Friday, December 30, 2011

7 “continuing resolutions” for 2012



Pic by Jannoon 028

Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits. ~ Anonymous

2011 is coming to an end, and I will NOT be making any new resolutions. Instead, I have to work on the old ones I have yet to master. I figure if politicians can have ‘continuing resolutions,’ so can I.  

 I’m reading a book by Psychologist, Irvin D Yalom; Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death.

In the book, Yalom discusses Schopenhauer’s concept of “eternal return;” in which he poses this question: Suppose a person could live their entire life again and again, ad infinitum; would they live it differently? Can the person say they have lived a full life? Etc…

So this New Year, I’m posing this question to my own life and asking; ‘If I was to live 2011 all over again, would I change anything? Or was it a year well lived?

Over the past several years, I have been working on certain ‘life themes’ to better myself and to live a full life. Below, I have prioritized 7 of them that I continue to master. I’m bringing these 7 ‘continuing resolutions’ into the New Year and they are:

Live graciously: I will be gracious to people who irritate me; especially the drivers who cut me off or don’t let me merge, on my morning commute. And for the rude and discourteous people I come into contact with.  I’ll make it a point not let the person’s actions poison my mood; I’ll let it go, smile and move on.

Connect with curiosity: I will make connections with old friends and make new acquaintances. I will foster curiosity and learn something new about them; even people I have known along time. This year I will make connections with people, not because I have to but because I want to.  In this way, our time together will be meaningful and one of genuine care and curiosity.  

Lighten up: I will decrease listening to news and talk radio and spend time living in the moment. I’ll listen to music or sports or comedy shows. I will spend more time with people who don’t take life so seriously, and are not angry ideologues. I will not be hanging out with folks who are occupying Wall Street or any other street for that matter.   

Listen more and talk less: I will listen more and talk less. I will do this by practicing ‘empathic listening.’ I will begin with my boys, and understand their hopes and dreams, without imposing my dreams on them. I will empathically listen to people who have a different point of view, and see life through their eyes.

Laugh more: We all need to chill out and laugh more; I will find ways to laugh more this year; whether through movies, TV shows or just sharing laughter with others.

Attend church and actually learn: I will listen to my pastor’s sermons and actually learn from him, instead of critiquing what he says. I will turn off my ‘pastor/teacher’ default button, and become an active learner. I will enjoy the fellowship of my faith community and get to know my brothers and sisters in church.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The "Pirateway" Review of the year 2011 A.D.

JANUARY 2011
In the News:
1/8/11: Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in an assassination attempt, she survived, however six were killed, including a Federal Judge.

Prominent Deaths:
1/23/11: Jack LaLanne (96); Fitness guru and TV workout pioneer.

Top Facebook post:
 1/19/11: Hang on I.E.!!! 60 to 80 mph wind gusts tonight! (The inland empire, in Southern California is known for the powerful Santa Ana winds during this time of the year)  

FEBRUARY 2011
In the News:
2/16/11: Borders Files for Bankruptcy: The 40-year-old retail chain that helped usher in the age of the book superstore files for bankruptcy protection. (A few months after going bankrupt Borders closed all stores.)

Prominent Deaths:
2/28/11: Jane Russell; Hollywood pin-up of 1940s and 50s. Co-star of Marilyn Monroe in "Gentleman Prefer Blondes."

Top Facebook post:
 2/6/11: it’s going to be a Green Bay Day!!! GO PACKERS (A Superbowl prediction that I was right for a change! Packers beat Steelers 31-25)

MARCH 2011
 In the News:
3/12/11: National Football League Shuts Down: NFL owners and players cannot agree to terms of a new collective bargaining agreement before the current one expires.

Prominent Deaths:
3/23/11: Movie legend Elizabeth Taylor passed away at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for six weeks, of congestive heart failure. She was 79.

Top Facebook post:
 3/11/11: Keeping Japan in my prayers and thoughts today… (An 8.9 earthquake shook Japan’s coast and caused radiation leaks from nuclear reactors at the Daiichi facility, Fukushima.)

APRIL 2011
In the News:
4/29/11: Three Billion Watch Prince William Marry Kate Middleton: A million people line the streets, half a million gather in front of Buckingham Palace, and two billion tune in via television or computer to see Kate Middleton marry Prince William.

