Please and Thank You

Sometimes the lessons we learn early in life are the lessons that stay with us throughout our life. It is those early lessons we don't understand as children that become foundational building blocks for the adults we become.
All of us were told as children to remember to say "please" when we asked for something and "thank-you" when we received it. But as adults "please" and "thank-you" fall by the wayside as we try to keep up with the demands of life and making a living. Many of us forget the little niceties of life and undervalue how small things make a big difference. In some ways our lack of remembrance is disrespectful to life.

As we look at life through a telescope we see how small we are compared to what's out there in the universe. A telescope allows us to look up or look out at what is outside of ourselves and our world. We see shooting stars, planets, comets and celestial bodies in the heavens. Looking at life through a microscope we can see how large we are compared to what's inside us and our internal universe. A microscope shows us the complexity within and the universe of microscopic life and the seemingly invisible universal just under our surface.

When we remember to say "please" and "thank-you" we honor both the macro-universe and our micro-universe. Please is an acknowledgement that we need something from someone or something outside of ourselves. Saying thank you shows gratitude from inside of us for the help or assistance we received. They are small things, often unimportant on the surface but crucial to our spirit. Foundations are seldom scene and often nothing we would normally pay attention to. But foundations are critical the higher up we go.

Today remember to say "please" and "thank-you."

Playing the Game of Life

Playing the Game of Life

October 20, 2011

Life is not fair; get used to it.
Bill Gates

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
Oscar Wilde

If you watch the news for any period of time lately you have seen a story on the “Occupy Wall Street” protestors. It can be hard to discern what the protestors are demanding or asking for but the gist of what I’ve gathered is that, the protestors are upset about the perceived “unfairness” of Wall Street wealth. I have a young daughter who is ever vigilant about who is getting something that she doesn’t get. Her favorite phrase is “Hey, that’s not fair!” Some of you had a parent, coach, grandparent or elder say the following words to you at some point while you were growing up, “LIFE’S NOT FAIR.” And the honest truth is the protestors, my daughter, my parents and your elder were all correct! Life is not fair.

The cruel, sad, hard, unadulterated truth is this thing we call life is not fair. Life does not always produce equity, equal-ness or deserved outcomes. You can define fair anyway you want, but when you pour over the data, read the biographies, look at the statistics and open your cognitive gates you must reach the same conclusion. Good things happen to bad people, and even more disturbing than that, bad things happen to good people. “Hey that’s not fair!”  For the holy rollers and holy readers the word of God even demonstrates this inherent unfairness. I’ll use the story of Job as an example. In the bible Job was said to be a righteous man. Job was wealthy, blessed and wise. Job honored God, yet he was still allowed to suffer. “Hey, that’s not fair!” So my conclusion is something that maybe sobering to you but regardless of your doctrine, dogma, beliefs and believed-lies if you live long enough you too will conclude that LIFE IS NOT FAIR.

So once we come to grips with this fact, how do we muster the strength to still try to achieve, live, thrive, and succeed in life? My answer is we can find the strength by learning to play the game.

There is a board game called LIFE. Some of you may have played the game when you were a kid. Now I realize that the concept of “board games” may be foreign to those who were raised and weaned on technology and video games. The following is a description of the game of LIFE from the Toys R Us website:

“The Hasbro Game of Life will take you through all the crazy turns and spins of real life, and you are behind the wheel! Decide whether you want to go to college or start a career. Or maybe the family life better suits your style. Take whichever path you’d like to watch your fortune grow or diminish, depending on the choices you make along the way. Earn LIFE tiles and money by doing good deeds as you travel through the game. Included are the game board, six plastic pawns, three mountains, one bridge and more. Use all of these accessories to make your way to the end of the game, and hope that the choices you’ve made along the way have allowed you to retire with more wealth than anyone else!”

