In the river I'm gone
In the river I'm gone 
In the river I'm gone
In the river I'm gone
(Sarah Masen's song, The River, from the album, A History of Light and Shadow, 2007) 

I never thought much about that part of Christianity that is all about escaping the cruel evil world.  

I remember being told sometime back when I was a youth that if I got "saved," then eventually I would get to leave earth and go live on a cloud in Heaven, or in a mansion in Heaven and I could never quite reconcile either of those with reality.

For one, does Jesus really get off on big houses?  I mean is that what our reward basically amounts to is a large house with many rooms and servants and a decent sprinkler system?  How about a few Rolls Royces while we are at it?  Does God come over to your mansion for dinner parties and will I have to wear a fancy antebellum dress on this ocasion?

The cloud idea was also a little crazy.  Wouldn't you fall right through?  If not, how do planes fly right through clouds and how many Heaven-dwellers are knocked right off the tops of clouds when planes fly by?  Also what about issues like exposure?  Wouldn't we eventually die if we had to spend eternity outside like that, with no shelter?  

Yeah, I know this is coming off a little silly.  Really, I don't mean it to, but you know it is me talking.  I tend to lean towards the silly.   Anyway, the main point of their sermons is this:  "Your life truly sucks right now, doesn't it?  If you accept Jesus Chirst (he always has a last name in these sermons) as your lord and personal savior, not only will it get dramatically better, but eventually you get to leave behind this shithole."   Okay, I may have gone a bit beyond with the term shithole, but you get the picture.

Christianity was a means to escape the world. If I can dwell on Heaven a little more, I don't have to dwell too much on what is going on right now, right here, and right in front of me.  I needed that as a teenager.  I really did.  My life did suck.

No, I did not have abusive or alcoholic parents.  I did not have a heavy drug habit or anything like that.  Nopers, as a teenager, I was just plain unattractive and unpopular and desperate for friendship and acceptance.  Sounds a bit like something a drama-queen might say.  In fact I was so unpopular and unwanted by most kids my age, I thought that becoming a Christian, though being a form of social suicide, would be much better than the life I was living up to that point.  In fact, I needed Jesus as much as I needed anything back then.

I eventually grew up and I eventually grew to realize that this world is God's creation and that I am also his creation.  I learned that escaping was not at all what Jesus was talking about when he said things like Love your neighbor as yourself, and go the extra mile, and do not divorce your wife, and do not objectify each other, and that the kingdom of God is here, near, and now.  Jesus was overly concerned about how we treat others right now, right here, and on earth.  At no time did he say "forget all that shit, we are out of here in 5, 4, 3..."  He just simply doesn't say that ever.  

So I have settled into the idea that Heaven is really not at all what we think it is, and neither is Hell.  We simply don't have the answers.  None of us do, and neither does the Bible.  But, sometimes I still want to just hide.  Sometimes I still want to get away.  Sometimes I could just withdraw from everything and everyone and just totally isolate myself.  I don't get it.  I don't understand it, but it's true.

So, when I heard this song by Sarah Masen, I just fell into it.  I listened to the lyrics and I just fell into it.  For me, "the river" is not just the equivelent of spiritual bliss, it is a means to escape all of the hard stuff.  A way to run into god's arms and just cry, or sit and be quiet or just relax. Because sometimes I am like this big kid.  With all of my knowledge and education and experience, sometimes I want my big daddy to just wrap his arms around me and hold me.  

At those times, I am sick of my job, my church, my life and people and I just want to escape it all and be with someone who I think not only understands me, but maybe who understands me more than I understand myself.  Maybe this is a form of Heaven.  Well it seems that way to me.  This is a place that I can go whenever I want, but there is also a certain amount of depravity in staying there, isn't there?  Sarah, has put her music online for folks to listen to and I invite you to quietly listen to this song with me.  Below are the lyrics.

05_the_river.mp3 Listen on Posterous

In the river I'm gone (x4)

I can see your light on the surface, now it fades
But I am still alive, some second wave
And I can hear singing, some distant parade
And over and over, I hear the same refrain

In the river I'm gone (x4)

Come with your weary
Come with your thirst
Come with your fading 
Come with your hurt
What is not is now
Come with your doubt
Come on

In the river it's gone 
In the river I'm gone
In the river it's gone
In the river I'm gone

Come to the river
Come with your burdens
Come into the river 
Come

In the river I'm gone (x4 and fade)

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Or should I say this instead, “Obama is a Muslim,”  “Obama was not born in the US,”  “Obama wants to force you to have an abortion if you happen to be carrying a Down Syndrome baby,”  “Obama wants to exterminate old people,” “Obama is a racist,” “Obama caused the economy to bottom out and he is single-handedly responsible for the repression/depression,” “The Al-Qaeda and Taliban like the fact that Obama is our president because Obama is friendly to fellow Muslims,” “Obama is the worst President in the history of the US,” “Obama is a Socialist,” “Obama despises the American flag,” “Obama is the Anti-Christ,” ”Obama hates the Jews,” “Obama is an idiot,” “Obama is not a Christian,” “Obama is anti-American”?

These are the sorts of lies I have been reading primarily on Facebook since Obama has been president.  Notice what they are not saying.  They are not saying what is obvious to all of us, “Obama is BLACK.”  Because, the majority of folks who believe that crap above are basically angry that a black man actually became president.  They also don’t like the fact that he is smarter than them.  How dare a black man have an education, a job, a high-level position in our government (the highest).  How dare a black-man suggest a better way of life than the status quo?  Who does that uppity Negro think he is?

Well, I will tell you who he is.  He is the President of the United States, the guy I voted for.  He is a good family man.  An honest man as far as presidents and politicians go.  He is a man of his word -- someone who told us in advance what to expect of his term as President and then delivered the goods to the furthest extent of his ability.  He is a man who has spent his life in public service, an acclaimed writer, an amazing story-teller, a Nobel Prize winnner, an inspiring speaker, a rational, even-tempered gentleman.

He has had plenty of adversaries along the way and still does.  I have seen evil in my time here on earth, and one of the most evil things I have witnessed is the one-sided war of words that the conservative christian right has waged against him.  These are things that most of these cowards would never dare say to his face.  They hide behind Facebook and their blogs, pulpits, and the internet and say things they would never say to anyone in public, hoping to gather their fellow gossipers and evil-doers into a campaign of fear against this man.  They speak evil against this good man and they berate him with no evidence, no facts, no data but what they can gather from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh or even worse, Sarah Palin.

Sarah was responsible for the rumor that Obama wants to force women to have abortions  who are pregnant with sick children -- ridiculous public speculation by a ridiculous public person that took off like a fire-storm with her supporters, rapidly spreading her hatred and animosity towards a good man who dared to challenge her bid for VP.  The principles behind being a pro-choice advocate are that a woman has the right to do with her body as she pleases.  Obama is a firm supporter of women and choice.

I have sat idly by for the better part of three years watching and waiting for these attacks to subside, for people to get bored with them and move on and unfortunately this has not happened.  In fact it is getting worse.  Due to the upcoming election people have increased the vitriol ten-fold.  The lies and hatred are pouring fourth like black watery mud spewing from a bright white wedding cake.  They tell lies and half-truths because the truth does not paint Obama to be Hitler.  The truth does not make him out to be a criminal and a liar, a bafoon, and a murderer.  The truth makes him look ten times better than anyone running for president on their side of the court.  So they must lie and deceive and hope that they will amass a following of folks that react out of fear, who are incredibly gullible (enough to believe the lies without fact-checking), or are just plain racist.

