December 20, 2012

“A wise man told me don’t argue with fools,
cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who.”

Jay Z

I have been in a place where I just want to tell people how I am feeling. What this seems to me is that I would sound like I was complaining and whining. My experience is that the people I would talk to would want to fix me or say buck up cowboy and quit your whining. Neither is at all satisfying to me. Is this being victim? Maybe, maybe not, I just have lots inside me that I need to sort out. The only way I know is to dump it out, look at it, sort the good from the bad and go on.

Oh well. Part of this, I believe, comes from how others perceive me. They look at me to be the strong one who will be there, the unshakeable rock. Well I do get shaken and things do bother me. As I write this a thought comes to me, if someone were to be there for me could I truly accept it and be honest to a fault? To be honest I think not. This would mean I am capable of being vulnerable. Nobody is every going to hurt me again. I cannot be vulnerable! Intellectually I know that is not true because I do get hurt and the defenses I put up are not serving me well. Yet there they are. If you don’t understand this train of thought it is because you are not listening. I am dumping right now and it is what is so logical or not.

I sent the Jay Z quote from above to my boss and he replied back with:

Hard it is to be born,

Hard it is to live,

Harder still to hear of the way,

And hard to rise, follow, and awaken.

He who wishes to awaken

Consumes his desires joyfully.

Buddha

I asked him what this means and he replied back. “Make up your mind, what you want (desire) and go do it. Don’t hesitate, don’t make excuses. Consume it… live it… do it…”

Holly Shit! How come I have to keep being reminded of how to live life? I pray every morning for God to help me find my way. I always do a gratitude list and then just exist. I have been given the tools and told The Secret; yet again here I am not LIVING but just existing. What Buddha says is like striking a flint to my tinder. The spark is there, is there enough willingness in me to have the tinder catch and the flame of passion come alive? I can’t think my way out of this one. As Yoda said “Do or do not, there is no try.”

What do I really want; sex, money, fame, love or what? I listened to a Tony Robbins Youtube video yesterday. Tony said that we focus on the wrong stuff such as if we want good health our focus in on not having bad health or not doing unhealthily things. In other words we don’t focus on healthy we focus on not doing unhealthy things. This resonated with me, I could see where I would pray for my body pains to go away, I do gratitude list so I am not unhappy. I have no focus on what I really want out of life. I just have the concept of I don’t want it to hurt any more.

So what am I going to do? Nothing! Why, because it has not worked in the past. Oh yes there would be temporary relief but nothing permanent. Having something hasn’t worked either. I have a great wife, great kids, and a great job and still I am left wanting. So I guess the only thing left is the BEing.  To Be or not to BE that is the question. And the willingness to BE.

Okay my mind is hurting. There is hope in the Ah Ha moments I have just had. Weird I call the Ah Ha moments when it is stuff I already know and preach to other when they ask me for help. I am not going to think about this but rather meditate. The difference is when I think I am trying to figure the answer. When I meditate I am opening myself for God to direct me.

Till later.

Thy will not mine be done.

December 6, 2012

This Saturday we will be lying to rest my ex-bother-in-law, Uncle Doug. He passed away over Thanksgiving. He was diabetic and just lost a foot and the speculation is he fell and went into a diabetic coma. He lived alone so no one was there. Even though he was alone I question if he was really alone. The sheriff said it looked like he didn't suffer. To me that is just another sign that the Cosmic Muffin, GOD, is with us. That is my belief and I'm sticking with it.

I really like Uncle Doug, he was Barbara's little brother and when I was dating her I used to hang out with him, even got him a job when he was 14.

I pray that Jesus met him and let him to Grace, if he didn't I pray for Jesus to go to him to give him my love that he may find Grace.

He will have a very simple barial, a grave side service. I told my daughter that if they needed someone to dedicate the grave I would  be honored.

May peace be with his daughters, Barbara and her family, Rebecca, Ray and his family.

My Ray, my son, had another loss in his family. His wife, Beth, lost her mother over Thanksgiving weekend as well.

I send my love to Ray, Beth and their family in this time of loss that Jesus will be with them and give comfort.

Well God is calling his children home. I hope I am way down the list as I still have lost of love to give my family.

I find it interesting that I see the Jesus story a myth but ask him to be with those in need and have passed on. This is just my story and I will either come to peace and accept it or not.

Enough for today

Thy will not mine be done.

