The X Word … July 16th, 2019

Jonathots Daily Blog

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THE

WORD

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It is my belief that all the people of the United States owe a brief moment of gratitude to President Donald Trump, for he spared us another administration of Hillary and Bill Clinton. When they were in the White House, they brought disgrace, confusion, deception and a certain brand of conceit that has troubled us for years.

The American people looked at the binary choice and selected the unknown.

It was a smart move.

In that moment, it seemed a prudent way to avoid many of the mistakes that were made by the Arkansas couple the first time they were bequeathed the honor of occupying the nation’s house at Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yet, President Trump was a novice.

We have all been novices. We immediately had to accept two important factors:

1. Not knowing what to do, we were required to learn.
2. Since we were learning, mistakes would have to be confessed and changed.

The novice we elected took a profile of already knowing instead of studying up for the job. The end result is that errors were made, and rather than correcting those mistakes, smoke screens were sent out to disguise the mishaps, and attempts were made to rally “we, the people” behind nasty causes.

That is why I tell you that the X word that should never be spoken or written again is:

XENOPHOBIA

It is a prejudice against people from other countries, but also other lifestyles. It is fostered because of insecurity.

For instance, there isn’t a black person in this country who isn’t a little nervous around the white folks who have caused him or her problems.

There isn’t a Native American who can’t point to mistreatment of his tribe by the immigrants who came from other lands.

Nor is there a Japanese American who is unaware that at one time, his great-grandfather or great-grandmother were put into an internment camp.

The Chinese Americans recall the history of how they were mistreated in the West during the great expansion of the nineteenth century.

And also, every white person in this country is a little sensitive about being cast into the role of the villain on all issues of race.

We are neurotic.

Somewhere deep in our soul is the desire to be kind and tenderhearted, but a fear of one another manifests as a hatred of each other. So when the drums of prejudice start beating, the accusations start flying, the bullets pierce black flesh at white hands, and the nation seems to look on those south of the border as trash, it is time for our leaders to calm us.

They should teach us to appreciate one another. Give us a chance to get used to skin colors and lifestyles, and acclimate to our neighbors. After all, we have an absolutely magnificent country in which to do it.

I say, shame on our political parties.

Shame on the Democratic Party for presenting Hillary Clinton with a side of her husband, Bill, as warmed-over hash.

And shame on the Republicans for failing to take their candidate and place him in adequate restraints for learning and growing into the job of President.

Both parties have turned us into raging xenophobes.

This will not be solved with a political solution. This will require the simplicity of neighbors chatting with each other and gradually coming to a national common sense that acknowledges that even though we are nervous—at times terrified—of the person standing next to us, America is still the best spot to be, this side of heaven.

  The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity

 

 

The Alphabet of Us: Y is for You… May 25th, 2015

   Jonathots Daily Blog

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All human beings possess a heart, soul, mind and strength. Nothing of any true significance can be achieved unless this is understood.

Y-O-U.

Or is it Why Owe You?

Here’s the truth. If you don’t find personal satisfaction in the reality of your own life, then your discontentment will trickle down to me whether I like it or not. So I have to ask you a question. Why owe you?

Why would you want to leave yourself absent of the qualities, necessities and feelings that create an atmosphere for happiness?

Why would you listen to a generation of naysayers who portray human life as complicated, festering with tribulation, instead of looking for solutions and avenues for completion?

Why do you owe yourself, instead of paying the debt which allows you to feel free of unnecessary naggings?

First of all, recognize the symptoms. Since we are heart, soul, mind and strength people, start with your heart:

How can you tell if you’re emotionally balanced, or if you owe yourself something?

The first symptom of “heart trouble” is always frustration. If you find yourself snapping at other people, honking in traffic or feeling overwhelmed by circumstances, then realize there is some desire or yearning which you’re ignoring because you either feel it’s unrealistic or undeserved.

Yes, frustration is the clue that you owe your emotions a gift.

How can you tell if you’re spiritually in debt?

Doubt. I’m not talking about the kind of doubt that creeps into all of us when encompassed by undesirable situations. I mean self-doubt which leads to human doubt, culminating in God-doubt–when the only spiritual thing you find yourself saying is, “What the hell?”

