Salient…June 25th, 2018

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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There are matters that are too important to ignore or leave to chance. These are salient moments.

Shall we take a look at a fascinating window of time that occurs in all human beings, from birth to about five years of age? Each one of us is so vulnerable, so needy, so inquisitive and so desperate that we are prepared to be taught to be Earth-dwellers by our parents. Sometimes this extends all the way up to age ten.

Three very intricate systems are introduced: manners, morals and motivation.

This is the period when we develop our ethics–perhaps a work ethic or a social one, but certainly a mental gear we adopt to deal with life and with others.

Most generally this instruction is completed by age eleven, because here comes puberty. For the average parent puberty can be best defined as this: “My children have lost their hearing in favor of their genitals.”

It is difficult to provide additional instruction during this period. Sometimes after a serious error, there will be a brief season of curiosity from the adolescent, but then the trio of temptation, taunting and teasing pulls them right back into the melee of mayhem.

This lasts until about age twenty-five. (Of course, it could be twenty-two, or thirty, depending on the person. But for the sake of this brief essay, I shall characterize it as twenty-five.)

At twenty-five young folks wake up–sometimes after a hangover or after getting their first threatening letter from a bill collector for their student loans, or perhaps realizing they might be in love.

A realization strikes: “Maybe me, an individual, could become us, a family.”

So three new friends show up to invigorate manners, morals and motivation. They are concern, confidence and clever.

We, as humans, develop a legitimate concern for others while building confidence and finding clever ways to use what we have more expansively.

It is a massive transition–a needful one. Without it, many young persons never become actual adults at all, but linger around their families, particularly their parents, coming back for another schooling in morals, manners and motivation.

This concern, confidence and clever births some children, buys a house, acquires job promotions and takes us, as people, to about the age of fifty. (Once again, this could be younger or a little older.)

At fifty, having tapped the fruit of concern, confidence and clever, people want more. There is a wrinkle in the spirit of human beings which causes them to wistfully wish to make a difference and leave behind a legacy.

It is at this point that we pursue wit, words and wisdom. It carries us through to our dying breath.

Yet we certainly know individuals in their seventies who have never escaped concern, confidence and clever–or maybe never even learned morals, manners and motivation.

This is a passage. All human passages are entered only through the power of repentance.

So here is your salient moment:

Gather up all your manners, morals and motivation, and stir in your concern, confidence and cleverness. And if you have reached the age, add on your wit, words and wisdom.

Finish the job.

Of course, if you’re led of the Spirit and you’re a creature who knows how to use faith, you don’t have to wait for birthdays to dictate your future.

As the Good Book says, “today is the day of salvation.”

 

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Ask Jonathots… September 15th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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I truly don’t understand what the big deal is about sex. I haven’t figured out why people think your sex related decisions define you. Is it just because a) you’re naked, and b) it’s how babies are created?

There is a simple problem in our country:

Those who believe in God fail to honor science, and those who revere science find it necessary to turn their backs on God.

There seem to be relatively few people who understand that a Creative Father felt the need to establish an order through Mother Nature.

With that in mind, let’s address your question.

• When do people mature sexually? Somewhere between the age of 13 and 15.
• When do we think people should get married? Late twenties, or some folks even think early 30’s.

So in our culture there are fifteen years of sexual viability which is supposed to be stuffed away in a closet in preparation for marriage, or stumbled into through carnal experimentation made dangerous through immaturity and disease.

We really have to make up our minds. Are we going to continue to believe that people are children until they’re thirty, or are we going to establish an earlier emotional awareness to match the sexual awakening?

Sex is a big deal because people either pretend it’s sacred or just “a physical experience.” Since human beings may be the only species in which both male and female have the capacity for pleasure outside of procreation, we should probably emphasize the pleasure side of sexuality instead of insisting that God has belabored the girl with birth and the boy with “killing the game and dragging it back to the fire.”

What is sex? It is a physical experience producing a burst of pleasure which is also used by our species for procreation.

So if you have no intention of procreating, then you should be looking for ways to tap the pleasure without becoming irresponsible.

If your intention is to procreate, then you probably need to do what all the animals on Earth do–find a way to nest with your mate to take care of your baby birds.

You have to make up your mind:

Are we just animals or is there more to us than that?

Are we just spiritual or do we possess a bit of animal?