I am proud of our President and will vote for him again because he is trying to do all of the things I want a president to do.  I understand that he cannot fully represent me because he is the president of the whole US, not just my little piece.  For that reason I will give him grace when he has to trade off some of my values for some of yours in order to make SOMETHING happen that remotely pleases everyone.  Which is nearly impossible.  I trust him to do his best, and that is saying a lot.  I cannot recall a president that I have felt anything like trust for in my lifetime.

So there, I said it.  In one blog post.  No facebook posts for me.  I am fed up.  So fed up I deleted my Facebook because I was sick of the in-your-face bullshit that people spew with smiles on their faces and even in the name of Jesus.  Sorry for the rant folks.  Things will be back to normal next post.  :)

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I have always thought that it is good to have a kid around that is both attention deficit and hyperactive in case you ever were to lose anything.  There is something about these children that seem to be able to not only know where said lost thing is, but can most likely take you to it.

It's their keen sense of observation.  I think it is because most ADHD kids spend most of their early existence bored out of their minds.  I wish I could tell you I know about this because I have studied a great deal about the disorder while in college, or because I have an ADHD child or two or three.

Although each of those things is true, I have to say that the reason I know this is because I was an ADHD kid. Blessed at an early age with the disorder, I spent most of my early life bored out of my mind, shaking parts of my body until I was numb, humming, chirping and basically driving my parents crazy.  

When I was sleeping the whole house got to sleep.  When awake, god bless the poor person trying to sleep.  The only real way to keep something from a kid like this is to lock it in a steel box and keep the key on you at all times. Because let’s face it, we ADHD kids are damn curious all the time. Our little minds are racing and we pick up on subtleties that most people miss. Likewise, we have no boundaries and no hiding place is truly sacred.

For instance, where is the best place to hide a large stack of Playboy centerfolds?  Some would think that the best hiding places are in plain sight.  Like, say a husband is trying to hide a stack of centerfolds from his wife.  He might place said folded pictures of naked ladies in a non-descript car parts box on a high shelf in the garage with other like boxes.

A good wife would take a casual glance in her man's work area, see a bunch of dusty old boxes and move on.  Not an ADHD kid.  For a kid like me, there were treasures in every non-descript box, shelf, cabinet, drawer, purse, wallet, etc.  So when I came upon this brown, cardboard box on a high shelf in the garage, I treated it with the kind of awe and respect one would treat a minted and rare postage stamp perched on an ancient envelope from some era in time when they used horses to deliver the mail.

It was 1975, I was 9 years old and a rather lanky kid with thick, horn-rimmed glasses that weighed down on my nose so much I usually had a lightly bruised feeling in the front part of my face. For some reason my hands were as calloused and dry as a grown man's would be, had he spent the entirety of his life on the range, gloveless. I looked rather like a colorful Q-tip as a boy of 9.  My head was larger than my body, and my body was thin and featureless.

I had seen my Mom's bare hip one time at the age of 7.  It was the most I had seen of the female form in person, up until then.  She had bared her hip to me to prove that she too had gotten a shot and that I was not the only one suffering after that particular doctor's visit. I agreed that her war-wound was as grisly as my own and that I did not have so much to complain about that day.

Aside from the bare hip, I had seen everything the sponsors would allow on the TV show The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Cher would often wear strapless blouses and mid-riffs and short skirts and such.

Dad was at work.  It was Summer, and Mom was at work in the home doing her usual cleaning.  There was a door between me and her. To reach the boxes I had to climb on top of Dad’s workbench, and stand on the edges of my toes.  After grabbing a box, I would work it off the shelf, squat down and place it on the bench, hop off of the bench and then bring the box down to floor.  The first couple of boxes each had their share of cool surprises.  One was a greasy heavy car part that came off of an engine.  I remember making grooves in the dirt with my one good finger-nail, having gnawed off the rest.  Some of the dirt crumbled off onto the floor of the garage.

I placed the part back in the box and placed it back on the shelf exactly how I had found it, making sure to rub a little of the grease onto my hands.  After all I was a mechanic just like my Dad at the age of 9 and mechanics get dirty.  It was fairly easy to place it in its exact spot, because the settled dust had left a perfect outline on the shelf around the four edges of the box. 

The other box was half-full with stacks and stacks of receipts and other paperwork.  I looked over a few with a serious studious face as if somehow my understanding of these documents had something to do with my place in the household.  I imagined myself exchanging money for a piece of paper like the one in my hands and in the box, oh how the sales person and folks in line marveled at the large wad of money I pulled out of my pocket (mostly ones).  I placed the papers back in the box adding a few smears of grease to the top sheet as I placed it exactly where I had found it and closed the lid.

After retuning this box to the top shelf, I grabbed the next non-descript box and shifted it off of the shelf.  As I did this I nearly fell off of the workbench due to the extra weight.  It was definitely heavier than the others.  I remember thinking the good stuff is in here.

I wrestled the box to the floor.  The box itself was square and about 10 inches on each side.  It was about a foot deep and the four flaps on top were configured in such a way as to close the box without tape or any kind of fastener.  I sat on the garage floor, with the box flat on the ground in front of me, my legs resting on each side of it, and tugged upwards on one of the corners causing the other flaps to suddenly rise up and open the box.  Dust particals filled the air and I breathed in enough of the dust to make me sneeze out loud.  Even more curious, I wiped at my face with the back of my hand as I peeled the top of the box open to get a good look at what was inside.

My curiosity subsided when I saw the stack of papers.  More Papers.  I remember thinking I should seal these back up and place them on the high shelf rather than waste my time looking for treasures, but there was something different about these papers.  They were shiny and uniform, not like the receipts I had just rifled through.  The top sheet was white with black print on it, and it was crisp and sharp looking, not like newspaper or like a receipt would be.

I reached inside casually and pulled out the top sheet.  It was thick, and obvious to me that this was only a part of a larger sheet of paper.  It was folded into thirds.  I tried to read what was written on the sheet, but as I opened up the paper to see it in full size I realized that there was color on the other side.  Bright, beautiful colors.  This was a picture, and one from a magazine obviously.

I remember opening up the large piece of paper and then turning it over to reveal a bright, glossy image.  I sat there staring in awe.  I don’t know for how long.  After awhile I realized that what I was looking at was something I should not be looking at – something I would not be allowed to look at had my parents known.  I quickly folded the image up and put it back in the box.  My heart began to race and I started to look around quickly.  I wanted to make sure no one had snuck into the garage with me.  It was quite possible that Mom had come into the garage in that one moment (or was it several minutes?) while I was staring at the girl, and she could be sitting right behind me on the floor watching me, catching me.  I would have been so embarrassed.

I quickly turned to look behind me.  No one.  I sighed heavily, swallowed hard, shifted a glance around the room and pulled the centerfold out of the box to peak at the image again.  Skin, lots of skin, and hair -- hair in places I had no idea people grew hair.  I decided that I could look at this image, but only in increments, because if I heard anyone coming I would have to return it to the box and pretend that I was doing something else entirely.  The truth is, I had no good plan for getting caught.  Anyone walking into the garage at that moment would have caught me with my hands in the cookie jar.

I visited the box regularly that Summer and the following year.  At the age of ten I could actually read the interviews of the girls in the pictures and understand them a bit.  Sally liked long walks on the beach and a brisk game of Croquet on cool spring evenings with a glass of wine.  Maria loved family and spent her Summers at home in Puerto Rico with her abuelita and also riding horses.  So much to learn.  These were the first books I read as a child, the first stories I learned along with the misadventures of Curious George, Dr. Seuss, and other Children’s readings.

