Hidden from View

In the house

In the trailer

In the cabin

In the motel

On the long ride home,

Hidden from view

     He lost his job.

Hidden from view

     Single mom struggles.

Hidden from view

     The diagnosis is grim.

Hidden from view

     Alcohol to cope.

Hidden from view

     Couch surfing.

Hidden from view

     Silent cries in the night.

Hidden from view

     He touched her years ago.

Hidden from view

     She mourns the loss of her One.

Hidden from view

     Blankets of depression.

Hidden from view

     Cancer pain erupts.

Hidden from view

     Collection calls unanswered.

Hidden from view

     Their son is gay.

Hidden from view

     Faithfulness dies.

Hidden from view

     Hope flickers dim.

Hidden from view,

A lead for a job
Better daycare
Hopeful treatment
Beginning to say no
A room to rent
Consolation
Strength to trust
Grief moves along

Glimmer of hope
Suffering ends
Acceptance and understanding
Vows renewed
Promise of a sunrise.

I’m learning to hate the internet

I’m learning to hate the internet. Vacuous content, bad information, reposting reposts, pictures instead of words, videos that play automatically, ads, and the affront that put me over the edge – ads that overlay the screen and can only be closed after running their course, like food poisoning.

The internet started as a platform for the exchange of academic research. Bulletin boards, and usenet followed, allowing people with common interests to share through the virtual community. Then came browsers and the provider/portal wars between AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy and others. As the HTTP protocol and free browsers matured (Netscape Navigator,) free access to information grew and the internet as we know it exploded. A casualty of the growth of free access and free information was the loss of the gatekeeper. The ink and paper equivalent of an editor and publisher.

Print publishers would never let writers put out whatever they wanted, unsupervised and without direction. The financial cost is too great. But the internet backbone, access and software are utilities with almost no cost to the writer or content provider. With no cost to publish and an absence of supervision, we now have effluence, 9^th grade C- papers, and scrap books being offered as “content.” There still remains a small cost to get the information out, but an even greater opportunity to earn money doing it. Ads paying fractions of a dollar, Euro, or Renmimbi per presentation, accumulate thousands of views, clicks and page loads. The math is simple, get thousands and millions of fractions of a cent and you’re talking real money.

What started as classified style ads, grew into banner ads, footer ads, body ads, video ads, pop-up ads, splash screen ads, and now – floating ads that force you to watch and wait, stealing your bandwidth, time, and patience. Even if you want to read the C-report of a poorly sourced, seventh grade quality piece of “journalism” you must suffer the intestinal discomfort of the ads while they run slowly, load slowly and stall with their burdensome scripts.

Even content is now advertising driven with “articles” presented 100 words at a time or as graphical images in a slide show which demand that you click for the next bite, and suffer the attendant page load with new ads. We take it and suffer.

I have no problem with content providers making a buck, but the user experience has reached a tipping point. I refuse to suffer through advertising refuse. I’m looking for a text only browser to starve the beast. I should not have to wade and wait through interminable ads. If the content was worthwhile, I’d pay for it – Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger newsletter in the day, books! I won’t pay for amateur, tabloid information drowning in forced commerce.

Let the internet devolve into the putrid, ad ridden emesis of TMZ, Yahoo, and Honey Boo Boo. I’ll pay for my information wether buying it, subscribing to it, or … getting it from the library. I will starve the content providers of their ad revenue.

I write. I think. I appreciate accurate information. But, I’m learning to hate the internet.

I'm holding on to my pain

“I’m holding on to my pain.” That’s what so many people seem to be saying. In today’s world where it’s all about self-actualization, personal truth, inner focus, equal opportunity and special treatment to make sure you’re equal, we miss the point of God’s creation. God created man so He could love us and we could love Him. He created us above the animals, sorry PETA, and below Him, sorry Dalai Lama. There is a hierarchy in the world, we are not all equal some are tall others short, some athletic, some intelligent, some creative, some from loving families, others dysfunctional. The fact is we are not all equal and never will be. But we all can have a deep, loving relationship with God. If we recognize His Lordship, and our station under Him, we realize that it’s not about us, it’s about Him.

That’s where the trouble starts, if we try to have our lives centered on ourselves, then any failure in life becomes a personal failure. As a result we feel unfulfilled and out of control as the ebb and flow of the world washes over us. We’re no longer in control, but if it’s up to us, we have to find a way to control our life. Some cope well, others don’t. Enter self-destructive, albeit in control, behaviors.

A lady, we’ll call her Karen, married an often drunk ne’er do well, she’s a professional, supports the family, somehow had two kids, aborted a third. Her life is out of control, and so deliberately is her diabetes and high blood pressure; conditions that have put her in the hospital a few times. Regardless of what she says, she doesn’t eat well, exercise, check her blood sugar or take her medication. She has chosen to take control of her life by embracing her poor health and helping it grow.

Barb is another working professional out of control, but successful in cutting, burning and disfiguring herself. She’s a cutter, she refuses to go to counseling or get any help. She has a dreadful personal and family history of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. I’m not saying by any stretch that you “just get over sexual abuse.” You don’t. It stays with you forever. But with a life out of control, she chooses self-disfigurement as opposed to getting any kind of help.

