Confessing… July 25th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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XII.

I confess so I can heal.

If I deny, I remain sick.

I suppose I could lie and tell you it only happened one time. But there’s really no sense in confessing to error if you’re going to leave out important details.

Actually, it was the fifth time that my wife and I slipped out of the house after we were sure that our four-year-old and three-year-old sons were sound asleep, and drove ten miles to see a movie, and returned to joyously find our young boys still deep in sleeper land.

But on that fifth time, something changed.

Apparently there was a noise that awakened our two little fellas, and they started screaming and hollering for us–so much that the neighbors, who lived just below, called the police. So when we arrived after seeing our movie, we found the house vacant.

There was no note–no explanation. So we weren’t sure if our children had been abducted or vanished in the Rapture.

Being in our early twenties and extremely immature, we went downstairs and pounded on our neighbors’ door to find out what they might know. Without opening up, they explained that the children had been taken away, and that the best thing would be to go to the local police to find out what was going on.

I remember having the audacity to be angry. It didn’t even occur to me that we were the ones in the wrong and that my boys had been taken away for their own protection.

We spent the next four hours searching for anyone who could give us details, only to discover that our guys were in foster homes and there would be a hearing about the case in six weeks.

Six weeks.

We were devastated.

Honestly, it took us about two weeks to settle down and realize that we had made a very bad mistake, and that we were the ones who were in the wrong instead of slighted.

I will never forget those forty-two days without my kids. And going to court was very painful.

The accusations were strong and had it not been for four weeks worth of tears and repentance, we might have recoiled and gotten viciously defensive, ending up losing the opportunity to become Mom and Dad again.

But because the judge found us to be truly sorry, we were given a second chance.

I remember the day we picked up our two boys. They were a little frightened of us, partially because they had acclimated to a new environment and also because they had been told that we had deserted them.

It took a long time to build back trust.

Although this story seems to be an extreme–something some folks would swear they would never do–I must tell you that the inclination to find undesirable paths when each of us feels inconvenienced gnaws at the conscience everyday.

So even though I am ashamed to share this story with you, I use it as a cautionary tale to myself, to remind my ever-present ego that simply because I can get by with something and have a really good plan on pulling it off, does not make it right.

 

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Turning Kids Into Humans (Part Two): 0-1–Atmosphere… August 25, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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I was in the airport watching a very pregnant woman place what appeared to be two suction cups on her belly. They were attached to some sort of I-Pod. I realized she was playing music for her unborn.

There was a time in this country when we would have considered this bizarre behavior, but now it’s become acceptable and considered by many to be stimulating and therapeutic.

If that is true, why do we change our attitude simply because they come out of the womb and no longer need suction-cup speakers?

Why do we allow these little ones, in their first year of human life, to control the entire environment of the household, forcing people to walk on tip-toes, whisper, lose sleep and change the entire pattern of living?

Yes, somewhere between the notion that children are possessions, to be trained as farm-hands, and the more modern assertion that little ones come into a family and change everything, lies a truth which is most beneficial to all parties involved.

Mom and Dad, it is your job to sit down and decide what the atmosphere of your house is going to be, and instead of having your newborn change that climate, you should faithfully usher them into understanding and adapting to your lifestyle.

Otherwise, children will “milk” everything. And not just Mama’s breast, but every moment of time, every nerve, every possible pleasure and every feeling of security you have about being a good parent.

Here’s what I suggest for those who have just found out they have a new one in the fold, and are trying to decide how to conduct the matters of family:

1. Find out what you want to be.

In other words, if you’re active, stay active. If you’re a loud household, continue to be loud. The baby will adjust. If you like quiet time, then teach your child to enjoy the same.

2. What do we want to do?

If you go out to dinner, don’t start leaving your child with a babysitter, but instead, teach the little one to become gregarious and outgoing, just as you are.

3. How do we want to feel?

Yes, what is the atmosphere of your house? Just as that mother I saw in the airport was trying to influence her yet-to-be-born child with music, create the atmosphere you want in your life and then include your child in it.

The biggest mistake you can make in raising your kids to become humans is thinking that they will change your life instead of taking on the responsibility you have–to change theirs.