Each woman was an individual, each beautiful in her own way, and each naked and smiling, as if pleased to be able to show this young man what all the mystery was about.  I remember feeling close to those women and knowing them by name.  I made several trips to the garage in that year and a half or so, and I never got caught.  No one ever walked in on me whilst I was learning the ladies.  No one ever seemed to suspect that this 10 year old had so much knowledge about women – more than a ten year old should.

It was the Summer of '77.  I would turn 11 in 3 days, but there was an early birthday present waiting for me in that garage.  It would be to my great disappointment that I would find a clean 10X10 square framed in dust on that high shelf above the work bench where the box used to be.  The box was gone.  It had disappeared as surely as it had once arrived, suddenly and without announcement.  Lacy, Terri, Sally, Maria, Anita, Jennifer, Theresa -- all of them – gone from my life like forbidden friends.  I had no one I could go to and request their return, no missing persons reports to fill out, no one with which to bemoan my loss with.  This was my little secret and I kept it all to myself.

In the Summer of '75, I uncovered a mystery in the box.  In '76 I made friends with the people in that box, and in '77, I lost them all.  I was 11. :)

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Just read an article on Huffington Post that made me think back a bit to when I was a kid.  I know weird, right?  I never talk about being a kid.   Okay, that was admittedly a bit of sarcasm.  I frequently talk about my childhood, but that is because I think childhoods are important.  I think they shape us into the adults we become.

The article by Kristen Wolfe entitled Dear Customer Who Stuck Up For His Little Brother was about a teenager (around 17 YO) who in fact defended his little brother’s (10-12 YO) decision to choose a video game that had a female lead character in it and a purple controller for the game against his own father who was threatening the child with bodily harm if he chose these things.

The father stomped off angry and the boys, though emotionally affected stood firm together.  It is an amazing story.  The father wanted his son to choose something more “manly” apparently, something with guns or zombies in it, but the boy insisted that he wanted the girl-game.

I thought about why the father was so insistent and I think it is because somehow he believes that if the boy chooses more manly games, then the boy will somehow grow up to be… more manly.  The opposite argument also works in this case, if in fact the boy plays with girl-games, then he will most likely end up to be gay, or a girl – which is one in the same for this father obviously, and both are anathema to the father.

But, is this assumption true?  I mean, when I was a young father raising my boys I think I felt like it was my job to mold my boys into “men.”  And my definition of men was something like this father’s.  It was tough, strong, manly, or masculine, or macho, and straight, not gay.  I was deluded into believing that somehow just by the toys I let them play with, the clothes I let them wear and the things I let them do, I could somehow make this sort of thing happen.

So I only let them play with toy cars and trucks and other stuff like that.  When kids were playing dress-up and putting on dresses, I did not allow them to play that way.  I made crude jokes about gayness and gay people in the home to make sure the kids knew that this was not an acceptable way to be.  I did everything I knew to try and control their future outcomes.  I believed that I could somehow, prevent gayness, or create straightness if you will.

Years later, I am convinced that I was wrong to try and do this.  I also now realize that being a man has nothing to do with a person’s sexual preference.  After all, there are plenty of tough determined men in the military stationed in Afghanistan right now on behalf of our country who happen to be gay. 

I realize also that there is no way for a father or mother to create or foster or nurture or make kids grow up to be straight.  You can certainly make them miserable by trying -- as the father in the article certainly was able to demonstrate.  I don’t know what the scene was when those boys got home or in the car on the way home, but I can imagine that it was not a pleasant one.  Just because dad backed down in the store it does not mean that the discussion was over.

Here’s another thing, does playing with cross-gendered toys mean that you have a gender identity issue?  Does a boy playing with Barbies make the boy instantly gay?  Does a girl playing with a set of tools make her a lesbian?  What is wrong with people?

When I was a small boy I distinctly remember that my favorite person in the world back then was my Mom.  She was a SAHM, who took being a Mommy to the nth degree.  She saw it as her duty to spend every waking moment with me, caring for me, playing with me, reading to me and talking with me.  She also did a fair amount of cleaning.

Seriously, a lot of cleaning.  I don’t mean like dusting and then sleeping.  I mean hard core cleaning.  I honestly think she was a bit OCD  However, when she cleaned she would play the most beautiful music.  While most Moms of that day were listening to top 40 stuff of the 70s or Motown, Mom would play her Doris Day records from the 60s.  I grew up listening to Doris Day and singing “Que sera, sera.  Whatever will be, will be.  The future’s not ours to see.  Que sera, sera.”

My favorite toys back then were a plastic toy vacuum cleaner, a few dolls and a golden brown teddy bear, appropriately named “Goldie.”  She had a husband teddy bear named Ted.  I think he was actually doing my dark brown teddy bear (Markeesha) on the side, but that is another story.  These were a few of my favorite things. 

You know why?  I wanted to be just like Mom when I grew up.  And she seemed to favor these things, including the vacuum cleaner.  It’s a miracle that my favorite toys weren’t an old dust rag and a mop and bucket, considering how much Mom cleaned.  No, instead it was toys that could let me play like my Mom.  I wore her shoes around the house too and liked to make things with her.

Not only am I not gay, but I had this little problem growing up in that I liked girls way too much.  So, there you go.  My worst moment as a child growing up?  The day my Mom put all my girl toys in a plastic bag and I never saw them again, including my Goldie bear.  I cried and cried and cried.  It was heart-breaking.

Maybe she too was afraid of her influence on me.  I still believe that spending all that time with Mom and playing with tender toys and listening to Doris Day and having my Mommy wipe me down with a cold wet wash-rag and stay by my side all night when I had a fever made me into the caring and compassionate pastor I am today.  Thanks Mom.  I forgive you for taking Goldie away.    

“When I was just a little girl, I asked my Mother what will I be.  Will I be pretty?  Will I be rich?  Here’s what she said to me.”  “You will be a good man, John.  You will.”

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The below story is a Christmas gift from my little brother (Darrell Martinez) to me, my family and subsequently all of the folks that read this blog.

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'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through our apartment, not a creature was stirring, except our four cats.  I mean really, try and keep four cats from stirring -- it can't be done.  The stockings were out, hung from coat hangars on the kitchen door.  The Christmas lights were on, tangled and tied around the balcony... with care, and the tinkle-dribble sounds of two fish tanks hung in the air.  We slept quite soundly, long used to the noise, of those damn four cats and all of their toys. Anthony in his Snuggie® -- hogging the bed, and I in my Decepticon® PJs sleeping the sleep of the dead.

When all of a sudden I awoke to such racket, like a loud sawing-grinding-vibrating repeating grating... oh that was just Anthony snoring... nevermind, I went back to sleep.  But, I woke again to the shattering of glass,so I crawled out of bed to kick some cat-ass.  Out to the living room I stumbled in vain -- ready to bring down that mad Christmas kitty-pain.  But Oh! With my bleary half-shut eyes did I see, but Santa himself-as plain as can be.  He had come through the patio windows as we don't have a chimney.  He was all covered in mud and looking quite dingy.  His hat was all torn and he held in his hand, the leg of a reindeer that had been gnawed-on quite bad.

He smelled of a sewer that had puked up rancid meat and I hoped against hope that he couldn't hear my heartbeat.  "Murr-aah?"  He moaned, as he looked right at me.  "Fuck!"  I exclaimed as my shorts filled with pee.  Then, here he came running and the blood in me surged, I knew that this Christmas-hell-beast needed to be purged.  From my home, from this holiday, from this block at least - so I tackle-blocked his ass back down to the street!

