Do people matter anymore? Really. I’m a serious as I can be.

Inalienable rights. Justice. Access. Freedoms. Life. Liberty. Pursuit of happiness. Individual protections. Protection from government. Church and State. The need for government protection. Just what are in alienable rights? What does that mean anymore? You’re free to believe what you want, just don’t believe it around me. I hear statements like, “I’m for the greater good!” Whose greater good. Greater good for all of society. maybe…it’s not clear to me..  I can’t imagine the plethora of different “greater goods” people would come up with, not to mention how they’d accomplish arriving at each  “greater good.”

Then I think about the term “shame.” Have we any sense of shame? We’ve lost all semblance of shame… it’s nowhere to be found. Not having shame is celebrated.  I know shame and guilt are a tool and the fuel for cults to flourish.  I’m not  using the word shame in that context.  It’s more about shame for how we talk to and about each other when we disagree. We regress to our childhood school playground. “Well he did this, or she did that..But I did it first. No you didn’t.” You’re  a big fat idiot, Well you’re just ignorant,…Why don’t you shut up,…Meet me outside”…and we take our mark on the stage of turmoil..and then the marchers march and the rioters  tear stuff up.  I’ve had a quote that I made up when I first joined Facebook.

“Something terrible happens when “you” and “I”become “them” and “us.”

It references the concept of deindividuation that presents itself when someone’s  behaviour spontaneously transforms into something other than their normal persona when they participate in a group,…hence greater potential to become more emboldened, more offensive and more dangerous.  They become willing to emotionally meld into the crowd psyche, even if it means foregoing their own personally held discretionary limits. Drowning  in the flood of a united contention, acquiescence is the implied requisite in order to remain part of the group.

We use the obscuritas veil of social media to say anything we want: vitriolic, hateful, spiteful rhetoric….and do it with ease….like spitting as we walk. We think nothing of it. Society places great value on automobiles, beauty, fame, and the bizarre, while the shelflife of human dignity is tenuous at best.. In our current environment, people are disposable, easily dismissed, devalued and worse. We can change that problem in this country, and I don’t mind being as redundant as I can in using this quote.

“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, eloquence, rhetoric, or articulation … but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving towards you and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech” (Edwin Friedman)

Appreciating you enhances me. Not appreciating you diminishes me.  (Dr. Steven Stosny from Anger In The Age Of Entitlement)

The following is just my opinion. I don’t speak “ex cathedra”. Please, no political or hateful posting.
I read a Facebook post the other day and I thought the line of thought was quite good, but as the post went on, it became uglier and sarcastic, and left me empty and thinking. There was an obvious self-admiration the writer had about their ability to be cynical, and said as much. To make things worse, the chorus of respondents highly complimented this manner of expression.
I thought to myself, what’s really going on here…who is this benefitting…. who is this elevating? Why does this make me feel….not good. It was denigrating and demeaning, yet viewed as a brilliant strategic tact by some. I could be wrong here, but to me it only served one individual…the one posting. The words being used displayed a neediness to showcase intelligence and quick-wittedness…. but at the expense of others. It was no longer a salient perspective, but now, pointed out the stupidity of anyone who was in disagreement. Arrogance and cynicism at their core are self-serving, mean spirited, unhealthy….and in the bluster, mistakenly used to imply evidential progress and superiority. 
Do I think that there are smarter people then me…yes. Do I get things wrong….yes. Do I think that there are (in my opinion) some goofy takes on all manner of matters….yes. Can I question their sources…yes. Does that give me license to assault their “person” (intelligence, looks, where they’re from, etc)……NO. 
Having had to deal with cancer…I see the similarities. Cancer is only interested in one thing…destroying and getting what it wants, when it wants, without regard for the well being of anyone or anything. 
Arrogance, Cynicism and Sarcasm are not the children of Love or Knowledge …they are the direct descendants of Needful Significance and Pride. (And don’t confuse skepticism with these diseases.)

