1 Thing You Can Achieve

Be Known for Your Love

I’m a writer.

I guess you could say I’m known for that.

I’m a dad.

I have some sons to prove this.

I sing.

All over America, nine times around.

If I were to die this evening, I would certainly be known for these three things.

There are others as well.

Two days ago, waking up in the middle of the night, I pulled out my I-Pad and there was a little YouTube available of three people. They were quietly and simply singing the old campfire chorus, “We Are One in the Spirit.”

It was so beautiful and the surroundings so ideal for emotion that I cried—especially when it came to the line:

“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

I paused.

I asked myself an intriguing question:

Am I known for my love?

I have done loving things.

I have loved full tilt without apology.

But am I known for my love?

Too many times I hear people say someone is an asshole—”but he’s a good musician.”

“She’s hard to get along with but that’s because she’s a genius.”

But in that quiet moment two nights ago, in my room in the dark, I realized that if I’m not known for my love, everything else will pass away.

People only remember how much you love them personally. You can be entertaining, inspiring, uplifting or even beneficial to them—but that won’t last.

What remains for all of us is the sensation of being loved.

Am I known for my love?

The answer came back: No.

It doesn’t mean I’m not loving.

But it does mean that I’ve advertised, propagated and promoted other aspects of myself more than my love.

It was a solemn realization—one I will not soon forget.

So for every book I write, I want to live out ten love stories.

For every time I am called “Dad,” I want the love that is attached to that title to wiggle its way to the top.

And for every song I sing, may the feeling at the conclusion be the enduring proclamation:

“I love you.”

 

1 Thing Every Atheist Should Know

You Won’t

By that I mean you won’t know anything about what you contend until it’s too late to have any benefit from it.

Avoiding the superstition of religion is brilliant.

But eliminating the mercy, grace and equality of a spirited life is foolish.

If human beings are capable through their own motivation to duplicate the kindness they feel when they are energized by something eternal, then agnosticism and atheism might have a point.

But the history of those who are vacuous of a godhead has proven to be a situation in which many have just become vacuous of anything in their heads.

• Jaded
• Frustrated
• Bitter
• Angry
• Malicious
• And overly careful

These attributes have often been the byproduct for those who have clung to the idea that there’s no “one” to cling to.

Let me tell you—to the average ravenous believer, I might appear to be agnostic.

I do not buy into the ritual.

I do not scream and yell about maintaining the purity of a holy book.

I do not attend an organized religious service.

I do not believe in the Old Testament

Truthfully, I’m picky and choosy about the New Testament.

And I’m open to allowing other inspirational ideas to pepper my intelligence gravy.

But candidly, I’m not about to lose out on the chance to either go around on this life again or to be divinely inspired and creatively energized through all time by a presence or power by stubbornly proclaiming it non-existent.

As an atheist, you won’t know anything because you are positive—just like the religious fanatics you so despise—that you must take a hard line on the absence of God, just as they are on stumping for every jot and tittle.

Why don’t you play the odds?

It’s rather unlikely that human beings are merely a part of the animal kingdom.

There is no creature that comes close to our intellect.

Whether you believe it is God, Jesus, aliens or mystical gases in the Fourteenth Universe, you must admit that it would be lovely to keep the beauty of life going into another dimension of existence.

So when asked, “Do you believe in God?” my response is simple:

“I must–because he, she or it certainly seems to believe in me.”

 

The B. S. M. G. Report

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Refusing to ever rest

From seeking what is best

BAD

You are not worthy of great opportunity unless you’ve counted the cost and decided you know how to lose.

Someone will lose.

Unlike what your third-grade teacher told you, not all of us are winners.

I saw something bad yesterday. Three or four grown men—college football coaches—turned into whiny, bitchy babies because their teams lost, and the reporters asked them questions they did not want to answer.

I’m sorry, gentlemen. You don’t get to do that. The minute you start taking millions of dollars in salary for running a football team, you lose all privilege of being snotty. If you can’t give a civil answer, cancel the press conference. Please, do not teach the younger generation that it’s perfectly acceptable to be so disappointed that you pour your poison out on everyone around you.

Play to win. Lose and survive.

That’s how it works.

SAD

Great full.

I thought it was a little sad this year that Thanksgiving was not nearly as punctuated with true gratitude as I have seen in the past. Maybe it was just me—perhaps I was at the wrong places. Could I have watched the bogus television shows?

Yet the message I heard was, “It is great that we are full.”

Anybody can smile when their belly is satisfied, their house is warm and they’re doing good on their job.

Maybe it’s true that none of us learn how to be grateful until one or more of our wishes is absent and we still have to press on.

Yes, I think that’s it.

Gratitude is always better expressed by the souls who offer their appreciation, and those around them wonder how they can be so happy with so little.

MAD

I heard it again.

Somebody told me they have “faith in their doctor.”

I know why they said this. Medicine portrays itself as a religion. Everything is white, pristine and there are all sorts of gadgets, tons of explanations, and enough pomp and circumstance to march the Pope into the Vatican thirty times.

I don’t know why we can’t just deal with the truth:

Doctors and nurses are fabulous, and also ignorant.

• We’re still doing more cutting than curing.
• We still prescribe more medication than offer solutions.
• We are still wrong much too often.

For instance, medicine has killed tens of thousands of people through opiate addiction and the misapplication of painkillers.

Everyone knows there are more infections in a hospital than there are in your kid’s sandbox.

I’m not asking the medical field to be diminished, nor am I criticizing them.

I am demanding some needful humility.

In the 1790’s, when doctors were treating President George Washington for pneumonia and they bled him with leeches, they were certainly convinced they were giving him expert treatment, and probably discussed among themselves how this particular breed of leech was ground-breaking.

All the chatter did not change the matter. And the matter was, their treatment was counterproductive. They had to learn their way out of it.

I think it’s important to go to the doctor and get checked over as best you can—as long as you realize that part of what you’ll experience is somewhat experimental, making you a temporary guinea pig.

So oink-oink. And let us encourage these people of science to grow instead of crow.

GLAD

I believe I saw it on a YouTube.

It was a little boy, about nine. So maybe not so little, but still young.

He was asked a question in his classroom by a teacher.

“What do you want your life to be?”

They filmed a couple of students talking about money, happiness, marriage, cars and such.

Then they came to this young man. It was as if he was suddenly possessed by an angel from heaven. He explained, “Life doesn’t show up fixed. You gotta put it together.”

I laughed and broke out in tears all at the same time.

Do any of us really believe that?

Even though the boy’s words were eternal, can we realize how powerful this idea truly is?

It makes me glad there is one small member of the human race out there who has it right. Maybe he’ll infect us. Here’s what we need to learn:

Inhale life. Exhale good cheer.

Then repeat the process.

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.