G-Poppers … October 7th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(3087)

Futility is the soul-gobbling bacteria that carves out the insides of human hope, leaving emptiness.

Yesterday, G-Pop took a little trip over to Bronner’s Christmas Store in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Such a festive time.

Still, it was fraught with inconvenience. Checking out at Customer Service ended up being a rather arduous task, as some mistakes were made by staff. Yet it is difficult to be fussy when Nat King Cole is singing about roasted chestnuts.

Leaving the fantasy world, lunch was procured at a Chinese restaurant. Upon departure, G-Pop discovered that the old black van refused to start. Either the battery was dead or the starter was gone. G-Pop found this distressing because the previous day he’d had repair done on some belts.

He began to feel that odd tingle of futility. Even though he knew that things always work out eventually, being left in the lurch certainly appeared to be unrighteous.

G-Pop forgot the cardinal lesson of Earth journey: No matter what I do, I will do more, so I better enjoy doing it.

Forgetting this abiding notion led to two dastardly conclusions:

1. It’s not fair

2. It’s not possible

So what was G-Pop supposed to do?

Fortunately, there are dual ways of escape from the fracture of futility:

A. If you’re being slowed down, then stop.

In other words, if for some reason you find yourself on the bad end of a deal, it does not help to double down. Go ahead and stop.

G-Pop just sat in his van for about two minutes, considering options. Fortunately for him, he was in the middle of a commercial region, and there was a car dealership across the street. So on to Step 2.

B. While you are stopped, take inventory.

What did G-Pop have?

He had two friends with him–one who was more than willing to go across the street and procure help. Apparently it was a very slow day in Frankenmuth car land, because in no time at all, there were four agents from the dealership gathered around the van, trying to figure out how to fix it.

It was determined that a starter was needed, so one was procured, and fortunately, was so easy to put on that the vehicle didn’t even need to leave the parking lot.

In less than an hour, G-Pop and friends were on their way.

Now granted–it was too expensive, and the dealership people were grinning the whole time because they were making a killing. Sometimes that’s just the price for peace of mind.

For after all, futility is the little piece of arrogance we save back for those occasions when we believe that God is not doing His job.

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Confessing … November 14th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2752)

XXVIII.

I confess so I can heal.

If I deny, I remain sick.

His name was Conley and he had a bad influence on me.

Aw, hogwash. Actually, Conley was successful in finding the bad influence in me.

Ironically, we sang gospel music together–and discovered that when Amazing Grace stopped having such a “sweet sound,” we were quick to rediscover the “wretch” in each of us.

Conley was not an evil person; he was mischievous, comical and deceitful.

So one day when I was driving my old van and entering a thoroughfare, we were joking around–me in the driver’s seat and him lying on a beat-up couch we had inserted into the vehicle. Suddenly there was a huge bump.

Apparently in my oblivion, I ran into a car which was driving in the first lane, which I was trying to enter. I pulled over and so did the car.

Conley grabbed me by the shoulder and said, “Let me do all the talking.”

Seemed good to me.

So Conley got out and began to complain to the driver, whose car we had struck, saying that the poor hapless fellow had changed lanes into us, striking us, and therefore, it was his fault.

I had no idea how Conley could possibly know this, considering that he was lying down in the back of the van, which had no windows on the driver’s side. It did not even occur to me that Conley was making up the story line as he went along.

The police arrived and issued me a citation for changing lanes without safety. I was prepared to pay my ticket and let that be the end of it.

But Conley got a twinkle in his eye, said we should go to court, that he would testify on my behalf and that we would beat the ticket.

So we did.

I didn’t go along with the plan because Conley overwhelmed me with his personality. I was just as much a jerk as he was. I was just wrapped up in a thicker covering of self-righteousness.

So we went to court and Conley testified that he saw the gentleman change lanes into us, therefore creating the accident. Even though the other driver had given a report to the contrary, the judge believed Conley.

My citation was dismissed and we both left the courtroom feeling we beat the system.

So because I was not convicted of the citation, the driver was not able to retrieve his repairs from my insurance company.

I didn’t even feel bad about it.

At that point in my life I had this idea that if you were ingenious enough to lie, then it was the system’s fault for being so stupid.

I wish I could tell you that Conley saw the light and became a more industrious person. Actually, the last time I saw him, he split town, leaving behind a trail of seven bad checks he had written in my community.

I do not blame Conley for my actions.

