Come and Get Your Love (Really!)

It's true that “Come and Get Your Love,” is a song by that 70s Native American rock group called Redbone. What’s also true is that God sings it! Yes, he wants us to come and get His love! His epic love that he prepared for us before the beginning of time. Where else are we to find this intense kind of love?  Not from the evil one or by doing anything evil.  Could a man or a woman receive it from each other? Sometimes we do receive  a version of God's love from  our beloved; but it's never a substitute for God's love which is both eternal and unconditional.  What about finding love through money, drugs,  alcohol, fame? I don't think so and you know better than to think so.

Like the lyrics in the song say: Come on and find some, if you want some take some. It's fine and divine and it’s always free.  Come and get your love, come and get your love, come and get your love now! 

Silly Rabbit!

 

I used to think:
-that 'Marriage on the Rocks' meant marriage problems caused by drinking too much alcohol!

- that Hip Hop music would blow over in a couple of years just like Disco!

-that mankind would have gone to the stars or at least to Jupiter by now!

-that my cute little kids would stay little for much longer!

-that a cure for cancer was coming in my lifetime!

-that I would never screw up royally like so many others have!

-that by the year 2000 all men would treat all other men with love and respect!

-I also used to think that all men loved God!
"Silly rabbit! Such beliefs are for kids!!!"

The Winter Soldier

I've told you about riding to LA, man! I've told you about driving to San Francisco and Oakland too! Driving past corn fields over mountains and through deserts. Well here's another place you can go. Looking through a glass windshield,...Snow Land....Snow Land. But it's no problem for a Street Van. As long as you've got gas, you can run that heat and it becomes your Swiss Chalet on wheels!  Yes hot cocoa was available too with a simple heating appliance you plug into a cigarette lighter. Stay parked if you must, use your snow driving skills if you trust, but if you've prepared your Street Van for everything; you can just keep on trucking!

This photo of my van was taken in Orange, New Jersey where a record snow fell; just five months after my summer of 1977 California road trip. Yes there's a music theme to this post, click on the following link:  (Glass Onion) 

SO, THE FOOLS HAVE WON!

How many of you have had the privilege of being a Fool for Love? I see allot of hands out there so most of you must know what this rap is about. You know I pity the fool for love. What is a fool for love? That’s the kind of person who when he or she gets stuck in a wrong relationship that their friends and family tried to warn them not to get into, do it anyway –fools. And if they had their life to live over again they’d play it again just the same way one more time, -fools!

Yeah well, I knew a guy who played the fool once. He was a real live fool for love once upon a time. Check this out; he was a 20 year old college student and dating that 36 year old woman who was estranged from her husband and had a kid too! Yes I pity the fool, an educated fool at that. Well she dumped him one day and oh…oh…oh…oh…oh... was he ever a hurting fool.  What made matters worse was he tried to get her back.  In the end all he could say was…WHY? And all she could say was: “Go on fool you doing it too,” but he wasn’t doing it!!! You know, you can kick a dog around only so long and he’ll get tired.  After so many times of rejection, he took his little crushed heart in his hands and walked on by, head hanging down and he stayed hurt for months after that, poor fool. I pity the fool for love.

God must love fools (somebody has to) there are just so many of them. They just keep coming. Love will shoot them down, mow them down with machine guns, blow them up with mortar rounds and shell them with artillery and still more of them come like legions of Chinese soldiers, relentless, in unending wave after wave, unstoppable as they march over the carcasses of their fallen comrades. But in the long run, being a fool for love can give you valuable experience. If it were not for playing the fool, you would not know about the flip side of love. You've got to know all about love before you can appreciate it right? You know the old saying, 'There's a sucker born every minute'? Well these suckers have learned how to be from Missouri you've got to show them your love is real first! They’re not going to be kicked around anymore; no more fooling around.

How do you like me now!

Q & A On Love and Trees

Here's a familiar philosophical question for you to consider that explores the possibility of unperceived existence:  

    

      

Question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? 

