The foul gasses of election politics expelled from beneath the lifted leg of our discourse cast an embarrassing blanket of stench on the future of the make-believe utopia we cling to. The public expulsion of our excrement, hanging like wet toilet paper, from the branches of our lofty self image becomes the horror of our dysfunctional family portrait as we reach out in arrogance to admonish those around us. We turn our mirrors to the dark side in order to look away from our own ugliness; believing ourselves invisible, we are not only blind but deaf to the rumbling indigestion of our gaseous saturation. Private bodily functions, common to all are deserving of far more dignified discretion but the mock-transparency of our degeneration seems to have entitled us to an open review of Pandora’s cess pool of endless bubbling repulsion. The sick craziness of our driven spirits, craving a dip in raw nuclear waste, we pretend ignorance to the consequences of nuclear fallout.

When the innocent accumulation of dried mucous has publicly digressed into the sport of booger-flicking, when the discrete release of swallowed gas has become a deep rumbling audible salami-scented, belly belch and when simple flatulence has become a loud steaming, wet fart, total embarrassment normally follows; as expected. But in childish ignorance we are drooling as we lace up our bibs, grip our silverware and bang on the table for more. Dinner is served America! A character-themed menu of the most disgusting collection of internally regurgitated entrees from the bottom of a commode-shaped serving trough, topped with a heaping helping of fermented fecal pudding. Just shoo the buzzing flies and enjoy your shotgun wedding feast!

I’ve never been nobody to you. In the anonymity of my listless drudgery I’ve slogged in hapless nothingness but I’ve been your everything. I’ve been the light in your eye while pity filled my own heart with self loathing, doubt and disgust. While trembling knees shook from fears of my own unwise making I have known your peace residing just outside the failures of my limited grasp. I’m not nobody to you. I’m never not your most singular delight; your finest accomplishment; the center of your unfolded desire. I’m your perfection and the core of your generosity, the anchor of your creativity. I’m the best among your excellence and certainly I’m never not the most important among all you have created.
Although I have always known you I’ve been lost in the wilderness of my own misunderstanding of our relationship. I have awakened in the fear of not being accepted by the wicked at the cost of fellowship with the righteous. I have been restless and unable to sleep on nights when the doubt of my self-worth has plunged me into the deception of the persecutors accusations. I have ventured alone into a crowded world of spiritual isolation, fueled by dangerously common thinking. I have showered myself in shameful exploits for prideful reasons, with disgraceful results. I’ve taken human advice about spiritual issues from ungodly counsel and forfeited heavenly solutions in favor of infectious corruption. I have joined the broad paths of everybodys, unwisely engaged in everything and I emerged a broken, lonely somebody, masquerading as nobody.

In all of my shallow self-accomplishment, I stand in the ominous shadow of perpetual failure and loss; one heartbreak away from total collapse. Yet your arms constantly reach out to engulf me in total victory. Although the most valuable of all that you’ve given me is invisible, I stand firmly on the promise that it is uniquely for me, and can never be taken. I am the visible representation of all of your goodness; damaged goods, beautifully repaired, permanently preserved.
You were always my strength and my refuge even as I struggled to know you. When you were nobody to me, you still adored me. I can boldly step forward projecting the confidence of your lordship. I may be nobody to almost everybody but I have never been nobody to you. Thank you Jesus!

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.” Psalms 37:23 (NKJV)
“The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love” Zephaniah 3:17 (NKJV)

Crippling compassion and shameless favor, despite your testy adolescent habits and boundary challenges; your mother may have encouraged rebellious character traits. There’s the hovering and nurturing instincts that possibly subdue the free-range thinking and aspirations of, would-be, ambitious children. The mother hen only acknowledges independence as a temporary state. She was wired for protection against premature flight from the nest and she instinctively constructs a shield around her offspring that sometimes becomes a barrier. Her vicarious interventions outlining and lobbying for the path without pain or consequences. Blame your mother for your lack of depth and thin-skinned nature when the weight of worldly criticism rises against your ego-driven selfishness. Blame your mother when the world pushes the reject button in opposition to the lofty self assessment facade you’ve built around your collection of near successes. Blame your mother because she was always in your corner and always on your side, but don’t forget to blame your mother for praying through sleepless nights and sacrificed meals, for taking a step back in order to push you forward, for enduring stress and frustrations, for teaching and re-teaching you acceptable behavior for every situation. Go ahead, you can blame your mother for that!