Prominent Deaths:
4/27/11: David Wilkerson (79), American Christian evangelist and author of The Cross and the Switchblade, was killed in a car accident.

Top Facebook post: 
4/9/11: Generosity frees' me up from the insatiable need to demand "my way..."

MAY 2011
 In the News:
5/1/11: Osama bin Laden Is Killed in Pakistan: U.S. troops and CIA operatives shoot and kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a city of 500,000 people that houses a military base and a military academy outside Islamabad, Pakistan.

5/22/11: The southwest Missouri city of Joplin is just starting to recover from a massive tornado that tore through the city Sunday, cutting a path nearly six miles long and killing at least 89 people.

.Prominent Deaths:
 5/27/11: Jeff Conway: The embattled reality show star fell into a coma and passed away. He had become more famous in recent years for his battle with drugs and alcohol on "Celebrity Rehab" than for his role Kanicky in Grease.

Top Facebook post: 
5/21/11: spending a nice, sunny "End of the World" Day @ Panera (Unfortunate prognosticator Harold Camping predicted that the world would come to an end on May 21, 2011...Ooops!) 

JUNE 2011
 In the News:
6/12/11: Dallas Beats Miami for NBA Title: The Dallas Mavericks win the first NBA championship in franchise history, beating the Miami Heat 105–95 in Game 6.

6/16/11: Weiner Resigns Over Online Scandal: U.S. representative Anthony D. Weiner resigns from office due to a scandal over his online misbehavior, which involved sending explicit photos of himself to several women via Facebook and Twitter.

Prominent Deaths:
6/24/11: Peter Falk, an actor best known for his role in "Columbo," died at the age of 83.

6/18/11: Clarence Clemons AKA the Big Man, Clemeons was the saxophonist in the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen's backup band. He died of complications from a stroke.

6/3/11: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan pathologist who put assisted suicide on the world's medical ethics stage died at the Beaumont Hospital. He was 83.

Top Facebook post:

6/18/11: R.I.P. the Big Man! (Commenting on the sad news of Clarence Clemons death: see above)

JULY 2011
In the News:

7/5/11: Casey Anthony Found Not Guilty of Murder: After almost six weeks of testimony, a jury of five men and seven women finds Casey Anthony not guilty of killing her daughter, Caylee Marie who was last seen with her mother on June 16, 2008.

Prominent Deaths:
7/23/11: Amy Winehouse; U.K. pop star was found dead Saturday in her London home. The cause of death has not been released, but she was only 27 years old.

7/8/11: Betty Ford died at the age of 93.

Top Facebook post:
 7/9/11: Had a chance to stop by for one more walk down memory lane...(Bethany Bible College, where I received my ministry degree, officially came to a close on August 11, 2011) 

AUGUST 2011
In the News:
 Nothing newsworthy in August! 

Prominent Deaths :
8/3/11: Bubba Smith 10-year NFL veteran and "Police Academy" franchise star Bubba Smith died at age 66 in his Los Angeles home.

Top Facebook post:
8/19/11: "Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness"~Rollo May (A quote from one of my favorite existential authors)

SEPTEMBER 2011
In the News:
Same ol' same ol...just the usual normal stuff.

Prominent Deaths:
9/10/11: Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson, best known to modern audiences as Uncle Ben from the "Spider-Man" films, died just one day after his 88th birthday.

Top Facebook post:
 9/10/11: "9-10-11" (Once in a life time to have these numbers line up in this sequence)

OCTOBER 2011
In the News:
10/20/11: Qaddafi Is Captured and Killed: Libya's interim government announces that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has been killed by rebel troops in Surt, his hometown.

10/28/11: Cardinals Beat Rangers to Win World Series: The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers 6–2 in game seven to win the World Series.

Prominent Deaths:
10/5/11: Steve Jobs (56), American computer entrepreneur and inventor, co-founder of Apple Inc.

10/8/11: Al Davis (82), American football coach and team owner

10/16/11: Indy Car driver Dan Wheldon died after suffering severe injuries in a 15-car wreck at the Las Vegas Indy 300. He was 33 years old.