I am left bedazzled by a few things when I visit our youngest granddaughter, Maya. She’s beautiful…just like her mother, Emily…and that’s beautiful!!! She has a continuous energy that does not wane until her inner clock chimes out and suddenly what was once joy, turns to tears, her happiness to frustration and immediately begins to rub her eyes.

This rub of her eyes is much like the signal a third base coach gives to a base runner. The first time she signals with a quick rub, and then she increases the rub just like a third base coach would when he realizes he’s dealing with an idiot monkey for a base runner. Her distress signals becomes ever more fervent and frequent. Then come the waterworks. Here you are left with two options. You can feed her, if it’s time to eat and then take her for naptime, or maybe if she is way past settling down…you know what I mean moms…. beyond out of their mind and in an inconsolable meltdown….straight to the crib. I’ve witnessed many fine performances when one of my grandkids fell or bumped their little heads. Some get over whatever has happened pretty quickly. Some have a lower pain tolerance and they cry for a bit. But in the third category, I have seen a little chipmunk begin to cry as they pan the room, find their audience and summon up their thespian skills. You may not realize it, but you have just entered their theater and the show has already begun. This is a performance of sorrow and angst that would bring a great actor like Sir Laurence Olivier to tears, and with no hesitation whatsoever, extend an offer to attend his acting school on a full ride scholarship.

From the time they get up in the morning it’s full tilt boogie. Maya is operating at optimum speed as she does the “toddler amble” around the house. First there is a smiley hug as she first wakes up and then a meeting on the floor of her room to read a book. She has an amazing ability to page through several books within in a few minutes and then it’s off to travel the rest of the house. She plays with her toys in the living room and I sit down to rest. Big mistake. All of sudden I don’t see her. “Maya…Where is Maya?’…Where did she go?…..She was just here. As every parent knows, it is an ominous feeling when your toddler is not in “line of sight’. I leap out of the chair in the living room and head for the kitchen. Oh good, there she is. OH NO, she’s eating something….OH MY GOODNESS she’s chawing down on some tasty nibbles from the dog food bowl. She’s tossing this stuff down like I do eating Captain Crunch. No, Maya let’s go over here and play. She has a treasure trove of toys with which to play, but her favorite toy for now is the almost empty bottle of water I brought in from the car when we arrived. It seems to be all she really wants to play with. Go figure. I would discover later that day that you don’t drink the remaining water in the bottle, because that ruins the whole toy thing for her. That, all by itself evokes another tear shower until I can get to the sink to fill the bottle with the same amount of water it once enjoyed. Hence, another storm evaded.

I’m tired, but now it’s time to go to the kid’s museum where Maya can run around and do whatever she wants and hopefully get pooped put in the process. The museum is a complete success and we arrive back home. Time for a nap… and she goes off to bed. Now maybe I can get something done…Did I say get something done…That’s not going to happen. I barely fall to sleep on the couch and her nap is over…..WHAT?….Pam just laid her down. Nope..battle stations. Maya is talking up a storm and I’m exhausted.

Something miraculous happens when they wake up from their nap. It’s like they decide to throw their hat into the ring to become the next “most reasonable child ever”. Just a diaper change and she’s off to her “happy place.”

It isn’t but within a few minutes and the “little one” has gone missing again. I head back into the kitchen..no Maya. “Maya…oh, Maya’ Where is my little “June bug?” I hear something…is that the toilet flushing? OMGoodness…she’s in the bathroom. Rushing into the loo, I find her having the time of her life, what with toilet paper there are countless choices from which a kid can choose. Tearing it, ripping it, rolling around in it or a particular delectable favorite….eating the toilet paper. (Why not the parental units just got back from Costco with a brand new supply…”Toilet paper for all my men!!!) It’s a proverbial panacea of “Confettis pour enfants”.