Sexuality can never be casual because we’re not just tigers. It can also never be considered completely spiritual–it’s too easy to do and we really don’t do it any different from the monkeys.

So what’s the best answer for you?

Get a mature look at both your physical evolution and your emotional responsibility. You will never be able to have sex without having some inclination toward an emotional union.

Avoid the stupidity of the religious, who make the joining of the penis and the vagina some sort of holy oracle.

And also escape the worldly, who view it as a common crossroads of human interaction.

In the long run we will have to teach our children to mature more quickly–or else not be so concerned that they start “probing the parts.”

For after all, even the Pope knows that nobody’s going to arrive at twenty-nine years of age a virgin.

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PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stagnant

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Dear Man/Dear Woman: A Noteworthy Conversation … June 11th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Dear Man: I was twelve years old when I came to my mother and told her I wanted to join the Jr. High football team. She looked startled and then she laughed and said, “No. You can’t. But you can be a cheerleader.” I had never thought about cheering for someone else. I was shocked. It seemed that society was training me to be a Mommy.

 

Dear Woman: So you think it’s a plot? Do you think there’s some committee somewhere that watches carefully for young girls to turn twelve, and then makes sure to transform them into cheerleaders instead of football players?

 

Dear Man: Don’t you? Maybe not a plot, but a programming chip that is slipped into society’s consciousness. So my whole training from that point on, after twelve years of age, was to be a Mommy. It consisted of “get ready to cheer, get ready to worry”, and finally, “get ready to support.”

 

Dear Woman: So you feel that our society encourages femininity as long as it cheers, worries and supports?

 

Dear Man: Yes. Look at the situation comedies on TV. Even the women who are supposed to be strong find themselves cheering, worrying incessantly and supporting the family.

 

Dear Woman: Well, when I was twelve I wanted to go out for the football team, too–mainly because I liked the uniform. I was immediately informed that I could no longer fall down and cry. I couldn’t accept comfort from my Mommy anymore. I wasn’t a little boy, but was instead commanded to be a man, which consisted of three aspects: “get ready to struggle, get ready to fight, get ready to win.” Any young guy who was unwilling to do this ended up in drama or music and was assumed to be queer.

 

Dear Man: A bit overly simplistic?

 

Dear Woman: Not any more than yours. It seems to me that our culture is frightened by the individual who might contradict the genitalia. That’s why, when a man stays home to take care of the children and the woman works, we refer to it as “role reversal.” In other words, “you can do it, but you’re weird.”

 

Dear Man: So it’s difficult for me to believe that we’re born with all these gender tendencies, when just before puberty we are suddenly snatched away and put in different camps to study for future positions. Me, a Mommy, you a Man.

 

Dear Woman: Otherwise, it wouldn’t make the news that a girl is a field goal kicker at a high school…

 

Dear Man: …or that a boy graduated at the top of his home economics class.

 

Dear Woman: So why the manipulation?

 

Dear Man: I think it’s because we feel if we don’t force children into their roles, we might not be able to maintain the species, because the natural interest we have for romance with each other might be insufficient.

 

Dear Woman: So what do you think we should do? I guess what I’m asking is, what did you do when your mother tried to turn you into a cheerleader instead of a linebacker?

 

Dear Man: I bought it. I learned to cheer, worry and support–and I’m trying now to go through rehabilitation to become just a human being and find out what I really want to do. How about you?

 

Dear Woman: Me, too. I struggled, I fought, I won–and when I didn’t win, I learned to make excuses or cheat. Now I’m trying to withdraw from the masculine drug and just become a decent person.

 

Dear Man: Why do they make it so hard?

 

Dear Woman: Because somebody made it hard on them.

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Dear Man/Dear Woman: A Noteworthy Conversation … April 9th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Dear Man: So what did they tell you?

Dear Woman: They told me that women are beautiful, but very emotional. What did they tell you?

Dear Man: I was told that men are handsome and strong.

Dear Woman: Well, since “beautiful” and “handsome” are literally in the eye of the beholder, that leaves emotional and strong.

Dear Man: That it does. And what do those two words mean?

Dear Woman: Well, emotional means having lots of feelings.

Dear Man: And for simplicity, strong means having lots of muscles.

Dear Woman: So I guess the thought is, when feelings are needed, women are handy and in everything else, men have the edge because they can lift the weights.

Dear Man: Here’s my question–can anybody achieve anything without emotion? Can the football team win the national championship without great feelings and energy to propel them?