Moving along, when we are mentally short on funding for our ideas, confusion sets in.

There are folks who think they have the first signs of dementia simply because their brains are so cluttered with doubt and frustration from the heart and soul that they can’t get traction in their thinking.

Feel confused? You owe it to your brain to clear out the fog.

And finally, your body–your strength–shows that you’re indebted to yourself by the gnawing presence of procrastination.

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Will you feel better tomorrow? Or will you feel worse because you’re one more day delinquent.

Why owe you? Why do you allow yourself to be a day late and a dollar short in your own being?

It makes you dissatisfied and causes you to come across obnoxious to the world around you.

• If you’re frustrated, track down the unfulfilled desire in your emotions.
• If you’re struggling with doubt, simplify your beliefs until you can grab onto something and run with it.
• If you’re confused, realize that you have a traffic jam of frustration and doubt that prevents you from thinking straight.
• And if you find yourself procrastinating, realize that it’s the culmination of fear which makes you believe you can’t pull off your purposes.

You should always think about YOU.

When you don’t, you either try to become noble and end up with a persecution complex, or you become overly secretive and end up being diagnosed as neurotic.

 

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

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Untotaled: Stepping 17–(November 25th, 1965) Too Late to Understand … June 7, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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(Transcript)

Angry. Sweet.

Gentle. Mean.

Vindictive. Giving.

These words seem to be opposites of one another but they were all part of the personality of my mother.

All through my childhood, I had endured a see-saw of emotion which was not only painful, but unpredictable.

November 25th was Thanksgiving Day. I was excited. I walked into the kitchen rubbing my hands together with enthusiasm and asked my mother “when the feast was going to be ready.”

She turned to me with a bit of fire and spit and said, “Why don’t you cook it? It’s hard work.”

It was cold, ferocious and beyond my understanding. I just went to my room, cussing her name.

For after all, this was a woman I had seen empty her cupboards of canned goods to help a neighbor in need and then, the next day, turn around and curse that same neighbor for dereliction and laziness. She would often come into my room and give me a hug, only to scream at me an hour later for watching cartoons–“being in her way” during vacuuming.

In my youth I heard her speak of brotherhood while referring to some individuals as “worthless niggers.”

If I’d had a lick of sense–which I didn’t–I would have realized that a human being who is angry, sweet, gentle, mean, vindictive and giving–well, when you combine them, what you end up with is confused.

In my later years, I understood.

She was seventeen years old when she married a man who was eighteen years her senior. she never got to travel, she didn’t get to go to college, was unable to flirt with either disaster or blessing and birthed five children, which from time to time seemed more of an inconvenience than a heritage.

She lived in confined quarters with limited funds, with a very stoic husband who often went on trips to Canada without providing a definite return date.

I wish I could sit down with her and tell her that I’m sorry I did not understand her plight. In today’s world, she probably would be diagnosed with some sort of neurotic condition which would be tempered by medication. Such remedies were unheard of in her day and age.

The greatest reprieve to my soul is that on the day she passed from this world, I was the last one to see her in the nursing home. We had a wonderful trip to the mall and on the way back, together sang her favorite hymn, The Old Rugged Cross.

She taught me a lot without realizing that she was instructing.

It was neither the fits of anger nor her acts of generosity that remain with me, but rather, a desire to be universally merciful to people when I don’t know their whole story.

So nowadays I would only ask three questions of anyone I encounter:

1.  Can you admit you’re not happy?
2. Are you willing to be happy?
3. Will you stay with it until happiness arrives?

That’s all my mother needed–someone to give a damn.

It’s hard for me to remember her as a mom or a mother, and I certainly don’t want to look on her as a monster.

She was a woman named Mary who was given limited possibilities … and did the best she could.

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

After an appearance earlier this year in Surprise, Arizona, Janet and I were blessed to receive a “surprise” ourselves. Click on the beautiful Arizona picture above to share it with us!

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

 

 

Neurotic … September 4, 2012

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I am fairly healthy. Of course, these could be the classic “famous last words” of the guy about to receive his final delivery of carnations … graveside.  But barring some unforeseen bus with my name on it, I persevere. Yet there are little twinges, pains, losses, discrepancies and weaknesses that have crept onto my path to make me aware that I am probably on my way to Grandma’s house. Or in my case, Grandpa’s.