As I sit here today, I wonder how much “horrible Houdini” is still left in me–prompting me to escape my responsibility, congratulating myself.

I pray that’s dead.

But I want to thank you for allowing me another chance to confess it … and drive a stake through the heart of that demon.

 

 

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G-Pop’s Coming — Part 2 … November 25, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2078)

Learning is what happens when we stop complaining and start believing that what has come our way is usable.

I guess the best way to describe my life is that I have gradually learned how to learn.

In so doing, I have become less critical of others because I understand the aching process involved in transition–but I have also become more motivated to escape the sidelines, nursing my injuries.

When I meet with my family this week and they ask the golden question, “What have you learned?” I’m going to tell them the following six things (of course, one at a time over a space of time, so as not to bore them):

1. People want experience without wrinkles.

Everywhere I go, audiences desire insight, excellence and maturity but because of our culture, they would like to receive it from someone who is young, handsome or pretty. Unfortunately, beauty and youth don’t always coincide well with wisdom and moxie. You have to make up your mind–do you want a beautiful billboard? Or a slightly beat-up but very functional moving truck?

2. The second mile is the new GPS destination.

Sometimes I wonder why people think they can get by doing what everybody else does and still distinguish themselves from the mob. You have to have an edge. You have to have a little extra oom-pah if you’re going to perform in the best polka band.

3. Sophistication is everywhere–and it’s annoying.

Somewhere along the line America has become more demanding than giving. We expect other people to jump through hoops as we feel only the necessity to hold them. We need an innocence in order to create revival–a belief that we haven’t seen everything yet, and what we’re looking for is not necessarily dazzling, just heart-warming and meaningful.

4. Good cheer is the new money.

People are so morose, despondent and out-of-whack that simply coming across with a willingness, a smile and a desire to pursue betterment pushes you to the front of the horde. Good cheer is when you purposely put on the mask of a face you deeply desire to be your own.

5. Indecision is killing us.

I don’t know when we started defining maturity as the act of holding meetings, discussing and deciding nothing. Sooner or later we will need to risk being flawed in order to actually move forward and discover improvement.

6. And the final thing I will tell my family that I learned this year in my journey across this United States is freedom isn’t always right–but it’s never wrong.

Unless you have some sort of belief that the U.S. should be ruled by Christian Sharia law, you have to understand that democracy grants freedom at all costs. This doesn’t mean that the things people select to do are always right, or even moral. It’s just that they’re never wrong–because the freedom exists in this country to do what you deem necessary, as long as you don’t infringe on the rights of others.

I see absolutely nothing in error in a church establishing in its doctrine that certain attitudes or behaviors are appropriate for the message they espouse. But if that same church lobbies for other American citizens to be forbidden to conduct themselves however they deem best, then that church has gone from a personal choice of worship to a position of robbing civil rights from their brothers and sisters.

So there you go. If I were to sum up all six of them, I would say this:

Find yourself, be happy, love people–but leave ’em alone.

That is what G-Pop learned this year as he traveled across this country. I’m in my van, driving to meet those who are willing to be called my kin.

It should be exciting.

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A Barn Yarn… August 18, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1979)

Many years ago a music group of which I was a member in fair standing was invited to a rustic resort in Western Minnesota to put on a concert. The brochure provided to explain the services of this facility were very enticing.

• Gorgeous cabins.
• Swimming pools.
• Hiking for those inclined.
• And buffet lines, stacked with freshly grilled hamburgers, and sweet corn— steaming, salted and buttered.

Needless to say, this music group of which I was a part was very excited to go to the facility, which was offered to believers who had grown tired of worldly toil, and who wanted to escape the rigors of a demented society and spend three days listening to Christian music, with public speakers brought in from all over the country to fill them with spirit.

The joint was aptly named Christian Retreat.

unfortunately, upon arrival we discovered that the cabins had been booked up and all they had available was one small compartment, which would not be acceptable for three–especially since I was a male intruder. So the girls skipped off to their living quarters and I was escorted … to a barn.

Now, when they told me I would be staying in a barn, I assumed it was a euphemism for a rustic facility, but one still worthy of human habitation. Climbing the crest of a hill, what I beheld was actually a barn–an Amish cathedral–complete with hay, stalls, John Deere tractors and cattle with their south ends pointed to my north.

I did not complain. I found an area they had set aside for human occupation which included straw beds and a shower they had rigged with a spigot protruding from a pipe and a wooden frame to stand upon and a hole dug to drain the excess watery parts from people like me.

