The Theif

The thief might be a man who steals for the provision of his family, but this not the worst thief. That might be understood in a sense.

A thief of a lesser base might be one who steals for his own indulgence, but this too is not the worst thief. Though it may not be justified, he may steal for lack of legitament opportunity to do the same for himself.

The worst thief however, is the man who withholds from the provision of his family for his own indulgence. He taints forever the lives of those who could not understand or justify his actions. This thief steals more than money, he steals from his own the ability to trust in others.

To Anyone That May Benefit

There is a level of confidence and certainty about the world that is only afforded to those who lack the necessity of experience to understand that their world is not the whole world. 
Not unlike a person that would look at one piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle and presume they can tell you exactly what the picture is.

There is also a level of confidence and uncertainty about the world that is only afforded to those with the experience and hindsight that only time can afford us. 
Not unlike looking at a black and white checker board, as your distance increases you begin to realize it's really much more grey than it is black and white.

Even as a parent, I generally try to refrain from giving advice to other parents, simply because in large part there are no formulated answers. 
From the get go children have their own feelings, sensitivities and inherent vantage points in how they perceive and respond to situations. 

They are as we are, each unique unto themselves so that what may work for some does not at all work for others.

Over time I have come to the acceptance, as with most of life, that everything is just a phase.

Like a chapter in a book that takes far more than a lifetime to read.

There will be difficult times and times of great joy, sometimes they will occur simultaneously.

Often in times of crisis or uncertainty we as parents need sounding boards.

Our emotion may cloud our judgement so that the recipients of our expressions may not be as selectively chosen as perhaps they should be and and helpful suggestions ensue by those with the best of intentions.

However well intentioned our audience may be however, what many fail to consider is that it's not always the thought that counts and the worst kind of advice is unsolicited advice. 
In those times rarely do I feel the level of confidence about accepting that advice as deeply as the one who is so generously doling it out. 

Whenever non-parents offer me parenting "advice", I try to politely smile, nod and thank them.
Just as I do with all people who do the same about other circumstances without the benefit or consideration of understanding the full scope of the situation. 

Then following their generous insight, I give them the future obligation to do the same (smile, nod and be polite) when one day they find themselves in the same situation...and inevitably they will.

Hang in there.

This too shall pass.

d(-_-)b

Two Wrongs Don't Make It Right

Wrong?

I'm no different than anyone else,
I mean when you get down to it.
So, why should I feel bad or say sorry?

Everyone does the same things I do.
Even if they don't admit it.

That's just people doing what people do to get by.
There' nothing wrong in that is there?

Wrong?

Well If you think I'm so bad you ought to look around this place.
If you did that you'd see that other people are much worse than I am!

Look at the kind of stuff they they do!
I don't do half that stuff.

Not on that level.
Not like they do.

I'm very different from anyone else
I mean when you get down to it.
So, why should I feel bad or say sorry?

Wrong?

I Did It

Two (Actually 3) Important Lessons

1. If you aren't willing to fight for what is  yours, rest assured that someone else will.

2. Sometimes you will have to take those things which should be given.

3. Don't be the catalyst for lesson 2. If you don't have integrity, you don't have anything.

Fartbook

Saving the OneBorn

If I didn't know better I'd say that Facebook is full of well informed, knowledgeable people.

Mostly though it's pop journalism with a definitive slant to appeal to certain audience, leaning certain ways on certain matters.

It might even be called propaganda or maybe more accurately advertising.

What most people know is what they've been told.
Which is really to say Facebook is really just full of people who are primarily ignorant about many things and are just passing along what they've been told.

Sometimes they're trying to help or advise, and sometimes they are just serving to underscore their own correctness. An ego stroke or a filling of the holes left by insecurity.

Some people think they're sharing truth, but if there is truth out there I'm hard pressed to think that anyone can do it anything but a disservice by fooling themselves into thinking they are capable of speaking it beyond a couple of sentences. (If that much)

There's always an agenda and the agenda is power.
It's always looks like that, but it's also about money, because money is power.

The bottom line is, someone wants your power or power over you, and they want your money. For anyone that spends time earning that money what all this means is they want as much of your life as they can get from you.

So when you read all this shit disguised as news or helpful information, ask yourself, "Why?"

Why was it important to someone to take the time to tell you whatever it is they're telling you?
Who is profiting and who is paying?
How can you be sure that any of what's being said is as close to truth as one can get in this life?

Well, I hope this gave you some food for thought.

For $25 bucks I'll send you more information on how to stop being a sucker.

Honesty

Issue: I'm interested in an article you sent, so I tell you I'll read it later.
Honestly: I'm not going to read that article later, but I still bookmark it with the hope that this time will be different.

Issue: I say, I read a book about that.
Honestly: I probably read most of that book, but rarely have I read all of it.

