Climate Change: Time to Fish or Cut Bait

Believe we're killing the planet by driving and eating and breathing? Time to commit to your convictions and stop doing all three.



Nine minutes. I never watch a video that long. I started this thinking I'd get a taste. Two minutes in I couldn't stop watching. Four minutes in I was addicted. Seven minutes in I was just wildly captive. Nine minutes done I wanted to watch it all over again and take notes.

And, just fyi, I don't want anyone to stop breathing or eating. Some people I wish would stop driving but that's a different topic.

What I hope is that we take a second look at a theory that, with each passing day, continues to look more and more porous. And is, in fact, total bunk.

What's so great about being "good" anyway?

God never said He'd speak to me through a beer ad. But then, He never said he wouldn't either. God doesn't limit Himself because - and this is self-explanatory - He's God.

So there it was. An 18-wheeler with two guys in the cab being dogged by a stretched trailer reminding everyone that beer exists. Brought to you by your buzzed friends at "Miller Lite". They were stopped at a busy intersection on a cross street with their message and their grins in full view.

Men in the beer business must be the happiest men on the planet.

It said, "Tastes Great. Less Filling." Not exactly a "thou shalt not" moment and the driver certainly didn't bring to mind Charleton Heston. But it struck me, even though beer tastes like liquid shredded wheat and I'd prefer a divine message in an ad about Syrah.

The night before I'd been reading John MacArthur's book, Hard to Believe. Just started it. And guess what the first chapter is entitled. You got it: Tastes Great. Less Filling.

It's basically - and this is where I surmise the pants off of it - about liking Jesus only when He's likable, i.e. when He's all love and blessings and promises and fuzzy slippers and such. But the Jesus who asks us to take up our cross, to love Him more than our parents or children, to follow Him even into death...well...He's not as much fun.

That's what I'd been thinking about during my drive to a client yesterday morning. In fact, that's exactly what I was thinking about when the grinning guys stopped at the intersection in front of me.

"Tastes Great. Less filling"? What the smack? God, you trying to tell me something?

I wrestled and warred and tangled with this thought all day. Was that just a truck carrying beer to the next fraternity party or was that aimed directly at me? Am I God's fair-weather friend? Do I only call God "good" when I get "good" things? Could that have simply been a coincidence? Do beer ads usually affect me?

No, not usually.

I want things. Lots of things. Things for myself. Things for others. Things that aren't shallow. Things that are. Things that would greatly enhance my life and happiness. Things that would greatly enhance my greed. Things that I would share. Things I would not.

And here is what I realized. I could get them all. Every last one. I could write a notebook full of my wants and requests and make God a deal: Do these things for me and I'll call you "good" and "trustworthy" and "loving". But tomorrow, sadly, I could fill another notebook. And the deal would still not be fulfilled because I can never be fulfilled.

Never.

I'll always want. I'll always need. These aren't little things. They deal with health and family and life and necessities. They mean life for me, life for others. These aren't small requests or easy to brush off and let go. They mean EVERYTHING to me. Absolutely everything.

Almost.

What they can't mean is how I define God. They simply can't. Jesus is bigger than that. He's bigger than me and my wants and my wishes and my needs and even my life and the lives of others. He's more than that. He can't be placed inside a lamp waiting for me to rub it.

I don't always feel this way. Sometimes my requests are so dire, they are so precious, I wonder how I would react if Jesus told me "no". Sadly, I truly wonder. And though it makes me disappointed in myself, it doesn't in the least take me by surprise.

I'm nothing, you see. Not anything of anything. I'm not glorious in my own right, or giving or great or even good. I'm evil and corrupt and, trust me, you wouldn't like me. Not as me. Not when that's all I am.

If I showed up at your door, you'd use a stun gun. That's me, curly-hair cruelty and all. I'm not the least likable or honorable or strong. I'm flawed, and not even in the charming "oh, she's adorably flawed" flawed.

I'm quite unimpressive.

A friend asked me once, "Why do I make such stupid decisions? You don't make those kinds of decisions. I want to be more like you."

Uh, no you don't. You don't want to be anything like me. Not the real me. I'd run from her, too, if I could. But she follows me everywhere so instead of running from her, I'm learning to overcome her. You should see our arm wrestling matches. No matter who wins, I'm always left with a sore shoulder.

