Catchy (Sitting 47) Fallen from the Sky… May 6th, 2018

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Perhaps a great discussion could have ensued between Carlin and Jubal about the power of ethics and transparency with the public. Think tanks could have weighed in on the historical nature of complete candor as opposed to releasing information gradually, so as to not overwhelm the common man.

Surely many churches, businesses and even politicians could share their rendition of “liary” as opposed to just simply stating the facts.

But on the following Thursday afternoon, in Salisbury, North Carolina, in the town plaza, eight thousand beautiful human beings gathered underneath a hilarious burst of sunshine, to eat North Carolina barbecue and listen to Jubal and the boys crank out the tunes.

Politicians, rock stars and mill workers walked together with tears in their eyes over the tenderness of the fellowship and the simplicity of what could be accomplished with a little food, love and music. In the midst of the jubilation, a private airplane flew overhead trailing a banner which read, “God Bless America.”

The crowd cheered. The plane flew by three more times, banner flapping in the wind. Jubal instructed his bandmates to improv a salsa version of “God Bless America,” which totally revved the audience into a joyous mania.

Then, to complement the banner, three skydivers jumped out of the airplane wearing red, white and blue jumpsuits and sporting American flag parachutes as they tugged on their ropes and floated to Earth.

The cheers were nearly deafening.

The crowd assumed that Jubal planned the beautiful surprise, and he thought it was a courtesy extended by the community. The three sky visitors landed, each one holding a flag, waving them in the wind. The crowd screeched and ran forward as the police edged ahead to protect the gents from being swallowed up.

Jubal and the band continued to play, although they had temporarily lost the attention of the audience.

The three newcomers disconnected from their parachutes and tore off their flags, throwing them to the ground.

Then the crowd gasped in horror. What had appeared to be flagpoles in the hands of the skydivers were actually assault rifles.

Because the police had approached the trio first, the paratroopers shot them down in thirty seconds, then raced into the crowd, shooting, maiming and killing as they went.

The scene was so surreal that it took Jubal and the cast a moment to realize what was happening. When Brother Carlos finally understood that they were under attack, he quickly ushered all of his friends into the nearby semi-truck which had carried the equipmnent for the rally.

All the participants jumped into the empty trailer of the semi as others from the crowd tried to make their way in as well. After about thirty seconds, Jubal ordered the door closed, jumped into the driver’s seat, and headed off toward the closest murderer. The man was so busy shooting that he didn’t realize that Jubal was bearing down on him with megatons of truck. Jubal didn’t give it a second thought. He slammed down the gas pedal and rolled over the killer, crushing him beneath the wheels.

The shock of this bought some time for one of the policemen, who was lying wounded, to grab his gun and aim carefully, firing a bullet into the face of a second attacker.

There were two down.

Jubal had to decide whether to go back around, risking the truck being riddled with bullets, or depart the area, with his passengers intact, and then come back after delivering them to safety.

Meanwhile, the third assassin continued to shoot at will. There were bodies everywhere. People were crying for help, others kneeling and praying over their friends.

But the police–an escort of about eighteen officers–lay very still on the ground, near the spot where the perpetrators had landed. Before Jubal could get the truck turned around to chase the third offender, five men from the crowd charged the assailant. Two were shot and a third grabbed the assassin, taking the gun, as the shooter ran into the nearby trees, attempting to escape. Unfortunately, he ran in the direction of about twenty men from the crowd, who were hiding in the woods. They tackled him and they beat him and beat him–until he was dead.

Jubal drove the truck up, careful to not strike any wounded soul on the ground. He climbed down and walked among the dead and wounded.

He fell to his knees. Jubal wept.

By the end of the day, thanks to the kindness of strangers and the excellent work of emergency medical staff, 167 wounded people were transported to hospitals. Seven were paralyzed, four were brain dead–but about 150 were treated, with a prospect of surviving the hellish ordeal.

Unfortunately, five souls died in the hospital, joined by another 83 who lay dead in the plaza.

88 people gone.

Jubal took his staff to the airport and they flew out immediately. Several of them questioned whether it was proper to leave the area without talking to the authorities. Jubal didn’t care.

The whole event was especially stunning to Carlin, who had attended on his first missionary trip with the team, to encounter such a meaningless slaughter. Once in the air, Jubal conducted a prayer meeting for about a half an hour as his team, which had witnessed evil in motion shared hearts and lifted up their concerns to a heavenly Father.

At the end of the prayer session everyone fell silent, waiting to hear what Jubal would have to share.

“We need time for reflection,” said Jubal. “We need to quiet our souls and not flamboyantly be sharing the experience on every talk show with every giddy host who wants to slide us into a slot to fill time. We should go ahead and cancel the rallies for the time being, and let’s see where God takes us.”

There was a general agreement. Except for Carlin.