Fortunately Ben and Emily’s home is a virtual Fort Knox of safety locks. These devices are on drawers, outlets, cupboards…and in this case, toilets. The only problem with the toilet locks, is when Poppie and Grandma get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom in a sleep worn stupor…a child lock can be hard to unlock. I was so frustrated the first night because I really had to “go” and I couldn’t unlock the dumb toilet…about that time the sink was looking pretty good to me…but I finally managed to unlock the “throne of mercy” and find relief once more.

Then that thing that kids do some times, happened. She was talking and talking and I’m trying to make sense of what she’s saying, talking back to her, and all of a sudden it happens…the stare. I’m talking to her and I say, “Maya…Maya.” She is still staring and I can’t get her attention. It’s momentary, but she’s obviously hyper focused on something. It hearkens back to me sitting in a third grade classroom, staring out the window thinking about ..well about, you know..stuff. I don’t know exactly what…but it is settling to me. “Greg…Greg” …Miss Fuxa is trying to get my attention, but I’m thinking about important stuff like why they had to kill Ole Yeller. Finally, Eldon Haugen, who sits in the desk behind me taps me on the shoulder and I hear kids laughing. What follows is the most familiar phrase in my younger days. It’s the voice of my teacher saying, “Greg, would you like to join the rest of the class?” I was quickened to the reality of my classroom. Thus befuddled, I tried to recover by raising my hand. Miss Fuxa informed me, “You don’t have to raise your hand, Greg. You just need to pay attention.”

It’s why I relate to this stare of Maya’s. She’s in a very special place…a place of her own…No one else can be there except the people she invites… or the places she wants to be. It’s hers alone. Then just like that, she snaps out of it and begins to march around the room again. She climbs up on the couch with me and presses her little arms around my neck, clinging to me like a baby koala.

These are the moments I wait for, the moments unexplainable. When these times come, I feel her warmth, I take in the fragrance of her baby shampooed hair and the softness of her cheeks. Those little fingers like the finest silk, rub my arms….and I’m at peace. If just for a moment…it is for a lifetime I remember.

Well we’re off today to take Pam for her eye surgery. The surgery is related to her Graves’ disease. We kind of got a laugh this morning talking about all the surgeries we’ve had. Her thyroid is at St. Thomas, my prostate is at Vanderbilt downtown Nashville, my appendix and her cataracts are at Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, and both of us have our tonsils and adenoids left over at hospitals in Bismarck, North Dakota. 
in those days, hospitals had different names then they do today and they were divided along theological lines. She had her surgery at Saint Alexis Hospital, which was Catholic and mine at Bismarck Hospital, which was Protestant…. oh my Lord. What could be worse. God forbid that I might be treated by a Catholic and even worse…she would be ministered to by a Protestant physician. (I’m sure these were the very same concerns passengers were wrestling with as they frantically grappled for lifeboats as the Titanic was sinking). 
I’m not sure but they might even create special punishments for this…like for the Baptists, holding you down extra long when you’re getting baptized or not being allowed to eat any fruit filled green OR red Jell-O at church potlucks or worse…being barred from Wednesday night service..😵
And I don’t want to think about the number of Hail Mary’s you’d get for this “sin of commission” (Venial… but very possibly bordering on mortal). I’m sure you’d get carpal tunnel syndrome from the extra rosary time they’d administer. Can you even imagine!!!!….😱
Whatever….Pam and I have surmised that with all our “parts” scattered to the “utter” ends of the earth …we are both what you’d call…. “widely known”…. and no smart remarks….😎

I’ve always loved Father’s Day because that’s when I get to do so much fun stuff, like eating every wrong thing on my low carb diet because I get to choose the menu (and Pam can’t say anything). I especially love forcing each chipmunk to sit with me for at least ten minutes so they can nurture me and I can tickle them, kiss them and be overwhelmed by the joy their long hugs bring. Oh yes, it’s also a time when they can lie to me and tell me how young I look and that I’m so wonderful…(I really love that part).It occurred to me this morning that there are others to remember on this day. I think of some families who don’t have the same opportunity to be as happy. I think of those whose partners have passed away, and on this date there’s a longing and a melancholic cloud. There are those too who’ve been abandoned by partners whose narcissism and inability to comprehend the word commitment make this occasion just one more dark remembrance. There are father’s who have lost children, and so many more stories to be sure. I certainly don’t have the ability to speak to every circumstance, but these are just the situations that came to my mind this morning. 

