The 10’s

Amazing, it’s a new year, a new decade.. and the more things change, the more they stay the same. In some ways that’s disappointing and in other ways it’s extremely comforting. Without a doubt, it’s easy to distinguish the two phenomenons and their correlating effects. A wonderful and beautiful family and home life, one would hope it never changes and all the drama that comes with its extensions, well, change would be welcome. And yet, both prospects seem equally daunting in their probabilities. Of course it’s unlikely my family will stay the same forever: Davin, Dean and Nate are growing up so fast.

Davin is already five months old and is forever developing at an immense rate. That little monkey is still one of the strongest babies I’ve ever seen: don’t let him get a handle on your chest hair (not an immediate problem for you ladies). He’s extremely observant, plus, he can always recognize and often empathizes with my emotions. And my other two boys are growing like weeds, everyday they look more and more like little men. Everyday I am increasingly more proud of how they conduct themselves (that sounds like I am giving a military report right there, nah, they are just such good boys, it does my heart proud). And my wife and I are thankfully growing closer and closer everyday even amidst all the adversity and crap life throws at you. So, no, I cannot imagine wanting my family life to change, but of course it will. Thankfully, that doesn’t mean for the worst, or well, hopefully.

And then there is the change I would wish for. Sometimes people cannot see farther than themselves and their own circumstances and understandably so. Although, how awesome it would be if that could change. So many times in life people get riled over the strangest things and they hold onto those imagined or real hurts (or imagined real or real imagined) to the detriment of everything or everyone else in their lives. Seriously, wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just get along. A miracle for most families. And if you noticed I am being vague on the details, stop being so annoyingly perceptive and follow the train of thought behind the details.

In my lackluster dreams of harmony something occurs to me: change is not easy in and of ourselves. 12 step programs tell you to seek, to believe in something higher than yourself to orchestrate and maintain a change in your life. And I believe that’s the key. That dusty old book somewhere on a shelf, possibly in your house, tells us that there is no good thing in us (Romans 7:18): a lot of times we want to change, do good but can’t. It also says every good and perfect gift is from God (James 1:17). “Whoa, I didn’t know you were going to get all Biblical on me!?!” Yep, caught you off-guard huh. Anyways, since we are not all inherently good (as some would believe) without God, then it might concur that with God we can be better. It makes sense, God is love (1 John 4:8), He’s good (Psalm 119:68; Mark 10:18), He wants the best for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11). All that in the dusty book on your shelf (or maybe propping up a table) somewhere. Hence, in this new year, decade, time, era, place . . . I pray for that kind of change we all desire and also stability for myself and y’all in the 10’s.

Until then:
God grant us the serenity
to accept the things we cannot change;
courage to change the things we can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Some other Bible verses of interest: Proverbs 3:5-6; Lamentations 3:25; Zephaniah 3:17; Ephesians 3:20-21; Philippians 4:8.

That is all.

Stuck on Stupid

Aly and I had a fight last night. More I was being a jerk and she went to bed and we didn’t resolve it until this morning when I swallowed my pride and texted her. And when we saw each other again we were back to our old selves. Now what caused this Male PMS that I lost a whole night of quality time and closeness with my beloved. I could be truthful and say I don’t really know and I could be just as truthful and say I had good reason and yet if I were going to be entirely truthful I would say sometimes we let our own issues and perspective cloud our judgment. I said entirely truthful, not entirely forthcoming.

I will give you this: we all see the world through our own little distorted piece of coke bottle (Sorry Pepsi, but I have to drink diet now, and hands down, Diet Coke tastes better). Invariably misunderstandings come into existence based on simple misconceptions; misconstruing events happen with the help of someone’s perception or bias or dare I say it: by virtue of their own narcissism. Get out the dictionary kids, here, let me save you some time: ‘inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.’ Hey, there’s no shame in not knowing, everybody has to look up a word for the first time sometime. And if you did know, I still find it’s best to look up words, you’d be surprised how wrong you can be on the exact meaning of a word.

Anyways, as I was saying, people ruin perfectly good relationships of all kinds: from personal to business, because of something they perceive in their own minds. And often the mind distorts one’s perception of reality as a result of some fear of commitment, a self-involved loathing, random rumours, etc.. The mind is constantly plays tricks on your perception: all of the sudden a nose is 100 times more crooked, an ear a 1,000 times more ghastly, routine like habits precipitously and unbearably annoying and an everyday deed abruptly villanized ergo we feel ourselves slighted by the dumbest things…

…I can see your little wheels turning, wondering, curious to what brought out that blue little monster within (why blue? because I like the color, cookie monster blue especially).

*Laughs and takes a swig of my Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper* Variety is the spice of life.

