Jonathots Daily Blog
(4021)
A. Side profile for candy pose is not flattering
B. Children think rabbits lay colored eggs
C. Colored eggs insist on being called “Chicken-born Americans”
D. Suing hip-hop music for stealing “hop” from “hoppity”
E. Dying on the cross for the sins of mankind
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(3872)
Santa: Jesus Christ!
Jesus: Are you cussin’ or just glad to see me?
Santa: (hugs Jesus and pulls back) I almost didn’t recognize you.
Jesus: That’s because I’m traveling S. I.
Santa: S. I.?
Jesus: (smiling) Savior Incognito. So good to see you, old man.
Santa: Yeah, that’s interesting, because I supposedly have gained immortality, but they’ve stuck me at about seventy-five years of age.
Jesus: Well, I died at thirty-three–that’s where I’m kind of stuck, except I didn’t exactly leave behind a pretty corpse.
Santa: (frowning) Sorry about that.
Jesus: Oh, lighten up, old man. It’s Christmas. We’ll get around to that Easter stuff later.
Santa: Well, what brings you to this mall on this day?
Jesus: I was about to ask you the same question.
Santa: Well, there are so many people dressing up like me now, that it’s easy for me to slip in, as you say, incognito, and play myself at a mall. No one knows the difference.
Jesus: So why this mall?
Santa: The best damn curly fries at the food court. I’m tellin’ you, you’ve got to try them. They’re to die for.
Jesus: Was that another crack at my crucifixion?
Santa: Oh, I’m sorry…
Jesus: (punching him in the arm) Just kidding! You’ve gotta lighten up!
Santa: Well, there’s a lot of pressure. This time of year, you run into this “Christmas war” thing–you know, where you and I are supposed to be enemies. You representing the “true meaning of Christmas” and me being a commercial bungler.
Jesus: Well, don’t people know that you’re real name is Saint Nicholas?
Santa: I’ve always been your greatest fan. I watched what you did with children, learned from how you gave to people. And I took it seriously when you said in your Beatitudes, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.”
Jesus: And you even copied my twelve elves!
Santa: (a bit flustered) Well… Not exactly.
Jesus: Well, sometimes they acted like elves. You see, people like to keep you where they found you. Lots of folks met me in church so they think I live there. (whispering) Honest to God, Claus–I haven’t been there for years.
Santa: You’re right. Because with me, they loved the Old North Pole thing. Obviously couldn’t do all the work in one location. I have it spread all over the globe. Every once in a while, I even use Amazon.
Jesus: If people just understood that there’s no bad way to say Christmas. It’s kind of like the word “candy.” You can substitute “chocolate, peanut butter, confection, caramel”–and still, what comes to your mind is…
Santa: (interrupting) …candy. You’re right! You can say “reindeer, Christmas tree, carols, jingle bells or manger.” What comes to my mind is Christmas.
Jesus: So they can call it a holiday. That doesn’t help them. Because the word “holiday” means “holy day.” They can say “Season’s Greetings,” but everybody knows the season is Christmas.
Santa: People just fuss too much.
Jesus: I’d say “amen” but I’m not that religious.
Santa: You really aren’t, are you?
Jesus: Nope–I just love people. I love my Father, I love Mother Nature and I love the idea of life. You know I was born in a barn…
Santa: (laughing) That’s funny.
Jesus: (serious) What’s funny about it? You live in a toy shop with reindeer.
Santa: (serious) Well, I didn’t want to argue with you.
Jesus: (laughing) You really are uptight about this Christmas thing, aren’t you? Tell you what–let’s head off to the food court and you can buy me some of those curly fries and prove to me that they’re the best in the world.
Santa: That’s a deal–if you’ll tell me about the first Christmas.
Jesus: Well, I was just a little baby surrounded by asses.
(Santa is shocked)
Jesus: (poking him in the arm) You know–donkeys. Listen, old man–we’d better hurry and get those curly fries right now. You are desperately in need of some good cheer.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(3477)
A. Dandy candy
B. Need sweet
C. Yummy for my tummy
D. Vegan pleasin’
E. Confection or contention
Jonathots Daily Blog
(2551)
Returning to the house, the grandson entered the room in a fit of frightful anger, common to those who have not yet quite figured things out.
When G-Pop asked him what was wrong, he explained that he had shared with a friend at school about hopes and wishes for an Easter basket and candy, and how the fellow student criticized him and told him he needed to think about “Jesus dying for our sins.”
Since the grandson was a fan of Jesus, he felt simultaneously guilty for bringing up candy and angry that candy was being shoved to the background.
G-Pop listened carefully. He kept waiting for the little boy to pause and form a question. It never arrived. The young man did what a lot of human beings often do. He created a problem which he decided could not be solved in order to have a good reason to be upset and draw attention.
So absent a question, G-Pop provided an answer.