I have often prayed for, worked at and contributed to shelters that support abandoned moms left financially bereft, homeless, with no family support system. When you live comfortably, it is nearly impossible to fathom the weight of stress on a mother or father of children who are looking for work, just looking to catch a break…not even so much for themselves…but for their children. For them this day just becomes another day to survive.

So on this Father’s Day I’m celebrating the woman or man who in desperation cries out, “I can’t do this anymore ….I’ve got nothing left in me”…but if only for love of the children, they do it anyway because something inside them is prodding them and whispering, “keep going”…..and so they press on thru their day, hoping and praying till they can’t pray anymore ….and then cry themselves to sleep.. It’s a hard life, it’s a troubling, exhausting, sometimes emotional and explosive existence…but they keep on because there’s this voice…this unseen presence that keeps whispering to them…. ”Hush now child…there’s a better day a comin’…God is near”. …and so they wait.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.”

This past week, Pam and I flew to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to celebrate our granddaughter, Maya’s first birthday with the added joy of babysitting her for four days while Ben and Emily were able to take a well-deserved break to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

As most of you grandparents are aware, a few things change when you’re babysitting your grandkids. Well if you thought you were going to get some television time in while you’re watching a one year old, you can scratch that off your list. Instead of HGTV (or whatever your “channel-du-jour”), you’ll now be watching “The Baby Channel” or “Sprout”. Actually I’ve become sorta prodigious in a way because I can sing the alphabet to a treasure trove of nursery rhyme tunes. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m much better at doing those hand motions than Pam is. (and frankly folks, that only comes with practice…and from seeing the same thing OVER 15, 000 TIMES. Sheesh!!!) 
Your speech patterns change as well. I found myself slowly moving from speaking thoughtfully to avoid sentences ending in prepositions …to a high pitched and animated mixture of baby babble and short bursts of “Whoopsie”, “No no”, “Don’t touch”, Let’s come over here”, “Look out” and “Oh, YUCK.” I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve played “Peek-A-Boo” or caught Maya French kissing the dog. Oh, man.
We loved taking Maya on walks around the neighborhood. It’s so fascinating to watch them experience things for the first time in their life. As I watched her, I noticed her great curiosity at the sight of the most mundane things to me. When she saw a flower or a weed, she touched it and contemplated it’s uniqueness. As we walked, she was teaching me something valuable and timely. I was learning how to grow old well…..curiously, thoughtfully and expectantly.
The morning that Ben and Emily were coming back home, Pam and I lay in bed listening to her on the baby monitor as she was waking up. For about twenty-five minutes she was cooing and softly babbling to greet the day. Now for anyone who knows me, my mind is always flittering. ADHD gives you the ability to be mentally omni-attentional. While listening to those innocent sounds, my mind was transported to the immediacy of my sister-in-law’s cancer surgery today, Pam’s uncle’s pending heart difficulties and a friend in Texas whose wife has Alzheimer’s disease. Looking up at the off-white ceiling of our bedroom, I felt a mixture of deep emotions. My eyes welled up with a slight burning sensation in my nose. The voice of life was singing to me. “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round”…..

