our backyard campfire
09/25/2003 04:31 a.m.

one night last year, after dark, I was headed out the door and my wife asked, "where are you going?"  I think I'll build a campfire in the back yard."  I think she thought it was a little screwwy but that is the type behaviour she's come to expect.  After a bit she joined me with a couple of beers and some popcorn.  It was a cool night with twinkling stars.  We sat there, in love, and talked some and just sat there some and said nothing.

and then another night I did the same thing and she did the same thing and we sat there , in love.

and then another night our son joined us and we all sat there and talked and laughed and told stories on each other.  It added to the richness to an already rich life.

tonight, our granddaughter and Katie and Sara and Chris, my other son, and Vanessa, Chris's squeese, and David and carolyn all sat around the fire.  David pushed all the girls cept Vanessa on the rope swing.  They giggled and laughed.  Later David got sawdust from the garage and sort of dribbled it in the air above the fire until it lit into a fireball.  then we began to experiment with other powders (mostly from the kitchen) non dairy coffee creamer seems to work best.  Makes quite a show.  you start about two feet above the fire, dribbling a little stream of powder until it catches and the flame starts to chase the powder upwards (it needs to be well lit) and then toss the powder in your hand into the air.  Poof, it makes a nice poof. a nice fire ball. 

Then David retrived some balls of material that Grandmother Patricia, my squeese (and girlfriend and wife of 28 years) had cooked up in "Grandmother's Kitchen"  a mixture of charcoal, sulfur and some other things used in making gunpowder.  These balls are a gray substance a little larger than golf balls.  David set one in the fire. Wow everyone enjoyed the flamining sizzling mass, sort  of like watching an alka seltzer of fire

it added richness to an already rich life.  burnt a whole in the grass though, big deal

oh yeah, please don't get your shorts in a knot over me calling Vanessa , Chris's squeese.  You know we all love her and I'm just being jovial.  Gavin doesn't have my mood in the drop down list.  let's just say my mood is better than I can express.

Do stop by and join us sometime, sometimes we have deep religious/philisophical discussions with a background of love gentleness and listening to one another punctuated by laughter.  ( we disagree in such a friendly fashion) sometimes we pray about the log in our eyes (not near as much as we probably should), sometime we just drink beer and don't say much at all, sometimes I swear God Himself shows up.  If you come by you can decide if what I'm saying is true.  If you hit it the right night I think you will agree with me.

enjoying my peace
07/10/2003 10:07 p.m.

wellllllllll, yes its true, I have more peace than I've ever had before.  I have this sense of God providing for me.  I have been in such a dither for most of my life about money.  One of the secrets (to me) about peace is getting to the place where I'm willing to do what God wants.  Before, rather than trust God, I would make wrong use of credit.  I felt I had too.  Now I don't care, or better, I know God will provide and I'm willing to accept what He gives.  but that is just a part of it, I'm learning what to do when I don't have God's peace. 

Sometimes I don't have God;s peace because I don't like to be insulted.  Why not?  a dumb questions but ask yourself why you don't like to be insulted.  What would happen if I never got insulted --I believe I'd have life, why?

Because somewherre in my twisted heart I think that if others love me or act loving toward me I'll have life or meaning, or peace.  The truth is that I need a faith that can have perfect peace when others disrespect me or insult me or don't like me.  When I have a faith like that it no longer matters if people don't like me or insult me.  Then I have a peace when insulted that enables me to choose the best response to honor God.  I can be quiet, or I can  answer from a quietness of heart that speaks volumns of power.  And, dear friends, when I have a faith that has peace, it enables God to get involved.

I love it, God is just blessing me with such peace in the midst of these storms.

