Jonathots Daily Blog
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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A. Abraham Lincoln won World War II and freed the slaves from the Eiffel Tower, where they were held hostage by Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan.
B. The Beatles came with the British Invasion, causing Benjamin Franklin to write the Declaration of Independence, which ushered in the Grammy Awards.
C. When the Viets attacked, Richard Nixon opened the Watergate to drown the Nams and save Woodstock.
D. The Pilgrims brought turkeys from their boat to feed the starving Indians at the Plymouth Rock Festival.
E. Two guys built an airplane and they did it so well that people called them the “Right Brothers.”
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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A. Carefully find legal steroids.
B. Pray before the game, cheat during the game, drink after the game.
C. Confiscate all the college finance for really cool, shiny helmets
D. Have plenty of colorful players–as long as they don’t date your daughters.
E. Be grumpy and surly and insist it’s because you are a relentless perfectionist.
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“How’s your chingaling?”
Sounds like the typical, comical loaded question, doesn’t it? The chingaling is that delightful area located between our heart and our soul, where ideally, our feelings turn into praise. You can completely destroy the potential of a human being by dulling the chingaling or disconnecting it, causing the brain to stop learning, leaning to its own understanding.
The chingaling is under attack in America:
The chingaling of the American public is under attack. The end result is that we have emotion without feeling and spirituality without praise, so we settle for crocodile tears and worship services.
It’s not enough. Human beings are emotional. When legitimate heart is removed from endeavors and we try to replace it with duty or phoniness, we stagnate. We revert back to family, culture, misgivings and bigotry.
I feed my chingaling every day–because if what I feel does not turn into praise, then I will stop learning and never expand. But if what I feel does result in praise, I can renew my mind and bolster my strength.
What should we watch out for?
1. Repetition. Let us be frank–lightning cannot be captured in a bottle. Therefore, blessing can’t be packaged and shipped off for mass sale. The blessings of the Lord are fresh daily.
2. Cynicism. I don’t mind a good dose of sarcasm or satire, but when I’m led to believe that reality is dark, I am prepared to do battle for the light.
3. Frustration. Frustration is not the natural result of human beings living their lives. Frustration happens when we make wrong turns, and rather than taking the time to correct them, we assume that our choice was acceptable.
If you can avoid those three monsters, you can clean out your chingaling and get ready to feel again with your heart and praise with your spirit. It will set you apart. It will make you a little peculiar.
But it has always been those who have pursued excellence who ultimately carry the banner for better humanity.
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Iron-poor, tired blood.
I remember hearing that phrase as a kid. It was used to introduce Geritol commercials. Being young, I had no idea what they were talking about, but supposedly you could drink this fluid and your blood would be less fatigued and suddenly gain some sort of iron will. I didn’t care. I figured people who was old enough to be interested in the iron content of their blood probably should prepare to die instead of drinking Geritol.
But as I travel around the country, I now realize that our entire nation is experiencing some tiredness. Let’s refer to it as weary.
The politicians think they have a handle on it by insisting that the country has become exhausted by trying to keep up with the rigors of a failing economy. I don’t think so. I just don’t believe that people deteriorate emotionally because they lack money.
Religious people think the drop in enthusiasm and passion is due to secularism infiltrating our society with anti-Christian values and the removal of God from our dialogue. First of all, it’s hard to remove God from our consciousness when He opens every day with a brilliant display of sunrise. Also it’s difficult to make a case that this country is lacking in spiritual possibilities when there are churches everywhere, religious programming proliferating both the airwaves and the Internet, and faith being touted at the forefront of nearly every political debate.
I think we’re tired because we don’t know how sneaky sarcasm is. We deceive ourselves by insisting that we are not sarcastic, have not become cynical and have somehow avoided all temptations to do so, without realizing that sarcasm and cynicism do not ask our permission for entrance, and once introduced, are never far away.
We are continually bombarded with the fatigue of wondering when things will actually pan out the way they are supposed to, or when promises made to us by friends and family will come to fruition instead fo being followed by, “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
We deceive ourselves because we think that merely by avoiding an eruption of anger we have eliminated the problem and moved on. But often the absence of anger is the infusion of cynicism. The act of avoiding a fit of rage can leave behind a residue of despair that makes us less capable of being fresh and willing the next time around.