“Jesus had one really bad day, filled with pain and agony, when human beings forgot what it was like to let different ideas live among them without trying to destroy them. But most of the Easter story is not about a cross or blood and guts. It is about a resurrection. The resurrection does not establish the power of God. Jesus did that through his words, his life and his deeds. The resurrection is the visual confirmation by God the Father that life is meant to survive difficulty and end up joyous and victorious.
So Jesus does not want us to hang on the cross with him, or even give up things to prove that we’re thinking about a death that occurred 2,000 years ago. Easter is about having an abiding thankfulness for the sacrifice given by a brave Nazarene–and then to immediately celebrate the resurrection. In other words, find something to enjoy, appreciate and savor, to let Jesus know that dying was not in vain–that we have gained abundant life through the process.
I can’t think of anything that would please Jesus more than having a little boy excited about candy, ready to commemorate his life by opening up an Easter basket.
Should we be reminded of Jesus during Easter? Yes. But instead of dwelling on one of the worst days of his life, it might just be greater honor to focus on the thirty-three years of great accomplishment, and the one magnificent day of resurrection.
Enjoy your candy, my son. Jesus sure would if he was sitting here with us.”
The grandson was pleased.
G-Pop wondered if some people would think that more focus should be placed on the death of a Savior.
That will come with time.
Everyone has a face-to-face with the Savior of Calvary.
But once we’ve accepted the power of his gift and bravery, he expects us to move on… to joy that is full.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(2357)
(Transcript)
Two or three days of snow, then a brief warming period, followed by a frigid arctic blast, leaving the countryside glistening with ice, rendering everything precarious.
This was the winter of 1967.
It left all of us in grouchy moods, even though we insisted we were hearty “Ohioans,” accustomed to such frosty conditions. We basically just muddled through it, quietly complaining about “the winter of our discontent.”
Arriving back in my classroom after the Christmas holidays, I discovered that our female math teacher was gone. The initial explanation was that she was battling a severe bout of the flu.
But it took little time for the sour grapevine of the gossip mill to unearth the details. She had actually left town due to a pregnancy out-of-wedlock, making her the subject of great local scandal. My coach joked that considering she was a math teacher, she certainly didn’t do a very good job “counting her days.”
The whole locker room laughed, and I joined in–even though I didn’t get it.
Replacing her was a tall, lanky, clumsy olive-skinned fellow with thin brown greasy hair and a beak for a nose which would have been more suitable for the Family Ostrich. He was a tentative sort. Honestly, it appeared this was his first excursion as an educator.
Yes, he was an oddity. An Ichabod who resembled a crane. And in our community of conformity, he became a necessary target and needful diversion for our present boredom.
Especially when we found out that he was inept at discipline. We tormented him with our ridicule and teasing.
He wore the same brown suit every day with a white shirt and a brown tie with a gold design which could just as easily have been a speck of dried-on scrambled egg.
He had a hilarious tendency to point at the blackboard using his middle finger (which by the way, appeared to have three knuckles) and we always burst into laughter. He would whirl around and screech in a scratchy voice, “Silence!” We laughed harder.
One day a cheerleader inched her way to his desk, supposedly to ask him a question. He was so delighted for the kind attention that he failed to notice that she was taking blackboard erasers from their perch behind his back and softly laying them against his coat with her hand, creating an amazing chalk-dust design. After she returned to her seat and he turned around, we all once again erupted in great guffaws. He had no idea. Matter of fact, the same marks of chalk were on his suit four days later.
He persisted. So did we.
Matter of fact, it became more nasty when one student thought it would be funny to place an anonymous note in the suggestion box in the principal’s office, complaining about Mr. Bayonne’s teaching style.
Long story short, when we returned after our Easter vacation of resurrecting our Lord and chomping on Easter bunny candy, he was gone. We had successfully driven a stranger away–simply because we deemed him strange.
I often think about Mr. Bayonne. He may not have been suited to instruct the rabble of high school hoodlums, but he certainly deserved better treatment. But in our tiny world of thinking, this math teacher just didn’t add up.
I have spent much of my life trying to make sure that I never “Bayonned” anyone again, and in so doing I have discovered a magnificent reality:
It takes different people to make me different. And if I don’t become different, I’m stuck … going no further than where I am.
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The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(2346)
Let’s settle one major misconception–children are not born desiring video games, I-phones, Sesame Street, toys, candy and the latest fad or trend. They are coerced through advertising and peer pressure to pursue these products and attitudes by big-budget corporations which use their advertising dollars as efficiently as possible.
Don’t be paranoid but by the same token, be careful what media outlets you allow your children to watch or otherwise, you will suffer the backlash of cultural greed.
Now that you have a child who has gained speech, feet and knows where to poop, it’s a good idea to approach this young creature as a garden.
You’ve got to plant some corn and carrots.
I call it corn because most people in our time consider it to be “corny” to feel for others. Yet without this introspection, we are worse than animals gnawing on each other in the jungle, because we actually do have a brain with the capacity for empathy.