Collabotrating on What Wives and Hubands WANT
03/24/2003 08:59 p.m.

this is a partial response to Cathlyn Cartier's comment on my poem "What Husbands and Wives WANT"  which I also sent to her in an IM

more on collaboration.
as I said, yes; absolutly something missing.

here are some thoughts:
What I wish I could convey:
that there is a doorway into the heart of a person and the way into that doorway is different for a man and a woman.  Because of their different needs and makeup it is difficult for men to discern that doorway into the heart of a woman, especially if he insists on thinking of the needs of a woman in terms of what is reasonable to him.  The same thing is true from the womans's perspective.

there is within a person an earnest, desperate hunger to receive an intangible something from their mate, far beyond anything physical but including physical.  Husbands and wives are left with their hunger, feeling alone and unable to change the other person. 

Men, because of their makeup and needs sometimes work very hard to give their wives what they themselves desire --men can seek to respect their wives but neglect to be gentle and neglect to cover them (cover: --to overlook an offense, to forgive, to love some one jsut as they are even if they never change).  Men tend to justify themselves and think, I've done everything I know to do (and he has if he is thinking from his perspective).  but love is what a woman needs. and so a man's efforts can be of no avail in filling the wife's "love tank".

the same is true of women.  a woman can put forth huge effort in giving a man love.  covering, offering affection, but neglecting to respect him because this does not seem important.  Neither one of them gets what they want.

so men and women need to learn that there is a language they don't understand and seek to learn the language of actions that fill the "love tank" of their mate.

so then there is hurt when a person feels neglected or not receiving what they need to fill their "love tank".  and then they withdraw and becoem isolated and incapable of relating to the other in a way that will cause the other to blossom and BE what will meet their idosyncratic needs.

comments on poem, "What Husbands and Wives WANT"
03/24/2003 08:30 p.m.

Angel Esclave said:
Okay, so . . . I like the message. Giving and whatnot. Good things, always in any relationship. It seems as though you've cut out the individuals, though. It seems to much to say that all husbands need air like oxygen and that all wives just want to vent their emotions. What about the husbands that don't care about sex that much. What about the husbands that want to feel safe and talk things out. They exist. And the wives that want sex. The wives that don't really feel like talking all the time and sometimes just want to hop in bed. They exist to. People are . . . well, people. And to break them up into two categories, male and female, and cutting off a lot of things. But yes, giving, sharing, consideration, very good things and it's good that you promote them and such. Just don't make such large sweeps with your broom, you know. Thanks for posting this. :-)

My reply

insightful comments
there are some generalizations that can be made about men and women and about the way they approach sex and being listened too.  Sure, men want to have a deep relationship with their mate; but it is my observation that men have a much greater need for sex than women that transcends their need for relational melding.  And women typically can get by with a lot less sex than men.  but it is a genarlization.

What I'd like to do is to present to people a picture of what they want and to use that to communicate that the way to get it is not to focus on their shallow desires but to set what they want and to focus on meeting the "difficult to discern" needs of their partner.

I believe this, fulfillment in marriage comes through sacrificing one's own desires in order to focus more fully on the desires of one's mate.  the real fullfilment (with a capital F) comes when we see the benefit that approach gives to our mate and they in turn freely give us what we thirsted for in the first place.  Does that make sense??

I am revising the poem with the collaboration of a woman friend of mine.

so whattaya think??

Carl

another prayer request
02/15/2003 03:40 a.m.

I'm sorta begining to feel God would have me serve Him by strengthening the church, in a particular way.  and I feel I have no capacity to do it.  So please pray for me.

I feel (let me know what you think about this one) often people leave church with struggles that they don't know how to get God involved in, and the church doesn't seem to get it.  It seems to me that part of the need here is for church members to be attracted to and edified in the area of encouragement.

so often, when a person shares a problem, the usual first response is to say something to try to "fix" it.  Or, even worse, to say something "spiritual" which increases their pain. 

OK, OK, I confess, the reason I know this is because I've had so many struggles (usually caused by my dum choices - but hey, we each have our gift right!)

If we are to encourage another who has a problem that we may not understand, or do not feel confident we have something helpful to say.  Listening is certainly a good balm, if that's all we do is listen sympatheticly.  To listen, without offering words perceived as empty, we must have a faith that can have peace not being able to help.  Often I lack faith that God can handle this without my help, or faith that God can use my prayers; alone, to help.