December 5, 2012

 ”If you don’t have a dream,
how can you have a dream come true?”

 Jiminy Cricket

Do you have dreams of what you want or could be in life? Dreams that maybe started when you were a child or a seed that was planted when you read a book or watched a movie or as you got older your eyes were opened to a possibility? I know that I have.

I ask “Are you truly living your dreams?” I would venture a guess that less than 1% of the population lives their dreams. Why is that? For me it all boils down to fear, yes FEAR! Fear of what people would say, financial security, alienations from family and friends and just not knowing what or how to make my dreams come true. Yet there are people like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs who have lived their dreams. You can join their ranks by following three simple steps. 1) Believe, 2) Declare, 3) Surrender.

Belief in your dreams is the first step. Without this belief your fears rule your actions and before you start you have already created the outcome that your dreams are not worth pursuing. A basic example of the power of belief is people have a belief or believe that if they go to work someone will pay them so that they can eat and have a place to live. Pretty simple and for the most part it works, so if this works why can’t you just believe in you dreams and have them succeed?  I submit, the missing piece is we are NOT WILLING to believe! What do I mean by ‘Willing to Believe’? You don’t have to committed or even do anything. Just to be open to the possibility.

Before a dream can live there has to be someone willing to believe in it and since we are talking about your dream, you are the one to become willing. This can be very scary because of all the fears we talked about, what will people think, money, family etc.  But, remember this is just willingness. You haven’t committed to anything or even really done anything. If you are having trouble, try this on, be willing to be willing.

At this point you have create a space where the dream can be a possibility, you are now ready to take the next step.

Next is to declare your dream as a possibility. You may be saying to yourself “what good will that do? “ Let me give you an example of the power of declaring, our country didn’t not exist until the founding father created The Declaration of Independence. Their action was to declare a dream as a possibility and from this the greatest nation in the world was born.

Now take your dream or one of your dreams and declare it. One of my dreams is to be a motivational speaker; this is how I declared that dream. “The possibility I am creating for myself and my life is the possibility of being a motivational speaker.” Wow! That feels good just to tell you my dream.  The power is that it now exists as a real possibility not just as a dream.

All that is left is to surrender. WHAT?!? After all THAT he wants me to surrender? Surrender what and to whom?

Now just take a deep breath and put the weapons away.

Let me ask you a question, how has living your dreams been going with you in control?  If they are truly going great then you already understand surrender. You must give up control and turn it over to your higher power or as I call it God. This is not religious; your higher power can be anything. Mine is the Cosmic Muffin and you are welcome to use it. The point is to get you out of the way. Once you have become willing to believe in you dream and declared it, the universe creates what is necessary to have it come into fruition. If you think you have to control it you will only mess it up. Get out of the way, surrender and be available to do what shows up.

Your dream should come naturally and feel right. Unlike at a job, you are not doing it for someone else so they can fulfill their dreams, if you are it is not your dream.

Now if you have honestly done these three simple steps your dream will show up. Remember you just have to become willing to believe, declare your dream as a possibility and turn it over to your Higher Power.  Now a word of caution, be careful of what you ask for, you just may get it.

Thy will not mine be done.

December 3, 2012

Holly Crap I feel like I am going to burst! I haven’t written since the 14^th and there are words and thought inside of me that need to come out before I explode. Yet, guess what? I seem to have writer’s block!! ARGH! Where do I start and how do I make a coherent sentence?

I want to write about turning ‘IT’ over to a God of my own understanding, my mortality, how watching ‘A Field of Dream’ affected me, etc. but where do I start?

There is no starting place. I started this Blog on 11/26 and here it is 12/3 and still no further along. So I will leave all the ‘looks good’ shit out and just mind dump. Hang on and keep your hands and arms in the ride at all times, just teasing there may be no excitement just the mind dump.

The more I get out of the way and let God rule my life the smoother it gets. Last night my youngest daughter got really upset with me about talking to her mother about a Christmas present she wanted me to by her mother. She was upset and I was upset being scolded by my daughter, how dare she talk to me that way. I was hurt and upset and didn’t know what to do except to say “God I don’t know what to do can you please help me?” I sort of let it go I didn’t call her up and correct her for talking to her father is such a disrespectful way. Within a few minutes she text me saying she was sorry for hurting my feeling.  Oh my gaud you could have knocked me over with a feather, I could never have demanded and received that type of love and respect. This left the door open for me to see how I had hurt her and to make amends for my part. We exchanged our love for each other and other things in our lives. I love that girl so much!

