Things I Learned from R. B. (September 6th, 2020)

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Episode 31

July 19^th.

R. B.’s birthday.

It arrived with a horrific sense of timing. In the midst of his daily demise, how would it be possible to foster a celebration of his birth? Yet I was fully aware that R. B. knew it was his birthday. He didn’t need leave this planet feeling he was absent sentiment.

So I planned it.

I picked up pulled pork barbecue, which was his favorite, a chocolate cake with butter cream icing (which was my favorite) and got permission from the hospice to use the dining room for a private party of about twenty-five people. The facility also graciously offered kitchen facilities for our use.

I took the precaution of talking to each person attending about the nature of the situation. In our family, it is customary to give a verbal tribute to the person being honored at birthday celebrations, telling them how valuable and precious they had been during the year.

Trying to avoid awkwardness and also R. B.’s fatigue, I suggested that the guests share one sentence stating their favorite part of R. B.

Considering how bizarre the circumstances were, the party ended up being rather intimate, especially when one of the young children told R. B. that he was very sad that his friend was dying.

This was too much for R. B.

His eyes burst forth with tears, which had been held in reserve for some unpronounced occasion.

He wept.

He sobbed.

And through his tears he proclaimed, “I don’t want to die.”

The room was hushed—emotions thick with tenderness and pain. Nobody ate much of the barbecue. The cake was sampled. It seemed that the circle of souls who came to salute R. B. moved in closer and closer as the afternoon pressed on.

I guess if a man has to die and is granted a send-off, this could have been one of the better ones ever to be conceived.

After about an hour-and-a-half, one of the nurses arrived to take R. B. back to his room.

It was time for final thoughts. Something needed to be said.

I was trying to come up with a spirited closing for the event when Lily, my granddaughter, piped up with some wonderful four-year-old wisdom. “See you tomorrow,” she said with the cheeriest voice I’ve ever heard.

Everyone applauded, laughed and clapped some more as R. B. made his exit from the room.

As he was leaving, I thought to myself that I was probably the world’s greatest hypocrite.

For I certainly did not honor this fellow. He had been cruel to me—perhaps treacherous. What did I think I was achieving by hosting a party for my enemy?

As I was standing there, staring off in the distance, one of the guests came up and hugged my back. She leaned up and whispered in my ear, “Congratulations. You gave him what he needed.”

Exactly. She was right.

It wasn’t about me.

Of course.

It wasn’t about me.

 

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The W Word … July 9th, 2019

Jonathots Daily Blog

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---

THE

WORD

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The W word that should never be spoken or written again is:

WORRY

It is a self-proclamation of great concern that has been hollowed out by the need to feel important, even when others require the greater attention.

It is often spoken as a prayer, but never contains belief.

It is delivered with tears, but rarely lifts a finger to help.

It insists on something being done while languishing in self-pity.

It is irrelevant—mainly because it fails to acknowledge that to do nothing is to get nothing.

It is ignorant.

It pretends to be involved—but proves “to study nothing is to learn nothing.”

And it is arrogant.

Feel nothing.

Be nothing.

It is nothing surrounded by sentiment.

It is fear in a climate that demands love.

It is a series of carefully worded statements that never form a legitimate thought.

A great man once said that we should never worry. He also went on to say (and I paraphrase):

“Don’t worry about tomorrow. Hell, today will probably kill you.”

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Jesonian–Troubling (Part 7)… August 12th, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Troubling.

To see disciples of Jesus line up like sheep, with astrologers and superstitious, ignorant practitioners of religion, to pray their way to a blessing, is truly troublesome.

It is the byproduct of a gigantic misconception: God is in control.Nothing could be further from the truth.

We are told that Jesus came to Earth to give us the power to become the sons of God. He envisioned a church that was fired up to tear down the gates of hell:

• More than conquerors
• Salt of the Earth
• Light of the world
• Doing greater things
• Pursuing the perfection they see in their Father

He never dreamed that those who chose to take up his cross would end up helpless, fearful, bigoted and hog-tied to tradition.

It is pitiful to see churches worshipping a God they believe has power, but selfishly refuses to impart any of that gift to His children.

When will we start teaching the truth?

Our lives do not spring from the soul. We are not mentally ignited. Nor will stimulation of our flesh make us content.

We are heart creatures. Out of the abundance of our heart we will speak. Out heart is our passion, our feelings, our sentiment.

Here’s the way Jesus intended it to be:

We start with the heart. This is simply what we feel. It does not need to be right–it just needs to be truthful. Having found the confidence to share our heart gives us the boldness to believe.

This leads to our soul. Our soul benefits us by teaching us how things work–both the tenderness of the Father and the practices of Mother Nature.

Once we’ve allowed ourselves to be students of the planet and the love of God, we’re ready to take our brain and see what we can do. Not what we wish we could do, but the ability within us. So we learn to be contributors instead of complainers.

And then we take this magnificent body–our strength–and go out and do it well. For as we run the first mile, we anticipate the second. We come prepared.

This is the teaching of Jesus.

The barbaric notion that God plays with human lives as the devil taunts them may be the foundation for other religions, but it is spiritually and intellectually unacceptable in the Jesonian.

