famous

ON GOD’S PORCH
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ON GOD’S PORCH

ON GOD’S PORCH

So let me see, SUNDAY, October 2. I am still here and I have the sharing of Two Guardian Angels keeping track of me. This morning’s walk included about 7-8 squirrels as we walked to the park and back. It is interesting to have squirrels stop what they are doing and then up the tree to the closest limb and just stop and stare at us as I stop by to say hello.

Each one, different trees, as we made our way to the park and back.

“You’re doing well, have a great day, take care of yourself”.

They were making my day as I moved about.

We are not alone in this Iowa universe. The Owls chat, the squirrels chat, the other dogs say Hi, and I smile and say hi. They record my progress one to another, to another to another. We are all entities that watch the sunrise and sunset. They feel the air get cooler and the wind blows more, or less. A human walks by and says “What a beautiful day”. The journey of more than people.

As you go about the day see all the creatures that GOD has provided you, as well as the people of a world that GOD enjoys. OUR CARES AND PRAYERS GO OUT FOR ALL OF YOU, AND ALL OF THEM.

THERE IS ALWAYS A GIFT ON GOD’S PORCH

ME, Mack and Jake

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.

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Happy New Year

Over my many years I have become accustomed to change. Change can be good, change can be bad. 2017 will no doubt be a year of change. This is a new way of saying adapt. A new president, a new year. A new philosophy that will soon present itself, and may succeed or fail based on one’s interpretation about what success or failure will look like from millions of different perspectives. With that I offer Happy New Year.
We reserve Happy New Year for January 1. I would suggest try to create it as a daily mantra. I look forward to tomorrow because it means I have made it through today.

I am off to a meeting to set my work goals for this new year. Again, make happy new year a daily mantra. My goal is to make it to tomorrow. I will keep the dream centered, and keep the goal in mind of a personal saying, “You can have everything you want in life, if you are willing to let that one thing be the only thing that you have.” What truly do you want, if it comes at the expense of everything else. I remember a song, “The cat’s in the cradle……..”
More than any other year, this may be the one year where any day to day choice will determine more of your future than ever before. And when the choice creates a question….look forward to the New Year as a 365 day opportunity from this day forward once again.

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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.