Over the balcony he flew and fell with such a clatter, that the neghbors next door came out to see what's the matter!  Chang, Bang and Tian -- the Asians next door -- all fell to Santa's blood thirst in a scene of much gore!  Santa grabbed onto Chang -- grabbed him full in the face--and blood and hair flew all over the place.  Bang screamed out shrill and then tried to run, but Santa got to him quick -- the end to Bang-Sun!  Tian just stood there quite frozen in fear, and Santa smashed him hard with the bloody foot of his deer.  

Down went Tian and Santa did feast.  And I knew in my cockles I'd have to "sleigh" the beast.  So onto my laptop -- I flew with such speed, and posted to facebook my dire Christmas need.  Then into my closet--I rummaged for the sword, that had been won on Ebay--for a hefty reward.  Then out to the lot--I ran with much haste, for this crazed undead Santa I needed to waste.  People were running now, all this way n' that - and Chang, Bang & Tian were up from their nap.  Returned from the dead, though not quite entirely --They chewed on that annoying dog from the bitch in twenty-three.  I dispatched them most quickly--with a sword through the head.  "Must finish this fast and return to my bed!"  Santa had vanished, screams all around, so I followed the noise and guess what I found.  A bath most bloody-to my eyes did appear, of my neighbors all falling to brain-hungry reindeer.  

With a red suited fat-man running around quick, I knew in a moment -"His ass I must kick!"  Then he roared ugly, up to the sky, and 'round came his minions in the blink of an eye.  Half-eaten and bloodied I chopped them as they came.  As Santa shouted and groaned, I downed them by name. "Die Dasher!  Die Dancer!  Die Prancer and Vixen!  FALL COMET, FALL CUPIT, FALL DONDER AND BLITZEN!"  Slashed the tops of their heads, chopped at them all!  Slashed away!  Chopped away!  Diced away all!  

Then bloated but hungry, Santa came for me fast, it was finally time that I dispatched him at last. His eyes shined at me, crimson.  Oh yes, very scary.  His cheeks were all a'torn, his nose dripped of cherry.  His lips curled back to bare broken teeth, I drew up my sword and threw down the sheath.  I put my blade in his face and slashed at his belly.  his gut spills out thickly like a bag full of jelly.  He lunged at me sharply, his finger grazing my nose.  Then I gave him a nod and up my sword rose,  In a bright slash, in a grand swooping sweep- I took his head off cleanly and he fell in a heap.  With a twitch and a quiver he died once more, not knowing what nightmare he encountered before.

I kicked at the corpse of the old elf in red--making quite sure that the hell-beast was dead.  Then came the town clock - clanging out twelve, and I laughed when I heard it, in spite of myself.  So I turned 'round quickly and shouted out right - "MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-FRIGHT!"

-- Darrell Martinez 2011

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When I was a kid I remember having such definite dreams about Christmas gifts.  One year I was sure I wanted the GI Joe with the Kung-fu grip.  Not sure what the draw was for that man-doll back then. I just knew it would be cool to have one.  He had a tiny little fist that was separated in half at the palm and when you flipped the lever in his back down his hand would close into a magical kung-fu grip that could fuse carbon steel.  Well, I never really tested out the whole metal fusion thing, but I was convinced it could happen.

The cool thing about GI Joe toys was that there was no GI Joe cartoon back then, no GI Joe Movie, nothing.  GI Joe was an imaginary character that did not exist in reality or in TVLand or the Movies.  At the time, my favorite cousin in-law was actually enlisted in the Marine Corp and away from home serving in some place called Vietnam in a war that affected me very little at the time other than the absence of one of my favorite playmates.

Jodie looked a little like GI Joe.  So, it was easy to imagine that when we were fighting crime with GI Joe, Jodie was there taking out criminals left and right with his kung-fu grip.  When we were saving the damsel Naked-Barbie from Ken’s chronic domestic abuse, Jodie was there rescuing the poor girl and sweeping her into his arms after high-kicking Ken in his bronzed-tan face.  Of course it was only temporary, because Jodie was married to my favorite cousin Sandy, and Naked-Barbie was always convinced by Ken’s multiple apologies and bouquets of plastic flowers that life in the dream home with Ken was all she was good for.  For some reason Barbie never had clothes on in my house.  I think it was a bit of a trade-off we made.  See, I grew up with four brothers, no sisters.  So, it makes sense that Barbie would be naked, thus… Naked Barbie.

The year after that it was Stretch Armstrong.  Stretch was a rubber man that was filled with what had to be radioactive jelly.  As you tugged on his arms and legs they would stretch to the furthest extent of the rubber making him the amazing stretching man.  That is until Stretch developed ulcers in his armpits and the inguinal region of his crotch.  Not just ulcers, but bleeding ulcers.  That gooey clear jelly stuff would get on you and it was a little like getting rubber cement on you.  It did not come off easily, soap and water did not work to remove it.  It took days for that stickiness to go away.  Kids I knew back then that owned a Stretch Armstrong are now dead from cancer.  Just saying.

Life is easy when you know what you want for Christmas isn’t it?  The question is fairly benign, but if you think about it, when you know what you want for Christmas, you know a lot.  You probably know what it would take to make you happy, and that is more than most folks can say.  Sure, sure the obligatory response is, I just need my family and I will be happy, or I just want to be home with those I love and around my friends.  But, when we are honest, most of us have settled for realities that are far from what we REALLY want.  Isn’t that true? 

I mean do you really have the greatest job in the world?  Maybe you do, but most people, the lucky ones are somewhere between “well at least I have a job in this economy” and “I get paid and it’s not complete torture.” Many others hate their job.

Are you really with the person you want to be with for the rest of your life?  Is there really such a person?  Do you even like your kids?  Is there really just one thing that you could receive at Christmas that will make your life significantly better?  Is there?  Be honest.   Do we really even have something in our head when asked “what will make you truly happy?” 

Life was so simple when I was a kid.  That GI Joe, Stretch Armstrong, Huffy bike, roller skates – those things made my life wonderful as a kid.  They were all I needed to ensure happiness that year.  Maybe Christmas is about making our kids happy by getting them that one thing, but for adults it’s about learning to be happy without that one thing.  Maybe Christmas for adults is about longing, awaiting, expecting.  I mean, the thing about Christmas is this.  Jesus comes, but then he goes doesn’t he?  He goes in such a gruesome way.  Life is kind of like that.  The things we long for, the things we await, they do come eventually, but then they are only around for awhile and then poof – their gone. 

That is why we learn to appreciate what we have.  It’s not because we can’t go out there and get better.  It’s not because we are doomed to only have a little.  It’s because we know that everything is fleeting, everything temporary.  Even when we get exactly what we want, we almost always have to give it up.  On top of that, we almost always want more, don’t we?  More.

We learn to appreciate what we have because, what we have is just like all those other things.  It is just as temporary, just as fragile, yet just as good.  As we get older we learn that everything and everyone have a lot in common.  That toys break, that family is just that – family.  They are part of you.  Anything you don’t like about them is probably your fault, because they are really part of you and you of them.  That the perfect person we thought we wanted to be with proved to be crazy, sickly, drastically overweight or perfect for some other guy or gal.  That the job we thought we wanted, turned out to actually just be “work” in the end.

Maybe Christmas is about realizing that nothing is right, everything is wrong.  It’s about knowing though that things will be better one day.  It’s about longing, awaiting, expecting for that perfection.  It’s about Jesus, and other stuff.  I wish each of you a very Merry Christmas.  Love what you have – who you have, and if you find yourself longing for more, join the rest of us in that longing.  It’s called being a grown-up, welcome to it.

Maybe if Naked-Barbie caught on to this strange kind of Christmas Spirit, she would have left Ken eventually and gone to a shelter for women, taken him to court, divorced him and gotten the dream house, sold the house and went to college, and ultimately built a life for herself of “not enough” like the rest of us.  