In the insulting coldness of direct criticism, he’s everything you needed to know, packaged in a dirty, greasy brown paper bag, saturated with the smell of sweat and cigar smoke. The anti-finesse sprayed into your ear through a fire nozzle at high pressure with constant repetitions of warnings about consequences. Your father barricades himself inside a visible kingdom of off-limits temptations and crushes your spirits from afar with denials and conditions. Blame your father when you’re face-to-face with the challenges he warned you about; when you’re trembling in fear to remember the solutions you ignored. Blame him because you were driven by self-pity to defy the wisdom of his insensitive protection techniques. Blame your father for your deafness to repetition and inarticulate deliveries. Blame him because he allowed you to be punched in the face by reality so that you wouldn’t be slain by real life. It’s probably his fault that you couldn’t recognize the shield he built around your world that only defiance could have destroyed but be sure to blame him for the fourteen-hour days he worked to finance your life and dreams. Blame him for secretly funding your foolish adventures and for suffering through the personal moments of having to administer discipline when he just wanted to put his arms around you. Yeah, you can blame him for all of that!

Ultimately you can blame God for the flawed parents He sent you or you can blame Him for taking the ones you had. Blame Him because the Word He designed to be written in your heart, couldn’t get through the mental maze of yield and stop signs in your head. Blame God because the thing that happened to you wasn’t supposed to happen to anyone; especially not innocent ones.While you’re blaming Him remember that God pulls burnished gold nuggets from the dusty wreckages of human life. He is agonizing over our defiance while He waits for the weight of our burdens to force us back to Him. We have to need Him in order to get to know Him. If you’re already too good or too strong or too pure, you don’t need God anyway! Stop complaining and save yourself from those inexplicable personal pains that only you know about.

As far as you know, God stood by and watched while you were harassed and abused and abandoned because you didn’t hear from Him. He was silent while your family suffered and while you lost those closest to you. While the unmerciful rain continued to fall upon your misery-soaked heart God never said a word. Or could it be that you just didn’t hear Him?

The pre-rehearsed explanation that describes the details of immobilizing sorrow, understandable anger and legitimate fear is the excuse that clings to the lock on the vault door that leads to your (my/our) freedom. Excuses are only confessions of our shortcomings God brings to our attention so that we can reflect upon them, acknowledge them, release them and never be entangled by them again. But as long as we give them the power to repeatedly disguise themselves as acceptable responses to our personal pains and injustices we will be trapped outside the fortress of His protective will.

“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” John 8:34 (NKJV)

Please pray for me, that things don’t go left while I’m on my way to exercise my right. Saying my goodbyes like it’s for the last time, I kiss the wife and kids every time I pick up my keys; not knowing whether the rule for the day is to raise my arms or lay flat, but knowing instinctively that bowing or kneeling would be more pleasing; still unsure if, even, that will get me back home that night. I may have to trade my Beemer for an old church van just to keep suspicion low and so that I can carry as many eye witnesses with cell phones as it would take to have Colin Kaepernick take a knee for me, and maybe convince the insurance company to pay my beneficiaries the claim while they’re still living. Maybe I’ll pick up a few more old geezers to lower the threat perception and we’ll sing gospel songs to invoke peace on both sides of the bus and maybe if there’s enough of us and we move slowly enough, they won’t have time to stop and frisk us all for our Skittles. Just for the sake of backup, please pray that there’s no technical difficulty with those newly purchased body-cams and that the video doesn’t somehow become inadmissible or invisible in court. I’d prefer the terrorist courtesy shot to the leg and I could just limp my way to the polling place if I’m lucky but I’m not sure the bleeding and the limping and the crying for help wouldn’t make me appear more dangerous. If I happen to get the normal sentencing for a crime of “no specific nature” pray that it’s after I’ve had the chance to cast my vote. Oh, I hope there are no super-secret, fraudulent voter fraud laws that would discount the votes of people who die on the way home from the polls. But whatever the case may be, I’m still determined that even if my local firehouse has become the place for an imminent showdown on that day I’m going to be there to hold my nose and take my stand for coulrophobics everywhere and do what’s necessary to erase my nightmares of the angry orange chaos misting on the horizon. If I’m going to risk my life for something it’ll be getting souls out to the polls but I’ve concluded that going out for groceries is no longer worth it.

