Random Acts of Intelligence

Tattoos Gone Wild

2012-01-10T17:27:00.001-08:00

Now I've seen it all--a tattoo supply van making the rounds in my Normal Heights neighborhood. A neighborhood, by the way, whose name becomes more paradoxical by the week. Anyway, I was already going to write a bit about the proliferation of tattoo shops--sometimes called "parlors" for some reason I've never known--and what should I see parked in front of one of our newest tattoo establishments but a big really cool looking step van--the kind UPS uses--and on the side is painted, "San Diego Tattoo Supply. I'm not kidding. You can go to their website and check it out. Apparently there are now enough such shops to justify establishing a supply route for ink and needles and things. Things have come a long way since the days of the Helms bread truck and milk delivery.

While I am on the subject, have you noticed the way tattoos have been creeping up onto young women's necks and faces? Seems not all that long ago when the only tattoo you'd see on a female was perhaps a little butterfly near her ankle. Then it was the "tramp stamp" which I still feel is a bit harsh as a term, but is is nicely alliterative. Then one began to see shoulder tatts, like sailors made famous. Then "sleeves." Now that once-so-innocent mischievous little butterfly is likely as not to be found on her cheek (either one). Not only that, but it is likely to be joined by a profusion of flowers, vines, birds, and who knows what. And those are the innocent graphics. Then there is the test. You know, tattooed text. I've seen a young women with a sentence running up and down the back of each leg. I've see others with whole paragraphs on their upper chest. I she is standing in the next grocery line over, I dare you not to try to at least make a few words out in order to get the gist of the message. Well, if you live somewhere--I can't imagine it--where you don't see the things I'm talking about, then just do Google search with the terms "tattoo" and "girl" and you'll get quickly up to speed.

Happy New Year... a Few Days Late...

2012-01-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

I’m not ready to begin the new year and it is already, um lemesee, ah, January 5th. The boxes of old/misc paperwork from last year–including some from the year before–are still sitting in the living room waiting for me to sort through them for any “important” items (photos would qualify, as would un-cashed or unsent checks). I am still procrastinating about making NewYear’s resolutions, one of which will obviously need to be to sort through my boxes of old paperwork. On top of it all, I’ve had a raging chest and head cold since, well, since last year now that I think of it. Ugh. Oh–one little miniscule bright light in this depressing landscape which occurs to me at this very moment: whenever I do get around to making my list of resolutions, I can instantly check off the box I’ll put that says, “get back to blogging.” See ya later.

Kindling an e-book Romance--Which Brings to Mind the 1st Commandment

2011-01-02T05:54:00.001-08:00

To be more precise, the romance is with the device on which I now read my e-books. I have dabbled in e-books for a number of years now--ever since I first looked into Project Gutenberg. I downloaded some e-books here and there onto my computer and filed them away, but usually just forgot they were there. I have followed the Kindle since it came out and had a good deal of interest, but wanted to see if it had staying power or would just be a very expensive experiment for Amazon. After some time I could tell that Amazon was fully committed to Kindle's success and built the technical and inventory support to prove it.

A couple of months back I got my first opportunity to see one up-close. A buddy at church had his and showed it to me, explaining how the e-books are found and downloaded. I asked him to use it to go to Amazon and look up one of my favorite authors, George MacDonald. He did, saying to me, "here is the collected works--a buck seventy-nine. That sealed the deal. I immediately asked my wife to get me one for Christmas and of course she did. I was smitten within minutes of opening it up. This deserves its own post--the packaging itself charmed me. Then there was the welcome and graphic that came on the screen when I first plugged it in... my heart beats faster just at remembering it...

I'll be blogging much more about the/my Kindle in the weeks and months ahead. Like all new Kindle owners, I am anxious to brag about all the books I have acquired and the great bargains and free books available. Oops--I can already see I am beginning to come afoul of yet other commandments. Hmmm... I wonder if the Kindle store carries the collected works of the puritan writers...

Ignore This Experiment

2010-12-08T21:14:00.000-08:00

Trying to wrestle back some blogging time. This is a start...

Time Warp

2010-12-07T21:10:00.000-08:00

Can't beLEEve it's been so long since I've found time to post to my blog. E-gad, something's gotta give... I'll be back... Let it be, dear Lord, let it be! --Allen

Thy Juice Glass and Thy Wash Rag They Comfort Me

2010-07-12T23:56:00.003-07:00

In complete candor I must state at the very outset I have not the slightest idea whether God was involved in what I am about to tell of or not. Could just be two giant quinky-dinks. With that disclaimer, here goes.