Top Facebook post: 
10/5/11: "I want to put a ding in the universe." ~Steve Jobs...I believe he did...R.I.P. (Steve Jobs passed away, considered a Thomas Edison in our generation) 


NOVEMBER 2011
In the News:
11/5/11: Sex Abuse Scandal Shakes Up Penn State (Nov. 5): Former Penn State defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, is arrested on charges of 40 counts of sexual abuse over a 15-year period.

11/18/11: Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno is fired (Nov. 18) by the school's Board of Trustees because he failed to notify the police in 2002 after he was informed of a suspected assault by Sandusky.:

Prominent Deaths:
11/8/11: Bill Keane; Creator of the long running newspaper comic "Family Circus", passed at the age of 89.

11/8/11: Popular rapper Heavy D (real name: Dwight Arrington Myers) was rushed to an LA hospital after collapsing at his Beverly Hills home.

11/7/11: Former Heavyweight Champion, ‘Smokin' Joe Frazier, succumbed to liver cancer at the age of 67

11/5/11: Emmy Award winning 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney, most famous for his A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney segment, died of complications due to a recent surgery.

Top Facebook post:
11/20/11: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

DECEMBER 2011
In the News:
12/25/11: Man dressed as Santa Clause fatally shoots 6 family members, then kills himself.  GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP)

Prominent Deaths :
12/18/11: Kim Jong-Il was pronounced dead. Known in North Korea as "Dear Leader" and other places as a tyrant, Jong-Il served as the countries leader under the communist regime.

12/18/11: Vaclav Havel; Playwright and President of both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, died in his home at the age of 75.

12/15/11: Christopher Hitchens; Prolific writer and politico, passed away at the age of 62 from complications due to cancer.

12/7/11: Harry Morgan, most known for his turn as Colonel Sherman T. Potter in the smash TV show "M*A*S*H" when he replaced McLean Stevenson in the fourth season.

Top Facebook post:
12/11/11: “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer








Sunday, December 18, 2011

The invisible person becomes visible



 Picture: Danilo Rizzuti



I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible; understand, simply because people refuse to see me. ~ Ralph Ellison


A teenager once told me “the worst thing that can happen to me is to be ignored.” This must feel like the death penalty to ones existence; you walk around in a crowd, ‘invisible’ to others. 

One day, I saw a lady pushing a teenage girl in a wheelchair. As I glanced at the young girl, our eyes caught, she smiled; and then I smiled. In that moment she became visible to me, and I became visible to her.

It is a fundamental human desire for all of us to show others, we exist. The lady, whom I later found out, was the teen’s aunt, said to me; “thank you for making her smile.”

The aunt’s comment made me wonder, how many days pass by, where this girl feels invisible. Just one hello, a smile and an empathic gesture can bring visibility to the other person.

On the outside it appears the ‘invisible’ person may seem to blend in with the crowd, but inside, she feels the crushing blow of loneliness. I cannot not hear it, but the invisible person cries out; “I matter.”

 ‘Invisibility’ are the blinders I wear, when I refuse to see the living, breathing person in the wheel chair, or behind the restaurant counter, or who may look different than me.

But when I give that person ‘visibility;’ I give myself visibility also. Our shared humanity becomes visible. No longer is this person invisible, I see them as an individual, unique in their own way and the blinders that once made this person invisible recede away.

Living ‘visibly’ means I am consciously aware of you, as a person. And even though we may have differences, we are visible to one another. 

Monday, December 12, 2011

Politics: the illusion of grandiosity



Inflated “self-importance” and politics have always gone hand in hand. But with today’s unrelenting news cycle, it’s become ‘narcissism on steroids.’ 

We have elevated “politics” to some inordinate self-importance that it no longer connects with the common man or woman; we have created a political “illusion of grandiosity.”

Today’s’ political climate resembles a pseudo-religion, where the state has replaced the church and the politician has replaced the priest; there’s a ‘sacred feel’ towards politics.  

But peel away the layers of this illusion, and you begin to see how ordinary and insignificant the life of a politician really is. This illusion is kept alive by the two powerful forces of power and greed.   