I like this Answer: "Of course it does. The idea that a member of the human race has to be present at any occurrence for it to be true is quite ludicrous. Sounds are being created all over the world which are never heard by humans and as a final straw there are supersonic sounds which are beyond the range of the human but can be heard by other creatures such as bats."

Jack Hill, St. Albans, England

Let's also consider a theological question that explores the possibility of unperceived harm.

Question: If another sins against you and covers up their sin so that you were never aware of it; have you been harmed?  

My Answer to this question is yes: While in a relationship hidden sin will cause considerable damage and a great loss. This is because the guilty one’s love, assuming love was ever present, will change from Unconditional love to Conditional love and you'll actually feel this change happen. Maybe not right away but you will feel it because Unconditional love is such a valuable gift to lose. A gift more precious than gold, silver and precious stones. When this happens, only God can repair the damage but he will do it when humility triumphs over pride! In Ezekiel 36:26 God says: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

There is also this beautiful 'Sade' love song that has always meant so much. It's called, 'Love is Stronger than Pride.' (click on Pride to hear it, it holds great truths.)

All Lives Matter

All lives matter! As a human being I regret all hate and killing in any color on this planet. I believe God would say the same.

The Toss Up (Bridal Bouquet Mystery Solved)

This falls under the category of things you didn’t know happened at your own wedding. I never knew the events described here until thirty-three year later, while my wife and I were looking through our wedding album.

In the above photo, with raised hands the young ladies expectantly await the wedding bouquet toss; but who would be the lucky girl to catch it? I never knew that my wife’s cousin in the purple dress secretly told her to, ‘throw the bouquet to me!’ So my wife said, ‘okay stand close to me’ and when the time came she threw it right to her. Did her cousin catch it? Oh yes she did, see the next photo. I was surprised and delighted to hear about their little conspiracy after all of these years. This just goes to show you that sometimes, you have to create your own luck. Or as Michael Jackson said more eloquently in his song The Way You Make Me Feel: "Hee-Hee! Ooh! Go On Girl!" 

Run To Glory

The French Foreign Legion

In some places in the world when a man loses his home, his family and his faith he could put some distance between himself and his problems -by running  off and joining the French Foreign Legion (Légion étrangѐre).  He might find himself in a lonely desert outpost far away from home perhaps never to return.  Wearing his Kepi blanc hat with neck cover and holding his carbine in hand he would experience both intense boredom and unimaginable fear mixed with excitement as he learns to fight fierce foes and win, or die. In the Foreign Legion discipline and Esprit the Corp are everything.  You even give up your name and will have to learn to speak and sing in French. By serving you can even become a French citizen. They have a saying; “Français par le sang versé,” which means you're eligible for French citizenship if you bleed for France.

Here in the US men who flee from their problems usually don’t become Soldiers of Fortune in the Foreign Legion.  Some American men do become contractors or mercenaries for the money.  Allot of money that they might kill or die for.  But no kepi blanc hat! Too bad, it keeps the head cool and looks cool; but it comes at a very high price -es-tu prét?

(Check out the Légion étrangѐre here)

"Let Them Eat Cake" and other tragic faux pas

Did Marie Antoinette really say “Let them eat cake,” before promptly getting her head chopped off on a guillotine by angry, starving French peasants?  And did Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic ever make the claim that his ship was “Unsinkable,” before it sank like a rock into the North Atlantic?

After fact checking these legendary faux pas; I could not confirm that Marie Antoinette ever said "Let them eat cake," but I did find out what her nickname was. It’s Marietta and it's spelled exactly like the city near Atlanta Georgia.

As for Captain Smith, I could not verify that he ever used those exact words that his ship was "Unsinkable!" But there are some witness accounts that he went down with his ship.

But what else do these two well known historical figures have in common besides both meeting with tragic ends? Perhaps they failed to understand something very important and this failure to 'get it' or by being misunderstood if not misquoted; led to people changing their perceptions of them -from adoration to condemnation. That ever happen to you?

