Ask Jonathots … June 9th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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What do you think about the legalization of recreational marijuana? How do you think this will affect American society?

Clarity.

It is the action of clarifying the facts we possess, trying to ascertain how we should proceed. Clarity is a good thing.

So what is the clarity on the issue of marijuana?

First of all, I think we have to get rid of the term “recreational.” We tried to add an adjective to alcohol by calling it “social drinking,” but unfortunately, many of those who felt they were “socially drinking” got in their cars, drove tipsy and ended up killing. It is doubtful that any human being, on their own, can determine their limits.

So once you remove the adjective, you end up with marijuana.

In the pursuit of clarity, let’s not study marijuana from the mindset of those who oppose it, but rather, carefully look at the assessment of the individuals who have or are participating in using the substance.

In every movie I’ve seen, marijuana leaves people listless, uncaring, silly, non-functioning and certainly incapable of performing their best rendition of themselves.

That’s not my assessment. I’ve never seen a film in which someone smokes marijuana and then goes out and saves the life of a child through heart surgery. So if those who are imbibing in marijuana feel that it’s an intoxicant which incapacitates them for normal human participation, then we immediately have to factor this in when talking about legalization.

Are we going to develop Breathalyzers for marijuana use?

Are we prepared to add traffic deaths due to driving under the influence of grass?

Yet on the other hand, marijuana has proven to be a source of relief for pain and discomfort.

So what is the purpose of this plant that has been placed on the earth?

And how can we know that a pain-killer is for killing real pain, not for “recreational” use by those who have no pain?

How can we use marijuana in a productive way without taking our generation, which already has difficulty with comprehension, and making it more bland?

First, if someone wants to smoke marijuana in his or her own home, it should not be illegal.

But we already have laws against public smoking, and we have laws against participating in human activities while intoxicated. Even if marijuana were legalized, it would fall under the same restrictions as smoking and drinking.

You could go to a marijuana bar and smoke with your friends, but when you left there would need to be a designated driver to take you home. Unfortunately, unlike alcohol, your driver might be suffering from a contact high.

So I think the most important thing is for us to clarify the facts instead of stomping around, discussing “freedom and privilege.”

Case in point: I am a fat man. I have the absolute right to go out and eat three pizzas. But if I do, there are ramifications. Perhaps I should understand the boundaries before I eat the three pizzas.

So in conclusion:

1. Marijuana has a purpose because it’s on Earth.

2. It brings relief to those who are suffering.

3. It is an intoxicant.

4. It is mind-altering.

5. Therefore, it will have to be regulated in our society in some way, otherwise we will be endangering the lives of others.

6. It should no longer be criminal when used properly and privately by a person of acceptable age.

There you go.

Never look at a problem as if it’s an issue of freedom, but rather, clarify how that freedom affects the rights of others.

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Quatrain of the Farmer… August 20, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1981)

 Just plant the seed

Hoe down some weeds

Trust Father and Mother

Harvest timely … and rejoice.

 

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Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about personal appearances or scheduling an event

Faithful Seeds … July 31, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1960)

Seeds of Faith. The name of the church I was at last night.

Since we no longer live in an agrarian society, where everybody is well-associated with planting and harvesting, sometimes we forget the power, magnitude and mission of seeds.

It reminds me of my Burpee encounter. When I was a kid I suddenly became enthused over the notion of ordering a bunch of seed packets from the Burpee catalogue. I think it was because they looked cool, in their little containers with the pictures on the front. Whatever the reason, in about two-and-a-half weeks, I received an envelope filled with seeds for corn, peas, and I think, pumpkin. They were cool. I took them out of their envelopes and shook them like maracas.

But you know what I DIDN’T do? I didn’t plant ’em. I just put them on the shelf, looked at them occasionally, and once I went the back yard, dug some holes—but I forgot to bring the seeds with me. My idea was to return later to plant them. But when I did return a week or so later, the holes were gone—filled up—and I didn’t have the energy for re-digging.

So even though I ordered seeds, owned seeds and carried them around, I never made corn, peas or pumpkins.

I think the name Seeds of Faith is really cool, but it’s really not the seeds that make the difference. It’s putting them to their faithful mission. It’s scary.

It’s kind of weird to take something and plant it in the earth and trust that it will do something old-fashioned and natural, like grow. Seeds in little, tiny envelopes with pictures on them are so much prettier. Keeping our spirituality locked up in a book, having assigned seating in our pews at church or proclaiming the beauty of our favorite hymn is so much easier and more pleasant than actually taking the words of the songs and the ideas of the gospel and planting them into real-life situations, where we risk rejection.