Most people go into politics with good intentions. But then power and greed take hold, and the original compassion that may have been present in the beginning, has eroded; the grand “illusion of grandiosity” becomes the political norm.

The politician is ‘converted’ to this illusion, and becomes evangelical in preaching a political gospel, that promotes “salvation by government programs.”

The converted politician is ‘dogmatic’ in his convictions, and begins to believe in his own inordinate significance. 

The illusion creates a sanitized bubble, in which the politician lives. He becomes immune to the “ordinariness” of common life.

The politician no longer has anything in common with the “citizen.” A gap widens between the citizen and the political class.  

Under this illusion of grandiosity, a dependency class is nurtured, whereby people begin to put their trust in the hands of the “political elite.”

People begin to believe that the politician is the benevolent provider for “their freedom and happiness.”

But illusions collapse, and all man-made institutions come to an end; the Tower of Babble is a reminder of what happens when men are under an illusion of grandiosity.

In the classic movie, “the Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy’s dog Toto, pulled the curtain and exposed the small man who controlled the machine, that created the illusion of the mighty “Oz.”

The ‘illusion of grandiosity’ is a lot like the mythical ‘Oz’ in the movie. But when we pull back the curtain of this political illusion, we expose the everyday, ordinary man or woman who wears the title of politician.  

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Finding faith, hope and love in a traffic jam

While driving south on the 215 freeway, in Riverside California, I became engulfed in a sea of cars.

And in that ocean of plastic and metal, I had an epiphany. I experienced the beautiful “ordinariness” of human life, while sitting in a traffic-jam.

Behind the wheel of each car, were people from all walks of life; a priest and a pipe contractor; a politician and a corporate executive; all ethnic, political and social classes were represented that day on the 215.

Sitting there, in that traffic jam, the tension between the ‘unique’ and the ‘ordinary’ became apparent. On one side of this tension, is a rich tapestry of people with unique qualities, personalities and opinions about life.

On the other side of this tension, we share a human condition of ‘boundaries’ and limitations like the traffic jam, that remind us of our “ordinariness.”

It seems today, we exaggerate the “unique" part of a person’s identity, thereby creating an illusion of “specialness,” which is really, an escape from the ordinary; it’s difficult to live in the tension.

We become rather smug, when we forget how ordinary and contingent life is for all of us mortals. The ‘traffic jam’ is a boundary that keeps us tethered to the real world.

Accepting our own “ordinariness," we become free to enjoy the differences in others. At the same time, we are not so uptight about maintaining our 'image, because we have accepted ourselves. 

“All things fade” the existentialists tell us. The traffic jam is one of those human boundaries that inform us we can’t go any further, no matter our 'specialness;' we must all go through the traffic jam.

Human boundaries like the traffic jam, and death; being the ultimate boundary, inform us that there is an end. Therefore, things like beauty, talent, politics and other human achievements will one day dissolve into the ordinary and then fade away.

St. Paul reminds us believers that one day, all things will come to an end, but “three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.”

Jesus transcends all human boundaries, and calls us to live a life of these transcendent qualities; faith, hope and love, with love being the eternal “boundary-less” quality.  

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

The Easter Question


Jesus either rose from the dead or he didn't. Jesus was, who he claimed to be, or he wasn't. His death and resurrection was staged or it was the real thing. "Easter" forces us to contemplate these propositions.
He was either the "Criss Angel" of his time, or the "Christ" of eternity.  Jesus put this proposition to his followers one day by asking them a simple question-a question that is still being "asked” today.

Jesus’ question and the disciple’s subsequent answer are found in Matthew 16:13-17. “While in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples, 'who do people say that the Son of Man is?' Because they were speaking for others, they easily shouted out the answers: 'Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' Then Jesus asked, 'But who do you say that I am?'
Jesus’ question clarifies our belief. It get’s right to the point. It opens a window to the soul. And it’s within the soul that we either believe or we don't.
But Peter exposed his soul and revealed the answer to Jesus' personal query: "Simon Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven'"

On Easter, this question is asked again and there are only two responses: Either Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is the Christ, the Son of the living God or He didn't and was a fraud.
Take a moment this Easter season and contemplate what your answer would be to Jesus’ question, who do you say that I am?
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