one.  So many are changing their very way of living because of the terrorist attack fear.  We see the societal values evaporating at a pace thought unimaginable. Terms like "same-sex marriage" have become as typical in use of the term "sunshine."  Drug addiction led by alcohol has become rampant at a pace the general population cannot fathom and most not know want to think about its horrific consequences. I could expand this litany into chapters but you see where I am going; our world is in a morass with no sense of recovery from the plummet.  Please never forget that I personally am the perpetual optimist!

Over the holiday period we have had much family around us in various configurations to include the whole "herd" gathered. I have had time with my growing grand children from six to now thirteen. Each are an amazing creation and amalgamation of genetics and culture.  I find myself staring at each of them playing back their time on this earth with us as they mature, invest themselves in their various activities, friendships; the cycle of youth is amazing and made more amazing I think because of my age. 

When you realize that tipping point when you know there are more days behind you than there are days in front of you, the essence of life begins a rapid transition. Some will try to ignore, some will embrace it and some will crawl in a time warp of worry and whining about getting old.  I, for one, have embraced for, frankly, there is very little about my life looking through the rear view mirror that I would change for the place of the journey today is so very filled with blessings.

Obviously, none of us can view into the mists of tomorrow but that puts us squarely on the footing of choosing to be ready for what resides ahead.  I am not a worrier and am certainly not concerned about life after this life is done for I believe through my faith in God that the best is yet to come. Many will read this and simply nod their head or blow  it off but I believe those words more powerfully than ever before.

Seeing so many pass each year with many of those younger than myself always causes me to take pause and ponder. Being in the presence of vast numbers of elderly people through my singing ministry each week, I realize each of those dear people have and are touching my life in very unique ways. I sincerely feel I have gained so many new "brothers, sisters, parents and grand parents" into my life in these last three years that my "family" grows closer to me each day.

Getting to sing and speak about Heaven, the Holy Spirit and Christ in encouraging the array of people to be sure they are ready for eternity has become one of the high spots of my lifetime for I know the motivation is founded on their betterment more than mine. That, for me, qualifies as the definition of a blessing!

Our world ahead as viewed from the earthly dimension is bleak at best.  I am choosing to not pontificate on the elements of that bleakness in my writings for I find my writs do not bring much light to the darkness but rather creates via social media a forum for expression that often times becomes poisonous and thus adds no value. But it is truly amazing to me at how Facebook as evolved as the currency of communication so rapidly.  Simply amazing!

I do not predict! I do watch things, events, people closely and assume a direction of the connected dots that form a portrait. The portrait I see is not filled with light and grand hopes.  

There is far too much government in our lives. There is this cancer of entitlement eating away our future. This cop hating has grown to something more fearful to me than ISIL and Americans are allowing bullying as are our political leaders by these "movements" that will grow worse as they are allowed to escalate violence.

Here is my fallback position: God is in control! The rest is academic noise. So my advice on new year is to stay focused on God's Word and its principles that are so very clear. I promise to write more often as many have asked of late; thank you for caring enough to encourage that. I only want to always be a light in a dark world via the gift of encouragement.

Be blessed!