Unfortunately I too have said some embarrassing things  that I wish I hadn't said. Like the time I made the faux pas of asking a woman if she were pregnant because her belly was large and she replied, "No I'm not pregnant!" Uh-oh, right then I felt like a part of my own anatomy was in danger of being kicked.  But instead she was gracious with me and I lived to tell about it.  But I will never, ever ask that dumb question again! I just keep learning. I'm getting better all the time at keeping my mouth shut when it should be.

Inclement Weather

When you screw up royally by getting addicted to something that's bad for you, you’re heading into a perfect storm. Illicit sex, drugs, alcohol, nicotine and the like will become a violent wind at your back, a downpour of rain that will drown you and give you a life that is colder than ice. You should pray when this happens, because you won't get out by yourself. Your self is what got you into this mess, so you will need help outside of yourself to get out. So start with a prayer asking for Him for faith! God always answers that prayer. Add to your prayer a request for humility, truth and love and hope. Hope for a miracle from God. Running away won’t get you far. Nor will the false hope that nobody sees what you are doing! God always sees you. 

You may ask, "Can God help me, will he help me, will God give me  a miracle?" The answer is the same: "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor." (Matthew 11:5). You'll just have to trust God and follow Him and accept the help he gives you in whatever form it takes. God often puts people in your path as a conduit or pipeline of his blessings coming to you. 

It may take some time to get completely out of the storm you're in. May God save you from your storm.

A Song for you

A heart is a house for love.  And I learned that it don’t take too much to break up or to build it up. Try typing those words out on your computer once, maybe twice. Just by taking the effort to type them, those words may get their message through to you.  At least I hope so for yours and everybody else's sake.  Is there a heart in the house tonight?

I finally read and understood the words to this Dells song just today.  And the words cut me. I never before realized, just how deep their message is.  (A Heart is a House for Love - by The DELLS).  Although, I've heard this song many times before I missed it. It's very deep. I guess the rhythmic beat in the song used to carry me off somewhere and I never truly listened to it's content before now.

Anyway B and the rest of you too. This song's for YOU and for the (man) or (woman) that you married. So read the lyrics, they are written below. They're long but don't skip over anything and maybe you'll learn something. Something valuable, maybe even crucial about love.

A heart is a house for love
And I learned (I learned) that it don't take much to build it up. (Build it up.)
Build it up, build it up, build it up.
Ooh

Two wrongs don't make it right,
But too long was the night I kept you guessing.
It's all I can do, (All I can do.)
And hope that maybe you'll come around again.
Now I see that the wonder of devotion,
It doesn't, it doesn't come free.

A heart is a house for love
And I learned (I learned) that it don't take much to break.
A heart is a house for love
And I learned (I learned) that it don't take much to build it up.
Oh

Today I understand,
I'll pay the price to be all the man you need.
You know you got to be free.
(Go find your way.) Go find your way,
Find your way back to me.
Now I see (I see) that the wonder of devotion,
It doesn't, it doesn't come free.

A heart is a house for love
And I learned (I learned) that it don't take much to break.
A heart is a house for love
And I learned (I learned) that it don't take much to build it up. Build it up.
A heart is a house for love
And I learned, I learned, I learned (I learned) that it don't take much to break.
A heart is a house for love, hey, hey, hey.
I learned that it don't take much to build it up.
Build it up, build it up, build it up.
Oh, yeah.
Build it up, build it up, build it up (Mm)

Build it up together either near or far.
(Oh, oh, oh)
Build a house full of hearts to stand it all.
Is there a heart,
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
Stand up. (Stand up)
Stand up, let me know.
Let me know that you understand.
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
You got to have love (You got to have love.)
Love in your heart tonight.