As anger reins down in contentious fury the call for a conversation echoes through hollow hearts and simulates a need to understand opposing views. Ears trained sharply on the context of assumption, tongues triggered by the possibility of conflict; the silent wall of deafness imitates dialogue but perched beyond the margin of listening awaits a barrage of bitterness waiting to be strewn liberally, with intent to further silence. Calling for conversation upon the deafness of selfish intention and the expedience of conflict cessation, we exist upon the hope that a temporary silence will lapse into forgetfulness and life as we falsely imagined it, will resume.
In one-dimensional narcissism we carefully avoid the four-dimensional conversation required to resolve a spate of recent eruptions built atop a foundation of unresolved injustices, balanced on a smoldering graveyard of hatred; in search of a conversation that simply can no longer be had between the terminally offended ends of two spectrums.
Thoughtless, top-of-the-mind, hateful words expressing pains and assumptions, excuses, justifications, offenses and ramifications cut through airspace piercing egos, breaking hearts, fueling falsehoods. Now you’ve angrily spoken but no one heard, no one understood, no one felt your outcry of emotions; only theirs, and therefore no conversation imagined could have overcome the ringing deafness in protected ears, caused by the first punch thrown. Conversation? No, a war is raging in the silent moments while anxious thoughts encircle distracted minds in preparation for the streaming barbs of a razor-edged rebuttal. Blood for blood exchanges in a not-so-gentlemanly duel of opposite ideas; delivering talking points through make-believe courtesies and alternating knife stabs. Hurtful innuendos hurled wildly until murderous intensions unmask themselves in all-out undignified dueling diatribes of screaming unintelligible chaos. And in the end, no resolution. The hurt continues, non-stop until the chatter ceases; at the point of prayer. Silent communion is unleashed in an echo chamber where fault reverberates inward and failure ends in self-reflection; disagreements unmask conviction.

“But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.” Titus 3:9-10 (NKJV)

In the calm realization that there is no permanent joy in the temporary success of a winning argument, the inability to extract complete satisfaction highlights the powerlessness of emotion-filled human persuasion efforts. The persistent word war only fuels itself with anger and misunderstanding to the point of self-defense and, win or lose, never offers enough self-medication to heal a self-indulgent, self-abused psyche. Perhaps the elements of conversation and self are mutually exclusive. Perhaps when you’ve humbly asked, you’ll hear and when you hear, you’ll understand and when you understand, you’ll feel for someone other than yourself. Perhaps fulfilling “conversation” is more about how one acts than it is about how forcefully one speaks.

”Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Galatians 6:7 (KJV).

An uncontrolled dirt-surfing ride through thickets, around trees and over rocky paths; frighteningly unprotected from exposure to every imaginable elemental calamity. Bumping and scraping, ripping patches of skin and trailing blood deposits to expose the path of a dangerous yet exhilarating journey of profound testimony and complete helplessness. Every turn of the expedition an absolute unknown; a mysterious thrill ride where feet are whisked above ground; never still; never planted. The rapidly changing landscape moving too swiftly to risk the sudden stop; too fast to escape. Each turned corner changes the level of complexity to the complicated algorithms of safe discontinuance and strengthens the grip on total dependency. Unpredictable flips and graceless tumbles highlight dangerous turns where random obstacles appear, wreak havoc and disappear. Oases splash refreshing springs of comfort and healing to courageously acquired battle scars and transformative rewards are generously lavished for faithful participation. A deeply-felt song of validation echoes encouragement into the dark corners of a retracted existence. The brief respite is followed by a brisk jolt back into an elevated encore performance filled with mystery and face-first falls. Jagged gashes of flesh and mouthfuls of teeth-grinding grit and soil reveal the complete helplessness of an embarrassing display of total voluntary defenselessness and self debasement. Yet relaxation of tension-twisted muscles supports a less turbulent experience; a possibility of more control over the uncontrollable and soothing relief from a tightly-wound, visibly-strained resistance effort. The good, the painful and the mysterious merged into the victorious at a cost of already paid for.

A nervous hand reaches half-heartedly toward the hand of God; searching for truth and asking, in shallow words, for the depth of His will. Unable to see the other side of the ominous mountain beyond the dim light of the shadowy valley; catching hold of the tail of a fearless tiger for which, no preparation can adequately prepare.

If your grasp on God’s hand doesn’t feel like a wild ride, that is, if your journey has not felt dangerous, exhilarating, frightening, miraculous, yet absolutely addictive, secure and liberating maybe your reach is not fully extended.

