What a gas!

Republican or Democrat. Conservative or Liberal. I'm ready for people to say what they mean and mean what they say. Or just shut up.

Creamy, dry roasted, peanut-flavored purpose

I was hungry.
But just because the apartment had a refrigerator, didn't mean it had food.
My brother's place was a typical bachelor pad (this was premarriage). And visiting him periodically, I knew how to locate a few items, like dishes (in the sink), electronic devises (in every room), and everything else (in the closet). What I couldn't find was food.
He was out. I was there. And leaving wasn't an option. I had to stick it out for the evening. To survive this experience, I would need sustenance.
After hiring a detective, using a basset hound, and performing a Google search for "food in brother's apartment", I found a jar of Peter Pan - complete with a halo and glory light.
With a spoon, a clean one, and a glass of water, I leaned against the counter, intent on savoring my spoils. I dug in, dug the goop out, and shoved it in my mouth.
Peanut butter is one of those things you have to savor. Even if you don't like it, you have to. It doesn't give you much choice. It's so dry, so sticky, you must have a battle plan during consumption and a contingency in cases of contact with the roof of your mouth.
I had my water. I thought I was prepared. I was so wrong.
This wasn't peanut butter. This couldn't be peanut butter. This tasted like fat, like peanut flavored fat. It was like Crisco, but with a nutty hint.
What had happened to this Peter Pan? What was wrong with it?
I'm a health conscious individual.
Okay, I'm crazed with it.
I like authenticity in EVERYTHING - people, currency, and food. If I meet someone, I expect them to be themselves. If I'm given money, I expect it not to be counterfeit. If I'm eating peanut butter, I expect peanuts ground into a creamy or chunky spread. I expect peanuts and salt. And I expect nothing else.
In my house, peanut butter was peanut butter. It was the real deal. Take it to the bank. But this...this...inferior substitute was nasty. I decided to starve instead. There was nothing edible about it. In fact, I could no longer even call it peanut butter. From that point on, I called it fat with a peanut mixed in.
It's astounding, really, how easily we accept substitutions. Instead of friends, we have business associates. Instead of truth, we have politics. Instead of health, we have a pill. Instead of anything real, anything pure, we fill in the void with inferior replicas - synthetic, particleboard, genetically altered, fork-tongued doubles. And instead of seriously finding fulfillment, purpose, real worth in our lives, we settle for a raise at work, a bigger house, a younger spouse, a fancier title, a little fame, a lot of fortune.
In the end, all we really get is a nut flavored spread, instead of real peanut butter.
We could be living out lives with purpose in Christ, we could be exercising our talents, we could be amazed at how our dreams are small compared to God's dreams for us.
We could be really living.
We could.
Years ago, when I was a kid, I loved Peter Pan. It tasted good, went down easy, and satisfied my hunger. I had no idea something else was out there, something more real, more nutritious, more filling, more delicious, was just outside my box.
I'm not a kid anymore. I've experienced a little life, at least enough to recognize REAL people, REAL purpose, and REAL peanut butter. Anything else, including my once loved Peter Pan, is nothing but a cheap imitation.

The life and times of Gerdie

Gerdie is never late. She wakes with the sun, she sleeps with the moon. She always arrives on time.

Her birth name is Gertrude, a family heirloom that never quite fit. It was like a pair of shoes handed down three generations. By the time Gerdie got it, the sole was gone.

That's how she's always felt about her name. In fact, it was how she felt about everything, like she arrived a few generations too late. Born 60 years earlier, deep in the era of Dinah Shore and T.S. Eliot, her life would have been different, if not, at least, her CD collection.
Instead, she is encapsulated in the age of media overload and American Idol winners.

You could say that is Gerdie's obsession with punctuality. And you might be right. Then again, no one - least of all Gerdie - knows why she is always on time.

I met her on a Tuesday. She was humming a tune that sounded very much like "A Tree in the Meadow," a 1948 hit by Margaret Whiting. It was so faint, like a lark on a wind drifting from one gust to another. I wondered later if it had only been a harmonic ringing in my ears.