Today my boss was sharing about when he worked for Bill Graham who was a big promoter for groups like Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane and the like. This caused me to go to Youtube and listen to the Viet Nam song by Country Joe and the Fish and did it ever hit me hard.

I was a teen ager in the 60’s and pretty much had Hippie leanings but was not a dyed in the wool one. Family pressure caused me to be a consertive-hippie. Talk about a person who doesn’t know who he is or where to turn. Today in hind sight I should have been true to my Hippie leanings. Today people call me the Old Hippie because that is just what naturally comes out. I believe is social justice, human rights, love is more powerful than might and there is an all powerful Spirit of the Universe – GOD. Don’t get me wrong, I spiritual not religious and don’t like organized religions but realize that I was raised LDS-Mormon and those value have colored my ways of seeing the world. I used to try to hide that fact and say I used to be a Mormon. Today that doesn’t matter because that is one of those things I can’t change. If I drop my membership that would not change that I was raised Mormon. So today why bother trying to look good in someone else’s eyse? If someone doesn’t like me because I am a Mormon or more correctly a Jack Mormon that is out of my control and if I tried to change that, I would be untrue to my Hippie soul.

I still struggle with the concept of Jesus being the only begotten Son of God. To me he was a great person who was the ultimate Hippie. I feel that were he here today he would not want to be considered the Only Begotten.  That being said, I don’t really know because I don’t  know what God is, I just know that God Is. For me if asked what God is to me I say the Cosmic Muffin.

Enough for today.

Thy will not mine be done.

November 14, 2012

Only 27 days till the end of the world.

A week ago Tuesday I got really sick. At first I thought I had the flu or a virus or something but the feelings were just not right for what I have felt in the past. The main difference was that pain. I not talking about the crappy feeling you normally get with body aches and stuff. No this was out right PAIN as in being inflicted upon type pain.

First I started out with the barfs and instead of diarrhea I got the opposite, constipation. When it finally broke loose I thought I was giving birth do a mad ferret. Oh did I mention the PAIN?????????

During this ordeal I kept having the same thoughts come into my mind “has this something to do with the 4 infections I got from the hospital 5 years ago?” I have long thought that They were never completely cleared up.

This is what I think I was going through last week. Just a week earlier my wife and I completed 6 days of training on Chinese energy work call Longevitology. If you are familiar with Reiki this is the Chinese version. I have been trained in Reiki and a Reiki Master, with this new training I am at level 2 and to get the 3^rd level I need to travel to the Master.  During the Longevitology training you meditate, the students work on each other, and receive adjustments from the Teacher. The work is called adjustments in Longevitology.

I have suffered with severe chronic back pain for the past 2-3 years and think it had something to do with my hospital infections, but could never prove it. All I wanted to know is what was causing it so maybe I could make it go away. I have done physical therapy, chiropractics, Tia Chi, Kung Fu and take regular meds; all have worked very well in controlling and managing the pain. I am very grateful for them and the path they have shown me.  Yet there was still the meds and I hate and very fearful of taking pain medications.

Well back at the ranch, the Teacher of Longevitology said that with adjustments, sometime when you heal the process of healing can be painful as the body corrects itself. So I said to myself “Self I think your body is eliminating the last of the infection from 5 years ago.” Could this be true? I don’t know and I am too close to be objective and I could be hiding the truth trying to be objective. What a dilemma!

This is what I want to believe whether it is real or just my hopes. I have had a hidden infection in my body from my hospital infections (all 4 of them) since my cancer surgery. They manifested themselves as sever chronic back pain and general lethargic feeling. The energy work with Longevitology prompted my body to cleanse itself of those infections or at least started the cleansing process.

Results, I have not had the need to take the prescription medications for 7 days. Because of fear of the pain I still carry a daily dose with me. I do have some back pain but have optimism that it can now be healed. I am now looking to see if the back pain and damaged disks still serve a purpose in my life or have out lived their usefulness and I can move on to health. In other words I can turn this all over to God and be done with it.