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV)

2016 is like 1971 hyped up on a steroid cocktail in a methadone maintenance regimen; trying to get America off crack and Marvin Gaye is nowhere to be found. The babies that grew up on poison Similac and twisted philosophies are products of test-tube cows and chickens on growth hormones; all physical mutations from our on-demand appetite for foods that used to have seasons and animals that mature faster than they can be slaughtered and flash-frozen. The products of feeding experiments financed by conglomerates that are not, in the least, interested in conflict but branded with conflicting interests that blatantly brandish their interests in wealth over public safety. And nobody’s even asking “What’s Going On”?

The Flint experiment is looking like Tuskegee-for-families and although we’re horrified at the results we’re still watching it play out in real-time and in real-slow motion we’re dealing with it by handing out 12 ounce bottles of Dasani on television. Don’t worry Flint, we’ll be back with some water from Deer Park when y’all need a shower. Rest assured that somebody in Michigan’s governmental complex has that on their desk for action. But can we at least “Save the Babies”?

Since I’m only part-time on all three of my jobs I can only afford to be sick part-time; on my off-time, between jobs because sickness is one of the preexisting conditions I had to waive to get my jobs. If I take time off I lose money and if I go to the doctor, it costs money. The medical diagnosis of cancer-free is even a lie because the truth is that I can’t even get cancer for free; it’s definitely going to cost me something. And if I die before my VA test results come back some politician who wishes he had the opportunity to serve in the military is going to be outraged. There’s a hole in my medical coverage the size of Congress’ benefit package. That really “Makes Me Want To Holler”.

“Mercy, Mercy Me”! With all that’s going on in 2016, the mandate to untwist twisted minds rests upon the musical wisdom of the careful crafters of relevant messages. The catchy tunes of change, repeated through chorus lines in cerebral recitation revolutionize thought into melodic accomplishment. Relevance wrapped with a fifty-year warranty of time-stamped reflection. The toils and strategies of revolution won’t be devised in a strip club. Thoughts of diamonds and Lamborghinis mirror third grade daydreaming, and like every other musical expression of limited thought and extravagant life on a borrowed budget, it’s an insulting display of irresponsibility; a reckless sellout of an artist’s ability to be the vehicle of change the world demands; a pitiful outcry of spent resources and probably money. Hey Stevie, where’s Marvin?

Although this world is not “Wholly Holy” those of us who understand that “God is Love” know that we can rest in the assurance that He will never leave us nor forsake us. God knows the world of gifted songwriters has.

When I’m gone, I’m happily gone and with all due respect, it’s the last day your love will matter to me. The fat lady sings, the casket closes and the shovel sifts through fresh dirt to cover the box of lifeless bones I leave behind. Yesterday was the last day to give me flowers and if you missed yesterday, you missed it; you missed me. Now they will lay in withering decay; a memorial to be trampled underfoot and eventually tidied up by laborers attempting to beautify in honor of more recent death. No personally-themed party plans necessary to foster honor or respect; I will no longer have the ability to care. Box or bag, tomb or hole-in-the-ground, paper or plastic; none of that will matter to the absentee spirit that will be joyously celebrating a life gloriously and finally transitioned.
You can hold my mail. You can read it if you like. Do what makes you happy. I won’t be there to witness any Broadway production of a celebratory send-off, nor the dramatic sadness competition between fourth-grade best friends I haven’t seen since the fourth grade. There’s absolutely nothing I’ll be needing during that time when gentle earthly touches smear cosmetic subterfuge and leave skin dentations in the lifeless opaque mannequin figure representing the guest of honor. I will have moved from my previous address, never to return.
Have your ceremony! The cake I loved so much is yours now. I hope you enjoy it. Don’t feel obligated to read my poetry or sing my songs unless it’s for your own comfort. Those things will never matter to me again because the me that I am, will be me no more. Nothing will bring me more joy than the joyous afterlife I will be clinging to in celebration of my new body and magnified spirit. In fact, I’m certain that I wouldn’t consider letting go of it for a split second to even acknowledge your earthly tribute. I promise not to be disappointed if you didn’t love me like you said you did or if you never visited in my times of need. I won’t know if you intended to be a better friend. I won’t carry any grudges to my coronation. I won’t care if my life mattered less to you than my death and my death less than the funeral services that memorialize it. My death will cancel all of those feelings for me but for you the pendulum of irreversible choices may cause some conviction.
There’ll be no earthly status checks and no startling conversations or family life choices powerful enough to resurrect my glorified spirit or cause my yesterday-body to turn over in the memoriam designated as my grave; I won’t be there.
If you are a friend, you’re a friend today, while it matters. Send your flowers today when heavy hearts burst with anguish and gentle touches can breathe the warmth of concern. Send your flowers while the flowery smell of love permeates the atmosphere of discontent and while love sent can produce love’s scent and mark all the places where love went. Today is all we have to show Jesus to the blind and preach Him to the deaf. Tomorrow friendships will fade into lost opportunity; where broken souls are left on the threshold of possibility. A place where unrevealed testimonies magnify guilt and funeral services symbolize time’s abandonment of those who held back their flowers for too long.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to tell someone how much you love and how much care about them, because when they’re gone, no matter how loud you shout and cry, they won’t hear you anymore. – Unknown

