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RAGBRAI IOWA
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RAGBRAI IOWA

RAGBRAI

GOOD TUESDAY MORNING ALL

Having a nice day in IOWA as our city in Ankeny and Des Moines is preparing for RAGBRAI tomorrow as 70,000 bicycle enthusiasts ride through Ankeny on the way to Des Moines. Then they ride EAST to East Iowa as the 500 mile ride peddles through the 50th year through towns and people riding to the Mississsipi. It is quite an achievement. Every year it picks a different set of towns and area and it is quite an adventure.  KNOW THAT OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH ALL THE RIDERS AND FRIENDS AND FAMILY. It is quite the achievement. I am not a participant but I do respect their journey and the effort it has taken to accomplish..

ME, Mack and Jake

“Who you know is not as important as how you treat the people whom you meet”. dw

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Accomplished

As I was sitting down the other evening, and thinking about just what “Life Is” some 70 years into “Life Is”. Some things came to my attention. I found myself thinking about just what have I accomplished so far in my life?

I thought about my debt to asset ratio after all these years. I have seen many of the retirement preparations shows on the TV and how I have made it to this point. I am in the Social Security part of my life. I still work and probably will for the rest of of my life. The question rambled throughout my head just what have I accomplished?

I explain it to people that I am independently poor.

That word ACCOMPLISHED seemed to jump out at me like I had just entered into a boxing ring. Just what have I accomplished in my life? I have a long list of what I have wanted to accomplish. What I wanted in elementary school, or high school, or college. How about that first job, or the last one.

In the world of religion and GOD and JESUS and BUDDHA, and many more different religious groups and beliefs is UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY.

WHAT HAVE I ACCOMPLISHED?

How many of us ask ourselves what have we accomplished so far in this Life? People I have talked to in my life have asked me, religiously, in different ways, what have I accomplished in my life? So I asked GOD for a clarification.

“Just what, GOD, have I ACCOMPLISHED in 70+ years so far?”

As though it was written by an ancient prophet from somewhere, GOD wrote it like this:

“Life is not about all the things you may have wanted to do. Life is about all of the things that you have done. The people that you have met. The opportunities that you have had a chance to help of or be a part of something important or just fun.

Life is not about what I may feel that I have missed in life. Life is about the journey that I and you have been on as individuals. That is what started on the day I was born and won’t end until I have the opportunity to start over again, and again, and again. That has been called eternal life. It is a thief sharing a cross with JESUS that recognized that JESUS should not have been punished for being good, and Jesus’s response was “Today you will be with me in Paradise”. For a thief, It was recognizing that it was not for accomplishing the great things that he may have wanted, It was now about what he had ACCOMPLISHED in the journey. “Today I will be with Him in Paradise”.

The journey starts every day. It is all you have done and enjoyed and what has become your journey. It is about where you may have crossed the path with someone you will forever remember. The smile someone else brought to you face. The bottle of water that came over to you when you were working to help someone next door. It was watching a baseball game of the kids playing next door and the smiles on their faces. It was opening that first box of girl scout cookies.

It is not about me, it is whatever you have done and what it has become. It has become your life, your friends, your challenges. Your decisions. It is your story and your history for you. You have accomplished more than you recognize. You have worked on LIFE since day one. You can sit in your easy chair and smile at the things that have come your way and made you smile, or changed a disaster and met a friend you will only meet once and forever remember.

Unorthodox Christianity is rooted in an opportunity to take a tremendous journey through Life in what has been and is your world. Just what have you accomplished? You are on your way there, everyday.

SHARING THE WEALTH
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SHARING THE WEALTH

Sharing the Wealth

from: 7-24-2005

No Amount of Money
No amount of fame,
No amount of power
Can keep the grim reaper at bay.

Nothing that you do here
Can protect you from his hand
The secret lies in living
To help the most you can..

For those whose gifts are many
Much more is required
To help the ones less fortunate
And those whose lives are tired.

The truest gifts present themselves
When you stretch forth your wealth
To touch the ones that got you there
And recognize that in yourself.