Even as a baby, your child can learn empathy if you manifest your own atmosphere and include him or her in the framework. And you can teach gratitude by being courteous and grateful to each other. Although you may think the baby is too small to comprehend, no one is certain what penetrates all the gurgling, gooing and baby powder.

It’s your life. The child is an invited guest.

As an invited guest, the little one is entitled to be part of the household, but not to make the rules.

So don’t give up your be, do and feeling just because you’ve been blessed with a kid.

Welcome the kid–and initiate the young’un into the atmosphere of your life.

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

 

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The Back Room … September 22, 2012

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It was small.

Even in my childhood memories, the space was cramped and overpopulated with furnishings and just stuff. It was a back area in my mom and dad‘s loan company which had been partitioned off with accordion doors allowing for privacy, because they had those smoky windows in them that looked like broken glass or glued-together pieces of rock candy.

There was a refrigerator, although my memory serves that not much food ever stocked the shelves, a desk, where my dad would sit and do income tax returns for local farmers to make extra money during that particular season.

That desk was also the location of one of my first adventures into mischievous boyhood–peering into the future of manhood–because my dad kept a stack of detective magazines in there, which I would slip away and read occasionally, giving me my first glimpse into the carnal interactions between men and women. I can still feel the tingles.

My dad also tried to hide his cashews in that drawer next to the magazines, and I also partook of those delicacies, I’m sure much to his disapproval. In the far-left hand corner of this back room was a water closet. It’s amazing–after all these years I can still remember that little toilet, which grew smaller and smaller as I grew bigger and bigger–and a tiny sink, which offered only cold water to the passing traveler.

There was a large green cabinet in this tiny room, taking up a tremendous amount of space. In it was the residue of many of my dad’s dreams which never actually survived sleepiness. One of the things inside that green cabinet was a miniature printing press my dad bought, hoping he could make a little extra money by providing business cards and wedding invitations to the area consumers. He even printed some business cards for my high school music group. It took six weeks to accomplish, and to my memory, was the only thing that printing press ever achieved before being placed into the green cabinet of oblivion.

There was also a couch right underneath an air conditioner, which never worked. I mean the air conditioner. The couch was quite functional, and became one of my favorite spots in my teen years, especially when there was a chore to do at home, like mowing the lawn. My parents would find me asleep on that couch and abruptly awaken me with a rebuke about my laziness. It’s probably why still, to this day, I find it difficult to sleep in front of other people.

Completing the furnishing of this miniscule arena was an old piano. I know that sounds ridiculous. Why would you have an old piano in the back of a loan company? Well, because it was a loan company, my mom and dad would obviously provide finance to people in our community, who often promised to pay back the sum and ended up falling short of that lofty goal. One delinquent client offered the piano to my mom and dad in replacement for the payoff on his loan. They reluctantly agreed and stuck it in the back of the loan company with aspirations of selling it and retrieving some of their revenue, but never finding the time to write an advertisement.

So I played that piano. Sometimes I got yelled at because I was playing it when customers arrived, and my father seemed to think it was ill-advised to have a financial institution doubling as a lounge. But it was on that piano that I wrote my first two songs, when I was eighteen years of age. I don’t know why I didn’t think of composing before that particular juncture in my life, but on that day I wrote one song, and without stopping, turned around and wrote another one. Within a year’s time, both of those tunes ended up on a 45-RPM record, which I believe sold twelve copies (I assume, one to each of the disciples).

Back to that couch…it was also where my second son was birthed. It wasn’t planned that way. We were not gypsies or raised in barns. It’s just that Dollie, my wife, was in labor and wasn’t quite certain of her symptoms, so she waddled on down to the loan company to see my mother, and before help could arrive, our son did. Oh, it was big doings in the town. There was such a crowd out in front of the loan company to see the new baby that I barely had space to get through the door to visit my new kid. I hadn’t seen that many people lined up in Sunbury, Ohio, since Farmer Johnson quietly advertised that he had some hard cider available.

That back room holds so many memories for me. Matter of fact, during one financially lean time, Dollie and I slipped in there with our little boy, Jon Russell, to sleep on the hard floor at night because we had no other place to go. My father had passed on my then. My mother certainly would not have approved, so I acquired a key from her, made a copy, and we snuck in at eleven at night and were gone by seven in the morning. We just spread a blanket on the wood floor, lay down and were grateful for shelter.