Actually, I believe being in touch with the particular way our faith is challenged by another's situation is part of God showing me how to pray.  I listen to a lot of people who go to church, do not live (shall we say) mature Christian lives, with their struggles.  One guy was telling me his struggle and I just felt a huge incapacity to feel prayer would help at all, I felt blocked from God.  So I asked him, "do you feel blocked from God,"  That was exactly how he felt.  I needed a faith to seek God, and to seek faith when I felt blocked.  Then I felt a sense of being able to pray for him in a way that was suited to his need.

Please pray for me to be able to articulate helpful ways believers can encourage other believers.  please pray for me to be able to do it in a way that will encourage believers to become more confident in God's ability to use them and that more people will be able to take informed action that will bear good fruit.

thank you for praying for me

Mike

a difference between fulfillment and happiness
08/29/2002 07:21 p.m.

I am learning there is a difference between fulfillment and happiness.

Much of my life I have pursued religion and now I have discovered there is a big difference between faith and religion. For me, I believe, religion (a form, fitting into a form, judging others {to some degree} based on the form, and {I'm just being honest} judging myself and my worth based on fulfilling a form; very nausiating when I realise the people I've hurt and offended). for me religion has been the enemy of faith. often I've chosen religion over faith to the detriment of God's life in me and through me.

When I was seeking to fit into a form I was seeking what I thought would be happiness, but the pursuit of happiness became the enemy of fulfillment

I am discovering that in seeking what I thought was happiness I have damaged fulfilment. I thought if Patricia treated me in a certain way, I'd be happy. when she didn't, I became unhappy. Being unhappy I was tempted to sow to the flesh (to act out of hurt, bitterness, anger) in an attempt to get Patricia to give me (by her treatment of me) the happiness I thought I deserved. And being tempted to sow to the flesh I did --and in a way which I couldn't understand did not result in a greater level of happiness. So I sowed to the flesh harder, more aggresively, and for a longer duration; and guess what --that didn't bring me happiness either.

Well, to the degree, that I trust Christ with my happiness, and seek to be a servant to those around me; I discover a level of peace (because I'm not struggling to get those around me to pursue my happiness). and voila, I discover a deep and glorious sense of fulfillment when people around me have a positive response to my different way of relating.

Now, that I've bragged let me tell you that on some good days Patricia has said she has noticed a difference in me that she likes. But, the truth is it is not such a big difference. But it does result in wonderful fulfilment. So I'm saying that it seems to me that a little bit of energy invested in not letting the little things bother me has resulted in a lot of good feelings and happiness.

I'd love to get together with each of you and discuss this further. One more thing needs to be said. Sometimes when Patricia says something to me I don't like, it causes something in me that is not Christ to manifest itself in my spirit. Seeking fulfillment calls for taking 100% of the responsibility for my own reactions.

If I react in a way that is not Christ that is the log in my eye (Matthew 7). I have thought Patricia's approval (in the extreme way I wanted) was necessary for my happiness. So when I haven't gotten the approval I want, I pray about the log in my eye (well sometimes I do) Father, please form in me a faith that can be at peace when Patricia is unhappy. If I had ever gotten the approval I wanted it would be insatiable, it would block me from knowing God because I would be satisfied, so Father, for give me for ever thinking I could recieve happiness from approval and form in me a faith that rests in your forgiveness and acceptance of me.