A few weeks back, at breakfast time, I got a hankering for orange juice. The aforementioned hankering came not out of the blue mind you, but was sparked--like most hankerings are--as the result of seeing some inviting object of desire. This of course is the very bedrock of all marketing. One sees a gadget and says, "I could really use one of those" or sees a photo of an empty hammock under a palm studded white sand beach and says, "I really need to take a vacation soon."In the present case, the object was a simple plastic jug of orange juice in our fridge; one I'd gotten the last time I'd gone shopping just because while at the store I'd remembered that my wife likes orange juice. We hardly ever buy it--perhaps once or twice a year--because, 1) it is rather expensive and 2) my diet does not allow for sugar-rich drinks of any kind. Nonetheless I'd bought it and now there it was and its very presence gave me a sudden hankering for a splash of OJ to go along with my morning Kashi.

The thing was--is--I am for some reason crazily picky about utensils and things. I only wanted a very few ounces of juice and all our glasses were regular sized. The smallest glass we had seemed at least 3 times too big. I knew exactly the kind of glass I needed--and we had nothing like it. I needed a very small juice glass; the kind I'd had when having brunch somewhere or when having a Continental breakfast at some Holiday Inn Express. You know the kind I mean.

Anyway, the next week, when I was at Walmart, I looked for them. I was so intent on getting just what I had in mind I was ready to buy a whole set. We still had more than a half of a jug of OJ left and it would last us for weeks to come. I could justify the purchase of a package of 4 or 6 of them with the thought that we'd use them for company some time. As if we ever have company for breakfast. As it turns out, they for some reason didn't have any juice glasses anyway. I knew I could probably find one at a thrift store someday if I kept a lookout for one, but that search might take years before bearing fruit. Oh well, I'll just keep it listed on my shopping list as a reminder. Perhaps Walmart will get some in sometime.

The following week as I am cleaning up the alley behind our house (I really want to tell you about the alleys in our neighborhood sometime soon!) What did I see, right there on top of an abandoned TV set, but a perfect-sized little juice glass. It needed washing badly, but was otherwise in perfect shape. Just like the ones I remember at Denny's in the 50's and 60's. I suppose it may have been set there by one of the many recyclers who daily roam the alleys collecting aluminum and recyclable glass.

Here's the whole deal: I desired a juice glass and, within several days of feeling such a 'need', a juice glass appears! How odd is that?

OK--one quinky-dink out of the blue. But check this out: the very next week, after determining that the wash cloth I've been using for years was recycle-bin-bait because the holes in it had grown to be big enough to put 4 fingers through, guess what I found laying in the middle of 4th Ave as I collected trash from around the church? Yup--a white wash cloth. Brand new. Must have fallen from a passing vehicle. TWO quinky-dinks in a row. Both small insignificant things I had simply wanted. I wanted them--they appeared in my path. Weird.

Here is where, if time permitted, I'd wax philosophical/metaphysical about things. But you are saved by the bell. It's late and I must get to bed. More later--as time permits.

2010-05-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am now going to push my personal envelope--a bit. I told you I'd give a follow-up report and here it is. Earlier today I had the afore-mentioned (previous post) medial procedure. It is the one folks my age are supposed to have and it ends in oscopy. There. That's on the table. Not as a topic of discussion mind you, just there on the table. Let's let sleeping medical procedures lie.

I should add that nothing was found--a good thing of course--and, according to the doc, "everything looked fine" and so I need not repeat this unnamed procedure for another 10 years. I will say this though: That medicine they give you so you won't care what they are doing to you worked really well.

Nuff said.

Revelations and TMI

2010-05-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

I suppose in a blog with expansive boundries--topic-wise--I could be expected to touch on the more personal happenings in my life from time to time. Personal issues however are not what I am always anxious or happy to write about. With that preface in place, I'll just say I have a less-than-pleasant medical proceedure to contend with first thing in the morning. After I have endured this for-now-unnamed proceedure, if there are any comment-worthy thoughts on my mind regarding the experience--and I think them somehow worthy of sharing--I may bring myself to post them here then. We'll see...

Movin' and a-Groovin' in the Social Networking World!

2010-05-13T04:49:00.002-07:00

I've just been clicking all kinds of stuff in order to--I think/hope--link this blog to my facebook profile. This here little post is a test of sorts to see if I am going to irritate myself or others by linking things up in this way. As always, comments are welcomed and appreciated. Now I'm off for my morning walk.

Facebook | Allen Randall

2010-05-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

Facebook | Allen Randall

Christian faith: Calvinism is back / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

2010-03-31T21:29:00.001-07:00

Christian faith: Calvinism is back / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

Didn't Know it (the "turbulance") Would Begin so Soon.

2010-03-28T21:31:00.004-07:00

Fox News is running the headline, "In the Midwest, The FBI Make Militia Arrests." In light of this new development, I predict the smearing of the tea party movement will now begin in earnest. All the derisive comments and innuendo up to this point have been nothing compared to what I believe is clearly on the horizon. The administration needs some headlines which will serve both to distract from the deep unpopularity of their newly-minted health takeover and will, at the same time, completely marginalize the tea party movement. Watch for a connection to be soon drawn between these latest arrest and the fact that one of those arrested at some point attended a tea party protest.

