Shepherd's Watch

Vast stars spread out
Judean sky
we watched as nights before
and wondered if
how deep how far
could there possibly be more

Benjamin spoke
as one who knew
about this moving map
and told again
where lights would go
to fill prophetic's gap

And listened we
but deep in thought
so long the promise waits
how small we are
to think we know
the depth of what He creates

A little lamb
stirred by my side
then fast again to sleep
I laughed to think
I could know more
with thoughts that were not deep

How could one know
what lays beyond
if even just one day
then stirred again
my little dear
but then he was OK

Out in the dark
we heard a song
with lights that made us stand
to greet a band
proclaiming news
I couldn't understand

And oh their faces
shone with joy
their wings covered the sky
today they said
a Savior born
so hurry now and fly

And fly we did
to a nestled cave
where a mother held her Son
who stirred a bit
when we came in
then slept - He was the one

That night of course
I could not sleep
trying to take it in
that time goes on
yet He had time
to heal my soul from sin

Happy Hearts

Announcing the publication of my second book - HAPPY HEARTS - In Poems And Short Stories. My first book GLOrY TRAIL was a collection of mostly poems and a few short stories that were spiritual in nature. HAPPY HEARTS is about 2/3 poetry and 1/3 humurous short stories that are not overly spiritual in nature.

This is again self published through Create Space which is partners with Amazon and Kindle and so is listed on both. The great thing about self publishing is that my main reason for putting these two books out there is not to make a lot of money.  Thus I don't need to worry about combining poetry and funny stories and then have someone ask me - So who is your audience?

Putting those books together has been a lot of fun but has taken some time and creative energy which is why I havn't been posting as regular as I would like in the last 2 months. And, I am working on yet a third book which has the working title - DIARY OF A CHARISMATIC - Essays On The Spirit Filled Life. Unlike my first two books that one will be much longer, perhaps 300 pages.

Is it commercial? I don't know. Here is where I do need to ask the right questions and then perhaps submit it to a Christian publishing house which will take unsolicited manuscripts. There are two reputable ones who will look at a word document and get back to you in 7 to 30 days to let you know if they have any interest. And if they reject it - I can always self publish! (already have a great cover designed).

Cheesy Christmas Movies

If you are a woman, and I know over half of you are, what would be your ideal December day off?

My third daughter Melissa informed me about a month ago that last Wednesday (my day off) she was going to call in sick at the school she teaches social studies at, still drop her kids off at the babysitter, and spend the entire day with me at my house watching cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies. Mom was of course also invited and wouldn't it be nice if we started the day by going out to breakfast/brunch at Anna's House, a fairly new breakfast/lunch restaurant nearby.

In Missy's mind this was going to be just like old times. Her older brother and sisters had moved out of the house, Younger sister Becky was away at college and she could chill out with her dear old dad (and mom).

Eventually, because she was getting so excited about the day, Melissa told her sister Carrie (my second daughter) about her plans and Carrie, thinking that was a great idea, got included. She told James her husband that he needed to take the day off and manage getting their younger kids off to school and back again.

Well, now that Carrie was invited Melissa didn't want her other sisters to feel excluded so she did the right thing. She waited until the day before (ha ha) and left a voice message with Ceci and Becky telling them what the plans were. Becky who lives over an hour away wasn't able to get off of work but Ceci did have a couple of hours open mid day and she said she would swing by.

The big day finally arrived. I had a previous commitment first thing in the morning so I missed the brunch but was here when they came back to the house. Melissa told me that her husband Dan would have loved to also come but he's as honest as the day is long and he didn't quite know how to explain to his boss a day off chilling with with his father-in-law watching Hallmark Christmas movies.

All the necessary ingredients for a good time were there. Jackie got out her best Christmas plates and prepared some goodies to snack on including a spiral sliced ham for lunch. The girls each brought more goodies to snack on plus a variety of breads. We moved a bunch of rocker recliners in front of the big screen TV, each with a blanket to snuggle up in, and proceeded to watch 3 of the batch of Hallmark movies we had recorded.

Ceci came over for a couple of hours as promised. Dan took an extended lunch break and got in most of one movie (maybe he saw the whole thing, I'm not sure how long he was standing outside in the cold looking through the window before he got up the courage to join us).

I've watched a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies just with Jackie but it is a totally different experience when you are watching one with a group of your daughters. I'd glance over at my girls during a sad part and there they were, blankets wrapped up to their necks, tears streaming out of their eyes, even audible words of encouragement for the poor actress who just found out that her true love, whom she just got to know while visiting her little town all decked out for Christmas, complete with the requisite skating rink, wise old Santa Clause and home town bakery run by a chubby faced woman who knows every body's business, has to move back to New York or LA where his snooty ex-girlfriend is waiting to sink her exquisitely manicured nails into his handsome but innocent and naive neck.