Vladimir Ivanoff, played by Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson put it well, “When I was in Russia, I did not love my life … but I loved my misery. You know why? Because, it was my misery. I could hold it. I could caress it. I loved my misery.”

The solution is simple, but far from easy. You need to realize that first, God loves you, and second, it’s not about you. Many people can manage their lives on their own, but when things spin out of control, trying to regain control by holding onto and feeding your pain is not the answer.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”             Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

If you had 3 months to live …?

I apologize in advance for the morbid tone opening this article, but I promise there’s a bright ending, your dreams realized.

This past month has been challenging; my brother-in law passed suddenly, the eight year old nephew of our pastor was killed when a car backed over him, the 17 year old daughter of good friends was killed in a car accident, and a handful of my patients are dancing at death’s doorstep. My thoughts naturally turned to my dad who died the day after his 65th birthday. He was not happy, having had his dreams quashed at an early age. He should have been a painter, but his parents forced him down a chemical engineering path; echoes of, “One word … Plastics … there’s a great future in plastics” from The Graduate.

My path has been interesting; I know that God has had His hand on me and I’m exactly where He wants me today. But the question comes to mind, “If you had three months to live, notwithstanding a supernatural healing, where would you want to be?” The question deliberately ignores the financial aspects, because how you earn a living, pay the bills, save for retirement are all moot in the face of having only 90 days left. My answer was immediate, Hawaii. Keep in mind I live in Wyoming and I love it. But if I had only three months left, I would rather be in Hawaii. I asked my wife the same question, and she had the same answer; so we’re happily? on the same page for this rather morbid question.

The follow up question is this; What if you do only have three months to live and don’t know it? There are plenty of regrets I hear from patients who are facing the end of their journey; most of them were in the woulda-coulda-shoulda categories of things not done and life decisions not made.
 

I’m far from saying drop everything you’re doing and go after your dream, move, climb the mountain, whatever is on your list. We are adults, adults have responsibilities. But you don’t have to keep your handcuffs on, those handcuffs that you allow to stay in place as an excuse.

I’ve just finished “Quitter” by Jon Acuff. He talks about how you change your life, live your dreams by responsibly working into them. The likelihood that you’re going to die in the next 90 days is remote, and the likelihood you have plenty of time is great. So you need to prayerfully, and with the full support of your spouse ask some serious questions, make sure you are aligned with God’s plan for you, and start taking adult steps to remove your handcuffs, and build a life that doesn’t end with regrets.

This is probably an appropriate point for me to recommend Dave Ramsey’s financial guidance, daveramsey.com, and restate that imperative that you commit your life to God, so you are not in this on your own. I have seen over my 53 years that my plans and life work out much better when they’re aligned with God, and not my own doing. Yours will too.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.

Psalm 62:5 (NIV)

There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.

Proverbs 23:18 (NIV)

Going Galt and Loving your Family

Watching the goings on in the world, I am more and more convinced that the only reasonable response that will ensure your family’s survival is to “Go Galt.” For those not familiar with the term, reference Atlas Shrugged, the prescient novel penned by Ayn Rand in 1957. While I take exception to many parts of her philosophy of Objectivism, replacing that with legitimate Judeo-Christian values makes the book work perfectly.

John Adams forecast that democracy would not survive; he was sadly correct. Our Constitutional government no longer operates as intended; we instead operate under an oligarchy. I do not bemoan this, but simply state it as a fact. Democratic government, or any form of government, I suppose, survive more than a handful of generations. Such is the plight of man, ever subject to the call of the flesh and self-satisfaction.

As a family, we are going to be exchanging letters sharing our love for each other. This is only possible with grown children, especially those with huge student loans. As I work on my letters, I keep straying to words of warning; my sage advice learned over 53 years. I refocus, however, to tell my grown children and wife how truly wonderful and special they are and how much I truly love them, with just a few words of fatherly or husbandly advice.

Back to the world, I leave it to others to sound the clarion call for now. We all suffer from cognitive dissonance, filtering out information that fails to match our preformed conclusions. I try not to do this, digging deeper for the facts, for source material, for opposing viewpoints. I unfortunately come back to the same place, we’re out of control and on the precipice of a global, social and economic collapse. Whether this is a year, five, or twenty from now, I do not know. I am convinced, however, that it is inevitable. Has this happened before? Certainly. Will we recover? In time. Will it happen again? Most assuredly.

So I return to the question of what’s most important in life, and how to prepare for the inevitability of what will come. First, you have to be right with God. I do not mean your personal interpretation of God, but the God of Issac, Abraham and Jacob, the triune God who is creator of the universe and who has a perfect plan for us, the God who is Love. Next, you need to protect yourself and your family; live away from large population centers and be as self-sufficient as possible.Third, or maybe this is 2a, you need to be brutally honest in assessing what you see, hear, and read. God gave you a mind, use it. Lastly, help your loved ones, friends, and community prepare for what is coming.

There are many resources available both online and in print. Seek them out. Use your mind. Realize that you may have been wrong. And as I used to say in project management, question all assumptions. In the mean time,

“The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.”

-Numbers 6:24-26