Issue: You send me a video link to watch.
Honestly: I'm probably not going to watch it. Videos make me feel like I have mental claustrophobia and I'm being forced to go mental spelunking as !y sole means of escape.

Not If, But Where

It seems to me that we often judge the goodness or badness of most things or events in our lives by the shadow it casts upon them. But any object, any event can cast a variety of shadows, depending on the angle of the light which is cast upon it. In this case it is both life and death.

Our life sentence is inclusive of a death sentence. This much is an inescapable fact: All of us will die at one point or another. Some of us sooner than others but the length of time between birth and death is of no real consequence, as it will always seem too short to someone that cherished it. 

Life I believe is measured more by the impact it has had on the lives of others than by the length of it, and any life that impacts another will be seen as loss by those who remain to feel the void that life once occupied.

I have found over the course of my years that it is primarily my lack of understanding God that causes me to question him, but I also think that any faith worth having is also worth questioning. Anything less is superstition. Certainly we cannot hope to understand everything but we should understand what we can, and everything else is faith at some level, even a non-faith.

As for prayer, its place and purpose, it is in large part to me a great and wondrous mystery, but I will say a couple of things. 

As I think about prayer I feel that is it a monumental endeavor for any of us to recognize or even understand the answers to them, when we can barely fathom the many facets and magnitude of so many of our questions. Thankfully, in my experience God is more likely to give us what we need rather than what we ask for.

If there is an all knowing God that allows us to petition him, but then gives us answers that seem to defy our logic perhaps it is wise for us to consider that it is not the wrong answer being given in the larger scheme, as much as it may be the wrong question (or emphasis therein) that is being asked.

I  was once asked by a good friend, who has since passed, why God does not seem to answer his prayers sometimes. As with much of my pondering about God my only response was that of considering it from the perspective of a father... This much I have come to know, that sometimes silence is the greatest grace we can hope to receive when the answer as such, is probably more than we can bear in our current state.

Christianity is a religion of seemingly contradictory logics, among those is that death is not at all to be the end of life but the beginning of it. 

I too have lost parents, children and friends but I consider that when Jesus wept it is clearly noted that he did not weep for the one that had gone on but for those who remained behind.

Just some things to think about.

 I have.

The End Is Near

You will find it pointless, mundane.

You will come to resent having no choice, simply wishing it would end.

You will eventually accept it however.

You will, with the benefit of hindsight,  come to see the value in it.

You will wonder to yourself why you ever resisted in the first place.

Over time you will embrace & even enjoy it.

You will be glad you had no choice, looking back on even the worst of it with a certain fondness.

You will even come to look forward to it...

...and that is exactly when it will end.

Watch "Zach Gill - Party Hard" on YouTube

ADD & Me: A Perspective

Watch "ADHD As A Difference In Cognition, Not A Disorder: Stephen Tonti at TEDxCMU" on YouTube

A friend of mine shared this TED video with me. 

I don't know quite why, but I'm glad he did.

Before I had the chance to watch it, I wrote my own thoughts down based simply on the title. Interestingly we pretty much hit all the same points (although I envy his scholastic and domestic experiences) I suppose this really only speaks to the both of us having the same condition.

The best thing about this video for me, isn't the thought that the world might care about any of this. Nope, the best thing for me was the therapeutic value of knowing there are others out there in the world that I might understand... that might understand me. That's a rare thing. 

My  commentary, before watching this is below in blue. My post viewing addition is in red.

One large problem I have with the oversimplified "blessing" (ADD as the source of simply being labeled as a difference in perspective, conducive to seeing what the rest of the world doesn't) is that it fails to recognize that it also comes with the "curse" of being blind to what the rest of the world feels is obvious. Consequently those of us surrounded by "normal" people are then mislabeled as stupid or forgetful, etc. and are written off as a result.

I've found that many people have a tendency to misinterpret and/or disregard as fiction those things that they don't understand for lack of personal experience. These are the people who also want to dismiss the value of medications. To an extent medication is like any tool: The tool doesn't produce anything in itself, it simply gives you the means to do it. What happens after that is up to the user. However, ADD medication did for me what a crap load of anti-depressants never even seemed to touch and turned everything from a singular, ever growing, insurmountable problem into a series of problems that could be resolved individually and in their own time. That's a hell of a tool!  

I imagine the speaker and I have a pretty good difference in age. Our culture's awareness, understanding and compassion has expanded about ADHD since I was a kid. My childhood was a little more complicated (a little uglier) than his, not caused by but certainly complicated by ADHD. When I was kid, I never heard anyone mention anything about ADHD and I didn't get medication if it was available. 