Carlin patted Jubal on the shoulder and said, “I know this sounds right to you, my friend, but it isn’t. This was done today because there are people who are afraid. I don’t know who they are. But they’re afraid enough that they organized this massacre. They have learned in their dens of iniquity, that if you can scare people, you can control them. Let’s be honest. We are fuckin’ scared. But it’s the last thing in the world we need to be. I think what we should do is to hold one rally two weeks from now, and gather hundreds of thousands of people, to object to the insanity, to reject the blood-shedding, and to stand up for what’s right.”

No one liked Carlin’s idea–but no one could argue with it.

That night it was announced on the news that two different organizations took credit for the “Salisbury Slaughter”–Zion’s Warriors, a renegade, pro-Israel terrorist group, and White Light, a supremacist organization, bound and determined to return America to its Anglo-Saxon roots.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Matthew heard about the tragedy via television. For twenty minutes there was silence in every casino. Everything stopped running. Everybody ceased jabbering.

Matthew took that time to drive to the airport. He needed to be there when the jet arrived. He was certainly not going to be much comfort to them, but perhaps they could bring some solace to his tormented soul.

 

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G-Poppers … March 3rd 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Jon close up

G-Pop wants to share a pair of principles with his children. Even though they are very simple, he wants to take a minute to review them, along with some of the attacks that have risen.

1. Do good work.

Seems rather logical, doesn’t it? But we’ve replaced this sentiment with other thoughts we think are the same:

  • “He has talent.”
  • “He’s on a learning curve.”
  • “She had a bad day.”
  • “He was overwhelmed.”
  • “She misunderstood the assignment.”

Do you see? Good work consists of:

A. “This is what needs to be done. ”

B. “This is how I’m going to do it.”

C. “This is the finished product, just as promised.”

America is sacrificing quality in the pursuit of making everybody feel good about themselves. It is important that sometimes we feel bad about ourselves, so some ultimate improvement can come of it.

2. Make your work look easy.

We pride ourselves in expressing exasperation, anger and exhaustion over our jobs. Work plus complaining is not only ineffective labor, but it’s unacceptable because it taints the environment.

Just think how productivity in America could jump simply by declaring war on too many opinions and too much bitching.

It all revolves around the fact that we think we’re too important. So when we fail, we want everybody to agree that given the circumstances, they wouldn’t have done any better.

So G-Pop thinks we should return to this pair of principles:

Do your work well

Make it look easy.

If a plumber is charging me $40 an hour, I do not want him to return in three hours with sweat on his brow, explaining what a difficult job it was. I will never hire him again.

He needs to return in forty minutes–with a smile on his face, listening to my gratitude and saying, “No big deal. It’s my job.”

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Good News and Better News … April 11th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Good News Grays Chapel

Yesterday I was at Grays Chapel United Methodist Church.

It is located in a place called Grays Chapel, North Carolina, which has been granted the blessing of a name despite its size.

I liked them.

I’m not so sure they liked me at first because after all, I was a stranger. Because I was a stranger, I was therefore suspect.

Isn’t it interesting that most of the problems that come to us in life are hatched by friends and family? Rarely are we inundated by a predicament brought about by someone we don’t know.

That said, I had to make a decision on what I wanted to say to these fine folk. I mingled my words with songs, music and a bit of humor.

Yet, it is important to have a core message.

My core is so simple that it probably leaves some people attending my events a little disappointed–because I fail to attack the right people or praise those usually deemed worthy. So my success rate is very good, but is also plagued by the lack of having an adequate enemy we can all hate. Matter of fact, you can boil down what I have to say to the following:

1. The Gospel is good news.

I know people can find bad news in the Good Book, but I’ve never been one to try to turn it into the “Bad Book.” Maybe that makes my mission seem a little too simple or fluffy.

I don’t care.

People get enough bad news without having me set up my equipment and blare it from the PA system.

2. Jesus lived a human life.

Every attempt we make to turn Jesus of Nazareth into Apollo– who was purported to be half god and half man–makes him none of either.

The power of the life of Jesus is that even though he was driven by a calling and anointed by Spirit, he was bound by flesh.

It makes what he has to say much more pertinent to our lives, instead of him coming across as some professor from heaven, wonkishly trying to explain how things work to a bunch of dumb students.

3. Run from what’s complicated.

I do it all the time.

I meet individuals who think it takes a committee meeting to turn on a light switch. They spend more time discussing the Rules of Order than ordering someone to step in and rule.

Jesus said his way was simple and easy. My thought is, whenever things are is no longer falling under that gentle approach, they are probably also no longer Jesus.

So that’s the good news I had to share with the people of Grays Chapel. I don’t know whether it impressed them. Perhaps they wished I would attack the Republican, curse a Democrat, or whisper a stance I hold on what people should do in their bedrooms.

I don’t care.

The good news is:

  • The Gospel is good news.
  • Jesus came to be human.
  • And life is not meant to be complicated.

