Just a Show Before We Go… October 1, 2012

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As Neil Sedaka once phrased it, “Waking up is hard to do.” (I might be mistaken on that. It could be ‘breaking,” “making,” “shaking,” or even  “raking” up.) Actually, waking up in the morning is one of those things we should get better and better at as we get older.

After all, no one wakes up worse than a baby. Even though some of us more mature individuals may want to open our eyes and scream into the surrounding room, pleading for nourishment and maybe even a change of our diaper, we refrain.

We certainly should learn how to wake up better than an adolescent. Once children reach about the age of thirteen, they become frightened to death to go to sleep and then think that “noonish” is the beginning of the day.

Actually, I rather enjoy waking up–as long as I’ve shed all fantasy about how life works and have ceased to insist that I somehow manipulate circumstances to my advantage.

Today I am waking up in Kent, Ohio, and heading off to Conneaut–about a two-hour drive–to do a show which will also double as a filming, to make a video of our presentation for those individuals who would like to purchase it because they want to share it with friends or just want to go home to try to figure out what they just saw.

The only thing I am certain of is my abiding security in uncertainty. Even though I greatly believe there’s a God in heaven, I do understand that for scientific and realistic reasons He has put a natural order into effect in the daily affairs of this planet’s activities.

We call this force Mother Nature.  It is mis-named. It would be better refered to as “Teenage Boy Nature.” Because the system that maintains our life has the temperament of a sixteen-year-old kid with raging hormones, inexhaustible energy, an unwillingness to do chores upon request and a sluggishness in getting started.

I had to reflect last night when I watched the fine folks in Texas with their present raining and flooding. I was down there for the past two years and the main subject of conversation was drought. You would have sworn by listening to the populace that there was a complete imbalance in the world and that “something needed to be done” or all the water supplies would dry up. Now they’re trying to figure out how to escape from the moisture.

You see what I mean? The natural order is a sixteen-year-old boy, who never does anything in moderation. If we would just learn the process, we would be so much happier. During times of excess rain, build dams and store up. When you have a good week financially, don’t assume that next week is going to be the same. Balance out what comes your way, be it good or bad. The only thing that is really certain is that whatever it is, more than likely, to our taste, it will seem extreme.

It is obvious to anyone who has lived that the earth makes drastic adjustments. May I point out once again–they are drastic by OUR standards. As far as we know, the earth has survived an ice age or two, heat waves, droughts, floods, typhoons, hurricanes and forest fires–long before man was here to worry about it OR try to find a way to manipulate it. That’s why I believe that our journey through our earth-bound time is going to be a roller coaster rather than a well-planned picnic in the park.

So what do I know waking up today on my way to Conneaut, Ohio? I have plugged as many holes as possible, planned carefully and now am going to hang on tight to my seat in the van–and be prepared.

Here’s a little formula that will help you understand life. When the wheels get rolling, just remember:

• you’re going to get little of what you want
• some of what you need
• but much of what is available.

So if you find yourself walking outside to view overcast skies and your way of handling that particular surprise is to bow your head in prayer and ask for sunbeams, you probably will end up very miserable during your lifespan.

But if you can walk out and see overcast skies and either grab an umbrella or step back inside and conclude that it’s a wonderful day for paperwork with soup and grilled cheese, you will probably greatly enjoy the spontaneity around you.

It’s all in how you determine to wake up.

I am waking up to deal with the adolescence of nature, trying to bring my understanding that what becomes available to me in huge chunks on this lovely day will be my lot. I will tell you what happens in tomorrow’s column. There is one thing for sure, as I told you earlier. It undoubtedly will be little of what I want, some of what I need and much of what ends up being available.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Accumulation … February 10, 2012

 

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It occured to me last week as I was driving along from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Silsbee, Texas, and the rain began to fall. Almost simultaneously, the announcer on the radio was forecasting showers, punctuating his prediction with a statement: “We sure do need the rain.”

 

I kept driving–and so did the rain. After about an hour of persistent precipitation, the farm land along the road began to “pond up,” with huge puddles where fields used to be–and eventually the water seeped its way across the roadway. It was amazing. The rain suddenly ceased to be “needful.” It had gone from a mist to a sprinkle to a shower to a downpour, ending up with the first fruits of flooding.