Eventually, by the way, I lost my seeds. I don’t know what happened to them. I think they got shuffled in with some old papers and my mother threw them away during one of her frequent binges of cleaning.

It was weird. I felt sad. Because those seeds fell into my hands—an inept non-farmer—they never got to fulfill their purpose.

It’s time for us in the religious system to actually become the church.

It’s time for us to realize that seeds have been entrusted into our hands for planting, so that we might find reasons to place them in good situations, where they can grow.

Yet the same group of people who can spend hours talking about the plot of the movie, Titanic, can barely get two sentences out about what happened during a spiritual experience in church on Sunday. Why is this? It’s because we worship the seeds and don’t yearn for the harvest.

Here’s what I want to tell them at Seeds of Faith tonight:  “Take your seeds and…”

1. Find good earth. We keep planting the gospel into dusty, old individuals who couldn’t grow a wart if they handled a toad. Find some good earth. Find people rich with possibility. Find people in need, so salvation means they were salvaged.
2. Bury yourself. Become passionately involved with your spirituality, just as you are with your family, your movies, your food choices, your fishing and your grilling.
3. Crack your hull. Understand, a seed doesn’t grow until it’s broken open. It splits open and a stem protrudes, going both up and down, so that the experience is obvious to the earth and to those above.
4. And finally, suck it up. Suck up all the goodness and nutrients you can, in the earth where you are planted. Don’t miss a chance to discover something worthy of praise. Don’t avoid discussing goodness because the people in the room want to focus on Breaking Bad. Be the counter-punch to the sucker-punch of life. Suck it up—enjoy, relate and rejoice in the Lord. And again I say, rejoice.

Faithful seeds are seeds that find good earth, bury themselves, crack their hulls and then suck up all the nutrients around them, to grow.

Burpee—maybe I ordered them because I thought it was a funny name.

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Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about personal appearances or scheduling an event

Don’t Plant What You Won’t Eat … March 10, 2012

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It’s all about finding the right tree.

Every Wednesday morning, I slip away for three hours–just to have some time with paper, pen and my soul, to muse over ideas, feelings and consider the situation and ongoing progress of one mortal named Jonathan Richard Cring. I climb into my van and drive to a shopping area with a parking lot, find a nice tree and park beneath. I open the windows a little bit to allow air in to refresh my brain, and more importantly, I welcome my thoughts in the spirit that is within me–to show me some of the highlights of my heart, and perhaps even expose some foolishness in my mind.

While so perched last Wednesday, a young Hispanic man came and stood next to my vehicle. I thought he was about to ask me for some sort of assistance, when instead, he bellowed to another fellow across the parking lot, asking that gentleman for sixty cents for bus fare. The man refused. I turned around to look and saw that the individual he had beckoned to was also Hispanic. Thinking I was going to be next in line, I reached in my wallet to provide some immediate help to my friend. But instead of asking me, he turned on his heel and quickly walked away, disappearing into the horizon.

It perturbed me. It didn’t take me long to realize that the reason this fine ,young man resisted asking me was that he had literally sized me up as a fat older white guy, who was probably going to give him more grief than change. I moved from perturbed to pissed. There’s no other word for it. It just made me angry that we live in a society where boxes are provided and it is expected that the good citizenry will climb within the enclosure, discover their assigned seating and occupy space.

I don’t work that way. I was frustrated that a political, religious and social structure in this country forbade this young Hispanic man from feeling the liberty of sponging off of all races equally. I mean, if you’re going to beg, why become picky? So I was a little angry at him, too.

It’s so ridiculous that we continue to subsist in a less than productive environment, surrendering to the “standards” around us without ever stomping our feet and refusing to participate in the farce. I am not a fat older white man; I just resemble one. I am not a conservative–I am not a liberal; I am not religious just because I love Jesus. But how can you communicate that in a marketplace that works off of five-second sound bites and subsists on You Tube videos?

In the midst of the brawl taking place in my brain, the young man reappeared in the near distance, walking away from me at an angle towards a nearby store. He was about twenty-five yards away, but certainly going a different direction. I had to do something to break the spell. I rolled down my window and  yelled. “Hey! Com’mere!” I motioned with my hand for him to come my way.

He stopped, peered at me–and I know a hundred different scenarios must have run through his mind about what this invitation might mean. So I motioned again, and this time he slowly and cautiously ambled my way. He arrived about five feet from my door, not willing to come any closer, and said, “What do you want?”