LIFE much like the game, is not totally fair. There are no guarantees and there are no “lock-stock” assurances. You can make all the right decisions and still end up bankrupt, divorced, childless or have your life cut short by disease. You can make too many of the wrong choices and still catch enough breaks that you end up living well and for a long time.

In this game called LIFE you are the pawn, there are decisions to make, and surprises in store for you. There will be mountains to climb, bridges to cross, setbacks and more. There will be disappointments, disasters and distractions. In the game of LIFE you will see other players catch breaks they don’t deserve, and others who can’t get around the board with any grace, luck, fortune or success. The game involves luck, which is unearned and unfair. The game involves risk, which is scary and unnerving. The game of LIFE requires the willingness to play and an ability to rebound from the pitfalls, the patience to wait your turn and the desire to roll the dice when handed to you.

Life is not fair. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike (NIV, Matthew 5:45) so before you decide to play, bring an umbrella.

Divine Disasters & Holy Hell

Wednesday Wisdom

by Jay Jay Speaks

October 12, 2011

Divine Disasters & Holy Hell

Many of you reading this will find this thought provoking and will do nothing. Other who read this will find enough merit to consider action. While yet a smaller group will allow these seeds to grow in their lives to the point where the harvest will be action. I’m not sure which group you fall into, but I want to say thank you for reading.

It isn’t unusual in today’s times to find family, friends and acquaintances going through hard or difficult times. I’m sure everyone reading this column can think of someone going through an ordeal concerning their personal relationships, their career (work), their money or health. We can place a name and face next to each of those categories, including our own. For those of you who are people of faith, you have probably prayed about these concerns and asked the Lord, to guide you, strengthen you, and save you. For many you may have also decided to fast for a period of time seeking divine guidance from above to rescue you from your current turmoil. I’m not casting any stones at those seeking HOLY HELP or DIVINE DIRECTION as to the solution to their problems but I do want to pose this curious question.

WHAT IF IT IS GOD WHO HAS ALLOWED OR CREATED YOUR TURMOIL? What if it is God who has caused the personal disaster you are experiencing? If it is God, what do you do now?

If you consider that the “all powerful,” “all knowing,” “all seeing,” “all present” God many people profess to serve is allowing your marriage to be turned upside down, is allowing your workplace to become hostile and spiritually violent, is allowing your financial investments to tank, is allowing your personal relationships (romantic or platonic) to sour, one must ask the question…”WHY?”

Why would God allow me to suffer? Why would God allow my family to begin to fall apart? Why would God jeopardize my job? Why would God allow my enemies to prevail against me? Why? Why? Why?

Anyone raised in the church or who knows “church folks” has heard the phrase, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” I’m not 100% sure what that means in every circumstance but here is something I have learned through my own recent hardships. People want to be comfortable. Most people if not 99% of the people out there want to reach a level of comfort where they can “seem” to be working and growing but “actually” have it on autopilot. Being comfortable usually means you stop moving forward. Being comfortable usually means you’re not as hungry as you were when you were uncomfortable. Being comfortable means it’s easy and likely that you are going to relax.

If you are not moving forward, not as hungry, taking it easy and relaxed God probably has something else, someone else, somewhere else he wants you to be. And being “ALL” that he is he knows that unless he troubles your waters and destroys the easy life you were setting up that YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE!

This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want you to have a nice life but let’s be honest (here is where you’re going to get upset) there are many people who:

·         Married the wrong person

·         Had a child with the wrong person

·         Have gotten in the wrong job

·         Settled for the first opportunity that came along

·         Have allowed insecurity to make their decisions

·         Have let selfishness influence their life

·         Have decided that they want what/who they want

·         Have allowed other’s expectations to dictate their behavior their entire lives

·         Or perhaps are SIMPLY AFRAID TO LIVE WITH COURAGE

If you consider the possibility that your storm may be divinely created, then you are praying to the person who created your trouble. You are asking that person to stop the storm, but why would he stop what he created without achieving his desired effect? What if God doesn’t want your storm to stop until, you stop. Until you stop doing it your way, stop living your way, stop living safely while professing Philippians 4:13, stop watching life pass you by.