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No one is as pathetic as me when it comes to Christmas.  Really no one.  I mean I am totally throwing myself under the bus here.  Tammy on the other hand was built for Christmas.  It's in her blood, I think.  She just has a knack for this sort of stuff.  You know, the tree being up on a certain date, the right kind of festive music playing on the car radio, the decorations being up, nativity scenes of Jesus Mary and Joseph, a camel and a shepherd or two made from some cheap porcelain and painted by the tiniest indonesian fingers a world away, finely displayed on beds of white cotton and glitter -- yeah glitter.  I have no idea why there is glitter in the nativity, it's not like Jesus was all about pizzazz or sparkles or any other such nonsense, but it's there, sprinkled about the white cotton, because everyone knows that Jesus was born during a horrific snow storm, that somehow glistened in the sun directly after his birth.

She begins thinking about the holiday some time in October while I am still wondering how I am going to get by under the radar without haveing to wear a costume for Halloween.

Flashback to 1974:

I am 8 years old and my Mom has been slaving away all day making me a "home-made" costume to wear for a children's party.  All the kids at school that I know will be there and of course they will all be sporting the latest costumes bought and sold at the local department stores.  You know -- thin plastic mask--  a cape of some kind, or matching chest plate with a cape of some kind?  

My Mom being the true artist that she is decides to make the most unique costume I have ever seen or heard of since.  She buys a large balloon, blows it up to ginormous proportions and begins soaking strips of newspaper in this white milk-like substance (plastor of paris). Hours later, after drying she begins to paint it, and that is when I realize what she is doing.

She is making a very large jack-o-lantern.  It is beutifully painted.  I am in awe of this thing. It's not until the party that I realize that this thing she made IS in fact my costume.  She has bought me black panty hose to wear underneath.  

The idea is that I am to go to the party dressed as a very large Jack-O-Lantern with my head sticking out of the top, my arms inside and my silky and sheer black leggings (equipped with pantyshield) poking out from underneath.  It's classic and wonderful and I am freaked out. None of the other kids, except well maybe the girls, will be wearing panty hose.

I fought, and Mom gave in and let me wear my pants and a shirt (thank God).  She drops me off at the party -- all Jack -- and then when she drives off, but before I go inside, I removed the entire costume and go in as just John.  I don't know exactly why, but I was embarressed to wear this work of art that my Mom made. I did not want to be different.  I did not want to stick out or be unique or special or any of those other words that mean well, weird.  In the end, all the Moms at the party got to judge who had the best costune, and some kid won who was dressed as a mime.  I know, original right?  

As I prepared to go outside, one of the Moms noticed that I had not worn a costume, because there I was putting it on just then, to go meet my Mom at the car.  She saw what it was and drew the attention of the other Moms, who marveled over the giant orange wonder, and said that had I been wearing my costume they would have picked me as the winner.

I smiled, threw the costume over my head and onto my small frame, and headed out the door and to the car -- Jack was back --  for a moment. My Mom smiled as she drove me home.  I never told her that her work of art failed to get a decent review because her son was too embaressed to wear it.

So getting back to Christmas.  As many of you know, Tammy has been out for the count with her back giving her these muscle spasms from Hell.  So, growing weary of waiting for all the presents to get wrapped, and having to step over them in the bedroom, I decided to take it upon myself to wrap them all.

Wow.  What a dumb idea.  That was some of the most tedious grueling work I have done in awhile.  My butt, knees, elbows and neck are killing me.  As it turns out, wrapping presents is like playing one long tedious and painful game of Twister, but with no opponents, and no audience to cheer you on.

Tammy seemed to appreciate me doing this at least.  I guess, I am also glad it is done.  We have one more present to buy, I think, and then we are finished.  I am really not a grinch, really.  I think I am just lazy.  And obviously I like to keep a low profile.  Thus the Hallowen story above.  

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Okay, what I have got to say is going to weird people out that I love and don’t-like-very-much-but-for-some-reason-are-still-my-friends-on-Facebook.  Now mind you “don’t like very much” is obviously not enough of a reason to stop being Facebook friends with these folks, so my standards are kind of low.  But for those of you that are my good friends, don’t question whether or not I am talking about you (when I talk about those I don’t like very much) – I love you all.

So, I am not very unique or special, I know.  I am just your average every day sort-of Hispanic, male in his forties that contracted Type II Diabetes at the age of around 35.  So I have been living with this quiet-slow-killer now for ten years.  Remarkably I still have my heart, pancreas, kidneys, feet, eyes and penis.

I know it’s crazy.   By “slow killer,” I mean that I was told by a certain angry overwieght female doctor that one of the first things I would lose would be my penis. Of course these are the kinds of scare-tactics doctors use to like, make you start eating tofu and exercise like a boxing ninja with a track medal.

That of course was the warning I received ten years ago, and since the warning, I can still advertise a working penis.  Not that this is a big seller, right?  Not that me or my penis are even on the market.  I mean what did the doctor see when she looked at me back then?  This guy likes having a penis.  Maybe if I tell him he is gonna lose it, he will suddenly do something magical and wave away this debilitating disease.  He will overcome years and years of heredity and start appreciating the use of a fully functional weiner.

Okay enough typing in italics, it wears out the wrist –and I apparently need a good wrist with a functioning penis.  I have said the word penis here enough to scare off the average Christian reader, so I hope that my friends are still with me – although if you are not still with me here then maybe you weren’t my friend after all – maybe you are really one of those folks I “don’t like very much.”

So, here we are – 10 years into this disease and what do I have to show for it?  Well the absolute truth of it is.  I have no fucking idea.  None.   I don’t know really the state of my pancreas or kidneys. I mean what do those things do to let you know they are starting to go, send you a text message?  Do they tell the nervous system to send a message to the brain that looks something like “would you tell this asshole who has totally abused his body and taken advantage of us this whole time that we are about to jump ship?  Ask him if he enjoys being hooked up to machines for the rest of his life, because we kidneys are getting the fuck out of here.  Peace out.  Oh and by the way, pancreas says hello, and then goodbye - psyche!"

I mean is that my fate?  I have been popping the magic pills now for ten years.  You know the ones – four freaking horse pills a day.  I have been sticking needles into my belly for years.   My cute little belly.  Okay maybe not cute..  perhaps beautiful is a better word, and I know little is a bit of a misrepresentation, but if you think about little as compared to maybe a city bus, that will give it some perspective.  I used to pride myself on that smooth unblemished belly-skin.  It was my little secret.  You know when meeting someone new?  So you don’t like the face so much, or the physique?  Well, you should see my smooth unblemished baby-like belly-skin.  Nowadays I just grimace at the riddled-with-holes flesh there while sticking another needle in.

Okay this is sounding way more depressing than it is supposed to.  But really?   This is my life, welcome to it – be thankful for yours.   But, this is not a whoa-is-me post regardless of where I have gone thus far.  This is a post about Type II Diabetes and a possible cure.

What is that you say John?  A cure?

Well a possible cure.  So, I have been doing a little research.  Apparently there are not just one, but several doctors out there selling books that have titles something like “Reversing Diabetes,” “Death to Diabetes,” “You can get rid of Diabetes,” and my personal favorite “You-can-get-your-penis-working-again-by-greatly-diminishing-the-effects-of-Type-II-diabetes-if-you-read-this-book-and-pay-for-my-subsequent-materials-on-the-subject.” Okay that last title was unnecessarily long.

So, thanks to the wonders of medicine (Ritalin) and the use of Amazon excerpts, I was able to glean through most of these books without having to pay one single penny and you know what the gist of it is?  Know what the magical cure to diabetes is?  Are you ready to be disappointed?