Some people call this maturity; other people refer to it as realism. God calls it weary. And when we grow weary in well-doing, we give up right before blessing has a chance to be delivered to our doorstep for our benefit.
Every time we are disappointed or failure comes our way, we must realize that there is more to receiving self-healing than just deciding to not be upset. Sarcasm and cynicism hang around long after we seemingly have gotten over the frustration of not getting what we desired. Once sarcasm and cynicism enter our beings, we just feel tired.
I saw this as I traveled the country this year–good-hearted, loving, gentle people who just didn’t have the will to take one more step toward possibility because sarcasm and cynicism had taken hold of their lives and drained the last little bit of youthful optimism from their hearts.
You cannot ignore your disappointments. You must produce a remedy. Otherwise the secret killer of true faith will overtake you and leave you sarcastic and cynical.
Matter of fact, I will go so far as to say that must of the humor produced in our television programs is sarcasm, and cynical in nature. Most of the commentary by the pundits on the news programs reeks of sarcasm and cynicism. Dare I say that nearly all of the advertisements in the political campaigns are actions of pummeling the opponent with sarcasm and cynicism.
Jesus had one of those days. The movers and shakers in his society had unmercifully hassled him, bringing up ridiculous charges and asking him to follow minute little tasks to prove his value to the religious community. They wanted “signs from heaven.” They demanded “evidence.” They wanted to be convinced. They had iron-poor, tired blood. They were cynical and sarcastic and had no idea that this disease had permeated their souls.
Jesus needed a remedy. He was in danger of becoming just as cynical and sarcastic about these opponents as they were about their own lives. He took a three-step cure.
1. He thanked God. He thanked God for his present location; he was grateful.
The notion that we would be better off in different circumstances is, after all, a mere theory. All we ever know is our present status.
2. He acknowledged the importance of where he had landed. It seemed that his message was not going to be well received by the wise and prudent, so rather than fighting and kicking against his dilemma, he welcomed the audience that God gave him and accepted his market.
We spend too much time wishing that we had a better outlet for our ideas and talents, and lose the opportunity set before us, which actually is our field.
3. And finally, he placed himself among those who were simple–babes.
Nowadays, everyone is trying to be too sophisticated. We think there’s a power in being all-knowing and filled with information. Sometimes it’s just better to believe in what you’ve got and work with it, instead of waiting for the next bus to come along and take you to the promised land.
The weariness in our country is due to the sarcasm and cynicism that permeates our politics, our religion, our arts, our entertainment and even our family life. (Is it not a dangerous cynicism that causes us to believe that men and women cannot find a way to communicate, while strangely enough, we still insist that “it’s all about the family?”)
I go to sleep tonight in Logansport, Indiana, not desiring to be anywhere else. I do not feel that I would be more successful performing at Wembley Stadium in front of forty thousand people. I do not need my latest book to be on the best-sellers list of the New York Times. I do not contend that my present status is inferior because it’s not world-renowned. I know that in every season a message comes forth that must spend time in solitude and obscurity before it ever has a chance to be heard and received.
I will work on me. I will employ the remedy, and I will keep my life from becoming weary–inundated by sarcasm and cynicism.
Do you feel tired? Have you watched yourself get more weary? Understand that sarcasm and cynicism don’t leave until you show them the door.
To do so, you have to locate yourself and be happy that you’re there.
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It got tossed my way yesterday morning. The hot potato, that is.
In actuality, I think I’ve only played the game “hot potato” once in my life. I was eleven years old and a family in our neighborhood befriended me, inviting me to go on a camping trip, because, I think, they thought I was a fat lonely kid and a trip to the woods might do me some good–and who knows? Maybe Mother Nature would choose to adopt me.
I remember hating every minute of it. It was hot, sticky and demanded a lot of physical activity. The day culminated in a campfire, where songs were sung and potatoes were wrapped in aluminum foil and thrown into the fire, to later be extracted and tossed around an encircled gathering of human beings in some sort of alleged exercise of fun, to escape burning your hands before you passed the potato on to another person for their potential searing.
Once again, I hated it. First, I had never played before, so I wasn’t very good. So when someone tossed me my first potato, it shocked me and scorched my hands, so I quickly flicked it off in another direction and it ended up striking the family’s four-year-old son in the head, causing him to weep profusely, greatly diminishing the levity of the moment.