Build it up together and then it won't fall.
Build it up.
Build a house full of hearts to withstand it all.
Two hearts are better than one.
Build it up together and then it won't fall.
Two hearts belong together.
Build a house full of hearts to withstand it all.
Build it up.
Is there a heart,
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
Stand up. (Stand up)
Stand up, let me know that you understand.
Better listen to me.
Love doesn't come free, you gotta build it up.
Is there a heart,
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
Stand up. (Stand up)
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
One love, our love, your love, somewhere, somebody.
Is there a heart,
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
Is there a heart in your house tonight.
Is there a heart in your house tonight.

Always, never out my mind.
You're always on my mind.
I love, love, love, love you all the time.
(Build it up, build it up, build it up.)
Oh, build it up. (A heart is a house for love.) Build it up.
Build it up, build it up.
Build it up. (A heart is a house for love.)
Let me know that you understand.
(Build it up, build it up, build it up.)
A heart is a house for love.

A Heart is a House for Love –The DELLS
(click for audio)

Why he died (of heartbreak)

He didn’t admit his part in causing the fiasco nor did he forgive the others involved.

He didn’t accept God’s forgiveness for himself that was freely given.

He struggled with self pity and failed to recognize when he was in it.

He didn’t use spiritual tools to 'cast out' the intrusive thoughts.

He was so depressed but never sought help from anyone.

It’s the same old story. But with a different meaning, now that it was he who was feeling the hurt.

The Clothes Dryer Stumble

Circa 1995 AD, four years sober.  They said in meetings; don’t make any big changes when you first get sober. But I was four years down the road so my wife and I bought a new house across town and moved in. Our old washer and dryer made the trip but they were so raggedy that I decided it was time to replace those too.  So I did that at Sears and they delivered a new washer and dryer to our new home and connected them.  Later that day when my wife came home and saw them she said, “Oh you got an electric dryer.” “So,” I said. "But I wanted a gas dryer; don’t you remember we talked about this once? Gas dryers are cheaper to run and they dry your clothes better.”  Right then was the point when I would have flown into a rage during the old days. By old days I mean four years earlier or even four weeks earlier.  But I held back, I had to.

I felt the rage building inside but instead of exploding I said okay; I’ll look into it. I didn’t fly off into a rage this time because of a little change that had occurred inside of me.  I don’t know if it was humility, or faith, or just a desperate desire to be sober that changed in me. But I am so grateful that I didn’t explode. I called Sears the very next morning and explained to them exactly what had happened. To my surprise Sears said, “No problem we can switch it out for you for just the price difference for a gas dryer.” As it  turned out there was only a $50 price difference so I quickly agreed to it.  The very next day Sears swooped in and changed out the electric dryer with a gas one and connected it up at my house.  I couldn’t believe that the solution was so simple.   I would have made the problem into a much bigger one, had I not been sober.  I would have gotten very angry and I would have stubbornly  forced her to keep that electric dryer. She in turn would have been frustrated and very unhappy with the electric dryer.  But yet, miraculously instead my wife was happy with her new gas dryer and I felt at peace. I really do prefer peace in my life, I have always wanted inner peace and this was one of the instances when I actually received it.

I shared this electric dryer story at the very next recovery meeting I attended and everybody had something to say about it. Everyone sharing seemed encouraged to know that this sobriety thing can actually work, against all odds. We all concluded that we must make a conscious effort to choose peace by resisting our natural tendency; to insist on having our own way. This was a turning point for me and a lesson I would do well to remember even today twenty years latter. This is true because I still have that same natural tendency to boil over and spoil everything instead of choosing peace. Hopefully we can all grow in this and enjoy peace in ever increasing measure.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?

As I was walking through the house one day. My little son (Alex) came up to me and said:
"Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care? If so I can't imagine why -care about time.
We've all got time enough to cry. Oh no, no, no."

So I looked at him and said, "Well I suppose your wife may care about time some day.
And I suppose your job may also care about time ooh, ooh!"
And then sadly, I looked at him and began to teach him all about time... Oh no, no, no, no.
(Above personalized lyrics are sung to the Chicago band tune"Does anybody Really Know What Time it Is" click here).