Enough for Today

Thy Will not mine be done

November 4, 2012

I was listening to a Joe and Charlie tape (AA big book study) and they were talking about the second step “Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” They were saying that the dumb stuff we did while drink is not the the insanity the book talks about. The insanity the book talks about is that which we do or think when we are not drinking. Most of us don't believe we have that insanity in our lives and would argue if someone tried to point it out. Well. . .just so happens that as I was listening to this I drove by a street where I got drunk and acted like a huge ass-hole when I was 16 or 17 years old. What struck me was that as I drove by the street I started to berate myself for acting so stupid 46 years ago. I was also struck with the reality that I, yes I, with those thoughts was acting in an insane way. How insane is it to punish oneself for 46 years? And I am probably the only person alive who even remembers that night.

The realization has been showing up in my live in all sort of way. In the meeting I went to today, step 2 & 3 were the topic. I have been working with 2 sponsees and both of them are at that place where they see insanity in their lives but not seeing that they are acting insane even when I point it out to them.

As I write this blog I see that I have not dealt complete with step 2. And now God has given me the perfect people to sponsor and the tools (meetings dealing with step 2 & 3, AA tapes) to do what is in front of me.

Ah Shit. Here we go again. I have prayed for help and God has given it to me. I recently watched the movie “Bruce Almighty” and in the movie Bruce is give the power of God by God. And what he finds out is that are unpleasant things that must be done to have what you really want. Things like being patient, truly wanting other to have what they want rather you getting what you want, stuff like that. I have heard it called the dark night of the soul.

I have been praying for God to help with with the self berating that I catch myself doing hundreds of times every day. Guess what? Steps 2 & 3 start showing up in my life and now I have some things to do that I didn't plan on doing.

How does the dark night of the soul fit in here? In the past I would be saying to God “Why have you given me this curse of hating myself and then given me crazy people to sponsor?” That would be the unpleasant things.

What is showing up for me right now is God has given me people in my life to help me find that answer to the self hatred and how to deal with it or maybe make it go away. Am I grateful? Yes and No. No in that now I have to do something, God is not just going to make it go away. Yes, in that there are 2 human beings who share similar issues so I am not alone and just maybe between the 3 of us we can find serenity.

Well enough for tonight.

Thy will not mine be done

November 2, 2012

Only 49 days till the end of the world. Or at least that is what the Mayan Calendar say (December 21, 2012)

Today I woke up a little tired, when to the chiropractor came out feeling great but by 12:30 my pain level was at about a 9 on a scale of 1-10. I don’t understand. I know it is coming from my back but what am I doing wrong. Okay I was supposed to take my pain meds at 10 and didn’t take them till after 1pm, but I was feeling damn good and forgot.  I have done this is the past without being hit this hard. I feeling like some greater force is messing with me, zapping me just for fun when they are board.

On a different note, last night I was watch the first Pirates of The Caribbean and when Captain Jack Sparrow was in Tortuga to get a crew and there was all the drinking and partying going on I so wanted to be there. I started to think about the drunken times I have had in the distant past and the remembered fun I had. Oh what a dangerous fantasy to have for someone who is allergic to alcohol.

Damn the magic happened again. I was feeling shitty, hurting and I started to write and BAM! I started feeling better. I have a bit of a hangover from the hurting but feel so much better that I could just jump black flips (that is if I could).

I am having a feeling that Nancy is not happy with me. And it may just be my paranoia but it is a feeling just the same. I was listening to an AA tape and the speaker was talking about fear of abandonment. That though resonated in my with such power that I had tear come to my eyes. I can say for sure that I have that fear but what could that feeling have meant except that I fear abandonment. I am afraid that unless I act perfectly and do the right things I will be left by myself all alone to die. And this feeling has nothing to do with anyone else. This is just my fear. Other people will do what they do. I don’t know if I could survive being a victim of what they do. And yes I know the only person who can make me a victim is me.

Well that was interesting and some of it may sound like bull-shit but that is what is going through my mind.

Well signing off for today.

Thy will not mine be done.

October 24, 2012

One week to the day since I last posted. What a week it has been. My wife, middle daughter and I have been taking a class on Chinese energy work; it is call Long life Gevity. If you have every heard or experienced Reiki you know something about it. There are differences in that Reiki have symbols and you can charge for the session where as this training states you cannot charge and it is based in meditation.

The meditation is very critical to me as I have never felt I know how to meditate or even what it was. I remember my mother questioning meditations as being something weird or even bad. I am unclear on why she felt that way and since she passed in 2001 I can’t ask her.