The speaker here rightly notes the physiological concerns involved in medicating children. What I would add however with the benefit of retrospect, is the great personal value that came as the result of learning to first cope with my condition before I could take any medication for it, because in reality it's only a temporary relief that delays its inevitable return.

People don't generally understand that ADD has many manifestations far beyond those few obvious ones I am at ease to kid around about. There is a good deal of chemistry/science backing the cause of ADD and it's relation to Autism, Alzheimer's and Schizophrenia. So while it may not truly be defined as a disorder per se, for those of us forced to live among those considered to be "normal" it is certainly an affliction of sorts. It's not easy for you, but it sure ain't easy for us... It takes a good deal of self awareness and self discipline to amend what comes so naturally. For those of us with the "H" in there it's even tougher because (contrary to popular belief) the "H" is more about impulse control that hyper-activity.

It's commonly acknowledged that most artists (whatever their caliber or medium) have at least some level of ADD at play in their creativity, but most artists worth their salt aren't people you really want to know. For me, part of growing older is accepting who I am and learning to use what I've got to work with it when changing it takes more time & energy than it's worth. It's taken a good deal of experience but I've found that what I see when I'm not on medication, I'm then better able to communicate when I am on it. People generally recognize that taking Adderall makes me more tolerable to them. The benefit is mutual because what most people don't / can't understand is that it makes them more tolerable to me as well, because those differing perspectives can make for some difficult and trying communications.

So once more blessing or curse?
Depends on the approach I guess, but they are usually one and the same in their source.

So that pretty much ends it. He's on the money.

 

Formica Counter Tops Pt 2

The continuation of an on going conversation.

The issues here are:

1. The perceived cruelty of God, as Father, toward the individual man in allowing suffering.

2. The murder of the innocents, in the plagues of Egypt.

Hope that helps...

One great paradox of parenting is that just as the joy of the child is the joy of the parent, so too it is true regarding their pain as well. In avoiding pain for our children, we also avoid pain for ourselves.

So yes, the natural tendency of a parent is toward the protection of their child, but to spare a child from every pain in life is also to rob them of every lesson that comes with it.

In short, you can only tell a child so many times that the oven is hot. They can know that you're right, or they can learn that you're right, and those that must learn by experience will do so.

I generally try to avoid the rabbit hole of OT deaths that people find objectionable, simply because of the time involved and the Pandora's box we potentially open. But here I'll take exception.

Let me start by saying that many people not following their logic to its conclusion like to say that God can do whatever he wants and so because something isn't done it is simply for lack of want on Gods end. This is untrue.(Of course this presupposes that what we see is all that there is, which we have already acknowledged to be untrue.)

I suppose in a sense God can do anything he wants, but only because what he wants does not violate his own nature and that is the thing he cannot do or he is not God at all. So God as the source of the law cannot be in violation of it, or again he is not God.

A forced love is no love at all, so we are given the choice to love God or rebel against Him, but there is no middle ground.

We are allowed reason and freewill, both serve as blessing and curse, and God sometimes spares us the folly resulting there from, but allows us to suffer the consequences resulting from them at other times.

The extra mile always becomes the expected mile I have found, so the view is more often that we are  suffering some divine punishment, more so that realizing the grace afforded us when we are spared from our own undoings.

All that said, and as previously noted, those who choose to live in rebellion against God are not innocent and as harsh as it sounds,  suffer as those who are not innocent.

Which brings us to the paradox of being a child, that they benefit and suffer for the decisions of their parents and those before them.

That is the best I can do here for now, and it's not a very good at that,  however here is a link to a pretty extensive and insightful article about this very subject: http://christianthinktank.com/killheir.html

I have a half am hour left to sleep, please stop making me think.

Formica Counter Tops Pt 1

This is one side of an on going conversation. For clarity, basically the issues at hand here are:

1. What is the nature and level of concern / involvement regarding God in the affairs of the individual?

2. What does God owe man, and what does man owe God?

Hope that helps...

Part of being created in the image of God, means that we are created with an inherent need for relationship, both with God and with each other.

The concern of God with man then is generally in regard to those things that move us toward the restoration of a once harmonious relationship.

In other words, since the relation is spiritual, the aspects of man’s life and activities that God is concerned with are those aspects that affect man’s spiritual condition, the how and the why, but not the activity itself. (I also happen to think that if more people could adopt this view our generosity in extending shame could be replaced with healing and restoration)

That said, God recognizes and shows concern for the need of man to have satisfaction and purpose by and through his activities as is evidenced in God creating the Garden of Eden and then moving man into it with the charge of tending to the garden.

On a grander scale the day-to-day activities in person's life may play some part in regard to the final outcome of overall events, but for us to understand the complexity of that would require the finite to understand the infinite, which we have acknowledged man cannot do.