Look: this militia group--or whatever it is--did NOT spring up right after the signing of the health care bill. No doubt it has been in existence even before Barrack Obama's election. This militia group has probably been under surveillance for many months--if not for years. The administration was just waiting for the most propagandistically propitious moment to play the be-afraid-of-the-tea-party-crowd card. And now they've played it. Expect a few more cards to be slapped down on the media table for public consumption in the weeks and months ahead. As I said in my last post, "Buckle up--I see turbulence ahead."

We May be Experiencing a Little Turbulance up Ahead--So Please be Advised to Fasten Your Seatbelt

2010-03-28T16:06:00.003-07:00

It was the day before the 2,600 page health bill passed. I stood at the corner of Broadway and 3rd in downtown San Diego holding a sign reading, "Stand up for liberty!" I was across the street from the main Tea Party folks who numbered about 120. I waited there, apart from the main group so that my wife, who was on her way, could easily find me when she arrived. As I stood there with my sign, I was approached by a 20-something man who said, with a sneer, "Who are they? A bunch of tea-baggers?" "Well," I said, "that is the derisive and vulgar term used by their opponents--but I prefer to think of us in terms like, patriots, freedom-lovers, responsible citizens and defenders of the Constitution." This I said in a genuinely calm and pleasant tone. Seeing he'd failed to elicit an angry response from me, he quickly walked away, a bit disappointed I imagined.

Let it be said here that contentious folks are to be found on either side of our country's political divide. My purpose in relating the story above is simply to provide a backdrop for three points I am anxious to make about the current political climate: First, why the presidency of Mr. Obama is not operating on a non-partisan basis and bringing us together as promised. Second, why political correctness and partisan attacks may soon reach levels heretofore not seen in our lifetimes. And last, why it is that the political left has a far higher percentage of haters in its ranks than does the right.

It should now be glaringly obvious to even the most hopeful Obama supporter that, rather than us seeing our country being happily brought together by a compromising, conciliating, middle-way, political-peace-making president, we are instead witnessing our political and social fabric being agonizingly torn asunder. This tearing has been brought about as a result of the radical changes to our societal structure passed much too rapidly into law using highly unorthodox and undemocratic means and in a purely partisan fashion. This ram-rod approach has troubled a majority of our citizens and roused very deep concerns on the part of many. Some are even quite angry over what they consider the latest, and largest, of a series of unconstitutional power grabs by an administration they view as bent on fundamentally altering the foundational principles of our governmental and economic system.

Political correctness has always been around in one form or another. In a nutshell is is a prevailing political atmosphere which grows to so dominate civic and cultural life that one who expresses opinions contrary to it may be subject to social "penalties" ranging anywhere from subtle blacklisting to being--in the current political climate--labeled a racist, sexist or homophobe, or even to facing actual civil--or even criminal--penalties. The major institutions of our culture; education, mainstream news media and government, are all purveyors and enforcers of the current left-dominated political correctness. This has been the case at least since the mid-1980s--and in some respects even prior to then. Now however, it seems that political correctness has reached a critical mass and, rather than those in power feeling secure and sanguine in their newly acquired position of power, they seem instead to feel all the more threatened and defensive. Thus, anyone with strong objections to the current government take-overs of large sectors of the economy are now being labeled as somehow "dangerous' or "anti-government." This is a common tactic of those seeking to marginalize and demonize their opponents. I believe we can expect much more of this. We should be ready for it. As I indicated, this ride may get very bumpy.

In conversation with some of my friends on the political or theological left, they will sometimes make reference to "right wing hate" most often citing Rush Limbaugh as their prime example. Compared to any left-wing counterpoint one might want to name--for example anyone on the former Air America network--Mr. Limbaugh is a gentleman's gentleman when it comes to political discourse. My friends on the left seem genuinely incredulous when I give them my testimony that I have found a wonderfully tolerant attitude among conservatives and far, far less hatred that I had known--and practiced--in my sojourn with the political left. The reasons for this are numerous, but the plain and main reason for the greater volume of hatred on the left, as compared to the right, is simply that the right views people on the left as essentially like themselves, only people who happen to be in the grip of mistaken or bad ideas. Those on the left however, view those on the right as unlike themselves--and as bad or evil people. Hating and expressing hatred can have a cathartic aspect to it and is, in a perverse way, enjoyable and even--also in a perverse way--self-affirming. I know from personal experience. I used to love to hate the right and all conservatives and conservative institutions: traditional churches, their leaders and members; all political groups to the right of my perspective; the Boy Scouts, the military, police, all corporations, big business and of course greedy capitalism in general--and all the middle class "droids" who helped in any way support these institutions. That was quite a vast number of people for me to hate. Seems though I was quite up to the challenge and felt quite self-righteous in the process.