In my class on Long Life Gevity I had a leader who was very strict and said breathing with eyes open and focus on a single spot for 5 breaths then close eyes and breathe normally. After about 10 minutes he said we will now end our meditation. I didn’t even know I was meditating, go figure. All this time in the past I had been over complicating something so simple. There were no mantras or clearing the mind or sitting in the lotus position, just sitting comfortably eyes closed. Interestingly enough my mind went where it went and after a while just quieted down by itself.

The class is taught in Mandarin and I don’t speak Mandarin but they had headsets with elders translating into English. It didn’t take long before I had totally tuned out the part of it being translated and I was able to follow along. I could look at this as pluralism experience as I was totally immersed in the Taiwanese/Chinese culture.  The class was run the same as it is in China with all the customs and respect of the Teacher and leaders. Even the broken English was beautiful. What a neat experience.

The work done is called an adjustment. With my adjustments I have ask for work on my lower back where I have problems and with my sinuses. Teacher says that you will experience discomfort and even pain as you heal. I was not sure what to expect as my back is always giving me pain. What I noticed is that the pain is different. I can tell something is changing and I hesitate to look to critical at what the change is because I tend to over analyze everything which leaves in strange places and mostly incomplete.

Well I need to say that my wife is getting better looking and it is not just me saying it. I have been telling her she getting better with age and she say she is just happy now. Hummm, very interesting.

Well going to sign off for now

Thy will not mine be done.

October 24, 2012

Wow, it has been a while since I wrote in my blog. What does that mean? Oh shit there I go needing a reason for everything I do. My sponsor says I analyze everything way too much, that I should take it easy and just live for today and not try to figure it out. So here I go, Breath in breath out, repeat.

Okay I have been in a funk for the last little while. I got sick when I left Las Vegas, a raging sinus infection. It kept me out of work for 4 day. Four day of hell with head ache, green snot, and the feeling of just wanting to die. Went to the doctor said take decongestants, drink lots of liquids and oh yes take these antibiotics for 10 days. I have one pill tomorrow morning and I am done. I started to feel a lot better within 24 hours of taking the first antibiotic and then leveled out not getting any better or worse. Well at least I can deal with consistency.

Death has been on my mind a lot lately. I don’t like to share these thoughts with others because they get really nervous shutting me down from expressing my thoughts and I am left in a strange world of being made wrong for just trying to deal with what is happening in my life.

Death being on my mind doesn’t mean I am planning to hurt myself, no not at all. I am coming up on my 63^rd birthday and I realize that if I live to the same age as my dad I have 23 semi good years left. And when I become present to my mortality and realize that it was just yesterday that I was 15 or even 8 years old and time passed so very quickly. There are so many things I haven’t done that I have wanted to do, but didn’t because the timing wasn’t right or this or that and I have done a whole lot of stuff that wasn’t even close to living for today. Living for today was the cry during the 60’s. I fell into the rut of doing what I was supposed to do. Wow, and no one ever came out and said this is what you have to do, it was all just implied.

Please don’t take me wrong, I have lived some very powerful life experiences. What I am saying is I was not “LIVING” those experiences I was just “DOING”. There must be a God because how else could I have received 5 beautiful loving children, a wife of 36 years who just keeps getting better looking and loving by the day, and to top it off I am best friends with my ex-wife. I was part of the mainstream that brought about the computer technology we have today. And basically life is just flat F***’n GREAT!

Well I need to let you know that yet again I started out writing in a funk and by the time I got to this part of the page I am feeling pretty damn good. And with that I am going to sign off for tonight.

Thy will not mine be done.

October 3, 2012

I just got back from a Rod Steward concert. I was pleasantly surprised. He was very low key and acted as if the audience was part of his family or friends at his house and he was their host. He is getting old and the voice is not as crisp as it once was, but that doesn’t matter because he was there for us the audience. Good Job Rod!

I have been at a conference of IBM’s for mainframe computers. Boy there are a lot of gray haired people here. One of the presenters said that we are just not retiring. Why, because we still like what we do and find it rewarding. I have to agree with his sentiment even though there are many days when I just want to say F***-it and do something else. But when I look at what I would do, guess what, I want to go on speaking tour telling people how great the mainframe is and how it benefits their lives each and every day. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying the mainframe would replace your personal computer or MAC because being the generation who developed the computer, know that the many different minis, distributed and other non-mainframe computer play a major part in making our everyday life more enjoyable.