Arriving at my lodging last Thursday, I came up to the front door and realized that the step into the room was fairly high. This wouldn’t be an obstacle to most of you, but I have a bad right knee that doesn’t like to step up and certainly cringes at the necessity of stepping down. So I got myself into the room at a fairly awkward, if not comical, angle, and the first time I left the room I experienced quite a bit of discomfort. Therefore I was intimidated by both entering and leaving my own quarters.

Here’s what I knew immediately–if I kept the situation to myself, it would quickly grow into a fear inside my being. Fear is not unusual to any of us. The trouble with fear is that it is a lousy roommate for other, more congenial tenants. The first thing fear likes to do is cast out love. Then it likes to get confidence evicted. It sits around and debates with faith and chides and criticizes talent. Fear sucks. That may be a rather blatant way of explaining it, but it’s true.

So if I kept my apprehension about this step coming in and out of my door to myself, I would soon be looking at ways to avoid leaving my room and therefore, place myself in a sedentary position, which is not particularly beneficial to me for maintaining my first statement, which was, “I am fairly healthy.”

I was on the verge of becoming neurotic.

Now, I know “neurotic” is relegated to a psychological condition, but it is really so common to all of us that it should be talked about more often and explored like daily bread instead of viewed as a psycho-babble croissant. Here’s what makes us neurotic: a fear unexpressed is the seed of distress.

Whenever we find ourselves in the position where we choose, refrain, refuse or avoid sharing our fears, we plant a seed of distress in our souls. Distress grows into suspicion. Suspicion sprouts some isolation and isolation is what produces rage in us, and turns us into emotional ticking time-bombs.

In my case, if I was not prepared to admit that I was intimidated by a step up into my lodging, I was certainly going to become distressed by my own foolish pride and weakness. This would make me suspicious of any attempt to come and go or avenues that might be achieved in overcoming the situation. That suspicion would isolate me. Instead of moving around–going and doing things–I would look for reasons to stay in the room, and once isolated in that condition, my grumpiness would soon turn into a picky attitude, which could explode into rage if someone challenged me.

We meet neurotic people every day–even after we leave the mirror. Inside them is a fear that they are too intimidated to express. Even as I sat down to write this jonathots to you, I wondered how I would look to my readers, having such a weak knee that I was unable to climb twelve inches without discomfort. Actually, I came inches–or may I say, sentences–from backing away from the whole idea of being so transparent. But because I shared my fear of the step with my traveling partner, Janet, and have now voiced it to you fine folks, I not only have a renewed sense of vigor, but also a comforting presence of good cheer which will not only get me out the door and back in again, but will allow me to do it without feeling shame.

There is only one thing that stops each and every one of us from finding the platform from which we can voice our ability to the world around us: we’re afraid. We share that in common. Not all of us are beautiful. Not all of us are white. Not all of us are black. Not all of us are talented. Not all of us are intelligent.

But all God’s children are afraid.

And if we want to avoid becoming neurotic–gripped by suspicion, isolating ourselves until we become inexplicably enraged with stupid little things that come our way–we must find a way to express our fears. Let me tell you some of mine:

• I have a fear of small talk with new people, even though my occupation requires it.
• I have a fear that my obesity will eventually keep me from doing something very important in my life.
• I have a fear that my children don’t completely understand my mission nor embrace my message.
• I have a fear …

You see, I could go on and on.

But each time I write one down, I am just a little less afraid. Having the ability to verbalize our trepidation allows us to receive a hug from the love that had been chased away.

I don’t want to be neurotic. It makes me suspicious. It makes me isolate myself. And then, at the wrong moment I can become enraged, with nobody around me understanding the source for the burst of anger.

It doesn’t hurt less to climb the step into my room, or to step down to depart. I know two things–there is one other person, and now a bunch more, who comprehend a little piece of my displeasure. And on Thursday I get to check out and go somewhere else. I just thought I would share this with you. After all, it doesn’t do any good to be intelligent or spiritual if you allow your life to become neurotic.

And neurotic is a fear unexpressed that plants the seed of distress.

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