The gifts of GOD weren’t handed out
In fits of preference,
But given to the ones GOD thought
Would take best care of them.

The poor man found the gift of love
And family that stood fast..
The rich man found the people
That loved him for his wealth..

Which gift contains more value
And which message do you heed,
The gift of love so freely shared
Or the poverty of greed…..

dw

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NOT NOW

NOT NOW

There are times when one sits back and reviews their life so far. Things they have done and things they have not. Every day we are invited to change someone’s life, or enhance it, or ruin it. The opportunities are presented to all of us, every day in the simplest of things.

A driver in a car that needs access to your lane to make a turn that others refused to allow them to access.
A door to be opened out of politeness.
A welcome, or have a nice day in passing.

One of the most difficult things to hear is what follows a simple question,“ How’s your day going? or hear in El Paso, ¿cómo estás?

“Not well. I was at the doctor today, or My dog or cat passed away, my parent, son or daughter is in surgery… or as the other day “Pray for us…” from an acquaintance.

When this answer occurs there seems to be a pause in our momentum and a sign flashes in your head and says “NOT NOW…I have this, this, and that to do just now..I did not expect your request as the answer to a simple question.”

“Pray for us.” It happens often enough. And the “Pray for us” opened that door again. I thought about all the times I had been asked to Pray for me, or for us, or for someone or something”

I like to think that I said “Certainly, you will be in my prayers”. Sometimes the response may be “All I can offer is prayer, is it ok If I say a prayer for you?”

And I got to thinking of all those things I have searched for in my life. Love, honor, respect, recognition, reward…and then “Pray for us”.

Of all of them the most rewarding and meaningful has been “Pray for us.” And I had to think about why? I believe the greatest compliment I have ever been given is “Pray for Us”. I had a friend who often said during many a retreat, “You may be the only Jesus that many people will ever see..”

Outside of this forum, the Unorthodox Christianity site and blogs are known to me, but I carry no advertising about me for it. I’m just a guy, and yet there are those who believe by my demeanor that I may just be someone who had that unique connection to offer up a prayer of value. It has probably happened to many of you who read this. What a gift to be recognized for a way of living. Now don’t get me wrong. I am human, I can get upset and I can be angry. But within that humanity that I was born with GOD has cultivated a spirit via the example of others that is not afraid to offer help. Even as simple a thing as a prayer, can be recognized by those to whom you have been sent or whose path has crossed yours for but a moment. Often times to remind me that impact need not be grandiose, it can be as simple as a prayer.

NOW doesn’t require a lot of time, just a focus for a moment to help someone who has enough faith in you to ask you for a moment of your time. A greater compliment can not be offered to “just a guy.”

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SUCCESS

Success

We are a success oriented culture. Success, it seems, is measured in two ways:

  • Name Recognition: My name shows up on search engines, in magazines, newspaper articles, commentaries (positively) or in all settings where people discuss successful people.
  • Financial: My name shows up in all settings where people discuss financially successful people.

I was thinking about this the other day. In relationship to my unorthodoxy, there is a name that jumps out in the world of name recognition above all others. It reflects a life lived prior to news, papers, tv, radio, magazines and commentaries. It is a name that precedes our culture and crosses almost all cultural barriers. Agreed to or not most religions, nations, groups, atheists, politicians, leaders, philosophers, terrorists or whatever know and have at least heard this name. This person was so successful at achieving name recognition that his position at the time of his living certainly stood out above all others and was the center of most general discussion.

If name recognition is your measure of success do not follow his lead. He lived but 33 years, but most of the world recognizes his name, whether to debate his existence, his character, his position and even his reality. He owned nothing, lived off the goodwill of others. He did not hold public office, come from a wealthy family, Generaled a vast army, controlled any one person other than himself. He stood by a simple message. Love One Another. The concept was so radical it led directly to his demise at 33 years of age, in an age of no mass media, on a wooden cross in a rural town in a small country in the middle east.

If you desire to take his place at the top of the name recognition ladder, prepare yourself for an ordeal.

His name was Jesus.