God IS good. Not because He did anything good for me today. Not because He's got something good up His sleeve for me tomorrow. He's good because that's who He is. That's all He is. That's all He does.

If I see it differently, then I'm wrong. My view is skewed or finite or hasty. And what I really need is to humbly examine what I define as "good" and then invite God to a beer summit.

Then I'd ask him to change the beer into wine.



(One of my favorite musicals. Met the cast. Seen it multiple times. Just glittery with goodness. Best part comes at the last three minutes. I give you, 'The Rock & The Rabbi')

***ORANGE CONES***

Time to rearrange the furniture. Bear with me. Things might look a bit kooky for the next few hours. Take your dramamine and hold on.

UPDATE:

Done. I think.

What say you?
The new look: Love it? Hate it? Have better things to do than form an opinion one way or another? Feel pressured to now create an opinion you previously didn't have? Wish I'd stop reading your mail? Now freaked out thinking I'm literally outside at your mailbox reading your mail?

You should go check. I might be out there.

Want to know your future? Crunch the numbers.

Think a national average of nearly 10% unemployment being the new norm won't affect you if you still have a job?

Think again.

Stop talking. You know you want to.

Nothing. I had nothing. The cursor kept blinking, as cursors always do, and still I had nothing to say. Not a word.

For a writer, that's a problem. For a writer, that's THE problem. Words feed you. Words give you purpose and destiny and a reason to take the next breath and open your eyes to the next sunrise and put down that glass before you open the next bottle. Words put meat on your bones and burn fat off them.

Words sustain and enliven you.

Until there are none.

That's the way it went for weeks. No words. I'd sit down to write and find myself wishing I'd just shut up. All the many words out there, spoken and written and gestured indiscreetly with a finger or two. The world was simply too congested with words for me to add another.

So I didn't. I shut up.

And glorious silence wrapped around my shoulders and snuggled in.

When you're not talking or typing or blogging or fidgeting with words like an origami-molded foul, time slows to the rhythm of your brain.

In short, you think.

You think a lot. I do this anyway, to no real substantive benefit. Nonetheless, I do. But when it's accompanied by silence, when words are simply no longer alive, the thinking turns a corner and you find an undiscovered path of spotted park benches and shade trees and the occasional poison ivy vine.

You think until the thought flatlines. And what I discovered is my great and boundless desire to simply shut up.

Not always. Obviously not today. But frequently. Often. And I found a great desire for others to follow suit.

In our un-Rockwellian neighborhoods of social media and mass communication, we literally construct our walls and ceilings with words. Then we wallpaper those walls with words. We clothe ourselves with words. We lace our shoes with them. When we sit down to dinner, we take out our steak knife and cut them open until bloody juices flow out.

We inhale and exhale words. We make them oxygen and carbon dioxide. Then we roll them into a cigarette and smoke a pack of them. We use them and use them and use them until no one is listening. Not even ourselves.

So I wonder, just a little wondering not a big one, if we don't all harbor a secret desire to shut up. Every now and then. To not find our world within the conversations of Facebook updates and Twitter feeds, to turn off the talking heads and the Oprah reruns, to simply sit on that park bench next to that poison ivy vine and feel the silence caress our face.

To find the time to think and mull and ponder, like we haven't done in ages. To find ourselves using fewer words with greater gusto.

Instead of twelve, we use six.
Instead of six, we use three.
Instead of three.
One.

And that one, that singular rocket-propelled word, is enough to charm people back into listening.

I'm going to stop talking now.

Steven Crowder: Want some cheese with that whine

Being grateful? How archaic. It shouldn't be expected. I mean, I can't afford cable. C-A-B-L-E. The Constitution clearly states owning cable is a right guaranteed to every citizen by the government.

I want my MTV!




Actually, what I really want is some new towels. And lower property taxes. One would make the other possible.

Until then, I'll sadly do without towels manufactured after 1980 and thankfully do without MTV that wasn't good even in 1980. For everything else I'm able to do despite my high property taxes, like powering my house and filling my refrigerator, I'm grateful.

A genius or a gypsy?

How about both.

Here's another of my brother's illustration creations. Yes, that's him. Sort of. At least I recognize his right eye. The rest is bursting from his imagination - a dewy place with cushy corners and clown music.