I have been in Las Vegas the past week, that is where the conference was held, and I find that I really don’t like being here. The hotel is beautiful, the food had been good, but the opulence is over whelming to me. The other night we went to dinner in one of the many restaurants in the hotel, it took 20 minutes just to walk there and we never went outside. Also every time I turn around there is alcohol and being a member of AA finds this uncomfortable. I have caught myself thinking “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Now that is not a healthy thing for someone like we who is allergic to alcohol to be thinking. The allergy is when I drink I break out in jails.

Back to the concert, I love music and it stirs deep hidden emotions. During the concert I found myself swinging from joy to depression, to self loathing, to missing my wife and children, to regretting many thing I did years ago. I think that is why I shy away for attending concerts. I went to this one because it was part of a team building thing for us mainframers. I am not sorry I went. I just know that there are many things left undone in my life. Just thinking, this is a good thing to turn over to my God. And yes I know I should be turning over my WHOLE life to my God. Guess you could call it being a slow learner or maybe even not feeling worthy of having God’s love. What ever!

Well it is getting late and I want to go to bed so I can wake up at 3 am and say oh good I have 3 more hours before I have to get up at 6 am.

Peace and Love to you all

Thy will not mine be done.

September 27, 2012

“I hate the fall!!” Well, maybe that is a little strong but how I feel is terrible when fall rolls around.

For as far back as I can remember I have not liked the fall time of the year. I sometimes think it is because I didn’t like going to school. I have a learning-disability, don’t laugh because it hurts, where I couldn’t keep up with the reading that I was assigned in school. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was about 45 years old by a college professor (yes it took me a very long time to get a college degree). Before then I was just considered lazy or slacker. My wife, a Special Ed teacher, speculates I got the lazy classification because I was smart and learning came easy yet I had reading issues. The issues are called ’decoding’ where I have a hard time telling the difference between letters such a b, d, p & q. I can only hope she is right. Because of my classification I hold a great may hard feelings and resentments toward the educational systems I was raised in.

I have always been very good a mathematics but was held back because I didn’t have the “Reading Level” to comprehend such a complex subject or so I was told. That hurt a LOT! I loved doing math problems as far back as I can remember and when I got in the 7^th grade I found that algebra was an option, but only for the smart kids. I was told I was just too lazy and wouldn’t understand the subject and it would just be a waste of time for the school for me to even try. Can you hear my bitterness?

 It has been a long time since I even thought about this resentment. Recently I was listening to a tape by Caroline Myss and she was talking about how those things that we hold on to and want revenge are the things that keep us from being physically and mentally healthy. While I was listening to her I thought “I don’t have any un-addressed resentments.” Well guess what buck-o, I do and didn’t realize it until I started writing today.

Well, this writing went in a different direction than I had originally intended so I think I was close to reflect. What will I do next? Call my sponsor and see if I am ready to turn this over to God and make amends. Oh and if you are wondering, my God is the “Cosmic Muffin”.

Thy will not mind be done.

September 24, 2012

Damn these Thought for the Days!!! They keep striking way to close to home

Thought for the Day

“We shall seek the truth
and endure the consequences.”

Charles Seymour
(1884-1963)

Okay so I have been seeking the truth or something like it. You know looking for answers and most of the time I come away suffering the consequences.

I have often heard that “you can’t handle the truth” but I have always thought that as just bunk; some egotistical way of putting me down by “The Man” so to speak. Yet here it is once again and not so egotistical.

A long time ago I was complaining that God doesn’t answer my prayers. And someone told me that He/She/It may be answering my prayers and the problem may be with my expectations. Well the way they put it to me was, “Be careful of what you pray for as you just might get it.” Wholly Crap!! It took me a long time and being made aware of this fact multiple times that God answered each and everyone of my prayers but what was happening was my expectations were not in line with what I was asking for. It is sort of asking for food and expecting a million dollars. Yes you could buy a lot of food for a million dollars but the request is completely different.

Case in point, just recently I found myself wanting a woman who would give the kind of sex you only read about in Penthouse and what I discovered was I just wanted to be loved. And to complicate the request I just want to be able to accept love. Now there is a big difference between asking for a Penthouse type relationship and to being able to accept love.

Just so you are clear, and incase my wife read this blog, my wife is in no means a prude. But even a wonderful and giving a person that she is will get discouraged when her advances are not receive or accepted. Wow, I amazed myself again as I didn’t expect that to come out and what I am seeing is that when I point a finger at someone 4 others are pointing back at me. I had created my own reality of not being loved or loveable.