Diet. 

Not just any diet, but a VEGAN diet.

I was skeptical, so I bought one of the more popular books out there to really give these folks a chance to prove to me that swearing off from animal products and eating salads really makes some sort of difference to a diabetic and that this was not just some Vegan-fanatic’s idea of Evangelism.

After reading the book “Dr. Neal Bernard’s Program For Reversing Diabetes”, the good Dr. Neal Bernard suggests that Type II Diabetes can be reversed by not eating meat or refined foods, or products that come from animals.  He suggests a plant-based diet.

Here is a synopsis of his findings:

1.       Type II diabetics have working insulin in their bodies, and all of the essential components to naturally handle glucose properly.

2.       What insulin does is carry glucose from the bloodstream to cells in the body, once there it opens up a receptor on each cell to receive the glucose, which is like fuel for the cells.  So in a way insulin is the key to our cells.

3.       The problem with Type II Diabetics is that their “receptors” or locking mechanisms don’t work.  They are gummed up.

4.       The doctor suggests that they are gummed up with lipids (fat) from the cell and that the cells themselves harbor too much fat.

5.       By depriving the body of Saturated Fats that come from animals, the body begins to burn off the excess fats in the cell, thus allowing the receptors to work and receive glucose from the insulin.

The problems arise when the glucose is rejected and then goes back into the bloodstream causing all sorts of damage to the tiny blood vessels in our body.  Thus the aforementioned damage to the penis, feet and eyes.

So, I am actually considering this.  Let me know what you think.  What would you do?  Continue to inject yourself, and pop pills that are causing damage to your body by their very presence, or swear off the animal products? 

I do love my penis.  He’s kind of cute, and doesn’t complain much.  Well, maybe beautiful is a better word.  Isn’t there some psychological classification for folks who treat their private parts as a separate entity?  Anyway, you get the picture.  Well hopefully not a picture of my penis.  That would be weird.  Okay, enough said…  Moving on now…   This will be the last time I use the word penis in a blog post for awhile.  I promise.

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So there I was at the Outlaw Preacher’s (Re)Union 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee just minding my own business when this beautiful woman approached me and reached out to me with a hug. Of course being the kind of guy that likes hugs from beautiful women, I returned the gesture.  I recognized her immediately as Joy Wilson, the pretty prayer lady.  Or at least that is what I knew of her.  I had no other recollections of Joy other than her postings on Facebook, her blog and her terrific little book Uncensored Prayer.

Well there was one thing. She did send me a little Facebook message telling me to come to this thing and “be blessed.”   She did have somewhere in her mind, this little window into my soul that not even I could view.  She knew I needed this get-together, I really didn’t think so.  In fact I was tired, beat up, burnt out and disgruntled and ready for a fight, but a blessing sounded good.

It was in our first conversation that we discovered that we are both writers, and that I read her blog. It was also in this first conversation that she said, “well, you will have to guest blog on my site then.”  I was honored to be asked to contribute to anything she was doing, and so I just said “Yes.”  Yes, I would.  I asked her if there was anything in particular she would have me write about and she then lowered the boom on me.

She said, “you know what I want you to write about?”

“Uhm, no not exactly.”

“I want you to write about your heartsong.”

I don’t know if I was visibly confused or not, but she then responded with,

“Do you know what that is?”

In my head I was thinking is she asking me if I know what my heartsong is, or is she asking me if I know what a heart-song is?

I said “Yes.”  Even though to be honest I really didn’t have the answer for either of those questions.

“Well it is the thing you care about the most, something that makes your heart sing, something like that.”

I smiled and nodded affirmatively and started thinking.

So let’s go back a bit. As a child I remember a song that particularly appealed to me.  I was maybe 12 when I first heard this particular “Heart” song.

There I was with the old man
Stranded again so off I’d ran
A young world crashing around me
No possibilities of getting what I need
He looked at me and smiled
Said “No, no, no, no, no child.
See the dog and butterfly. Up in the
Air he like to fly.” Dog and butterfly
Below she had to try. She roll back down
To the warm soft ground laughing
She don’t know why, she don’t know why
Dog and butterfly

I didn't completely understand the song back then, but I loved it upon first hearing it. Later in life, as I grew to understand the song better, I placed myself in the role of the dog, chasing a butterfly over a grassy land mass, leaping in the air and falling, the territory under my feet changing as I run and not really noticing it, my dreams, my loves, my  life always seemingly out of grasp  My response after failing was usually something more than a chuckle or two.

It usually meant a lot of self-reflection and down time for me — a time of crying until I had no tears left to shed; a time where bad stuff happened in my heart, a time where I judged myself as not-enough, worthless, stupid -- ugly.

It seemed as if by the time I reached my later teen years that I would never have anything that I wanted and I began to get settled into the idea that I should just be happy with what I had and leave the damn butterflies alone.  I would never get the things I wanted and I just needed to get used to that idea.  That butterfly was just a tease — never attainable, always dancing above my head and just out of my grasp.

Well I stumbled upon your secret place
Safe in the trees you had tears on your face
Wrestling with your desires frozen strangers
Stealing your fires. The message hit my mind
Only words that I could find
See the dog and butterfly
Up in the air he like to fly
Dog and butterfly below she had to try
She roll back down to the warm soft ground
Laughing to the sky, up to the sky
Dog and butterfly

It was eternity set in my heart, and eternity never happens to losers like me.  So by the age of 16, I had come to the conclusion that I was not going to live beyond the age of 18.  I had become an overly aggressive, angry youth that realized that getting beat-up, getting made fun of and being harassed by bigger kids were the only things within his grasp. 

I had multiple people in my life that just seemed to hate me on site.  Some were pretty mean and dangerous, and I had plans to actually kill one of them literally out of self defense.  He was killing me slowly every time he body slammed my small frame against the hard concrete walls at school or knocked my books out of my hands, then pushed me to the ground when I turned towards them, or called me ugly or gay or gross.  It was to be either him or me, and I did not want to die anymore.

Then something happened

A pretty blond girl asked me to go with her to church.  She saw me. I had been invisible and I liked it that way, but I never imagined that she would chat me up.  I was definitely not the kind of person I had imagined her talking to.  But, she did ask me. 

She was a butterfly.  I knew she was, but for some reason I thought maybe this time I could catch her — maybe if I lept extra hard?  Who was I kidding?  At 16, I was already too tired to go chasing after another dream, sign of life, girl.  But as fate would have it, eternity was calling after me again, and this time, like so many times before, I was a fool.  I actually listened.

Years later finds me celebrating my 18^th birthday and wondering how it happened. Jesus was now in my heart and he had pulled me through past my 18^th birthday. I never killed that kid and as it turns out we somehow made amends.  I was happier and hopeful for the future.  The blond girl as it turned out
was in fact a butterfly.  She was just a tease for Jesus.  I never got to catch her.

So if Sherry was the butterfly that took me to Jesus, then Anita was the one who made me stay.  She was another pretty butterfly (brunette) dancing in the sky, pulling me deeper and deeper into the world of Christianity and church and youth group and everything else, never promising me anything.  I chased that butterfly for far too long only to continue falling down on my ass hard.

Fast-forward a bit, I am 19 years old, and I work with this guy named Tony.  I don’t like him very much because he is a bit of a show-off, but he is asking me to go home with him for some pizza and beer.  No one ever really chooses to hang out with me in an informal setting so I decided to see where this was going to go.  I had no real friends.  Even Jesus could not manage to firm up any real friendships for me. So I chased after yet another elusive winged creature – friendship.