“Did you need some help?” I asked.

The mere word “shock” would not describe the expression that crossed his face. He still was not convinced that my motivations were pure, but was so overwhelmed by curiosity that he tentatively replied, “Uh … yeah. I need sixty cents for the bus.”

So I reached into my wallet, pulled out two one dollar bills and handed them his way. “Here’s sixty cents for the bus and a little something to buy a drink to make the ride more refreshing.”

He stared at the money for a long moment, as if wondering if it were going to explode. Then he gingerly reached, took the two one dollar bills and said, with a bit of tear in his voice, “Thank you.”

I punctuated. “Hey, listen. You came by me and asked a guy across the parking lot for money because … well, I guess because he looked like you. I guess we old fat white guys can be intimidating and maybe a little bit cranky. But every once in a while, keep in mind that God is wearing a mask that doesn’t resembles what we think.”

I don’t think he totally understood, but the two dollars in his hand helped to clarify the point. He thanked me again and was off about his business.

I am tired of living in a society that sizes up the world around it and decides how everything should be. Here, let me say it aloud:

• I don’t know how everything should be.
• I don’t know whether what I think is right or wrong.
• I don’t know if half the things I believe will sustain the test of time.
• I don’t want to be mistreated, so I try never to do anything that resembles or is motivated by a foul attitude.
• Here you go–I don’t plant what I won’t eat. It’s foolish. If you hate corn, don’t plant corn. And if you hate to be judged by other people, do yourself a favor and never judge anyone.
• If you hate scrutiny, stop scrutinizing.
• If you despise boring conversations, cease to contribute your boring, repetitive notions.
• Don’t preach what you can’t prove. Stop using the Bible–or any other book of morality–to justify why you believe in things that you basically don’t even follow yourself.
• Don’t teach what you don’t observe. There’s nothing more hypocritical than an English instructor using bad grammar.
• And finally, don’t take what you haven’t given. If you’re known to be a stingy sort, always make sure you have prepared for rainy days with good provision, because you sure don’t deserve to ask anyone for anything. But if there is the possibility that you might become vulnerable, then it’s a good idea to sow two bucks to an Hispanic kid who thinks you’re just an old fat white guy.

There is nothing more simple in life than merely treating other people the way we want to be treated. And there is nothing more complicated than trying to apply two sets of rules–one for yourself and another for those who pass by.

It was a good Wednesday morning. I didn’t jot as many things down on my paper as I inscribed into my heart, reaffirming once again:

Don’t plant what you won’t eat.

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Below is the first chapter of Jonathan Richard Cring’s stunning novel entitled Preparing a Place for Myself—the story of a journey after death. It is a delicious blend of theology and science fiction that will inspire and entertain. I thought you might enjoy reading it. After you do, if you would like to read the book in its entirety, please click on the link below and go to our tour store. The book is being offered at the special price of $4.99 plus $3.99 shipping–a total of $8.98. Enjoy.

http://www.janethan.com/tour_store.htm

Sitting One

 I died today. 

I didn’t expect it to happen.  Then again, I did—well, not really.

No, I certainly didn’t expect it.

I’ve had moments of clarity in my life.  Amazingly enough, many of them were in the midst of a dream. For a brief second I would know the meaning of life or the missing treatment to cure cancer.  And then as quickly as it popped into my mind it was gone. I really don’t recollect dying.  Just this unbelievable sense of clear headedness—like walking into a room newly painted and knowing by the odor and brightness that the color on the wall is so splattering new that you should be careful not to touch it for fear of smearing the design. The greatest revelation of all? 

Twenty-five miles in the sky time ceases to exist.

The planet Pluto takes two hundred and forty-eight years to circle the sun. It doesn’t give a damn. 

The day of my death was the day I became free of the only burden I really ever had.  TIME.

Useless.

Time is fussy.  Time is worry. 

Time is fear.  Time is the culprit causing human-types to recoil from pending generosity. 

There just was never enough time. 

Time would not allow it.  Remember—“if time permits …”

Why if time permits?  Why not if I permit?  Why not if I dream?  Why not if I want?  Why does time get to dictate to me my passage? 

It was time that robbed me of my soulful nature.    It was time that convinced me that my selfishness was needed. 

I didn’t die. The clock in me died, leaving spirit to tick on.  

So why don’t we see the farce of time?  Why do we allow ourselves to fall under the power of the cruel despot?  Yes, time is a relentless master—very little wage for much demand.

I died today. 

Actually … a piece of time named after me was cast away.