Dear Woman: And can anything be accomplished as a human being without utilizing strength? For instance, can a woman actually go through the difficulty of puberty, struggles in the economy, birthing and raising children–without possessing tremendous physical fortitude?

Dear Man: Of course not. But we’re led to believe that I’m emotional and you are strong. So if you decide I’m overly emotional, you can just beat the crap out of me.

Dear Woman: Well, I personally wouldn’t do that…

Dear Man: I know that. But deep in the recesses of your primeval brain is the notion that you could take me down.

Dear Woman: And equally deep in your evolution is the information that you may only be able to get what you want by crying and expressing your feelings.

Dear Man: So what’s the truth?

Dear Woman: Well, that’s easy. None of us can live without emotion and strength. To be a human being, you must know how to tap your emotions, and be able to be strong in the hour of trial.

Dear Man: Exactly. So maybe the problem is the words we use.

Dear Woman: I’m listening.

Dear Man: What I mean is that emotion without purpose and direction is useless. If you add purpose it becomes passion.

Dear Woman: And strength without the willingness to include endurance is just macho energy because it doesn’t hang in there and last to the end. So what I’m saying is that an emotional and strong football team doesn’t win the game.

Dear Man: No, it’s a passionate team–one with great endurance–that lasts through the fourth quarter and takes the day.

Dear Woman: Do you realize, there’s no Bible for the boys and another for the girls. There’s no Constitution for the men and another one for women. In our higher forms of reasoning, we already understand that we need to be human beings and not just genders.

Dear Man: Well said. So maybe the best thing we can do is teach our children–and maybe ourselves–that women are not emotional and men strong, but instead, that human beings are learning to use their passion with endurance.

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Three Ways of Becoming What You Want to Become by Realizing What You Became… September 25, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Three huge bombs land on each and every one of us, exploding across our consciousness, leaving the fallout hanging in the air as we try to piece together the substance of what we call our “adult life.”

Peers, parents and puberty.

Long before we have the intensity, intelligence and ingenuity to separate right from wrong, smart from dumb, spiritual from ridiculous and cool from uncool, we are inundated and pressured by these three weapons, to submit to the “common norm.”

With our peers, our emotions are tangled, frustrated and jumbled by insecure fellow-travelers, who are groping for superiority, often by trying to make us feel less. In the process we develop deep-rooted insecurities, which bring bag and baggage to travel a lifetime.

Then there’s our parents. Although they do their best, their best is contingent on what has been done to them. Obviously, that falls into various degrees of miscommunication. Yet when these people hold the keys to your clothing, your housing, your food and your self-confidence, you tend to listen to them very intently.

And to top it off, here comes puberty. For a wonderful eleven years of life, men and women exist as equals–playing, laughing and working side-by-side–when suddenly they are grabbed by the pimp of nature, thrown to the ground and given an overdose estrogen or testosterone, placing them in a stupor with one another, often creating volatile conclusions.

The greatest thing you can do for yourself is admit you are being held hostage by this trio of conspirators.

So what is your next step?

1. I am prejudiced.

If you cannot admit this, you will never be able to understand that none of us possess a world view until we pursue it on our own. It is not taught in the classroom, it is not passed along in Sunday school and it certainly isn’t required in the locker room.

Learn the difference among these three words: prejudice, bigotry, racism.

• Prejudice: “I was taught that people are different.”
• Bigotry: “I believe people are different.”
• Racism: “I am so confident that people are different that I will teach others.”

If we focus on the difference in people, we quietly assume our own superiority. Once that is propagated, war is inevitable.

2. You are prejudiced.

Yes, I need to cut you some slack. You had a blitzkrieg of the same bombings that hit me. I need to give you a chance to discover your prejudice even if it happens to be against me.

The definition of mercy is the realization that the person standing before me is just as confused as I am, and should be given as much time for growth as I would request.

3. Let’s do a rewrite on the script.

Yes, your life has been scripted. From the time you were a tiny tot, people were telling you what you should be, how you should do it and when you should do it. Being able to reject all of these “voices in the wilderness” is virtually impossible.

Rewrite the script.

And the only way to do that is to purposefully turn away from the crowd, tune your ears from the shouting and listen to your own heart and the Spirit of God.

You cannot become anything until you discover what you already became.