“We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8 (NKJV)

The paranoid ranting of public figures, existing endlessly on their fifteen minutes of infamy turned soap opera, turned crisis, attracts a circling crowd of drooling on-lookers, hungry to feed on the falling crumbs of scandalous leftovers. We’ve resolved to eat whatever poison they leave, just to be relevant; hoping it will be good; ready to accept it, regardless. Not able to turn away from the visual, the audible or the hypothetical, we’ve overdosed on the outrage of the unstable over the insanity of the certifiable. Staring into the confusion as we’re fed a narrative of visual contradiction. Questioning every detail of what we always knew until the repetition of self important justification draws us into an agreement with Satan over the existence of God. Expecting that we will come to understand mysteries by way of supposition, based on the experiences of the godless, we are ignorantly bypassing the inevitability of our prophetic certainty. How could this world be so crazy? How? Because it was always destined to be that way. It was already written and man knows no other way.
The clearer things get the more we’re blinded by the need to understand; to decipher; to predict; to control and after witnessing the wonders of signs we’re left wondering about the signs we’ve witnessed. Engulfed in a haze of self-imposed ignorance brought on by dependency upon those we assume to have a generic answer to our unique makeup, we look past the Source for something less committal; something more immediate; something easier. Trusting in the schizophrenic nature of a liar’s loyalty and ignoring the obvious design of their self-seeking web, we’re lured into overt deception like robots. Expecting a hundred-year travesty to be resolved in a week of good will, we set about to change for the hundredth time; never acknowledging there were two-thousand years of lead-in to the hundred year problem. Over-simplifying the concept of faith as some kind of self-generated belief system, we are perpetuating our confusion in an effort to brainwash ourselves into a better life through programmed thought; in the pursuit of effortless gain by affirmation. Forgetting the road we traveled, we remember the good we enjoyed but forget who paid the expense. We are then shocked to find that the cloud we are under is the cause of the cloud that follows us through perpetual disappointment and we shake our fists at God, assuming that He is the one who let us down. Casually closing ourselves off from the reaches of His grace, we have free-willed ourselves into the next chapter with the bull-headed determination to figure it out; leaving behind the possibility to have it figured out for us. We saw the map, plotted the course, then chose a road going in the opposite direction; squandering the one real choice we have to impact the outcome and hoping that we’d somehow defy physics, geography and biblical certainty.

Somehow we always thought it would be more organized; more discernible; less chaotic. We expected a more beautiful failure.

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (NKJV)

The older I get, the more sensitive I am to the antics of the Roadrunner. That gratuitous violent sarcasm that grips my attention and brings out my inner animal, suddenly gives me a feeling of shame over my desire to see pain inflicted on others. I must be getting soft. The consistent booming sound of Tom and Jerry’s conflicting tension is shocking under a new level of maturing scrutiny. Like rollercoasters shake up the internal organs of an aging body, the repetition of casual violence leads to a sickness; a nauseating vertigo that leaves me hovering over a stinking pool of unnecessary filth. A customary but harmless poison, deeply immersed in my system since childhood, the intravenously supported intake now gushing its non-stop sewage as I continue to require a more substantial daily feeding. My need for vicarious destruction progressed from Popeye to Xbox; from Bad Boys to The Sopranos; from CNN to real live murder and now, these no longer appear to be cartoons but a horrifying alternate lifestyle driven by groups of artificially stimulated sponsors. No longer able to detach myself, their poisonous feeding tube has been fused into my psyche and surgery seems to be my only alternative. Anyone know a Great Physician?

“Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’” Matthew 13:14-15 (NKJV)