So I want to get to the place where when others are inconsiderate, don't listen, mistreat me, judge me, etc I want to get to the place where I'm at peace knowing God's love and forgiveness for me. that way I can respond in a different way which is much more likely to engender fulfilment in me and happiness in others

give me a call, let's get together

let me know how to pray for you, please pray for me

Mike


I am currently Stellar
I am listening to the computor fan

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Journal Entry
08/20/2002 11:53 p.m.
for me the issue has become "how to win in any argument" . notice I didn't say how to win any argument but how to win IN any argument.

if Romans 8.28 is true then we should be able to win IN any argument

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

so if I have faith to believe this can be true then how can it be true, only if it draws me closer to God (which feels great), and empowers me to serve Him to a greater degree (which also feels wonderful) and ,as a side benefit, can place me in a position to influence the people around me in a positive way. all this really becomes wonderful when Christ enables me to win IN any argument and I see the results in others lives who I love.

my idea is this, let me know what you think of it

when I examine 1 John 3.22 " and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight."

it seems to me that when I do what is pleasing to God it improves my prayer standing, moves me positionally to where I can receive more from God.

and I Peter 2.19 "For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly."

therefore, if I am treated in an unkind and insensitive way, and I respond in a way which pleases God, then I improve my prayer standing. I become more powerful in asking and receiving from God than I could have done if I had not been mistreated.

sometimes the best I can do is simply desire I could respond differently emotionally. that is my responses, my words, or maybe just my feelings really don't honor God, I become very selfish and sow to the flesh, and then reap to the flesh. But in the middle or even the end I DESIRE to respond differently next time--doesn't that honor God and please Him. So my prayer can be "Oh God, remind me next time of your presence and my desire to honor you and get the carrot of improved prayer standing by restraining my mouth and maybe my heart in a way which honors you." Of course sometimes we need to speak, and our speaking cannot but offend, but may we speak for what it can do for the one offended rather than to try to attain our rights or others consideration.

I have found this thought to be wonderful comfort in the middle of an attack of undeserved resentment and anger directed at me. I have seen it work and the results are wonderful peace for me and it influences P

let me know what you think


I am currently Sympathetic
I am listening to the thump thump of my own heart

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Journal Entry
07/21/2002 11:21 a.m.
I feel like I want to make the kind of statement that sounds good and people like to hear but might seem unattainable or unrealistic.

God cares for you and wants to be real in your life.

sometimes that seems like some sort of ideal, or something we\'d like to believe but isn\'t really real.

the truth is, for many of us, we like hearing a statement like that but we have a diffficult time believing it.
sometimes even people who go to church pretend to believe it but secretly they may not.

I\'ve been like that. I\'m heavy into the God thing and I\'ve been to church A LOT

I didn\'t want to admit to myself, secretly I really didn\'t believe God wanted to or that it could be true in my troubles that God could be real to me, and I\'ve had a lot of troubles.

one of the things I\'m finding out is that God wants to give me peace and life as a gift. I did something really stupid, I inherited some money and I wanted to be a big shot, so I built a retail building (I don\'t know anything about retail but I built a building). So I ended up giving the building to the bank and lost my inheritance. It was a good thing.

I was standing in the building one day, and I was wishing I had a million dollars and I was praying about it because no one was renting any of the building and I was loosing money and it was keeping me wake at night. I asked God to give me a million dollars, you might think that was dumb, probably was, not near as dumb as some other things I\'ve done.

Now I didn\'t hear any voices but it was like God said to me, \"why do you want a million dollars?. \"well\", I said,\"so I could pay off this building\"

\"what would that give you if you paid off the building?\",

\"Peace\", I said, \"it would give me peace\"

(no voices) but it was like He said to me, \"how about I give you peace as a gift, you trust me to guide you when the time comes and I\'m going to take care of you, and I\'ll give you peace as a gift\".

I got peace, not connected to having my problems solved, not connected to my wife being happy (she was sort of bummed about the whold building thing)

day by day I\'m learnig to look to God and expect Him to guide and provide in whatever way He sees fit. God has become real in my life, in the little things and in the big things. And I\'ve got peace.

Here\'s another thing, I\'m learning to love other people just as they are even if they never change. I see a new principle of service in my life for those around me (my wife\'ll verify this) but the thing is I\'m learning to respond to life in a way that bears good fruit and it blesses me. I\'d love to discuss this with you or pray for you.

that\'s another thing, God is real to me in prayer like never before

thanks for reading this,
mike


I am currently Peaceful
I am listening to the air conditioner

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