It may be necessary for me to remind the reader that I am fully aware of the fact of right-wing anger and hatred. My whole point though--my assertion based upon experience--is that, as a percentage of the whole, the haters on the right are by far a much smaller percentage than those on the left. Speaking for myself, there were two big factors which kept me from transferring the hatred I once enjoyed--yes, I did enjoy it!--on the left to the other side of the political avenue. One was my newly-acquired Christian value system and the other was the entrenched conservative tradition of respectful civility I found to be firmly in place when I arrived at my new political home. I must confess that from time to time I have been tempted, especially in times past, to backslide back into a clenched-fist approach to political activism, but each time, before very long, I'd find myself relaxing that inner clenched fist as I am reminded, by my Lord and by respected conservative leaders, that although we may be called to the political ramparts, we are always to fight as happy warriors who are to love even our enemies as we go about subjecting their ideas only, and not their persons, to our assaults. This is the happy warrior tradition I am proud to be associated with, and the one I wish--and will work--to see maintained as we move into this next episode of our country's history.

In Celebration of Spring, an Offering From --e.e. cummings:

2010-03-26T20:15:00.002-07:00

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little lame ballooman

whistles far and wee

and eddyandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

Dennis Prager--One of the Leaders in the New Resistance Movement

2010-03-23T21:29:00.002-07:00

The Dennis Prager Show

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The ELEM-6 Diet Now Has Its Very Own Blog! And...

2009-11-27T21:10:00.003-08:00

The ELEM-6 Diet has taken the blogosphere by storm! That's why I've decided to give this plucky little diet its very own blog site. You can find it here: http://elem-6.blogspot.com/

And... that's not all: my amazing sister, Lauren, who herself has lost 60 pounds(!) using the ELEM-6 Diet, will be blogging with me and sharing her keen psychological insights about how one gets a grip on one's inner attitudes about food, self-image and many other things, all of which I think you'll find a greatly helpful and very encouraging.Unlike me, Lauren brings to the table some real credentials as a writer and a seasoned professional in the area of behavior modification (and I don't know about you, but my behavior seems ever be in need of yet more modification!) I'll let Lauren tell you more about her professional experience and her personal achievements with weight loss and in many other areas. Together we're going to coach you as you let the ELEM-6 philosophy sink in and begin to practice the many ELEM tips we'll be giving you along the way.

Be sure to bookmark the ELEM-6 blog and visit often as you take the plunge and begin to EL and EM in the weeks and months ahead. Lauren and Iwill be here (well, I suppose I should say, "there") Of course you are more than welcome to continue visiting Random Acts of Intelligence as often as you like. I will continue to blog here as well, on subjects of all sorts.

ELEM-6 Diet, Part-9: ELEM-6 is One-Year Old Today!

2009-11-20T21:24:00.008-08:00

And we've now sold over 100,000 copies of the book! Just kidding there, but who knows? If Oprah has me on before she goes off the air...well, then it could happen.

Here are the details in brief: I began to EL/EM-6 on November 20, 2008. Ten months later I had lost 80 pounds. I went from weighing 240 to my present 160. That comes out to 8-lbs per month, or just 2-lbs per week. See? If you only have 40-lbs to lose you can either lose it in 5 months by going for the 2-lbs per week, or--you can lose 1-lb a week for the full 10 months. It's up to you! Get out a calendar and figure out what you want to weigh and how long it will take to get there. That's exactly what I did.

I know, I know--Thanksgiving is just days away. If you decide to wait until after, who am I to give you a hard time about it? No sweat. However, there is one big advantage to starting now: doing so will send a bold message to yourself--and everyone else--that you really are serious about this. And, you will be able to look back and say, "If I can EL/EM on Thanksgiving, why, then I know I can do this!" It'll get you off to a great beginning; and beginnings are important.

Speaking of beginnings; have we picked up a good pair of walking shoes yet? You'll need the shoes, a digital scale, some sweat pants and perhaps a zip-up sweatshirt with a hood. Have you bought some new kind of cereal and other food? Not necessary really, but it helps.

Now I want to get very specific so, if you need it, you will have a clear pattern to follow. It is very important to begin the night before. What I mean is, you need to lay out your sweats, socks, shoes and things by a chair or somewhere easy to get to. You don't want to be rummaging around in drawers at 4:30 in the morning. Did I mention you'd probably have to get up early than you are used to? You do. Live with it!

If you are like me you will come to--I know it seems impossible to believe--absolutely cherish the first couple hours of the day. I wouldn't have believed it myself, but it's turned out to be so true for me. From 5:00a.m. to 6:30a.m. is now my favorite time of day. I think endorphins may play a role. At any rate, you must EM. Starting with 20 minutes is OK at the beginning if you really can't do any more, but just accept that you will need to build up to a full hour before very long. An hour-and-a-half to two hours is ideal if you can get there.

Here is an EM tip: extend your time by extending the route you walk. Add a block or two here and there until the course you set takes about an hour. In my case I use one very wide and long street as my course. Not really a course because I just walk up and back a couple of times and that's that. It takes me 15 minutes up the street and the same time coming back. So I do it twice and there is my hour. Then I walk, stretch and cool down for another 1/2 hour.