Each day I find or should I say open my eyes to the fact that all the love and passion I could possibly want or could handle is already in my life. I look at my wife when she is sleeping and am amazed at the beauty of curve of her hips, the shape of her legs and how delicate and sensuous her hands and feet are. If it wasn’t for the snoring I would question whether I was dreaming it or observing the reality.

In closing, I get every one of my prayers answered. But today I am more conscious of what my expectations are; this helps me to focus on what I pray for so that they are in line. When my expectations and prayer requests are in line I see just how lucky and blessed I am.

September 19, 2012

Today is another day. I put together a team building email each day in it I have the word of the day and the thought of the day.  Will here is todays:

Thought for the Day

Doubt is a pain too lonely
to know that faith is his twin brother.

Khalil Gibran
(1883-1931)

Wholly crap!! I don’t understand it but inside I feel the pain and with yesterday rant am wondering if it is related. This morning I prayed about what I have been going though and asked for guidance and this is what I get. Go figure. And people say that God doesn’t directly answer prayers.

No shit I have MUCH doubt mostly about myself that I don’t openly share with other even though most likely they can see it more clearly than I. I doubt that

·         my wife like me

·         I am doing a good job a work

·         that I will ever be without pain

·         that I know anything of value

·         and on and on and on

Yet for some reason, I know there is something that I call God, don’t what it is.

Now for something completely different.

I completed my agreement as an Introduction Leader for Landmark Education. What I realized is that I didn’t want to change the world, I just want my world to change and it did. My wife, Nancy, and I have a very good relationship today. And I only look at it as today, for tomorrow who know what will happen. With that I have come to realize that what I wanted in a relationship was someone I could love. I may have said that before but I was always looking at greener pastures over there and not looking in my own back yard. Today when I look at those greener pastures I appreciate them for their beauty and then realize just how fortunate I am to even have a relationship at all and it is with a woman who is smart, good looking and laughs at my jokes. And that is not to say just how comfortable I am just to be around her. Just the other day she said that with our relationship going so well, she keep looking over her shoulder for the other shoe to fall. That is a trust issue that I still have to earn from her. I don’t spend a whole lot of time trying to earn it, but rather focus on the moment and enjoying that. Pretty sweet.

September 18, 2012

It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog. The reason is one some of you may find familiars.  I felt like what I have to write is not important and nobody wants to read this shit. But my good friend said he missed reading my stuff.

It is fall and I hate the fall. Mostly because I get allergies and school would always start in the fall and I didn’t do very good in school. Yet when I go outside and just sit I really enjoy the coolness of the temperature and the muted light. Yesterday when I was getting ready to go to work I just started hurting to the point of not being able to move. I took some medicine, called into work and said I would be around noon and crawled into my lazy boy recliner and fell asleep. When I fall asleep at times like this it is not that I am tired but an escape from the discomfort. I pretty much check out into an altered state. When I come to I am not groggy as I am after sleeping at night it more like reality is turned off and then back on and I am as alert as if I had been awake for hours.

When I check out like this it doesn’t work when I am at work. People think you are being lazy and sleeping at your desk when in reality the pain of being tied to a desk becomes so great that I can stand no more and it just happens. You may be thinking “Well, why do you get up and walk around every so often so the pain doesn’t build?” I do all the time but it only works about 50% of the time. Sounds like I am being a victim and maybe there is some truth to it. As I write this blog I am in a lot of pain, have taken my meds, been walking around and having a hard time.

If you hear frustration in my writing it is because I am. What am I missing? I exercise, do physical therapy, go to a chiropractor, Tia Chi, Kung Fu, regular Doctor, take meds and even pray. Is my name really JOB???????

September 06, 2012

Some days I wish I were Wally from the Dilbert comic. A person totally unfazed by the total lunacy that goes on in the work space. Coffee cup in hand and unaffected. But Alas I am not a Wally type, in fact I am more of an A personality who has worked hard to not be so high strung.

