What we crave

In clearing the snow last week, another neighbor was backing their car out of their driveway. As their Jeep Cherokee moved toward the street, they got stuck. He spun the tires and the vehicle inched down the driveway. It then stopped and front and rear wheels spun.

His wife got out of the car saying that they needed to shovel. She got one while he rocked the car back and forth. He told me that he couldn’t get out because he was in gym shorts. I looked confused.

His wife had shoveled a channel through the snowplow ridge, but nowhere near what was needed to fit the Jeep through. He told her to get out of the way as he drove the car into the garage. I saw backup lights and then the car rocketed out of the garage and hit the mound going about 15 miles an hour. Snow exploded everywhere and the Jeep broke free.

His wife put the shovel in the garage and ran to the Jeep. She jumped in and I asked where they were going. She waved and shouted “McDonalds. See ya!”

The meaning of sacrifice

This week we had two snow storms that left over two feet of snow on the ground. Saturday night was the first one. I came out on Sunday morning and started blowing out my drive with my snow blower.

While clearing a path, I looked at our neighbor’s house. The husband and wife were shoveling and I could see small puffs of snow from the shovels. They were making slow progress.

I left what I was doing and maneuvered my snow blower over to the neighbor’s drive. The snow blower bit into the crusty ridge left by the snowplow. Within 10 minutes the drive was cleared. I shut the snow blower down. The husband came over to me and gave me a big hug. He didn’t know how he was going to get it all done in time for getting to church.

It meant so much to him, and it was only a little effort for me. I simply needed to stop thinking about myself and focus on someone else for a change. The power of the act was overwhelming for my neighbor. I can be appreciative for that, but it didn’t cost me that much. Think of how much more could have been done, if I had been willing to sacrifice more.

Truth always wins

Watching the trial for the possession of Anna Nicole's body I am struck by the combination of sadness and hilarity it has been met with. In many ways she has become a national joke.

Most of us are suspicious of her motives for marrying J Howard Marshall, not that it matters how we feel about their marriage. He was a frequent patron at a strip club where Anna Nicole Smith worked and paid to have her breasts enlarged. They were married when he was 89 and she was 26. It was reported that she didn't visit JHM when his health worsened and was not around when he died on Aug. 4, 1995

We snickered when in court, she cried and talked about how much she loved J Howard Marshall. We believed it was for the money. But I suppose that marrying a stripper, he probably had other motives as well. Maybe they both got what they wanted from the marriage. Now not only is her money being fought over, but her body as well. J Howard Marshall died and left his money to be fought over 12 years ago. Anna Nicole Smith is now dead and has left her money to be fought over as well. Neither of them took it with them

Truth will always win out. Wherever she is now, I'm sure her statements of love for JHM are being revealed for what they truly are. Neither of them could take any money with them, so if there is attraction and relationship there between JHM and ANS, it’s not because of money, fame or big breasts. It’s much more real than that.

The joys of stardom

Britney shaved her head. Finally a woman who is willing to go all the way! We were aware that she shaved her armpits and her legs. It has been revealed recently that she shaves her pubic region, so why not complete the picture and go hairless. It only stands to reason. You go girl. But wait! I still see eyebrows! What are you waiting for!

Why did she do it? Who knows. The gossip columns are insane with speculation. One theory is that she is having a breakdown.

Personally I don't know why anyone would want to be a star. As a celebrity, going out in public is insane. As a culture we are hungry to know as much as we can know and see about our stars. And where there is desire or obsession, there is money to be made. A star can't go out in public without every detail of their observable self being noticed. And if Britney is having a breakdown, she can't even break down privately.

Fame is overrated. Shaving my head would only bring a shocked expression from some, amusement from others, and only passing looks from the masses. Obscurity really doesn't look that bad from my vantage point.

Unconditional love

I desire to be loved unconditionally. I believe that I love unconditionally. But sadly I have come to understand that I am incapable of that kind of love. I presume that I love unconditionally, but when things don’t go my way, I look for strings to pull. It actually takes mental work for me to let go of my needs and focus on the needs of another. It takes effort to put down the strings.

Unconditional love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. Fear warns me of danger so I can CONTROL the outcome and protect myself. I jump quickly from sacrifice to the need to control when another’s behavior goes in a way that was not predicted. Put another way, I look for the strings, hoping to manage the situation that allows me a favorable outcome. And as soon as I do, my love is revealed to have been conditional.

I remember years ago when I was dealing with a family. They appeared to have made so much progress and I was pleased. I was glad that the family was experiencing more peace in the relationship. Several months into this new attitude it all fell apart one night and they fell back into old patterns.

When I left the house, I was angry! I was furious with them. As I processed it on the ride home, I realized that I was angry not because the family was still causing pain to its members, but because I FEARED I was going to look ineffective to my superiors. I realized in a flash of insight, that I cared about how I looked, far more that I cared about how they functioned. And I had claimed to love them.

There are three things that will endure…faith, hope and love…and the greatest of these (as well as the one I will be the least effective at pulling off) is love.

A soldier's funeral

I got two e-mails from two different people called "A soldier's funeral" In the story an aunt (I find it curious that it wasn't the soldier's mother) described the funeral of her nephew, a soldier who was killed in Iraq. She talked about how all the way to the grave site, the street was lined with people carrying American flags. She talked about how amazing it all was.

We all want to know that we mattered here. And everyone but the soldier realized that, through this act. There is a powerful force that runs though us that desperately desires meaning. The whole town showed up to embody that spirit. I am so impressed with the heroism of our soldiers fighting around the world and representing our country.

The sad reality is that shortly after the funeral, the process of forgetting starts, and so it should. Life does go on. Ask anyone who has lost a loved one. There are a few who will carry the ache of loss with them to the end of their life, but the world resumes its pace, and soon it is just a name on a gravestone and maybe a picture at the local high school. Go to a local graveyard, pick a headstone and attempt to imagine the vibrant person who was once there.

Death is death, and it is inevitable. But I do think that we get caught up in the nobility of it, that we stop seeing it for what it is. It is the end of a life, an end of a path of hopes and dreams. Past that portal is a mystery and we may come to understand that we are more alive there than we were here. But here and now, it is the termination of something precious.

It is a powerful story. Does it entice the young to seek valor and glory on the battlefield? I don't know. And I don't know why the e-mail makes me feel uneasy. It just does.

When defensive becomes offensive

Growing up and into my early adult life I heard about the insidious nature of the secular humanists, those godless culture destroyers. We heard about how this movement had put an end to prayer in schools and moved evolution into the schools. Other hot buttons included abortion and homosexuality. The goals of churches were to train good soldiers in the fight for faith. If the godless won, we would lose all we held to be most sacred.

The evangelicals are now embedded in the government, there is no doubt. Ironically, while they moved in under the idea that they wanted to protect their own values, what has surfaced is intolerance as well.

I suspect that if “creation” or “intelligent design” was allowed to be taught in the schools, most of the evangelical politicians would leave no room for evolution. What started as a defensive or protective movement into politics at the beginning now looks pretty militant and offensive.

Tolerance and acceptance are very hard for us to maintain. When it gets mixed in with religion that espouses the “one true way”, and has political power backing it up, it becomes even more complicated.