I didn’t get it. Why would I want to toss around a hot potato instead of just letting it cool down, opening it up and reaching for the butter and sour cream?
But as I’ve aged, I have realized that life is just a gigantic game of “hot potato.”So back to my story from yesterday–I was pulling out of the parking lot of my motel into a busy thoroughfare, feeling that I had adequately procured a space for entrance. I accelerated, attempting to join beehive of morning activity. Suddenly I was greeted with the sound of a blaring horn, and upon looking in the rear view mirror, I saw a man in his late forties shaking his fist at me, gunning his engine and going around me as quickly as he possibly could, continuing to honk. Apparently I had displeased him. It was obvious that I had interrupted his proposed plan–to refuse to slow up until he got to his destination.
As often happens, we ended up side-by-side at the next traffic light. He rolled down his window and cursed at me, explaining that he was angry because I nearly got killed. (Actually, he was driving a Mazda and I was in a large black conversion van. My demise was unlikely.)
But as I looked at him, I realized that he had tossed me the hot potato. He had reached into the fiery coals of his anger and had thrown a sweltering spud my way. I didn’t respond. The light changed and we were off on our separate paths.
But it got me thinking. Since life IS like a game of “hot potato,” where you are thrown things without much explanation and can often find yourself in the middle of heated exchanges, it seems to be very intelligent to learn how to handle the burning questions. So there are only three things I could do after this encounter with my belligerent brother: (1) I could lower my expectations of him, assuming that his intelligence rested somewhere in his buttocks; (2) I could relive the situation in my mind, playing up my innocence until I could conclude that I was simply accosted by an escaping mental patient who crossed my path; or (3) I could realize that our human journey is a game of “hot potato” and this one was tossed my way–and I could take a moment to review how well I coped with cooling down the situation and passing it on without bopping a four-year-old in the noggin.
Yes, I do believe that one of the secrets to life is reflection. Those who perform this action actually prepare themselves for the next game of “hot potato,” becoming a bit more aware of how heated each situation can be, and therefore prepare themselves for the encounter. Those who think it’s “over-thinking”–to reflect on such trivial matters–normally end up being constantly surprised by the pace of daily activity and bewildered by the negative reaction of the world around them. They risk becoming jaded.
Here’s the truth: we cannot afford to be cynical about human beings in any way, shape or form. Allowing one droplet of sarcasm into our existence takes away our ability to both participate with our fellow-travelers and also to dominate. Because in the long run, the person who knows how to handle the hot potato the best always wins the game.
So even though you may feel it’s silly, I pulled over into a parking lot and sat for five minutes and relived my situation with Mr. Horatio Hornblower. I asked myself three questions:
1. Is it possible that I misjudged the distance and did cut this fellow off a little bit?
2. Did I communicate anger to him simply because he was angry with me?
3. Is there anything I would do differently in the future, since this hot potato will certainly be thrown my way again?
It was an amazing five minutes of reflection. First of all, upon revisiting the situation in my mind, I realized that I might not have been as careful pulling out of that parking lot as I thought I was. I could have missed something. Secondly, I had to admit that even though I didn’t bad-mouth my attacker, I did internally question his sanity and call him a name or two in my brain. And third, I realized that the first thing we do in the day is always suspect and therefore demands more of our attention instead of taking anything for granted.
My dear sweet friends, I know that the hot potato is coming my way very soon. I don’t want to pretend that it’s cold. I certainly don’t want to become offended because I’m ill-prepared to toss it in the right direction. And I don’t want to criticize the game simply because I don’t play it well.
In a few moments I will rejoin human traffic. My fussy fellow from yesterday will be on my mind. I no longer remember him as my enemy, but rather, like one would a really bad teacher from high school who still managed to get you through chemistry class. In other words, he could have done better, but because he was there, I did learn something.
The hot potato WILL be tossed your way. You can walk out of the experience with burned fingers, cursing the game, toss it off in a bizarre direction, inflictiung pain on others, or you can realize it’s coming and be prepared to bounce it in your hands, taking a moment to find where you want to place it.
It’s up to you. It’s up to me.
And even though I now understand the nature of the game much better, hot potatoes are still favored by me when loaded with blue cheese dressing and bacon bits.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
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A voice writing in the wilderness
Jonathots Daily Blog 