Well, I have more details for you but I'm sleepy and it's beddy-bye time for me--I've got to get up at o-dark-thirty!

Hang in there--keep taking in the ELEM-6 principles. Let the motivation arise within you as you think, "I must, I can... I will!" You can do this!

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to you and yours.

The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-8: A Brief Review

2009-11-09T14:17:00.008-08:00

wOK--I will assume you have by now done at least some of the things I have suggested in earlier posts. You have, haven't you? I have suggested both mental steps you need to take as well as very practical things you need to do.

Let's review:

1) You learned the meaning of ELEM-6 The diet no one is talking about!

2) You discovered there is no silver-bullet and that your metabolism is not the issue. (If you are still thinking your metabolism is to blame, then you need to pick up the phone and make an appointment with your doctor so you can settle the question once and for all)

3) You got a hint that time management might be one issue to tackle if you are going to add a full hour to an hour-and-a-half to your daily schedule. Yet another bullet to bite. (Perhaps this should be called the Biting Bullets Diet--there seem to be a good number of them needing to be bitten!)

4) You learned that a visit to your doctor could be motivating--especially if said doctor tells you about the likelihood of your developing diabetes or a heart condition as a result of your excess weight. Have you been to your doctor yet? If your doctor doesn't make an issue of your weight, then encourage them to! I mean it. Ask him or her, "Doc, do you think I need to lose some weight? How much should I loose to avoid future health problems? If your doctor is too timid to give you the stern lecture you need, then make your doctor give you one!

5) You found that putting off the day of reckoning would not do. You confronted that simple yet profound three-part statement one needs to say to one's self at some point: "I must, I can, I will."

6) Then I encouraged you to elicit the prayers of a few trusted friends. I hope by now you have told three or four people that you need to--and intend to--lose a significant amount of weight in the near future and have asked them to be praying for you in this regard. Have you?

7) Next came the revelation that no day is a good day to begin a diet. In fact, there is not a single day in all 365 which is a good day to begin a diet. They are all bad and every single one of them right near some holiday or birthday or some other celebration which will involve lots of food. I'm writing this on November 9th. I know what you might be thinking: "Well, you know, Thanksgiving is coming up real soon--this would be a really bad time to begin. I'll just wait until after Thanksgiving." Then, after Thanksgiving, guess what? It's Christmastime. That too is of course a terrible time to begin a diet. "I know," you may be thinking, "I'll wait until the New Year. Yes, that's it. The newness of the year will give me just the boost I need to get me started." Uh-huh. New Year's Day comes with a special dispensation of will-power, generated by the shining resolutions made the day prior, does it? Never really worked that way for me--at least not as far as dieting is concerned. I had a whole day to spend around the house with all kinds of leftover Christmas cookies, Chex Party Mix and all kinds of goodies. My New Year's dieting resolutions usually lasted until about lunchtime.

8) Next, I encouraged you to go get a few items. Remember what they were? Here is a hint: Bathroom scale (digital); good walking shoes (I like New Balance); sweat pants and hoodie. If you will be walking early in the morning you may also need some gloves. If you want to burn a few extra calories along the way, then pick up a set of hand-weights while you're at the store. Start with the real light ones: 2 or 3 pounds. By buying the things above you will further motivate yourself. Oh, I almost forgot. If you don't already have one, perhaps you should get an i-pod or a little arm-band radio so you can listen to your favorite music as you walk.

9) The last thing you learned about is, for me, a key part of the ELEM-6 Diet Plan. That is the part about giving yourself one day a week off. One day in which you eat whatever you feel like in any quantity your heart desires. I call it my "free day." Some people tell me it couldn't work for them or didn't. Perhaps. Still, I find it to be a great incentive each week during the preceding six days. I'll may write more about my "free day" in the future.

Well, that is enough review. My next post will be my attempt to get you to at least approach the starting line (if you haven't already done so) and set a goal, and set a date on the calendar for arriving at your goal. I'll get the starter's pistol ready. I can't wait! On your mark...

PS-- For me, this will be the start of ELEM-6 Year II Wow, how time flies! :-)

The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-7: Why the "6"

2009-11-08T22:04:00.011-08:00

Dear Struggling One,

Don't be deceived, dieting--especially the ELEM-6 diet--is hard work. Now, I ask you (those who follow the Hebrew scriptures) In this life, how many days is one to work? Yes, six. Blessedly, our heavenly Father has ordained a day of rest. One day out of the seven of our week. I have been trying to put this principle in practice in my life for a good ten years or so. Dennis Prager, one of my main hero's inspired me in this. After these ten years, I'm still trying, but I have a long ways to go until I get it right. Here is the deal: First, establish a Sabbath Day in your work week. After you lay that marker down, everything else seems to fall into place. Don't worry about becoming a Seventh Day Adventist. Just get hold of the Sabbath Principle and you'll soon get the hang of it.