So rather than assuming that every child born in America is destined to want to play computer games, intervene and create a garden, where you plant corniness and generosity, allowing for healthier attitudes.
A suggestion: teach your children to share the sad and the happy. Put them in environments so they can understand that someone is sad and they should feel something about it. Likewise, when they run a race and lose, encourage them to do better next time, while you also insist that they rejoice with the winner.
They are not going to want to do this.
That is irrelevant. You made this person, and you have the keys to their soul until you turn them over at age eighteen and they become responsible for their own destiny.
Perhaps it is corny, but teach your children to cry for something other than the fact that they didn’t get a candy bar in the checkout line at Wal-Mart.
Alert them to the importance of being happy for others. There is no way to continually be happy if you only celebrate your own victories.
And finally, you should plant some carrots. Yes–teach them to “care about it.” Shall we put it under the banner of “share the wealth?”
Since it’s virtually impossible to bounce two balls at the same time, gently nudge or purposefully demand that your child share one with a friend, even if he or she does not immediately produce joy in their heart over the experience.
We’re planting a garden. From age 3-6 the soil is very fertile–and therefore also susceptible to weeds. And in our society, a weed is any belief that we must grab and run instead of nurture and share.
Remember–they’re kids, not humans. You are in charge of their journey to discovering Eden by planting a garden within them.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!
Click here to get info on the “Gospel According to Common Sense” Tour
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
Click here to listen to Spirited music
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Both candy and fruit have sugar in them. The difference is that fruit also has nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Candy doesn’t.
So if you will allow me, for the sake of this essay, I will talk to you about “candy culture” and “fruitful faith.”
“Candy culture” is what looks really sweet, so it’s gobbled up and ends up rotting everything in our heads. “Fruitful faith” is developing a taste for things that are really good for you and then finding your peace with the sweetness contained within.
So here’s what candy culture tells us about relationship and marriage:
1. Emotionally men and women are completely different from each other, so it is practically useless to try to have conversations to work out feelings. Instead, the less we share with each other and the more we accept one another’s preferences, the better off we are.
2. Spirituality is really religion and religion is a very personal thing. We don’t want to force our belief system on anyone else, so of course, discussing the nature of God and how the planet earth works in the realm of the soul seems to be both frustrating and alienating.
3. Since men and women are believed to be so different emotionally, their brains also work with patterns unique to their genders, which usually boils down to some derivation of the “hunter/gather” theory, with men being the aggressors and women being the nesters.
4. Concerning our strength, physicality and sexuality, we are constantly, in this “candy culture,” attempting to blend love, having children and pleasure, to create a package of romance that is palatable to both parties and explainable to the surrounding world.
As you can see, in the “candy culture,” the collision of a lack of information with uncertain conclusions leaves the individuals involved in relationship second guessing each other, paranoid and ultimately, angry–either out of suspicion or dissatisfaction.
So what is a “fruitful faith” relationship?
1. In the realm of emotions, it is necessary to find a common humanity. If you’re going to get along with anyone, you have to find out what things you share in common concerning your desires, emotions and dreams instead of focusing on what may be obtuse or outlandish differences. Every discussion of an emotional nature should begin with two things: honesty and the statement, “As a human being, I … “ When two people agree emotionally on the parts of their beings that have common humanity, the issue of male and female quickly disappears.
2. In the realm of spirituality, there is a need for a common God. If one party believes in “destiny” and the other holds fast to “free will,” the relationship, in times of crisis, will disintegrate in confusion. We need a common God. That notion is not popular in the “candy culture,” but arriving at agreement about what God does or doesn’t do may be the greatest salvation you could ever provide to a relationship. And by the way … keep it simple. Make sure that your belief system has only one or two moving parts, and learn to trust that movement.
3. A common plan. Two heads are better than one–ONLY if they fuse their ideas. Two bull-heads that never stir in with one another just keep butting. A common plan is when ideas are shared, written down, and the “best of the best” is put together. Sometimes one person will contribute more than another. Other times, the other party will be the major donator. It doesn’t matter. Pursuing a common plan is the only way to have a single-minded relationship, which, by the way, may be the sexiest thing in the world.
4. And finally, a “fruitful faith” relationship has a common pleasure. Do yourself a big favor and remove children and love from sexuality. Those two things will have been handled beautifully by your emotions, spirit and mind. For human beings, sex has one purpose and one purpose only–pleasure. When you add anything else into it, you either over-emphasize the value of the act or degrade the energy. If two people who are emotionally seeking their humanity, spiritually worshipping a common God and putting their shoulders behind a common plan come together to pursue a common pleasure, watch out. “Sky rockets in flight.”
This is the difference between a “candy culture” and a “fruitful faith” relationship. If you want to keep your love going with another human being, emotionally you will need a common humanity, spiritually a common God, mentally a common plan and physically a common pleasure.
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A voice writing in the wilderness
Jonathots Daily Blog 