And as I always find myself saying, back to the matter at hand (Yes, I just ignored your silly inquiries). How do I stop myself from dwelling on the random thoughts of badness or like Mom always said, “stop being stuck on stupid.” My mom really never said that but I’m sure somebody’s did. My only answer is something that brought me out of my funk this morning, a little too late after I kissed my wife on the cheek like a heel and went out the door in a huff. I started to let myself swim in the vast experience of goodness that is my wife and let go of the infinitesimal nothingness I had a death grip on. Or as the Beatles famously intoned, I just ‘Let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom, let it be.’ And not long after that, my wondrous wife texted me this, ‘We are coming for lunch at noon. The world is not right when we are not right. I love you.’ And as I closed my phone I could feel that old cliche about to leave my lips, “What were we even fighting about?”

Hence Philippians 4:8 turns out to be good advice after all, ‘Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.’ It’s hard to stop yourself midstride as your riding that colossal roller coaster, stuck on stupid, but if you can, life is so much more grand.

That is all.

Enlarging my borders…

The next step always used to be a great concern for me. It was about two years ago and I was sitting alone in my fortress of solitude long into the wee hours of the morning. Much as was the norm back then, staying up till three, four sometimes past the hours when most people would be arriving to work. I had a job I was ready to leave, an abode though no home and many past great deeds yet no up to date occurrences of which I was extremely proud. Life was at a stand still and I had no idea where I wanted to take it from there: you could say my stagnant pond that was getting smaller with each breath.

Another midnight had come and gone and the nightlights in the sky were already fading into a glorious yet all too bright breaking dawn. The sequence of nocturnal events that occurred that night had been a blur of movies, computerized carnage, random musings and strange forum discussions with a kaleidoscopic of motley misfits. I had to work in a few hours and sleep was merely a nostalgic feeling to see an old friend last since past.

So, stumbling from my computer chair, I went to the kitchen to get some kind of substance and then went to bed. I knew I was past tired and wouldn’t even attempt to sleep so I turned on another movie and lost interest all too soon and so added some music to the mix.

“I really should sleep,” I mumbled to myself wondering why I needed so much noise, leading to other thoughts. Thoughts not all to important nor is the fact that i was talking to myself as I often do when alone and trying to separate, form and coordinate the chaos I consider to be coherent thought. It was several minutes into this internal dialogue when i spied with my little eye a little black book I hadn’t rifled through in quite a while. It certainly contained numbers, but only as a point of reference or well the name of one of its books.

Two of my favorite books in the Bible are Samuel and Kings, well I suppose you could say four, although I already read those countless times and decided to read through Chronicles. And at keys points in my life this always seems to happen, I read through a passage I know I’ve read through a thousand times before and find myself surprised to find something I swear I’d never seen before and at the same time swear I have. Once it was Zephaniah 3:17, but this day it was 2 Chronicles 4:9-10: “Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez,[a] saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested.”

I’m not going to go into some “name it and claim it” spiel and if that’s what you take away from those verses, you’re missing the point entirely. And without getting into the theological ramifications that hit me like Jack’s Mack Truck, I realized a simple truth I had already known but never really put into practice. God indeed wants to bless us and He wants us to ask for His blessings in our lives, really, sometimes I think He’s waiting for us to ask. It’s such an astonishing, simple truth hidden in such a boring chapter of scripture.

Jabez is a man I could relate to, especially at that time in my life. now, I’m glad my mom who had reason to name me Jabez with the two hour contraction she had when I was born decided not to go that route and named me Daniel instead (a tremendously wonderful name, i highly recommend it), but seriously, I think this is a man who was simply looking for the next step in his life. He wanted something more, he wanted God’s blessings and he asked God to bless him. You can see from what is said of him prior to his request and with how he made the request that it was not a request made out of greed and scripture never goes further to tell us how God enlarge this man’s borders, just that God granted Jabez’s request.

At that moment, I didn’t get down on my knees and no halo of light surrounded me, however I did ask God to bless me and enlarge my borders. I had no idea how he would grant my request nor even if He would, still I prayed with faith and hoped with the substance of my belief that He would find me worthy of such blessings. Of course i’d like to say that I was ever fervent in my prayers, making supplications known to God day and night for myself and my friends and family. To some point, I suppose I was, I did from time to time remember and in some midnight, early morning random chats with God I would add this request.

Since then, and again not for any saintly determination on my part, He has answered my prayers in some amazing ways. I started working for a library not that long after that night. It’s a job I love going to, so I am thankful for that. Three months later I met my wife and 8 months later married her (of course). We never thought we’d be able to buy a home any time soon since at the time I married Aly my credit was in the low 600’s, however in the last year we acquired a wonderful dog (at least i think he’s wonderful, my wife doesn’t always agree when he has an accident), a new house and had a beautiful baby boy the day we closed escrow. Now I have three amazing boys. I did have to buy a new car after totaling our matrix not too long ago, but it all worked out. I find, life is full of unexpected blessings. God has definitely enlarged my borders in ways, merely two years ago, I’m not sure I could have imagined. I am extremely excited when I consider what He has in store for us next.