Yes, I know it is as inconvenient as can be. Most of us get two full days, "off the clock," to spend however we please. The trouble is, many fill both of these days with activity galore. I know--I used to do that too. Going here and there. Shopping; car in for LOF or repairs; paying the bills; laundry, repairs around the home, vacuuming, shopping, more bills--soon we are part of the Rat Race without even knowing how we entered it. We don't quite know how, but we find we have a little tank-top with a number pinned on it and we're huffing and puffing our way down the race course that seems to have no end. That's because we did not set the Sabbath apart as holy to the Lord. We though we'd use the "free" time to take care of business and get stuff done. Makes sense, but not in God's economy.

All this is to say that you need to work very hard at dieting and exercise (EL,EM) SIX DAYS A WEEK only. Get it? I can't tell you what a difference the "6" in my dieting plan has made for me. When my seventh day comes up, I put all the work of dieting aside and eat to my hearts content. I usually don't "pig out" , but I know I can if I want to. Wheat Thins and Triscuits in abundance! Cookies! Bread of all kinds! Hot dogs, frozen pizza, wine--whatever! Ahhh... All worth waiting 6 days for.

What I am encouraging you to do--however you can do it--is to only do the strict dieting for six days. Give yourself one "free" day. It is something to look forward to. When you are denying yourself something really yummy, you can say to yourself, "Hang in there, it won't be but a very few days until I can enjoy whatever my heart desires. So, to recap: Eat-Less-Exercise-More-SIX-Days-a-week. Got it?

Well, that will have to be all for today. Hang in there and, if you haven't yet begun, prepare to do so.

--Allen

PS--Have you got your walking shoes and digital scale yet? Well, get ready because we're starting real soon!

The ELEM Diet, Part-6: Getting Started

2009-11-04T04:01:00.007-08:00

There is never a good day to begin a diet. Last year, as I walked out of my doctor's office on the twentieth of November, determining within myself that, "I can do this, I must do this--I will do this," I was so focused on the immediate task of starting to lose weight I didn't stop to think that Thanksgiving was exactly one week away. What timing! Not only that, but I had just been grocery shopping a few days before and our fridge and cupboards were brimming with all my favorite comfort foods: flour tortillas (I'd toss one right on the burner of the stove, flip it a few times, then slather it with butter and salt--mmmm, good!). I had hot dogs, cream cheese, p-nut butter, canned chili, chocolate bars, cookies--you name it. It was easily $120.00 worth of food. I am such a penny pincher, looking at all this food I'd just bought tempted me to put off starting to ELEM for a few weeks. But I knew I could not do that. The day of reckoning had come and putting things off yet again would just not do. As inconvenient as the timing was, I had to begin now--even if all this food went to waste.

There are always holidays just around the corner. There are always birthdays or other celebrations a day or two away. From that standpoint, it is never a "good time" to begin to ELEM. Just accept that fact, pick a day, and get to it.

Oh, have you bought your new walking shoes and new bathroom scale yet? Just do it! More to follow...

The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-5: Haven't Got a Prayer?

2009-10-31T07:30:00.004-08:00

[Please excuse the rough-draft nature of this post. I'll come back to it in the next few days and clean it up. I just wanted to get it to you ASAP] --Allen

My dear still struggling friends. In the psychological /spiritual battle regarding weight, one needs every tool possible. For folks of faith, this means, among other things, prayer. Now don't go thinking (as us overweight folks so often do) that this will make things effortless or so easy one need not work very hard. No--prayer is not some spiritual magic diet pill that will enable you to lose weight while you sleep. Yet--yet, there is something to earnest prayer which connects us to God in a way which leads to victory when previous efforts--even valiant ones--have failed.

Let me tall you about how prayer was a significant element in my beginning to get real about losing weight. I work at my church and our ministry team holds a weekly staff meeting. Besides the church issues we discuss, staff members will often ask for prayer regarding someone or something in their area of ministry. Also, staff members will ask for prayer for a family member who is ill or for some other personal issue. I'm a fairly private person and do not readily share my personal problems and struggles. Last year though, in April or may, at one particular staff meeting, I felt like I should illicit the help of others with my struggle to lose weight (or, perhaps I should say, my lack of being willing to really struggle meaningfully about my weight). So when it came my turn to ask for prayers, I told them how much my excess weight bothered me and how I had failed time and again to control my eating. I confessed that it was an embarrassment to me and a further embarrassment to tell them this. At any rate, no one made a big deal of it or commented much. nonetheless, I now believe that my prayer request to my co-workers that day somehow played a vital role in my eventual success. For all I know, it was the prayers and faith of one of them which really made the difference--and not so much my own.

I should mention here that this happened a full six months before I began to get serious about my weight. However, having asked people to pray for me made me all the more aware that something had to happen and it needed to happen sooner rather than later. One great thing which came of my confession to my co-workers is that one of them, our church's youth leader, would pop into my office every week or two and ask me how my dieting was going. This made me feel guilty when I had to tell him I wasn't yet making much--or any--progress. I was walking a bit (EM), but had not begun to EL yet.