In CERT training I was taught that in a crisis or under extreme pressure people will resvert to what they have done or how acted in the past. This no matter how much training they have had unless the training included hands-on experience. Well, in relationship to me, I have had the training (education) and some role playing which has help me curb my urge to just take what other people are messing up and fix it.  But that doesn't take away the frustration. In fact I think the frustration is multiplied because I know what needs doing and how easy it is to do. My leadership training tells me to stand back and let the dough-heads mess-up. ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the "Thought For The Day" Bruce Lee says "Knowledge will give you power, but character respect." How befitting to what I am going though. I know what needs to be done, how to do it and the impact if not done correctly. I guess that make me very powerful. I am guessing that my character comes from letting the dough-heads screw-up and being there to help them find their way, thus respect. (Is this the frustration a Shaman feels when someone asks for help and then doesn't listen to the answer?) My desire is to be the leader that through his leadership has very successful teams. Coach? I don't know if that fits but isn't that what a coach does?

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

Okay God this one is yours. Tell me what to do. Let me be an instrument of your grace.

Well that was a mouth full. Later

Sept 5, 2012

Well World, here I go again.

Sitting on my my exercise ball in my cubical at work. It has been a busy day and I have accomplished some good chit. But that is not why I am writing today.

I had lunch with a friend of mine that I haven't seen for sometime. It was really good to just share what was going on in each of our lives. I shared about what was going on with my back (see previous entry) and that I have this feeling that my back issues are more than what meets the eye.

For starters I shared that my life is really going well. So well in fact that I keep looking over my shoulder because for me to enjoy something this good I must be doing something terribly wrong or bad and I am looking for the bad man to show up and punish me. I have this feeling because most of my life I have filled with drama and issues. Right now they are just not there or at least I can't see them. So with my back I am speculating that I am creating the drama and issues in my life because my subconscious expects that and if it doesn't get it I must be crazy. Ergo, back pain with all the dressing.

Guess what, I don't want to admit that this could be happening because that is just stupid. (ARGH!!! MORE DRAMA). In the 12 step program the first 3 steps talk about surrender, something I fight with all day every day. From time to time I understand the surrender it talks about is to surrender to a God of your own understanding, but mostly what runs through my mind is the saying, "Never Give Up, Never Surrender!" I just can't separating the two for more than a few minutes at a time. I guess one of the biggest reasons is I am afraid of the Judeo-Christian God of my childhood that condemned me to hell. The power of our upbringing is far more powerful that our adult understand of reality.

As an adult I created my God as the Cosmic Muffin, full of unconditional live and understanding.

So what am I going to do with this dilemma? The only thing is to surrender (catch 22). But as I write I see that my surrender could be to not fight my fears but to acknowledge them and turn them over to the Cosmic Muffin aka GOD. Well it least it feel good in my gut and heart and my head doesn't hurt thinking about it. So lets see what happens.

Well got to go. Peace and Love Ol'-Hippie

Aug 30-2012

Interesting week that has lead me to create this blog. And I don't even know what a blog is but I guess I am doing it.

I have been very frustrated with the pain cause from my back. A lot of the time I just want to just sit and stare at nothing.

I realized with in the last year that I have been dealing with pain since I was about 10 or 12 years old and didn't know it or was in denial. It all started back about 50 years ago when I was a kid, I lifted a 10 foot long 2 inch solid steel bar and moved it about 5 feet. No one had told me I could not do that or even if I tried it would hurt me. So I moved the steel bar and that night was in immense pain.

My parents took me to the doctor who confirmed that I had hurt my back, gave me exercises and told my parents to have me sleep on a hard bed. But, being a boy and thinking I am supposed to be like John Wayne I didn't want to admit I was hurt. The exercises were boring and I lied to my parents that I was fine so they wouldn't bug me. I quickly forgot the injury but it didn't go away.

All through junior high and high school I couldn't sit still in class so was either disruptive, fell asleep, or just didn't go. I liked to learn stuff but hated school, but because I had hidden the back injury and wouldn't admit to it, sitting in class was very uncomfortable (painful) and I could not focus. Ergo school sucked.

Needless to say, I have never been keen on attending lectures, concerts or any venue where you are required to sit.

A little over 2 years ago my back had enough and I awoke at 2:00 am in terrible pain through out my abdomen, pelvis, legs and feet. I went to the doctor and she gave me pain killers but I had cancer surgery about 3 prior so I was referred to my oncologist. His PA saw the problem right away and I had X-Rays and MRIs that confirmed my L4 & L5 were damaged but not totally gone. There was now arthritis from the years of neglect.

We opted for physical therapy as the treatment, but that is a story (a good one) for another day.

But today there is still pain that comes and goes depending how dedicated I am to taking my meds and doing my exercises.

Strange as this may seem, this adventure has opened many door to love, beauty and blessings. Go Figure.