And then there was the movie where an Italian Catholic guy tells his hospitalized and dying from heart complications grandmother that he has honored her last wish and now has a girl friend. Not actually having a girl friend he goes online and hooks up for an agreed two week period over the holidays with an only child Jewish girl who needs to show a boyfriend to her folks who want her to find a nice Jewish doctor to marry. Things go better than expected. The girl comes over to visit the Italian family. Grandmother is there because she has made a miraculous recovery, they know the girl is Jewish but don't care and everyone has a great time.

It is a little more dicey when the couple goes to the girl's parent's house to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. He has to pretend he's Jewish, they insist he light the menorah candle and lead the singing (in Hebrew) but things work out. However, somehow the girl's parents get invited over to the guy's house. The family wants to make a good impression so when the couple walks in with the girl's parents they are greeted by the entire Italian family who, pretending they are Jewish, are each (including grandma) wearing the skull cap and have decorated their home with about 15 Menorah candle sets which it turns out are actually Kwanzaa candles. All the candles are lit, the Christmas tree is still up but the angel on top has now been replaced by a star of David and the family puts on Jewish music and start dancing around in circles with the stunned couple in the center.

At this point my entire family is rolling on the floor in laughter. It calms down a bit when the exuberant dancing causes grandma to have a heart attack but by now the tears will have to wait.

The girls think this was so much fun that we need to make it a new Christmas tradition. The only problem is that everyone of their girl friends they have talked to about this want to come over as well. Don't all dads like to watch cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies with their girls?  

My First Book!

Yesterday I published my first book Glory Trail - Poetry For The Spirit  which can be found on Amazon books!

Sea Wall

We brace ourselves against the dune to watch November lords
as northwest winds cut off the tops of fast approaching hoards
and down below beyond the grass to stop what force supposed
are massive oaken deep sunk beams once buried now exposed

We hear its roaring beating heart, are awed to be so near
and wonder how the sea gulls stay so close this wooden pier
we see the shore its surface drops then rises full and strong
to smash against a well built wall who's waited all along

The tossing droplets high and wide fall back upon the mass

of rolling anger stopped this time, but will our sea wall last
we take a picture that cannot express how vast this be
or what could stand without a wall declaring victory

But I will keep this in my heart remembering the day
when all was lost until I thought to bend my knee and pray

and sunk deep in my spirit/soul were beams to brace my wall

that kept away November lords - my faith made them seem small

Thoughts On The Election

I have never really liked or admired Donald Trump. I did, way back when, watch parts of a couple of seasons of his show The Apprentice until one episode where he had the group stay at the mansion of "a good friend of mine - Hugh Hefner". That was enough for me.

Our family does have an interesting connection to him though. My brother Jim owns an upper end furniture business and one day at his showroom during a furniture market they were told that Trump and his then wife Marla would be coming in to pick out some pieces. My brother, having heard that Trump was a pompous so and so, never bothered to leave his office to say hi. Trump. pouty lip and all, followed Marla around. She picked out a sofa and after wards Jim's business changed the product identification of that sofa from something like S2410 to "The Marla", (you have to understand this was a combination of my brother's sense of humor and a great marketing idea) which started a new trend for product identification in the furniture industry.

All along I have believed that Trump was still at heart a big spending, big government New Yorker with liberal social views who recognized an opportunity, adopted a populous message, found an enthusiastic audience and then ran with it. Almost all politicians lie and promise the world to get elected, they always find lots of people who never learn the lessons from the past and believe what is promised and so why would Trump be any different?

Plus I have this particular pet peeve. Most problems in this world are very complicated and there are rarely any simple and easy solutions. We should find solutions based on rock solid principles and go from there. Politicians rarely express principles but they often express simplistic slogans. Build that wall!

On top of that I was horrified at all of his personal attacks against anyone who challenged him, his tone deaf ear toward racial and other minorities, his many other callous remarks, especially toward women, his tendency toward vindictiveness, his long history as a womanizer, his association with casinos and strip clubs and on and on.

On the other hand I could not in good conscience support HRC. There is almost nothing in the Democratic platform that I agree with but here I am only going to high lite one area.

My number one issue for most of my life has been to support and defend the rights of the unborn child. If you are a liberal I want you to hear this. I and many others firmly believe that human life starts at conception and while nature may and often does stop the development of the child on it's own it should not be our decision to do so. For me I see this as a cause equal to the abolition of slavery with a common denominator. Slavery (and we should probably say racism as well) is only possible when you consider someone else as less than or as a non person.

You may not agree and this post is not an essay on the right to life of the unborn but there is another factor involved. Not only do my tax dollars go for the funding of Planned Parenthood (a major abortion provider and I find that aspect of their business abhorrent) but the Obama administration (as would a HRC adm.) has tried to force people of conscience (i.e. Catholic hospitals) to both advise and provide for abortions.