Oh, by the way–there’s one piece of better news:

Don’t leave love.

No matter how much you get tempted to redefine your commitment to the human race with some other emotion than love, abandon it. Even when you disagree or you think something is evil, don’t leave love.

May God find each one of us in a loving state of mind … when He, and He alone, decides to judge the world.

 

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Happi-Less… May 6, 2012

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  1. Always present your best side. Be positive.
  2. Be strong and don’t let your emotions betray you.
  3. Don’t let people walk on you.
  4. Be satisfied with what you have.
  5. Don’t let people take advantage of you. Stay alert.
  6. Be careful what you share about yourself.
  7. Work for peace; prepare for war.
  8. Be gentle but always be ready to fight for yourself.
  9. Return in kind.
  10. Keep your cool–even out your emotions.

Almost any good author could take the precepts above and write a self-help book, publish it and sell thousands of copies to the American public. Those ten ideas are deeply ingrained into the fabric of our nation’s daily interactions and stitched into our philosophy. They are nearly immutable. You hear them in the movies, they are espoused on television shows–they are basically the gospel of the reality show format. They comprise the credo of the American public perception of self-esteem.

The problem? Every one of them is the opposite of what Jesus taught.

When he presented his top ten notions for life and getting along with others from The Beatitudes in Sermon on the Mount–a list which he contended would produce happiness–the American philosophy ends up being contrary to his thinking. Perhaps it’s no surprise that we are a Christian nation by belief, and a jungle jumble by philosophy. For we all know–there is a difference between believing and following.

As to #1, Jesus told us to be poor in spirit instead of constantly positive, blowing our own horns. He doesn’t share this because it’s noble. It’s just that if two bulls are going to be in a pen, one had better show up willing to stop locking horns–or nothing will be accomplished.

As to #2–about being strong, hiding emotions–Jesus said that it’s blessed to mourn. If we would just realize that if there isn’t a physical manifestation of grief, concern or empathy, no one around us can be sure that we even care.

His response to #3 is that people will walk on you whether you want them to or not. Your only recourse is to be meek–buy time–to give them a more metered and intelligent response instead of saying, “And you, too …” The meek inherit the earth because the earth honors temperance and repels violence.

How about #4–being satisfied? Jesus says we should be hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We’re just not very good people when we become complacent and assume that what we already are and possess is sufficient.

Number 5–the fear of being taken advantage of–prevents us from committing acts of kindness, or at least, delays it. Jesus said that the merciful will receive mercy from God as a gift.

Should we be careful about what we share with others? You can be if you want. But Jesus says the pure in heart–those who are candid about their weakness before others find out and gossip–well, those folks get to see God. It’s just hard to see God if you can’t peer into your own heart.

And even though we might believe in a strong national defense, we have to understand that every time we build a bomb, we’re stealing valuable time that could be utilized for developing better forms of diplomacy. It’s too bad that in our world, the pursuit of peace, or as Jesus called it–peace making–is perceived as weakness rather than a masterful step of “bombing people” with greater intuition.

Jesus makes it clear that all of us will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Good ideas get punished until they’re accepted. It’s just a fact of life. You can feel free to “fight for yourself” and make a case, but until people’s ears are tuned to reasonableness, they will react negatively against anything different, even if it’s for their own good.

Of course, there is the inevitable flow of lies and falsehoods that happen in our society when those who have become our adversaries decide to stop the debate and begin the attacks. You can return in kind. It would make you a wonderful Muslim, an acceptable Jew and maybe even an honorable Chinese. But it just makes you a lousy Christian. Insanity doesn’t stop until someone insists on restoring upright thinking.

And finally, when it’s all said and done, Jesus says the end result should be happiness. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. In our first list of ten, the resolution is to “keep your cool.” But Jesus suggests that we revel in the success of our own endeavors and our own desire to get along. Yet, in our top ten American precepts, we tout that it’s not good to let people see you being too joyful, too sad or too involved.

There’s happiness. Boiling it down to a single sentence: happiness is a decision to be vulnerable before someone comes along and wounds you anyway.

And there is the American culture top ten, which says, “Be defensive and keep from being wounded by staying aggressive.” The end result is that you lose your peace of mind, are constantly paranoid and end up Happi-Less–less happy.

The teachings of Jesus are not an attempt to turn the world population into pacifists, at the mercy of the lions, tigers and bears (oh, my). It is a philosophy that asks each individual to take personal responsibility for their actions, desires, foibles and talents instead of blaming others. The conclusion? If enough people would do this, there wouldn’t be any need to attack another.

So what will it be? Happiness? (Which really is focusing on my own dreams without judging others.) Or Happi-Less? (Building a fort around my life to protect myself from the savages.)

Remember–it is possible to believe without actually following. And it’s possible to defend yourself and end up alone and confused … because you don’t really know the person that remains.

  

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