I was sitting on a bale of hay when I was interrupted by the arrival of another gent. He started talking. I point this out because from the point that he commenced speech, he never stopped. He explained that he was a farm hand. He told me how difficult his day had been. Within three minutes, I had the full description of his mother’s nasty divorce from her abusive husband which left him with a single mom, working very hard, but still on food stamps.

All during the discourse he was disrobing in front of me, preparing to take his nightly shower, with no embarrassment whatsoever, and was eventually standing buck naked from the curly top of his head and simultaneously beneath.

I am not comfortable around naked people. Matter of fact, I prefer “lights off romance.” If I were a nudist, I would constantly be apologizing, making excuses and informing everyone that I planned on starting a weight loss regimen next week.

Not this fellow. He turned on the spigot, climbed up on the boards and proceeded to suds himself repeatedly.

I did not know where to look, so I stared down at my shoes. When he asked me what I was doing, I explained that I was an amateur cobbler and that I was considering taking the steps to repair my own footwear.

At this point he climbed down from the boards, fully foamy, and walked over to eyeball my shoes, to see if he might be able to assist in the cobbling

I made eye contact–not because someone in a seminar told me to, but more or less for emotional survival. He made some suggestions which I cannot remember, turned the other cheek, climbed back up on the boards and resumed his bubbly process.

I finally had enough and excused myself, explaining that I needed to go set up for the concert–and I instinctively grabbed my gym bag on the way out, knowing that unlike Douglas MacArthur, I had no intention of returning.

After the program that evening, I headed towards our beat-up van, climbed into the back, put together a make-shift pillow and stretched out to go to sleep. My partners in music were concerned, and asked me why I wasn’t going back to my accommodations.

I thought about telling them about my encounter with “the farmer’s son,” but instead replied, “I discovered I really DO have hay fever and don’t get along well with barn animals–especially when they talk.”

 

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Sittin’ in the Van on a Rainy Day… July 10, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1939)

The plan was to hold a meeting in the sunshine, maybe even sitting in a park. Minnesota provided us rain instead.

A change of venue. Honestly, that can often be enough to destroy any momentum.

But my traveling companion of seventeen years and I decided to enjoy the rain pelting against our big, black van and hold our conversation in the interior of our cab. You understand, it only worked because both people agreed.

We live in a day and age when equality is defined as “one person quietly dominating as another one obviously submits.” This would explain our lack of progress. For candidly, in order for human beings to be successful, there needs to be agreement.

It’s actually pure mathematics. For our morning session to gain purpose, both of us had to overlook the rain, ignore our disappointment if such existed, and add our energy.

Yes, often rather than having a decrease of enthusiasm due to a change in plans, life actually requires a boost in energy to compensate for any disappointment.

I was so happy that my friend added her energy. She didn’t act like she cared one little bit if we were sitting in a rain-soaked van or were perched in a park. After all, what made the difference was being able to discuss really neat ideas.

To further complement the notion of growth, after we add our energy, we need to subtract our ego. There will be plenty of ego to go around during the final celebration of victory. To insert ego into the process of planning–or even performing–the task is not only futile, it is the death knell of achieving your purpose.

After you’ve added your energy and subtracted your ego, it is mandatory that you multiply your talent. If what you were going to achieve was able to be accomplished by only using the ability you’ve taken out of mothballs, it would have already happened. You will need to stretch the rubber band of your talent to handle the new horizons.

This expansion is a process of rejecting fear, embracing love and keeping a great sense of humor.

After you’ve multiplied that talent, you should divide your treasure. And what IS our treasure? Three things:

• Our time
• Our passion
• And our money.

Make sure you’ve got enough for yourself. Poor people are terrible emissaries for generosity. Make sure you procure enough for your mission, so you can keep yourself in the game. And then set aside some for your brothers and sisters, who have not yet discovered the true beauty of multiplying their talents.

Sitting in the van in Minnesota on a rainy day with my friend, I felt a sense of satisfaction.

Because we added our energy, subtracted our ego, multiplied our talent … and made plans to divide our treasure.

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Radiate … June 28, 2013

(1927)

The evening was nearly done.

Matter of fact, the last piece of equipment was being carefully placed in the back of my van as a gentleman walked up to my window. He was a soft-spoken individual, and related a story of having just seen a news report on ABC about a prison which had allowed its less volatile inmates to hold a “daddy and daughter dance,” so that those who were incarcerated could have a special evening with their children.

