Jonathots Daily Blog
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1. These beautiful, involved, unique people decided to spend this time with you.
2. Thankful people are better people because they’re still thankful even if things don’t get better.
3. Eating ’til it hurts is difficult to digest.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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A. “I am secretly feeding an unborn twin.”
B. “My dead mother living in the basement insists that I eat 7,000 calories a day or she will start killing young women who stay at the motel we own.”
C. “My tape worm just had triplets.”
D. “God has warned me in a dream that we are headed for seven years of famine.”
E. “An English charity has offered a challenge–for every pound I gain, they will give a pound to operate on puppies who cannot bark.”
Jonathots Daily Blog
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My food is lonely
I see its pain
Come to me, sweetie
Dwell in my tummy.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
(2129)
…not enough to enjoy.
I’ve gone through a serious transition over the past month, discovering that a rudimentary concept in my mind has been faulty since I was a child.
The realization crept into my consciousness about three months ago when I was eating at a Chinese buffet and I looked around the room and saw that all the patrons, just like me, were egg-shaped–and I don’t mean Foo Yung.
It was a location where people had come to eat–to have fun. For after all, isn’t that the message? “All you can eat.” In other words, tap the greatest desire for your appetite for food, envision how much that might be, and then go for it.
I also discovered an interesting thing about myself at this feeding trough. I started off by going to the buffet bar on my own, until I got so stuffed that I was too gorged to get up from my chair. So then I sent someone else to acquire additional “fun” to eat–all the while convinced that I was having the time of my life. Until, that is, I had to get up from my chair and waddle to my car, nearly breathless from the excursion, having ravaged my digestive system with over-abundance.
At this point I did not incriminate myself. I realized it was quite simple. Food, which was meant to be fuel, I had turned into fun. Just for the record, food is not supposed to be fun. It is intended to be fuel. And then, once we understand that it is offered to us as “enough to live but not enough to enjoy,” we can find our good cheer in the planning instead of through overeating.
Food was never meant to be spontaneous–and if we make it a split-second decision we will get busy and start looking for fast food.
So as I realized that food is not meant to be fun, but instead, fuel, I found that planning my food, making really neat choices when I go to the store, is the true fun.
Yes, I am allowed to have fun at the store so that when I sit down to eat my portion, I am partaking of fuel.
We wonder why America is becoming obese. Let’s consider this: sex, which was meant for enjoyment, is now viewed as life. And food, which was meant to be life, is our source of entertainment. Yes, many people would rather eat than have romance.
The same thing is true with spirituality and education. We’ve flipped it. Spirituality is meant to be a rejoicing in our soul, permeating our entire being, while education is the knowledge that allows us to function better.
We’ve done a switcheroo. Spirituality has become austere, a learning process, while we are trying to make education more fun for the kids and ourselves.
I am not saying that what was meant to keep us alive cannot become a source of contentment. But this state is derived by gaining control through selection, purpose and discovery.
And I’m not saying that which is fun in our lives does not have intrinsic value. But this is tapped when we understand that feeling energized does not need to eliminate the possibility of learning.
Today is my twenty-eighth day of my food regimen. It revolves around the realization that eating is intended to be enough to live–not enough to enjoy.
My radical pleasure in the experience comes from planning, considering nutrition and from amazing myself with the types of food that are available to satisfy me without killing me.
So the next time you start a project, ask yourself, “Is this to live, or enjoy?”
If it’s meant to be enjoyed, suck the experience dry and then take the passion from that endeavor into your next venture.
If it’s meant to give life, then allow it to do so, and find your good cheer from pursuing the angles, choices and revelation that make you feel really smart and powerful.
Will I succeed in my latest adventure?
As long as I can keep life and enjoyment in perspective, I’ve got a fighting chance.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
click to hear music from Spirited 2014
Jonathots Daily Blog
(2102)
I spent seventeen days with friends and family in the Nashville, Tennessee, area–the location of one clump of our clan. Everyone else not living in the Volunteer State flew or drove in for the occasion.
It was full of mercy, grace, enlightenment, joy, silliness, overeating and memories.
This morning as I drive down the road toward Houston, Texas, sitting in my van, I look at my rear-view mirror, which grants some reflection. What I mean is, often when we return to gatherings of our kin, there’s a lot of looking in the rear-view mirror, and if we’re not careful, it can become the rear-view mire, bogging us down in too many stories from the past and not enough freshness from the present.
For instance, an old friend showed up last night, who was a close acquaintance back in the early 1990’s, and although we had a great visit, I felt we were struggling to change the frozen past into the warmer and realistic present.
Some people would just say that’s the way life is. I’m not so sure I agree.
So I took those seventeen days to reestablish moments that exist in real-time instead of rehashing details from former occasions. The end result was an emotional, spiritual, mental and physical revelation of one another–mostly good, but a few things demonstrating our differences.
Fortunately, I am not afraid of people having opinions which vary from mine. But I did discover a three-step process I want to apply in all of my situations with human beings:
1. Thaw out the frozen memories.
Give people a chance every day to reestablish a newness of life instead of making them live in a box you’ve constructed for their character.
2. Live in the moment and suck it dry.
I am astounded at how much time we spend complaining about out lot, wasting valuable units of time which could fill us with new spirit. If you regret the past, complain about the present and worry about the future, you leave no space for God to be God and you to be talented.
3. Finally, don’t think about tomorrow.
I’m so happy to report that the future is not yet forged, but is waiting for our free-will choice to set in motion our miracle.
Constantly looking at the rear view of our lives can create a mire of confusion, anger and resentment–not to mention just feeling cheated. Or it can be a time where we spend too much energy celebrating past victories without planning for future escapades.
I love my family so much that I wrap them in elastic, so as they expand, there is plenty of room for them in my life.
It’s the way to avoid the rear-view mire: defrost your windshield and keep your eyes on the road.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
click to hear music from Spirited 2014
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 | Jonathan on 1 Thing You Can Do When Your F… |
| Anonymous on 1 Thing You Can Do When Your F… |
| Anonymous on 1 Thing You Can Do When Your F… |
| Anonymous on 1 Thing You Can Do When Your F… |
 | Nolan on 1 Memory About Jonathan Richar… |
 | Maxine Mantooth on Drawing Attention … Dece… |
| Steve on From the Stacks … Octobe… |
| Maxine Mantooth on Scrambles … October 20th… |
| Maxine Mantooth on From the Stacks … Octobe… |
| Maxine Mantooth on Scrambles … October 13th… |
A voice writing in the wilderness
Jonathots Daily Blog 