We didn't say anything. She was arriving at work. I was doing the same. She nodded and I nodded back. It was a greeting I've grown accustomed to over the weeks, like she is saying, "I already know everything you are going to say. Let's just get our work done."

I didn't take it as a slant. In fact, it felt more like a sisterhood. We were the only members of this society. Just her. Just me. Just our unspoken agreement to remain silent.

Without words, I've learned to read her movements, her moods, her tweets of frustration and her silent sighs in the afternoon. She has a sway to her movements like the offbeat rhythm of a jazz melody. Yet the job always gets done.

I'm a big fan of Gerdie. Or maybe it's her work ethic. I've faithfully greeted her every morning, nodding our understand as she soars to her task and I walk to mine. Piece by measured piece, she snaps together the puzzle of her work, the reason for her being. It's an instinctual craving, I think. I feel it, too.

Gerdie doesn't understand her purpose in life. At least not all of it. Yet she labors without a hitch, not knowing where it will lead, only that movement won't happen without action.

I admire Gerdie. She's a little small for her age and wears too much black. But she's building her future one small twig at a time. In the end, it could be a nest, or it could be a castle.

****AUTHOR NOTE****
In honor of my little black bird who greets me each day. Thanks for the working companionship - you outside the window, me always beyond. I don't know your real name or your real history, but if we ever find a way to cross the communication barrier, this is what I imagined you'd tell me.
Just so you know, you are building a nest that will eventually destroy my porch roof. And I just refuse to stop you.
So build on Gerdie.

That's my KING

Me on air

Results Radio Show asked me recently to speak on the show about failure. When they asked I said, "Failure? Uh, yeah. I think I can talk about that."





The interview starts about three minutes into the podcast.

Here's the link:
http://resultsradioshow.com/2008/01/27/the-pursuit-of-purpose/

Excuse all my "um"s.

Uh...okay. Thanks!

my favorite Martian

(Illustration by Brendon C. Thompson, www.brendonthompson.com)

People keep asking where I've been lately.
Well...that's a funny story.

It was a Tuesday, if I recall. Though it felt like a Thursday, like Thursdays nearly always feel. I was driving to a friend’s house near Tulsa University, intent on my destination though somewhat distracted by a need to scan every radio station.
I turned into the first housing addition after the second light on the left side past the last entry, looking for house number 7810.
Then, as if rebelling against my repetitive station scanning, all the electronics in my vehicle went dead. A moment of complete and utter silence followed. Nothing sounded, not the breeze, not the trees, not a hive of bees.
Time had stopped.
I can't explain to you how I knew. I just knew. I didn't check my watch or listen for my internal clock or feel my aging stop. Time didn't exist because time no longer mattered.
Night turned white. A bright light overpowered even the deepest crevice in my vehicle, illuminating the interior of a Jeep I'd known for eight years, yet seemed like a stranger. I stared at my fingernails, seeking a site of comfort, of familiarity. Instead, they were glowing from the intense scrutiny of the ghastly strobe.
This couldn't be. This shouldn't be. But it was.

Yep, you guessed it. I was abducted by aliens.

That didn’t take that long though.

They took me to dinner at Charlestons. Me and my motley crew took an entire circular booth near the back.
I ordered the chicken with steamed vegetables, a mix of crunchy peas and too much broccoli.
They refused any earthly meat, opting for a side salad with a croissant and the chef’s soup special.
Then we went to Starbucks, had a decaf coffee, no crème, no sugar. And they left.

In all honesty, it was the best date I’ve ever had.

They dropped me off at my vehicle and scooted on back to their galaxy. They said it was a pretty long journey, being a few thousand light years away and all, and they still needed to run by the store to buy some cheetos and aluminum tubes of paint.
Reaching that awkward moment in the evening when it's time to say goodbye, but you don't want to create any miscommunication, I reached out my right hand for a shake. They opted to flip me the Vulcan sign while chanting, "Nannu, nannu."

Like a streak of lightning there as fast as it's gone, my little friends had vanished from the sky.

I got back into my jeep, determined to visit my friends. I was heading east, or so I thought, when I must have hit a rip in the space-time continuum. Instantly I was transported to Tulsa, Oklahoma, but back in the year 10,015 BC.
The earth was dusty and red with nothing but rocks and hills. I attempted to stop and figure out where I'd made a wrong turn when my tire collided with a nasty Neanderthal bolder.