This is the true essence of maturity: putting away peers, parents, puberty … and all the other childish things.

 

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

 

The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!

 

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Untotaled: Stepping 20 (March 18th, 1965) Bible League … June 28, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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(Transcript)

In the midst of puberty, football, family problems, unbearable school work, insecurities and an unwillingness to walk the dog, I managed to wiggle in time to attend church.

I didn’t go there because I loved God or was fond of listening to sermons. Matter of fact, I couldn’t recall one single point from one of these elongated discourses. No, I went to the Steeple House to see church friends and because I had an abiding love for gospel music.

So when it was announced by our pastor that a competition would begin in the style of College Bowl, using the Bible for questions and answers, and that we would be competing with eleven other churches in our district, to win a trophy, I was immediately on board. It would give me a chance to be with my friends, carpool to new locations, and actively participate in a way to prove that I was better than others.

The first category for our pursuits was Acts of the Apostles, which had intelligently been shortened to the Book of Acts. We studied the material for three weeks. The teams were divided into Junior Bible League and Senior Bible League.

I was at an annoying age–the oldest in the Junior League, but youngest in the Senior League. So they stuck me in the younger group. We went out for the first competition and won handily against Milford.

Having a disconcerting mixture of ability and ego, I quickly decided that the Junior Bible League was beneath me, so I immediately began to lobby to be in the Seniors. This stimulated many discussions, church board meetings, and phone calls among pastors, all trying to decide if it was righteous for me to be with the older participants.

I think they wanted me to give it up. Yes, they figured that eventually I would stop asking.

But I didn’t.

So by the third contest, studying the Book of John, I wore them out and was placed on the Senior Team. Within two weeks, I was one of the starting members and on the third week was voted Captain.

Can I tell you the problem with progress? The reason life has steps to it is so we can enjoy the graduations–because even though I got my way and was on the Senior Team, I was stuck there for four years, with no further encouragement for ascension–just an expectation of ongoing winning.

For the first three years we won the trophy for the best Bible League Team in our district. But by the fourth year, quite honestly, I just wore out.

My jot was exhausted and my tittle lay dangling.

So the lasting memory of this experience is that we lost, in my final year, because of my indifference, and I shall forever be remembered as the guy who almost pulled it off.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to stand up against unreasonable rules and regulations. But often they are there to ease us into a joyous journey, where we have the pleasure of growing instead of the aggravating expectation of doing well … again.

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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!

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Untotaled: Stepping 3 (February 9th, 1964) … February 22, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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(Transcript)

“She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah …”

God, I desperately needed that.

At twelve years of age, going through puberty, it would have been wonderful to have a “she” that loved me. Yeah.

But when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show February 9th, 1964,  my parents refused to let me watch. They didn’t know anything about the Beatles, they had just seen a picture, and from that had determined that the young gentlemen from Liverpool were freaks, queers, girls, Communists and immoral.

So instead, they sent me to church, where I got to listen to our preacher expound upon Peter and the lame man at the Gate Beautiful.

Lame.

I returned home, realizing that the Ed Sullivan Show was not over yet, hoping that I could still negotiate permission to watch the last part and hear the Beatles’ final selections. My father, even more irritated, refused. He turned the channel to Bonanza–an episode called The Cheating Game.

Yes, I felt cheated.

Even though I liked the Ponderosa, I did not want the Cartwrights on this night. I needed the Beatles.

Yet the next day, when I went to school, out of some sense of fierce loyalty, I explained to my friends, who were ablaze with excitement over the performance by Paul, John, Ringo and George, that these guys were freaks, queers, girls, Communists and immoral. (Honestly, I didn’t even know what most of the words meant.)

What happened next was chilling to my bone. Rather than arguing with me, my friends looked at me with a combination of horror and pity. They couldn’t even imagine how miserable I must be … Beatle-less.

So over the next few months I broke out of my shell, slipped over to my friend’s house and listened to the Beatles. This eventually led me to Herman’s Hermits, the Monkees, and even a little taste of the Animals and Jimi Hendrix. To that revolving play list I added the Oak Ridge Boys, Beethoven, Strauss and Sousa.

As the diversity of my musical taste increased, so did my openness and willingness to accept others and absorb new ideas.

Music saved my young soul from turning into a lame man, which certainly would not have been the gate to anything beautiful.

I never got to hear the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. But on the long and winding road … they rocked my world.

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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