I’ve said many times that complicated things are just too complicated for me. Lately I’ve hit a spell of being overwhelmed with life and all it’s stuff. It’s a combination of wanting to tell everyone I know that I love them and care about them, but there aren’t enough hours in the day to call, email or write individual Facebook posts to let them know how I feel. Then there’s the world and political turmoil in a mix with friends who are sick or going through great difficulty. The daily schedule of appointments, tending to my family and trying to be a good husband also adds to the flood. I’m really not a melancholy sorta guy, but I just hit this little period of mental overload. It’s not depression, but just too much obsessive compulsive in me for the time being.
It finally dawned on me that I could do something about it. I don’t want to go all spiritual on you but I had to say to myself…….STOP!!!!! BREATHE. LISTEN.
Well what do I listen to. Listening to myself trying to sort things out hasn’t been working all that well for me, so as a last resort, I thought a little prayer and being quiet so that God could get a word in edgewise might be prudent. Don’t get me wrong, Pam and I are fervent in our prayers for the needs of others, but I realized that I need to pray for myself as well. I hadn’t been too good in that category lately.
Miracle of miracles, after a little time of tranquility with God….my inner turmoil began to dissapate. The realities of life continued, but after taking a deep breath, this tension released it’s stranglehold on me. Isn’t it funny that more often than not, I choose the most effective way of taking care of a problem as a LAST option. Why is it that I’m more prone to just “wonder” about things? Even more tragically, just after a little “quietness”… It becomes apparent how little I am actually in touch with what God is doing. When am I going to learn?
Now for my unbelieving friends, I’m not preaching…I’m talking to myself. I don’t like people preaching to me…I mentally move away from them when that happens. I tend to move toward people when I think they REALLY care about me, and not merely their opinion. Peace to all my friends. You are all resting warmly in my heart and your joy is important to me. Cheers!!!!

It was a hot summer afternoon and the neighborhood kids from Sunset Place were playing baseball in the vacant field behind my house. My dad and his friend had built a nice backstop for us and we played hardball throughout the spring, and summer. We’d meet at the field and put teams together. Tommy Beyers was the best athlete so he was always one of the two guys that got to pick the players, and by default, one of the rest of us would choose for the other team. I was never on Tommy’s team and I was sometimes…make that ALWAYS…picked last in the selection process. This was due to my proven lack of athletic ability and fading prowess at ever becoming a finely tooled machine.

It was a hard hit fly ball to left field, and I couldn’t believe it. Finally, after weeks of umpteen tries, my bat had actually connected to the baseball in a real game. Rounding the bases, I was beyond ecstatic as the screams of the players rose up around me. I had never heard them cheer like that before, and after reaching home plate, I smiled and turned around to survey the field. It was then I realized that the players hadn’t been cheering for me at all, they were berating our left fielder …..(I have to stop here and tell you that I’m using the name Terry here and not his real name just in case he’s still alive and has an affinity for filing lawsuits , stalking old neighborhood kids on Facebook, and stuff like that.)

“Terry!!!! What the horsemilk are you doing?” It was one of the neighbourhood kids, Larry Hoff, yelling at Terry. (Horsemilk was Larry’s favorite swear word and when he got flustered, he’d let his signature expletive fly. ) He was shouting at Terry because while I was hitting the ball to his position in left field, he was in the middle of relieving himself in front of God and everybody. At least he had turned away just enough to spare us from a full frontal expose’…and as he did he bent over a little. (Tommy Beyers said it looked like he was bowing toward Mecca, but Terry was a Catholic and wouldn’t have the faintest idea where Mecca was…maybe Mandan (the town right next to Bismarck). …but certainly not Mecca, that’s for sure.

Terry began his explanation. “I was just taking a whiz…. that’s all”. The neighborhood kids started in. “You were takin’ a stinkin’ whiz….Oh man!!!….Reel it in Terry….Geez!!! Haven’t you heard of a toilet?” Terry shot back. “Yah, I’ve heard of a toilet but that’s two blocks away and I had to GO NOW!!!! Even in our flaming pubescence, we had a boyish sense of decorum …whatever that means. There was an unspoken list of things that were allowed, chief of which was spitting and holding spur of the moment contests to see whose bodily functions were the loudest. This was certainly well within the limits of hormonal civility…but draining on the ball field was not on the list.