 

You see, it’s all about accumulation–and this is where I get fooled sometimes. I’m just like the next guy. I have finally accepted that a diet high in fat content from the fast food industry lends itself to cholesterol which builds up in the arteries, encouraging heart disease.

 

On a lighter note, I have completely bought into the concept that if we teach our children to read, this action alone may succeed in stamping out ignorance in our lifetime.

 

I certainly wouldn’t want to be the person to speak against prayer. Because in many ways it has become our symbol of piety, the thought being: “The more its done, the better the results.”

 

It would be un-American to suggest that casting one’s vote could be anything other than a necessary exercise in the gymnasium of democracy.

 

Far be it from me to challenge the concept of “family is everything” as the symbol of love, tenderness and openness in our everyday lives.

 

There is a great promotion machine in America that seems to make one list of virtues and another of vices, and alternate promoting and attacking, respectively. What is curious to me are those things that kept ambiguous, or even left off of either list.  For instance:

 

Apparently, violence isn’t supposed to affect us. Eating a Big Mac will give me a stroke, but having Big Mac kill somebody on a television show is still considered to be a stroke of artistic genius. According to this theory, seeing numerous murders, rapes, disembowelments, amputations and grisly grinding of all sorts does not have the same effect on our mental circulation as French fries do on our physical one. Isn’t that amazing? It just shows you how ignorant I am because I would think that since we are basically a human unit, that some of the same procedures that apply to physical realm would correspond to the mental, emotional and spiritual worlds. But apparently not.

 

Obviously, it’s all right to make drugs illegal and to encourage our children to avoid them–except when they go to the movies or see videos of rock stars or even watch a Superbowl commercial demonstrating how absolutely adorable and cool it is to guzzle a beer with the game. I guess there are people smarter than me who realize that mixed messages do not confuse young minds (or confound older ones). Because I certainly need to sit in a classroom where someone could explain to me how the targeting against cigarettes–to finally the abolition from them being advertised on television–would not also apply to the alcohol industry, which certainly does its best to compete in the death toll.

 

I must be an absolute imbecile–because it just seems to me that  teaching young minds that romance and true human sexuality is best represented by vampires and werewolves is creating a fallacious world of fantasy, if not inviting virulent behavior. For I have this ridiculous notion that adding a bit of violence to sex is what was once believed to be the source of abuse. But apparently I have either missed the boat or, as they say, “that boat just don’t float.”

 

At one time I comprehended that an accumulation of anything creates a flood. But now, as I’m getting older, I am being harkened by my society to believe that certain vices are not nearly as easily accumulated as other ones are. I must be honest, I am baffled by this conclusion. But even in my own family, my children, who were raised with the mercy and tenderness of a loving Jesus and the prayer and belief in God’s desire to intervene in our lives, have grown up with various stages of acceptance of what once we considered to be vices, which now apparently, in small doses, have become permissible, if not virtuous.

 

Let’s look at some of the transitions that have occurred: 

• Agnosticism is equated with intelligence.
• Alcohol is promoted in moderation, (with no understanding that there are many who are incapable of such a modulation).
• Cigarettes continue to be presented in the film industry as a symbol of rebellion, upheaval and “cool,” which are obviously three things that no teenager desires.
• And violence towards women, or making the female of the species submissive to an aggressor, is certainly put forth as poetic license for the telling of great tales of romantic lure.

I guess I’m just crazy. But I still contend that an accumulation of anything eventually leads to a flood. Is it possible to have a mist, sprinkle or mere shower of violence? Is it feasible to have a drizzle of addiction and vice? This is not for me to judge. But I know that accumulation IS accumulation, and all accumulation eventually floods all of the soil in our hearts, which could have received good seed.

 

I may be a dinosaur, but before I head off to the tar pits, let me say that moderation in all things is a grandiose idea–and one well worth musing. But if you find that you CANNOT be moderate, you need to “rain yourself in” before you are flooded with ideas and tendencies beyond your control.

 

Accumulation is the piling up of anything, which eventually floods our minds.  It takes wisdom to know the difference between a shower and a flood–and it will take some fearless crusaders who are not afraid of public opinion to keep us from drowning ourselves in our own personal choices and liberty.

 

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Jonathan wrote the gospel/blues anthem, Spent This Time, in 1985, in Guaymas, Mexico. Take a listen:

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