My decision after Trump became the nominee was to withhold my vote. I heard all the logical arguments form the conservative side about the importance of selecting the 1 to possibly 4 Supreme Court justices, the necessity of securing our borders and so on but I did not trust Trump nor respect him nor want someone as crude as him to represent our country.

Every fall my wife and I go on a 40 day period of prayer and partial fasting. One of the things we were praying about this year was of course guidance and direction for us and our family concerning who we should vote for. My heart and stomach had been churning that entire time. I remember clearly being in prayer the day after our fast ended, two days before the election and sensing clearly that it was God's will for me to vote for the Republican candidate. Since then my heart and my stomach have been at peace. When the time comes I can stand with confidence before my Maker.

With the struggles I went through I should not have been surprised at the liberal reaction to the Trump victory. I knew that most of them live in a shatter proof bubble, surrounded by the like minded, reinforced by a liberal main stream media and daily gorged through the Internet with 100 anti-Trump, anti-Republican, anti-Christian memes.

But I was surprised. Not really by the demonstrations because there are people behind the scenes who benefit from chaos and are both advising and funding most of the demonstrations we have seen in the last two years, including many of the post election ones. It was the angst of the true believers who actually felt that the world was coming to an end and it was the fear that Hispanic and Muslim and homosexual populations would be somehow targeted.

Part of that is based on who Trump is, what Trump has actually said and how he has said it and part of that is the realization that certain government policies advanced by Obama may be changed.

However I think another major factor is that politics is a dirty and brutal game, played to the death to win, and that the daily propaganda mills, the constant rants by comedians and the misshaping and misquoting or quoting out of context created an image of Trump designed to create fear and loathing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that Trump has called ALL Mexicans rapists and murders. That never was true but that's what the average Hispanic (and probably most liberals) have heard and thus they believe. No wonder they are frightened.

I read just today a woman's post that referenced among other things that unlike Trump (supporters) she does not think gays are freaks and that they deserve basic human rights. Does she actually think Trump or more than maybe 1 per cent of his supporters actually feel this way? This is by the way why Pence, by all accounts a decent human being, is even more hated by a large swath of the liberal circle than Trump. Opposing the legalization of homosexual marriage or supporting the rights of a Christian owned business not to have to service a homosexual wedding when there are a thousand others who will (which I would contend is reasonable based on a number of arguments which I will not get into her) is equated with hate or viewing homosexuals as less than human. And yet I have read the most vile and vulgar comments toward Pence. No wonder the gay high school girl is scared.

What I am trying to say is that there is certainly enough blame to go around but that a good portion of the fear is self induced. People only listen to those of like mind or they actually believe their own sides propaganda.

As far as the post election fear of Muslims, this does worry me. The whole thing, from the immigration of refugees, to what is happening in Europe, to the nature of Muslim adherence and law which supersedes common law and makes assimilation into our society much more difficult for certain sections of the Muslim community, to the real and present danger of terrorist attacks, to the past administration which tried to protect the Muslim community by not naming the name which fooled no one, all of that is complicated and needs to be lovingly and intelligently worked out.

Here is my fear. I don't know if a Trump administration will follow through on any of my desires or if he will grow into the office and become someone that we can respect. I will keep praying. But it is evident that there will be no honeymoon period from either the media or the honored opposition.

Honestly I was very happy that my side won even with my distaste and mistrust for our glorious leader. My heart was at peace and I could go on from there. Never in my life have I seen such a reaction. We do need to listen to each other and learn how the other side feels. I have been sick to my stomach for the last 8 years so don't tell me I can't understand. Listening to each other rarely happens and social media tells us far more about our friends than we ever knew before. But hey, Trump won so I guess anything is possible. Maybe the Good Lord will use this in ways we never expected.
 

Ode To The World Yo Yo Champion

Yes, that would be my wife
who when our children were young
showed them around the world
and the cat's cradle
and walking the dog
and mentioned off hand
that she had once been
yo yo champion of the world

Years later she found out
that her precious tribe
believed her
and told their friends
how cool their mother was

That would be my wife
who told me just today
that she would love to go outside
and reattach all the brilliant
reds and greens and yellows and burgundy's
back onto the maple outside our dinning room window
her favorite tree.

That would be my wife
who used 5 hour energy at work
because yesterday we picked up
new kitchen cabinet doors and drawers
and she was up until 3
drilling and attaching
hinges and glides
since she was so excited
and I'm not very handy.

That would be my wife
who from the kitchen
groaned loudly whenever Cleveland scored
and assumed that I too was rooting for the Cubbies
when actually all the time
without letting on
I was cheering for the Indians.

We shared a victory hug
my reward for being discrete.

That would be my wife
who heard 5 year old Zane
bug his mom for a yo yo
and then on the way home from work
stopped over to surprise Zane and Piper
with the tools that made her famous.

You are the best grandma ever
shouted Zane
of course I already knew
that she is the best.