I listened to him carefully. After all, I ask people at my engagements to tune an ear my way–it only seems right to grant them the same opportunity. The story was intriguing–but what touched me were the tears that came to his eyes as he related the details of how these prisoners were moved and changed by the experience of being granted such a rare blessing of being with their daughters in what one might call a “normal” environment.

I, too, was greatly interested in the facts of the story. But what grabbed my soul was how this tale being told by the friend in front of me had so deeply touched his heart. There were tears in his eyes and his emotion radiated up to me. It was an absolutely beautiful moment.

I realized that this is something missing from our society. Too often we encase ourselves in stone to protect our entity from foreign invasion, and in doing so, we lose the power of being surrounded by the joys, sorrows, victories and defeats of others. Isolated, we are trapped in our own thoughts, and therefore, we stagnate.

Human beings were meant to radiate–one to another. We were intended to infect one another with goodness, grace, hope, love and the best parts of faith.

This gentleman and I had never been acquainted before, but after this excursion into one another’s feelings, we could probably trust each other for life.

As he walked away, I thought to myself, That’s what I want. I want to radiate. I want to allow myself to be radiated. And once the radiation has flooded my body and soul, I think I’ll be much better prepared … to handle all the fall-out.

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 Jonathots, Jr.!

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Acts-I-Dent… May 22, 2013

(1,889)

Amazing grace is only amazing if it helps us find a way to stop being so stupid.

Even though I am very grateful for grace, mercy and forgiveness, somewhere along the line, I would like to grow up, mature a little bit and not always be standing in the bread line of neediness. If you don’t agree with this, I understand. There are many religious AND non-religious people who find submission to inadequacy to be appealing–or maybe even the definition of humble. I happen to think that you don’t get the CHANCE to be humble until you do something great.

So you see, on Monday when I backed my van into a truck, denting my door (see above picture), I did not feel humbled by the experience because I did NOT achieve anything great.

What I would like to describe is the process my brain unleashed following this little piece of idiocy. When I felt the thump of making contact with the pick-up truck, I thought:

1. “Oh, crap.” Truthfully, it wasn’t crap–but for the sake of discussion, let us keep that word. It is my normal reaction to difficulty. I have not become a supernatural being who welcomes adversity because it builds patience and character.

2. “Oh, no.” The realization came very quickly: I was entering a world of insurance companies, phone numbers, complaints–and fussiness. I hate those places. Sometimes I pursue extra work just to make sure I don’t have to do THAT work. So realizing I was now in an unwelcome realm, I moved to:

3. “Oh–who or what  can I blame?” Let’s be honest–no one wants to look like a loser, so even when we do loser things, we want to make sure that everybody thinks we are winners doing loser activities. To achieve that requires some back-pedaling and manipulation of the story. But since I don’t like to blam eother people for my mistakes, I had a fourth notion, which was:

4. “Oh. Where can I run?” I don’t have very good legs at this point, so escaping the scene of the accident was unlikely (unless I was being trailed by a herd of turtle-constables). So in that split second, when all these conflicting thoughts were jockeying for attention, the first viable inclination surfaced:

5. “Oh. I’m not gonna lie.” I was not going to tell the guy I hit that it was his fault because he hit my rear end. I’ was not going to tell my friends in the van that it was their fault because they distracted me. The cleanliness of that notion quickly took me to:

6. “Oh, It’s my fault.” Okay, okay–no one likes to say it. But the sooner we get to that freeway of understanding, the faster we can exit from our calamity. It was my fault. I can give you excuses. I can tell you I was tired. I can tell you I should have already been in my room instead of out shopping. I might even get your sympathy. But my series of explanations would never get your respect.

It was my fault. And I have the dent to prove it.

That wonderful admission to myself brought about another reassuring ointment to my mind and heart:

7. “Oh–I’ll survive.” I always have. There’s no reason to think this is the one that’ll take me down. Not until I am unconscious, flying away to eternity, will I run across a problem which is beyond my power–based upon my willingness to adjust.

I was not proud of my stupidity. I don’t ask God’s grace to cover it. God’s pretty busy in Oklahoma right now. What I want is to tell you is that the Acts that I put forth Dented my van.

It was me. I am better because I survived the seven-step process–which only lasted two or three seconds in my mind–to finally land in the reality that I will “never be left nor forsaken.

Stop being afraid of the truth and give yourself a chance … to be made free.

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