My suggestion: Either in person or perhaps by email, select a handful of people who care about you and tell them how frustrated you are with trying to lose weight. Tell them you know you really must find a way and need all the help you can get. Ask them to remember you in their prayers in this regard. If you are really brave, you might invite them to ask you form time to time how it's going.

O.K. I have now revealed you one of the secret strategies of the ELEM-6 diet which is not contained in the acronym. Perhaps I should have called it ELEM-6+P.

That's all for now. Keep checking back in the weeks ahead as I share more and get into some real detail about how I began in earnest and what that was like.

PS-- You CAN do this! You must, you can, you will!

--Allen

The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-4, I Must I Can I Will

2009-10-22T07:40:00.002-07:00

To my dear sisters and brothers still struggling. I hope you are at least at the "I must" stage. That is a good place to begin. "I should" just doesn't cut it. "I Should" doesn't begin anything. It is the same as saying "someday." "I must" on the other hand drives home the imperative of the situation. I can no longer put this off with "I should" and "someday." When we say, "I must" to ourselves, we put ourselves on notice that the day of reckoning is at hand. No more putting it off with avoidance strategies: "Well, after the holidays..." That won't do. "I must" means now--before, or even during the holidays.

Oops--out of time. More next time.

The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-3: D-Day

2009-10-15T07:23:00.011-07:00

My annual physical having been a couple of months back, I had been in to see her for something else, which I can't recall at the moment. The point is that, during both visits--and of course in previous physicals--I'd given a blood sample. Now I get a call from the doctor asking me to come in for a follow-up visit. I was a bit concerned because I'm the one who is suppose to initiate an office call, not my doctor. Of course I went through a bit of the normal, "Uh-Oh--maybe I have cancer of some other terrible disease" thought process but, but beside that I was not too worried really. More curious than anything.

What she wanted to talk to me about, I discovered, was my blood sugar levels. She had been looking over my my chart and had noticed a steady incline. This climb in my blood sugar levels was in the pre-diabetic range she explained. My first thought was, "You mean you actually read my chart and take note of trends?" I was impressed that some professional--any professional--actually did what we all assume they should do. [You know, like auto mechanics telling you the truth and lawyers billing you accurately] Anyway, after the good feeling of being looked after, I had to face the bad feeling that what she was telling me might have somehow have some unpleasant ramifications for my lifestyle. I was right about that!

Our conversation went something like this:

Doctor: Mr. Randall, at this rate you will be on insulin by this time next year. For now I want you to begin taking Metformin to get your levels down, and I want you to begin taking your blood-sugar levels daily. These are a start, but they don't really address the fundamental issue.

Me: Oh, I see. You mean I need to change my diet to include fewer sweet things?

Doctor: No. That might help a bit, but it's your weight that is the main factor here. As of today you weigh 243 pounds and that is a several more that last time you were in to see me.

Me: You're right doctor, I know I need to but I just can't seem to find the time in my schedule. I'll try though.

Doctor: You have been telling me that for several years--but it is not happening. I'm just telling you that now you are facing some serious health consequences in the years ahead if you don't get a handle on this.

Me: Do you think I could get off the Metformin and the finger pricking if I lost some weight?

Doctor: Theoretically, yes, you could. But to do that you'd have to lose much more than just "some"--you'd have to lose a lot of weight. And frankly you don't seem capable of getting motivated to do so.

This last statement of hers really stung--because it was so true. She was absolutely right. Although I inwardly bemoaned my weight on a daily--sometimes hourly--basis, I seemed to myself to be completely incapable of getting motivated enough to do the simple but difficult thing [ELEM!] it takes to lose weight. Oh, I could come to a decision on New Year's Eve of on my birthday or some other time to "cut back" or "eat more sensibly" or "eat a healthier diet" but even those very modest efforts would only last a day our two--often only hours! Sometimes only until the next meal.

I've been round and round in my mind exploring the causes and reasons I eat like I do, or, I should say, like I did--but I really don't think there is much help in going there. I knew that food was a great comfort and solace for me and that I used it as a substitute for all kinds of psychological things I should have sought by other means, but that understanding in itself never helped me much when it came to getting motivated to lose weight.

I left the doctor's office feeling like a failure--again. I also felt like my doctor was exasperated with me and my prom ices over the years to do something about my weight. She was right--I'd just been putting it off and putting it off and had not been getting serious about doing something about my weight.

As I walked out of the building and down the sidewalk on Fourth Avenue, a small but essential thought rose in my mind. It was my voice speaking to my reluctant self. It simply said, "It is time. I cannot put this off any longer. I have to find a way to do this."

Please reread the last three sentences. This was a critical turning point. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I knew I could not put it off any longer. I knew I would not do it with any fad diet. I knew I had to face the reality of E-L-E-M...

In the next post I will go back in time and tell you something I did about 6 months before this which helped to set the stage for this turning point. And, although this "something" I am going to tell you about was followed by 6 months of failure, nonetheless it was, I have come to see, a very important key to unlock the mystery of motivation.