About twenty years ago I went back to my little community to take a look at that back room. I know it’s corny–but I had to see it.  It was gone. The building that once held my mom and dad’s loan company had been transformed into a hardware store, removing walls to create space. So I ambled my way back through the dry goods and ended up in the area, as far as I could tell, that had been the back room. It was now filled with shelving, nails, screws, hammers and saw blades.

But I took that private moment to reflect on the back room and how much it provided for me. It gave me my first festering of manhood. I deeply enjoyed my snatched cashews. There was the occasional uninterrupted nap on the couch, which later ended up being the birthing bed for my son, Joshua. There was the green cabinet with the quiet printing press, and the loud piano, which proclaimed boldly that I had the ability to do something other than be a small-town flunky. There was even the floor, which provided me a place of rest.

While people insist that too much in the realm of commerce, religion and politics is done in the “back room,” my version patiently nursed me through an evolution of foolish youth, preparing me to walk out ready to meet people in the real world.

The back room. Like Joshua, it was kind of my birthing chamber. It was there that for the first time in my life, I took what was available to me and tried my darndest to use it the best I could.

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Yellin’ … February 11, 2012

 

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Yellin’ is what we do when mere shouting proves insufficient to propel the magnitude and importance of our necessary opinion. It is an exercise which seems brutally–yet reverently–valuable in the moment while rendering us rather embarrassed upon later reflection. So humiliated are we at times that we choose to “re-write”  the tale of the event, using much softer tones. 

 

For instance:  “We weren’t yellin’–we were having a discussion.” (That is one often used to explain to the children when Mom and Dad have increased the decibels so much that the young ones hear. Unfortunately, there isn’t a child born since Cain to Adam and Eve who actually buys that particular excuse.)

 

The new one in our society to describe yelling that really isn’t yellin’ is “we were involved in a heated debate.” Of course, the difference between yellin’ and heated debate is that in any form of proper exchange, space for breathing air and allowing the hearing of your opponent is provided.

 

Then there is the more spiritual approach, which is calling it a “disagreement” or the famous “we just agree to disagree.” Of course, none of us ever do agree to disagree–we just take our complaint to someone else and talk about you behind your back.

 

I bring this up because I was involved in one of those “yellin’ sessions” yesterday. Now, it’s always been my intention with jonathots to be as forthcoming with you as possible, so as to keep our lines of communication pure in heart. So even though I’m not proud of the fact that I was involved in a heated debate fostered by a disagreement further nurtured by an avid discussion, giving me a sore throat–I must be truthful that such outbursts in the human expression are real and part of our lives. The only true danger is when we are so ashamed of our own part in the childish rant that we try to disguise the event or even pretend that nothing really happened.

 

Yellin’ is important. The reason it’s important is that we know it occurred because talking had stopped, thinking was on vacation and respect had taken a holiday. When we have respect for ourselves and others and we think about what we feel and what they must feel, the normal response is to talk. But when respect has gone into the wind and thinking is clouded by fear and ego, talking seems quite inept–especially when our newly-found opponent has already ramped up the volume.

 

Here are the main reasons we yell at each other:

 

1. We don’t understand, and rather than asking, we have already developed a scenario that suits our fancy.

2. We are offended and haven’t taken the time to express our pain but would rather live it out in vivid description to the offender.

3. We are jealous but find that childish, so we opt for some moral, spiritual or mental high ground to justify our nastiness.

4. We are drawn to this other person, but feel they do not care about us and therefore our affection is unrequited.

5. We have some half-baked notion that God is angry at our adversary and will really be happy if we “go get ’em.”

6. We need a nap or a good dinner and we opt for a riot.

7. And finally, we have convinced ourselves that the best way we are heard is by screaming.

 

Now, when you look at those seven motivations for verbal mutilation, you begin to humbly understand how yellin’ comes to be. It’s going to happen, my dear friends.

 

And the best thing we can do is avoid the shame, check over that list and find ourselves, and then, as Jesus suggested–heal the inner parts of our heart and purify our own motives before we next hop on any train of thought towards our brother or sister.

 

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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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