But this butterfly, led me again to different territory.  It was there in Tony’s apartment that I would meet my true heart-song. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She was his neighbor and had come into the apartment due to an impromptu invitation from Tony.  She was with her sister and I could not take my eyes off of her. Yet, I was very good about not letting her know I was looking.  I did not say a word to her that night except maybe hello.  Why should I?  She was too beautiful.  She was just another one of those elusive colorful things that was there to make me give chase only to never actually grasp anything good.  I was sore from falling down.

It took Tony two solid weeks to convince me that she wanted me to call her and ask her out.  Tammy would eventually be my wife.  As it turned out she was not a butterfly, she was the new territory that I encountered while chasing after eternity. She is still with me after 25 years of marriage and my heart still sings every time I look at her and see her smile.

Looking back now I think that maybe the butterfly is this part of god that pulls us along, even when we think we are dead and can’t possibly move.  It dances in our peripheral saying “catch me if you can” all the while moving us closer and closer to the good, the perfect, the beautiful – god's eternity set upon our heart — telling us again and again that we are good, that we are worth it, that god considers us key players and that god cares about us immensely and never gives up on us, even when we have given up on ourselves - even when it seems like things will never change -- there flies the butterfly close enough to tease, but just out of reach.

“We’re getting older the world’s getting colder
for the life of me I don’t know the reason why
Maybe it’s livin’ making us give in
Hearts rolling in taken back on the tide
We’re balanced together ocean upon the sky”

Joy Wilson’s word, was a butterfly fluttering around above me telling me “come along.”  “Come and be blessed.”  Silly ole’ me lept in the air as much as one my age can leap after this thing called blessing.  I drove my car and spent some money and lept after the Outlaw Preacher’s (Re)Union 2011. And silly ole’ me fell to the ground in pursuit of blessing, but this time laughing and realizing for sure that the terrain has changed once again –  this is a different place that God has led me.  This is good.

Sometimes when you are pursuing a butterfly and it just seems like you ought to have this one, stop, look around you, see where you have gone and realize that maybe, just maybe you were never supposed to have it.  Maybe what you are supposed to have is right in front of your face, and you can’t see it because you have been leaping after the unattainable for so long.  Two days into the reunion, I might have sung this:

Another night in this strange town
Moonlight holding me light as down
Voice of confusion inside of me
Just begging to go back where I’m free
Feels like I’m through
Then the old man’s words are true
See the dog and butterfly
Up in the air he like to fly
Dog and butterfly, below she had to try
She roll back down to the warm soft
Ground with a little tear in her eye
She had to try, she had to try

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Memo.m4a Listen on Posterous

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⁷ Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. ⁸ I gave you your master’s house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. ⁹ Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife. ¹⁰ From this time on, your family will live by the sword because you have despised me by taking Uriah’s wife to be your own.” ¹¹ “This is what the Lord says: Because of what you have done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you. I will give your wives to another man before your very eyes, and he will go to bed with them in public view. ¹² You did it secretly, but I will make this happen to you openly in the sight of all Israel.” (2 Sam 12:7-12)

So, maybe you know the story?  Boy meets girl, boy has sex with girl and gets girl pregnant, boy deliberately has girl’s husband placed in harm’s way in a war zone, and husband dies.  Well, that was certainly the case with King David back in the day.  This “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22) chose to do something heinous – something that today would be punishable by death, at least.  But, let’s examine the words that Nathan (the prophet) speaks to David afterwards, that are from the mouth of God Himself.

“Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife.” (2 Sam 12:9)

That is what God was pissed about?  God had full opportunity to blast David for all of the crimes he had committed against "God’s law," but He chose to focus on the murder of Uriah the Hittite and the subsequent theft of his wife-property?  God chooses to condemn David’s family to the sword because David wrongfully took one man’s life?  God chose to pimp out David’s wives because David admittedly took one man’s wife? Maybe you are not tracking what I am saying here.  Maybe I am not being very clear.  What I am more curious about is why God does not mention the very obvious infractions that David has committed.

Adultery

Why for instance is the word “Adultery” never used?  I mean that culture and our culture and Jesus’ culture was BIG on using that word to describe the sin behind David’s actions. God could have easily pointed out to David that what he had done by committing adultery was more than enough to get him stoned in even a more contemporary society, let alone the one he lived in.  God could have called him out on the mere fact that David slept with another man’s wife, or the fact that David was married and was sleeping around period.  Each of those infractions ARE adultery.  Jesus lists adultery as the reason why someone may divorce another in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt 5)  This alone was a heinous crime to the culture of that day.

Wives, not Wife

Oh yeah did I mention that David had wives, not just one wife?  Wait a second.  Seriously?  Yes, count them:

Michal
Ahinoam
Abigail
Maacah
Haggith
Abital
Eglah
Bathsheba (2 Sam 3:2-5)

So that, by all accounts makes him a polygamist.  I don’t think anyone would disagree with that assessment.

Co-habitating with Sex Slaves

David also had at least ten concubines.  What’s that?  10. (1 Chronicles 1:1-9; 2 Samuel 6:23; 20:3)  What is a concubine one might ask?

Wikepedia defines it thusly: “A concubine is generally a woman in an ongoing, marriage-like relationship with a man whom she cannot marry for a specific reason. It may be because she is of lower social rank than the man (including slave status) or because the man is already married. Generally, only men of high economic and social status have concubines. Many historical rulers maintained concubines as well as wives.”

Concubines were basically there to pleasure the King, when the wives were not in the mood.  Likewise, if for some reason the wives were not producing enough sons, then the King would impregnate a concubine in hopes of increasing his lineage with a son. So basically this is a formal kind of Adultery (remember that word).  David was regularly having sex out of wed-lock with these women, thus committing adultery and also having what we hip evangelicals like to term as “pre-marital sex,”  but also “co-habitating.” 2 Samuel 5:13-15 says that David took on more wives and concubines in Jerusalem, but it fails to say how many, and it only names the sons born to him there.

But who’s counting

Well obviously I am counting.  You should be counting too.  Really, I have a point, stay with me.  Check it out, here is a list of things that God should have nabbed David for: Adultery (multiple counts) Polygamy (multiple counts) Sex before marriage (multiple counts) Co-habitation (multiple counts) Murder (one count) Theft (one count) Coveting his neighbor’s wife (one count) Being a Dick (I added this one.  It should be a crime)

The Law of Moses

But who am I to second guess God?  Right?  I mean God in all his wisdom saw fit to formally charge David with crimes against His “Law” otherwise known as the Law of Moses, or the Ten Commandments.

So that is truly what God nabs David for, Murder, and Coveting, and Theft and in an indirect way Adultery.  God does get him, and in the end David pays dearly.  But what about the other law of Moses?

One Man, One Woman

It’s in the Bible, I read it, I believe it.  Moses wrote in Genesis about the fact that marriage is a union between just one man and just one woman.  You remember the whole man will leave Mom and Dad and cleave to his wife?  (Gen 2:24)  Haven’t you heard this argument before?  I mean, we have to obey the commands of God as passed down through Moses in Genesis right? I mean the atrocities of David ala Adultery, Polygamy, Co-habitation and pre-marital sex cannot go unanswered. 

How could we possibly justify blasting homosexuals with the abomination of gay marriage?  How could we dare to pound them over the head with the Bible for being against Godly marriage if God does not seem to care at all about the abomination that is David?  But, no, David will forever go down as a “man after God’s own heart.” He will forever be listed as an ancestor to Jesus, and in fact so will Bathsheba, the adulteress turned mother of Solomon (an author in the Bible).