One sandlot ritual was trading our baseball gloves when we came in to bat because not everyone had a mitt or maybe they’d forget to bring their baseball glove. No one ever thought anything of it….that is until ole Terry boy decided to do the naughty. I remember him coming from the field to bat and handing me his glove. Ooh…no…oh heck no…not me…not with that . No way I was going to put my hand in that glove. I knew where it had been and I didn’t want to as the song says….”put my hand in the hand of the man” NO SIR..…HUH UH!!!!!

I just didn’t trust that Terry’s glove was “safe” anymore. Yes…not safe anymore. It was as simple as that. Trust is really important to me no matter the situation. It is in my marriage, in business, in the political arena, in friendships and so many other situations. Trust is the marrow of any promise or relationship. It is the living, active fiber of my word. So as I’ve always stated on matters of trust…”If you pee in the field ….don’t hand me your glove”. (That didn’t come out like I thought it would..Horsemilk!!!!)

Jesus said we would always have the poor with us. He rightly understood our true nature, and He certainly understood the inclination of my heart. I’ve been thinking about the joys of our trip to Italy and our unfettered comfort back home here in Franklin. It is both wonderful and troubling. 
Pam and I have been talking a lot about it. I guess if we can spend the money for this trip and our everyday creature comforts, we can spend the same amount for the basic necessities for those not so fortunate. Oh yes, we’ll give to the needy (just as long as it doesn’t mess with our financial comfort). But if we can spend 10 days in Italy, we can surely spend at least ten days working for the betterment of others. Oh sure, we do little things throughout the year sending money for good causes or helping in little ways…but we could surely do much more. There are so many commercials about spending money to be more attractive to others, having the right car and products for all the things the marketers say we deserve. But at the end of it all ….when I reach real deep….it leaves me empty. 
As Pam and I take a hard look at ourselves, we realize that we have got to do more than just talk and be grateful for our comfort. It’s gotta be go time for us. Isn’t it funny, but we know we’ll be so much the richer for it…not because we want to feel good about ourselves…but because we can, in our little way, affect the lives of precious people outside our per view. No matter the cliché, we do have the ability to make this world an even better place.

(As I write this, I am not looking for encouragement…it’s just that I want to spend as much time getting better at being a human being as I do playing my cello, and writing music…..and there’s a long road ahead.)

Pam and I worked at Vacation Bible School at our church in Nashville this week and boy did we have our hands full. The atmosphere of excited conversation, laughter and squealing was continually at fever pitch. The kids we were leading were just about to go into 4th grade. Let me just say for the record, I have never been jumped on, hugged, asked so many questions and schooled in so many varied techniques of nose picking as I experienced this week. To say it was wonderful would not fully express what Pam and I felt as we loved these little treasures.  
I recognized myself as I watched a little hyperactive boy who was constantly on the move, racing around the pews, crawling under the pews, saying whatever came into his little head and smiling all the time. It might have driven someone else to distraction, but I knew him… and he was beautiful to me. In crafts his artistic flair was evident and he was unusually quiet as he hyper focused on the tasks that were asked of him. During the music section while all the kids were learning the dance moves, he was looking at the loudspeakers and talking to himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the words to the songs or the moves for that matter…because when I asked him to move up from the back row onstage, he knew every word and movement. It was just that he was busy in his own world, sorting things out in his own way.  
The girls were as sweet as sweet can be. They ignored the antics of the boys and really seemed a bit more mature…but I think that’s kinda normal in “kid world”. We had a group of workers from Slovakia that made the week extremely interesting to me. The children attending VBS were literally from all over the world, either having moved here with their families, adopted or visiting. I was brought to tears so many times during the week as I heard from these children. You could see the training and background of these kids as you observed their behavior. I just wanted to hug and love on them, but I had to be careful because any action of mine might possibly be misconstrued. I love hugging…EVERYONE…but Pam wisely cautioned me about that….and no pictures. I understand the why, yet for me it was a real exercise in restraint. But it’s over now…and I need a nap…a real long nap!!!!