The Jesonian is when we realize that our heart–what we feel–gives credence to our soul, where we learn how things work. This renews our minds, to find out what we can do, and then we take our energy to do it well.

Such a unity creates healthy human beings–instead of faltering followers.

 

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Good News and Better News … January 4th. 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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“May the force be with you.”

‘Tis a current sentiment merged with a movie event.

Once again, a hope desiring to see the Heavens save the Earth–a flurry of beliefs in a blizzard of supplications producing an avalanche of conflict.

Yes, while the Jews honor tradition and the Muslims bow to Mecca, the Middle East burns–violently.

Simultaneously, the Baptists preach against, the Lutherans for and the Unitarians insist they never preach.

The Golden Rule becomes just a coined phrase.

We do not need the force to awaken; creation has already given us a Natural Order ripe with a crop of solutions, if we can find laborers to harvest them:

• Remember, there is no destiny–just a destination.
• Get along with each other or join the dinosaurs.
• We are the ones who must awaken and use the force.

Yesterday, this was amazingly acted out to my ears as a young couple in the motel room next door yelled out the problem. It went something like this:

1. “We ain’t got enough and it’s your fault.” (Trying to find blame just lengthens the game.)

2. “You always…” (Humans are never consistent, even in the bad department.)

3. “If I can’t be successful, I at least want to win the argument.” (Keep in mind, all of nothing ends up being the same amount as half of nothing.)

4. “I’m leaving until you come to your senses.” (Unfortunately, reasoning is a profile better performed by at least two.)

The good news, my friends, is that the force has never slept, therefore, need not be awakened. Everything is available if we are willing to ask, seek or knock.

How about some better news?

That would be this: we actually need each other to find all these cures.

By the way, that young couple from the room next door got over their huffing and puffing, and started talking instead of blowing their house down.

May all of us little piggies do the same.

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Getting in Character…June 22nd, 2015

Jonathots Daily Blog

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From Act II: Scene VII of As You Like It, Shakespeare asserts that “all the world is a stage and all the men and women, merely players.”

Let the scene speak for itself.

The problem in the world of theater is that we often spend too much time on costuming, scenery and promotion.

If the quality is not present in the writing and the characterization, it will soon become evident that we’re just trying to tie a ribbon on a mutt.

Such is life.

Yet if you are determined to get in character you have to decide what you’re going to pursue.

Is it excellence or is it merely acceptance you’re seeking?

Excellence is finding what you want to communicate and then practicing it until you’re completely satisfied with your take.

Acceptance, on the other hand, is hoping to be received well without actually doing well.

In a generation which screams for “unconditional love,” we end up with a phony representation of the sentiment without the transforming power of the true emotion.

Excellence is a quiet determination. Acceptance tends to sport some arrogance: 

1. Accept me.
2. I’m fine.
3. What’s your problem?
4. People are stupid and don’t get it.

Excellence stands and faces the world without fear proclaiming, “I am satisfied and overjoyed with my profile. Come and see.”

Acceptance, on the other hand, is only fulfilled when praised.

There’s a gentle meekness in the pursuit of excellence which allows the scene to play out while we faithfully insert our portion, inheriting the stage.

And souls who pursue excellence end up getting what they want because the work itself is the blessing instead of a flaccid universal acceptance.

 

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Jesonian: Before Abraham… July 27, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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The words infuriated the crowd.

They were so incensed by the sentiment expressed that they picked up stones to hurl in his direction to silence the blasphemy.

It was just five words.

“Before Abraham was, I am.”

Yet even today, theologians miss the significance and impact of the statement. With one brief “tweet,” Jesus eliminated over two thousand years of religious struggle, spiritual depravity, social reclusiveness and abiding ignorance.

He claimed that his thoughts, his spirit and his being existed before Abraham, which means he was around before Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, a multitude of Caesars, Alexander the Great, Mohammed, Joseph Smith and a myriad of prophetic sorts and conquering kings who felt they possessed the magical key to human victory.

The power of the Jesonian lifestyle is that we do not claim Abraham as our father, but instead, honor the teachings of one who preceded Abraham. This enables us to love both our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters without favoritism.

For the teachings of Jesus–what we call the Jesonian–are very simple.

1. We are heart, soul, mind and strength.

2. In the matters of the heart, try to tell the truth. Any detours from honesty always end up back at the truth, with us exhausted and humiliated.

3. In the realm of spirituality, no one is better than anyone else. Love your neighbor as yourself. For after all, it’s very difficult to be angry with someone who takes just as good care of you as they do their own three square feet.

4. How about the mind? Because we are going to need to learn to do many things, it is necessary to establish the idea of going the second mile. Exceed expectation. Don’t be self-condemning, but also, be self-aware enough to know that there’s always more to learn and attain.

5. How about our body? Very simply, what a person sows, that shall he also reap. It is the wise human being who considers the consequence while becoming excited about the opportunity.

Can you imagine how much religious nonsense, superstition, self-destruction and genocide we could have avoided if we had caught Jesus before Abraham?

It is the power of the Gospel.

It’s not that we don’t love the people of other religions; it’s just that the Jesonian does not believe that we need an Abraham–or any other mediator–to reach God. 

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