We Care a Hell of a Lot More About This Stuff Than God Seems to

So, this is one of the reasons I have arrived at the above conclusion.  In fact humans have traditionally always had more laws than God could come up with on His own.  We do it to ourselves, folks.  In being absolutely clear about David’s abject offensive behavior, god is also clear about what he is NOT angry about. So why do we get so excited about things like gay marriage, or gay Christians, or people living together and not married, or young lovers safely experimenting with sex?  What has got our panties in a bunch?  It isn’t God, so don’t blame Him.

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1.  They were not hung up on themselves.
2. They were not trying to put off some kind of aura of masculinity.
3. They were not posturing around each other and competing for attention.
4. They were easy going fellas that laughed a lot.
5. They were overwhelmingly welcoming and easy to chat with.
6. The utter lack of pretense was astonishing.

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"God may be sending us all a message by these recent floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes." "Something has to change or this is only going to get worse." "New York recently legalized gay marriage, so God must have sent them an earthquake, floods, and a hurricane to 'wake them up'" "Until we get back to a Christian nation, God is going to continue to send these disasters our way."

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How do you stumble into a lifetime? Is it possible that the rest of your life is right around the next corner? I am pretty convinced these days that it is.

Before her I was guessing about life and had no real direction. I was a traveler that had run out of gas. A kid really at the age of 20, that was working a full-time job as a security guard at a local hospital. I had done high-school and managed to pull off a miraculous last-in-his-class completion of 4 years, earning me the coveted high school diploma.

I had done college, attending a full semester at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas and decided that maybe college was really not for me at that moment. Besides, I had a girlfriend in Houston that I thought I loved, and Huntsville was 78 miles from there. It was quite a chore making that drive on the weekends and it was costing my parents an arm and a leg in gas even back then (1984).

As it turned out the girl I thought I loved really didn't love a kid with a high school diploma who had dropped out of college for her. It chaffed against her image of the perfect relationship to the perfect college guy that she would marry someday. So she dumped me.

So there I was. In Houston, doing a security job, with no plans for the future. This was a modern day tragedy to my parents who had also envisioned the perfect son attending college and earning a perfect degree and getting a perfect job one day. There was tension all around, but I had no idea what my next journey, step, motivation, anything would be.

Then I saw her. See, getting back to the start here, you never know what is around the next corner. This corner happened to cast a shadow across her face, but the glimpse I got of that face was enough. It was a brief encounter at a friend's apartment, but it was a long enough encounter for my mind to leave a mental bookmark there.

Weeks later I could not get my mind off the quiet and beautiful girl I met in Tony's flat that night. I was never big on things like eye color and hair color and skin tone, body types and facial structures. In fact if you went through a list of my girlfriends to date you would find a wild menagerie of all types.

There was the short and stocky brunette, the red-head that was perfect in every way but in her affinity for me, the blond who had a bit of an acne problem, the darker brunette girl who was small but feisty, the little bitty Asian chick that I dated briefly until her father found out and threatened to kill me, the tall brunette girl that had a bit of a love problem, problem was that she tended to love anyone who wanted her at the moment and claimed that I was her 100 th prospect that year to a good friend of ours, who turned out to be a better friend to me, whom I dated-- again briefly. A kind blond girl named Lisa. Then there was the BBW that kissed like there was no tomorrow, whom I was too concerned about my image to date openly, but whom I made-out with on several occasions usually in a car in a parking garage somewhere, that is until a security guard caught us, me with out a shirt and her on top of me.

Then there was the thin blond one I met in drama who happened to be the dark one's best friend, who also dumped me in a rather traumatic experience. Why? Because I broke up with her best friend for her.

So what was I getting at? Oh yeah, I had never been a one-kind-of-girl man until her.  After that moment I had a type in mind when I would think about a beautiful woman. Here it is. Brunette. Yes she had to have brown hair that was big in the 80s. It had to be long enough to pull back in a pony tail and had to have little strands of golden-red that showed up in the sunlight. There had to be small wisps of hair that trailed down the sides of her face next to her ears, which by the way are proportionate and slightly pointed at the top perfectly accenting a face plump with life.

Cheek bones are high and don't even need the usual reddish colored blush to accent them because they have a natural accent, and of course lips that are both full and red, and yes freckles. Freckles on her face that come out more in the sun. Freckles on her shoulders-- her beautiful squared shoulders that seem to display the best parts of her ivory white skin, just below her long soft neck. You know the kind of skin that has to be protected from the sun or otherwise it could be very painful in a short amount of time? The kind also that blushes quickly and is soft to the touch.

Hips. Oh my gosh, the best sort of hips. The kind you can grab on to and tug on to let her know you are there. Legs, with meaty muscular thighs. The kind that only come from years of ice skating. Legs that seem to go on forever. Blue eyes. Ever since that girl, this is how I define beauty. Let's not forget her smile. Both corners of the mouth go up at the same time, eyes brighten and squint just a little, shoulders go up shortly thereafter, and then fall gently It's as if her whole body smiles.

This is what changed my life. This is what made me crazy enough to join the military, this is the reason I quit my job as a security officer. It is why I left my parents and my family and my church and everything I knew behind. It's why, I without a thought jumped at the opportunity to marry her, despite threats of police and the utter lack of support of everyone in our lives at the time. As it turns out, she wanted to be with me too.

How does this happen? I don't know. Sad because it has not happened to you? Look around the next corner -- seriously. I was not looking for my life to change that summer in 1985. I was looking forward to becoming a lieutenant in the make-believe security force that I was part of. I was trying to figure out how to make enough money to move in with a friend of mine and share rent to avoid the inevitable boot from my parents.

I had no idea that she would change my life forever. Everything good in my life though, after that moment, included her. Everything bad after that moment usually was due in part to her absence somehow. How did I get so lucky? I continue to marvel this even after 25 years of marriage. I love Tammy.

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Hang out with your grandchildren.  This stuff is inspiring, and if none of that works, jump off a bridge with a fiber of bungee attached to you or sky dive or something. No I am inspired.  at least I think I am, but either way that has not been the issue.  I think the issue was that I wrote a blog and I was entertaining the idea of writing a book because I thought people could get something out of what I wrote.

Maybe that is not completely honest, maybe I wrote because I wanted people to get something out of my writing.  Maybe I sought to be inspiring.  Maybe I wrote because well I wanted attention and the older I get the less of that stuff I get ya know? I mean I want to contribute something significant before I die, and again the older I get the slimmer the chances are that that is going to happen.  So I wrote.  

Then something weird happened a few weeks ago.  I stopped caring. That may be an oversimplification, but I came to a few conclusions:

1.  Most of us just want to be heard.
2.  Very few of us are listening to others.
3.   We generally LOVE the writings and blog posts that we already agree with before reading them.
4.  Posts we disagree with we ignore for the most part.
5.  Writers whose posts we disagree with, we don't read.

What many folks don't realize is that it is quite a chore for me to write.  Don't know why but it has always taken a special effort on my part to fill the page with pretty letters, thoughts and ideas.  So I had to justify spilling those pretty letters, and lately I just have not been able to.  Lately other things seem more important. Now, mind you I am not saying I am done with writing all together.  If that were the case I certainly would not be writing this post. I guess I am really trying to explain my absence of late, and maybe at the same time I trying to understand it myself. All I know is that I have a general feeling of preaching to the choir, not only in my writing, but in my preaching lately.  I love the choir don't get me wrong.  They give me support for my many ideas and opinions, but I thing the real challenge for me is to try and engage folks that think I am a heretic, or a blasphemer.  And even though many of my posts are fair and approachable, I don't feel like I am reaching them. Maybe it is not possible in a blog?  Maybe it is barely possible in a real conversation?  I don't know.  Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

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