Evaluate your trouble and ask yourself, if you have become lazy and soft. If those adjectives don’t suit you then ask yourself if you have become “COMFORTABLE.” Comfort isn’t a sin, but perhaps being comfortable with the wrong person, at the wrong job, in the wrong situation, in the wrong relationship at the wrong level, is the sin that he is trying to save you from.

Consider that today don’t wait until Monday, do it today (Wednesday) on HUMP DAY!

One Heart Many Pieces

One Heart Many Pieces

Whitney Houston, probably my favorite singer of all time, bellowed out the song Where Do Broken Hearts Go, back in the 1988, her voice melted the over the track as she sang the chorus..

“Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms
Of a love that's waiting there
And if somebody loves you
Won't they always love you
I look in your eyes
And I know that you still care, for me”

So my question is, where do broken hearts go? What do you do when you find yourself with a broken heart?

Heart break is defined by Dictionary.com as – (n.) great sorrow, grief or anguish. Webster’s dictionary defines heart break as – (n.) crushing sorrow or grief. Regardless to the exacting definition, when your heart is broken it extracts an enumerable toll on your physical, emotional and spiritual being.

We find it easy perhaps to offer remedy to the heartbroken spouse who discovers his wife has been unfaithful. We often find a quick formula to cheer up the girlfriend who finds out her “two timing” boyfriend was spreading his wild oats all over everyone else’s field. We take them out of their house/apartment, make them socialize with other people, insist they turn off the sad “heart break” music and blow out the candles. When we visit them we open the curtains to let the rays of natural light come in, all in the belief that a little sunlight, some good food and a new relationship is all they need to get back on the road to relationship bliss. We may even encourage them to “shake it off” and “get back in the game.” Sometimes our sage advice includes saying, “There are other fish in the sea” or “She/he wasn’t a good fit for you anyway.” And actually this advice and formula often works.

But what do we say to the broken hearted person who has been disappointed by God?

GASP!!!!!!!!!!

Did he really write that? Ummm yeah he did?

What do you say to the person who feels as though they have been disappointed, let down, struck with grief and anguish to the point of soul-felt-pain, by God?

What witty words, pithy phrases or sanctifying scriptures can be offered to the person who’s soul has been crushed, who’s spirit has been silenced, who’s faith has evaporated because she/he believe so wholly (not holy) that God would provide what he said he would, only to feel that they have been humiliated and abandoned by the Lord?

Where does this broken heart go? Can this heart find its way home? Can this heart go back to the open arms of a love that’s waiting for them?

When heart break moves beyond just finding another lover, how should we respond? When a broken heart comes from too much belief and not enough results, what do you say to that person? If you feel you’ve done all you can do, and believed more than you ever thought possible to believe, only to see the same circumstances standing boldly in front of you what do you do?

Where do broken hearts go when?

      It can’t find another job and it desperately needs a new one

      It can’t find the faith of a mustard seed to believe that anything good is ever going to happen

      It doesn’t understand why it’s allowed to sustain devastating blow, after blow, with no rest

      It only had one more round of fight in it, only to realize that there are more opponents lined up to fight

      It sees too much month at the end of the money

      It realizes that the parents who birth it, don’t care enough about it to help pay for a future that it has studied and fought for since beginning elementary school

      It realizes that the father it longed for its entire life is never going to come home/come back or come around

      It realizes that life is just hard and bad things often happen to good people

      It sits and watches the evil doers and selfish people get promoted and rewarded while the goodly and Godly get over looked

      It moves away from home on faith to follow a dream only to find out, some dreams are not deferred but denied

      It concludes that the prayers, tithe, sacrifices, vulnerability and principles it has sowed have yielded nothing

Where do broken hearts go? Can they find their way home? 

I don’t know yet. Perhaps I’ll let you know if I find out.

That’s what I think.

Now what’s your reaction?