Sunday, January 28, 2007

A Moment In My Life

written in 2006 by me

FALLING
I can not see the ground -
My head held so high -
Can't grab my balance -
My bones hit hard and hurt -

LAYING
Cold, Unforgiving ground -
My head is heavy -
Movement is impossible -
Pain sears through my body -

RISING
Looking up toward the horizon -
I catch a vision -
Strength returns to my legs -
Back to my feet, ready to go!

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

I Know I am Missing It

Imagine your favorite one and only sports team that matters is winning, and is on a road to the biggest game of the season. This could be their year! The anticipation, the excitement, and the euphoria would be incredibly large. Emotions other than happy pale in your head and heart. That is all well and good if you don't suffer with depression. Chronic depression sucks!

A friend of mine took his own life last week because he was sick of "the fear and anxiety of living this way every day." This was a quote from his note he left his wife of 17 years, a note apologizing, explaining, and genuinely loving his wife and family. He was very smart, very funny, and talented to boot. He loved his wife, his sister, and his brother, and his Indianapolis Colts. The fact that I didn't know he was sick, and I couldn't help gets to me. The fact that he was suffering so, so deeply and just couldn't handle life, that is more deeply troubling to me and harder to understand.

For years as we watched the Colts we thought of Jim. He lived for them in good and bad times. He was a great photographer, winning awards for pictures taken. He was an outdoors man, and a very fun party guy. Esoterically, an observer would see he had so much to live for. But how could anyone know what evil is in another one's head? This world is such a puzzle, and personally, I can't wait for Christ's return so I could solve it.

A little research tells me that more than 10 million Americans suffer with this malady. There is no cure. There are treatment options, but in some cases that isn't good enough.

Good bye Jim, you will be missed. Thank you for giving me a little insight into your hell on earth. I pray sincerely that your peace is eternal, and your glory is at the feet of the Father.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Actions Speak Louder


Philosophy can be a very annoying profession. Much like politicians, philosophers sits on their collective rumpus maximus' and lets everyone know what is wrong with everything, yet they DO very little to change outside of intellectually berating the world. I am not against politicians per say, because the ultimate goal of politics in this country is SERVICE for others to better the country. The occupation of politician has morphed more into a job of plausible deniability and general promises in order to unseat an opponent or keep your seat. However, this is a rant about philosophy.

I have a made a limited study of philosophers of all sorts. I say limited, because in all I have studied I know there are ten or one hundred more that I have not read, do not know about, and therefore my search is not exhaustive. Nevertheless, philosophers as an occupation are spineless whiners who have no problem finding fault with the goings-on, and ever so rarely step up with their actions actually attempt to better their world.

Passive resistance like going to prison for their beliefs or oppression financially or socially due to the thoughts and communications of "great" philosophers of the past could be construed as actions worthy of my criteria, but I believe that they are weak attempts to martyrdom. What would be so hard about saying, "This needs to be changed," and then living life in a way that went with hand-in-hand with their words? The entire Christianity movement could be broadly considered a philosophy, but for my argument the Christian faith is a lifestyle, thus disqualifying it as a sedentary philosophy.

To bottom line this, most philosophers either try to overcomplicate things to show off their immense intelligence, or try to verbally berate something in order to "prove" its lack of merit. For instance, religion is very easy to see where philosophers either run from it or attempt to disprove God's existence, due to their perception of God's restrictions on mankind, or they argue its irrelevance and try to update it to fit their personal needs and problems.

While it is true that many very intelligent people have had no ability to work toward any type of societal change and either wrote or spoke or both to get people to see the errors of their ways, other great people let their actions match their words - like Gerald Ford, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr.-these are examples of folks who stood against the popular and acted according to their words. Not one of these folks was ever called philosophers, yet they all lived a great community philosophy.

As I reread this for punctuation and spelling, I can also see where my clarity has been slightly led askew. I don't condemn philosophy as a profession, but philosophers who sit and DO NOTHING. I don't condemn politics, but politicians who don't do what they claim.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Something to Scare the Critters Away





I know it's scary, but it must be here to prove a point. I hate my face, and pictures of it just remind me of how "yuck" it is. Anywho, here I am. Notice that the 12 year old has the exact hairline as the 40 year old. Hooray! The fact is, the mustache photo is now ten years old, since there isn't one in existence more current.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

"For Me to Live is Christ, to Die is Gain"


Good Bye, Darrent.

The apostle Paul knew his role on earth, and he told the Philippian church he was focused on what was important. How amazing to be Christ's ambassador on earth, and how wonderful to be in heaven at the feet of God.

Darrent's mother is in the news as she remembers and grieves for her dead son. She thought that Darrent did more in his short life than most, and she attempted to understand his abrupt and heinous end to his life when she told reporters, "maybe that's why he did so much because he knew his time on Earth was limited."

Doing good things, making people smile, these are the qualities of a life well lived. And the fruits of the labors of a man bear witness to the heart of the man. "Dee" Williams gave us all a lesson in living. Too bad some insignificant, immature, punks took his life from us too early.