It seems to me however that given a man's limited power to change much of anything and rather limited perspective regarding the larger picture about what should in fact even be changed, these things are pretty much irrelevant.

It might just be wiser to accept them and move on rather than pondering them and going no further for lack of resolution that wouldn't be found anyway.

So now, let's step back just a bit. After placing Adam in the garden, Adam's first task is to name all of the animals. At the outset this might seem cruel, that God would have each set of animals, complete with mate, parade before Adam to drive home the fact that what God had done for all of the other animals he had not done for Adam. Adam might even be fair to call it cruel?

Here I will note that the greatest lessons in life often come at the greatest price. It is the only way to understand them in the depth that would make them truly effective.

The simple provision of these things, void of the experience of discovery trends to degrade and devalue them to the recipient, and thus it's a disservice to do so.

That said then it's not at all cruel when we consider that what is happening here is what I believe happens often in our own lives though we fail to comprehend it, or simply lack the patience to. Here it's spelled out for us or we might miss it once more, God recognizes Adam's need although Adam has not recognized it himself.

Certainly God could have simply resolved it right then and there, just as we often ask him to do for us at our whim, but there is apparently a need to make man aware of what it is he needs and the depth in which he needs it.

Only after that then happens does God resolve Adam's need for relationship on that level, and so too may be true in the difficulties of our own lives.

I could elaborate much more on all of this, but for our conversation (this part of it at least) this is sufficient I believe.

As for what God might owe to man, and what man may owe to God, God has already provided, and man must choose to accept and in turn provide as well. At its root it is simply love and the desire to be in relationship each with the other.

There are some other points to be addressed, and now that this much is laid out, hopefully (for your sake) it will be shorter.

The problem is always me

The Stuff of Dreams

What follows is a dream that I had this past Friday night.
It is as detailed and as vague as I recall it.

God v Man

Any cruelties inflicted by God against man is greatly overshadowed by the cruelties inflicted by man against man.

Sometimes When You Are a Man

I am a man among women...

Endless Weekend

Some dread Monday, but the weekend never really ends...

... if you work weekends.

Trading Up

Be careful about which problems in life you wish away. Rest assured they will be replaced.

of Monsters and Men

Monsters are not born in a moment, they are created over the course of time.

Increasing the Volume: 110613

What's Dave Listening to these days?
Besides Christmas music, this:

Thermometers and Barometers

One will accept only that which they are prepared and willing to accept, so that what they take on they do so willingly.

That said the acceptance or rejection of something is only truly an indicator of ones relational position, more than any sort of indication about the thing itself.

Silencer of the Lambs

I'm always surprised at mans' capacity for inhumanity towards his fellow man...

When we think about the tragedies of life that humans have suffered, it seems the tendency is to consider those we read about in history books and headlines. It's big and dramatic and the aftermath is obvious. It's on a collective large scale.

If cruelty could be quantified however, I have to wonder if the collective less obvious cruelty inflicted between individuals in the mere course of everyday relationships would be greater if we took into consideration the subtle aftermath over time that spans across generations.

Our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions and our actions become reinforcement to our thoughts, and so it begins all over again.

It is the everyday actions of living without considering the impact of our actions and words to our own well being, and the impact on those we know that seems to desensitize us and thus prepares us to inflict evil on an even greater scale toward those we don't.

These are the sorts of small, simple actions spawned from things like not giving others the benefit of the doubt, assuming the worst possible motive foremost, responding in kind to unkindness, cruel words followed by the suggestion that we were "joking", these and many more small things that wear people down and give them cause to rise only to their lowest possible level since doing otherwise seems to reap very little reward among our peers. It perpetuates itself and it is a sad cycle that is difficult to break.

Not to suggest we might all become tyrants with the power of life and death over millions, but we do have some measure of the power in the exercise of our social, religious and political worldviews that cannot be disregarded either. If we have relationships then we have the daily choice to build others up or tear them down with our words and actions.

We live in a sensitive, volatile time and we often avoid personal conflict at all costs, but what of the cost of not speaking up against wrong doing even on such a small scale when we consider its larger impact? Perhaps only overlooking the small personal offenses that have been caused to us is a good place to start. Then maybe others will begin to overlook those offenses caused by us so we may begin to move forward.

Regardless of the commonality of our world views, our sense of right and wrong bears more in common than it does in difference. Though it may be our motivator religion does not have to be the ground on which we stand in terms of making a case for wrong doing.

It is better to pull weeds than mow over them so gentle correction at the outset is as I see it, is the best course of action in avoiding the later consequences of a generation of people who would rather have avoided offense over correcting wrong doing and so remain silent.

Thoughts?

America The Poorest Nation on the Planet

If a mighty oak grew 6 inches in a day we would hardly notice, but if our grass grew 3 inches in a week we would notice right away...