Wouldn't you know it. I had a flat.

I can change a flat. But when you are a single female in a world some thousands of years before your time, it's a little frightening getting out of the car. Besides, other dimension or not, I couldn't use my cell phone because I was out of minutes.

It was up to me. I gathered a little courage, and climbed out, breathing air without a scent. There wasn't a whiff of anything anywhere. It was pure. I took a few deep breaths, sending that oxygen straight to my brain. It either reinforced my courage or gave me a zing of an air high because I felt just groovy.

In the process of unhitching my spare, two cavemen came along, lifting their dragging knuckles to motion that they'd like to help. I considered the options of allowing their chivalry or being dragged by my hair and graciously accepted.
Without a pause or scratch of their thickened head, they used the lug nut wrench and tire iron to finish the job and had me back on the road in no time. Again, it was that awkward moment of goodbyes. I tried the Vulcan greeting, feeling it a better option than shaking hands. They grunted something. We seemed to understand each other.

I decided I’d just reverse myself back into the present time. If I could drive forward into the past, I could drive back into the future. With a little directional guidance from my Cro-Magnon friends, I paralleled my Jeep through the dimensional rip and back to Tulsa, realizing I’d only lost about 17 seconds. I'd always been a good parallel parker.

It was then I decided to just head on home. I had oil smudges on my clothes from the tire and a few of my space friends during dinner had splashed soup on my shirt. I really wasn't presentable.

So I headed for the residential exit but got confused in all those cul-de-sacs and dead ends. I’ve been lost for six weeks.

A life like Leonard

Everyday I passed the sign.
It was posted in the hallway, thumb-tacked to the wall between the kid-sized bathrooms and adult-sized front desk. It read, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Since I was seven, since this was second grade, I believed it.
I didn’t, however, particularly enjoy apples unless cooked in butter, brown sugar, and topped with crust.
These days I’ve switched the apple with a cucumber – for the alkaline benefits. And I’ve never been a big fan of cucumbers either.
I prefer their more tangy, edgy, half-brother - the pickle.

Eating responsibly is an inherently adult trait. No more hands in the cookie jar. No more chocolate before bed. No more snacking on play-doe. No more being seven.
I’m not a child anymore. In fact, this year I turned…never mind.
My concerns have rotated from hoping mom packed something other than peanut butter and jelly for lunch to getting into better shape, getting another paycheck, fretting over Presidential elections, fretting over cancer predispositions, worrying about crime, worrying about my future, wondering why I'm really here.

It's what we call being an adult. Childhood is over. Now it's time to grow up and freak out about everything.
It seems being an adult isn’t all that much fun.

The other night I watched the movie, “Awakenings.” It’s an older movie, made before Robin Williams put on pantyhose as “Mrs. Doubtfire” and back when Robert De Niro still looked boyish.
Based on a true story, it’s about Leonard (De Niro), a man in a coma for 30 years who awakens after being administered an experimental drug by a shy doctor (Williams).
I’d never seen it before. If you haven’t either, skip this next part.
By the end of the movie, the drug begins wearing off, the paralysis and body ticks come back, and eventually one day Leonard stops moving again, back in his unresponsive world.

However brief it was, Leonard lived. Whatever time he had, he spent it. However unfair life was, he fought for it.
He loved life. Even though he had so little of it.
Leonard had a choice. He could use those few weeks of consciousness by mourning his lost childhood, distraught over his future, and overwhelmed by the damage inflicted on his life. He could have worried and fretted and feared away every moment given.
Or he could use that time to simply enjoy….well…everything, whatever he experienced, whomever he met, whatever the weather, no matter the circumstance.
He chose the latter.
Life isn't about wars between apples and cookie jars or about playtime verses bed time anymore. It isn't quite so simple.
But then again, maybe in our constant race to get somewhere, to be somebody, to accomplish something, to fix everything, to organize whatever, we've made it a tad too complicated. Why can't it, ever so often, just be about living?
He may not have gotten much to live, but I think Leonard knew a lot about life.