For now, meditate on accepting that the putting this off must soon come to an end. Go ahead and panic if you like. Let you face-stuffing inner-child throw a tantrum if she likes. You will soon be sitting her on a stool in the corner

Meditate also on these three phrases, for they form the mental basis of all that is to follow in the months ahead:
I must. I can. I will. This may sound like pop psychology, but it is not. It is ELEM-reality therapy! You must consider each statement by itself and accept its implications: I must do this. Not just "I should do this", but "I must do this. Sit with that a while.

I can do this. This is essential. Drop all the "But it's so hard" and "I know I should" inner dialogue. D-r-o-p it! You can do this! Yes, it will be difficult, but no matter--it must be done and you can do it! You know you can. You have just been too lazy or too afraid to tackle it. Well, just get over it because you know deep down inside that you really can do it. You've just been putting it off. Not for much longer though.

I will do it. Perhaps you are not quite there yet. That's OK. It's OK because you going get there soon. How do I know? Because you are going to go over and over the previous two statements until you are all the way there. You are going to accept "I must" and "I can" so completely that you will have no where else to go but to "I will do this".

I love You two women like sisters. I will be praying for you as God ushers you into and shepherds you through the changes ahead. Remember, God can do abundantly above all we can ask or imagine--through Christ Jesus our Lord!

The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-2: A Personal Word

2009-10-13T08:34:00.006-07:00

My dear friend struggling with weight,

I only have a spare minute to jot you a little note in between posts. I just wanted you to know I haven't forgotten your anxiety and and perhaps even desperation over the struggle to lose weight. In my next post I will recount the trip to my doctor which [a number of different expressions could be plugged in here] got me off the dime, or if you like, inspired me to (again) attempt to lose a serious amount of weight. It was November 19th of last year that my doctor got just a bit exasperated with me and my offhanded and always-broken promice to loose weight. I'll tell you more about this in my next post.

I will have to keep repeating that I didn't go on a diet--at least not the way "diet" is commonly understood. I didn't follow any "method" in particular. Having said that, I do want to give a detailed (as much as possible) answer to the question I hear so often, "how did you do it?" So, in the posts to follow, I will describe to you, in chronological order, the things I did to lose 75 pounds in 10 months. Stay tuned...

Oh, one more thing: If you want to follow my "method" (which, remember, is really no method at all) call today and make an appointment with your doctor. Make it for two or three weeks from now so I can get you ready for how you will want to approach the visit. You can give any reasonable explanation for making the appointment. Schedule an annual exam if you haven't had one in a while. Even if you aren't due for one, pay to get one anyway.

At Last, The ELEM-6 Diet Revealed, Part-1

2009-10-11T05:00:00.011-07:00

So many people where I work and at my church (the same place) have asked me how I lost so much weight (80-pounds in 10 months) I decided to put it in some sort of formula fashion so anyone wanting to take the same path could have some pointers in doing so. One person especially is very anxious to know the secret to my weight loss. I am dedicating this series of articles to that person. I will write as if I were addressing that person directly. Feel free to listen in.

Before jumping right in to the particular weight loss "secrets" I "discovered" I need to say a few things about the subject of weight and dieting in general. First and foremost, there are no secrets to be discovered. That's the first thing you'll have to accept. But of course you already know this. You just need to drop all the wishful thinking. Sorry, no silver bullets. Don't search for any diet with a name or any "diet program". ELEM-6 is only a name I gave "my" diet--which is no diet at all--as a spoof on all the diets with have names: the Atkins Diet; the South Beach Diet; The Beverly Hills Diet--there must be a thousand or more of them out there. Those names are all about selling books. So here is the big ELEM-6 revelation in as brief a way as it can be said: Eat Less and Exercise More--Six days a week. There, that's all there is to it. I could just plink a period down at the end of that last sentence and conclude this article right there, but that would be a bit cruel--even kind of cold and heartless. I don;t want to do that. I have to much deep and genuine sympathy for those who struggle and agonize over their weight. I know, I have most of my life. I do need to say more, but but before I do, you need to accept the simple truth that you already know exactly how to lose weight. We all know it. We just hate the cold mathematical-like reality of it and we long for something that will fast-track us to wight loss with not much effort or, or, --OMG--hunger. This is exactly why I call ELEM-6 [I wish I could put that little Trade-Mark symbol right after it] "the diet no one is talking about".

Here is an important 2-part disclaimer: 1) I know many people are helped by finding a diet with a name on it or who pay to join a program or hire a trainer. When it comes to weight loss, I really am for "whatever works for you". Even though I make fun of some of these things, I understand that people trying to lose weight need to find that help wherever and however they can. I just think that those things can often be a way to avoid facing the water-in-the-face reality that, once really and fully accepted, can be the real beginning point for substantial and weight loss. To that last sentence I almost included a clause about maintaining your weight loss once you've achieved it, but then backed off because I've not done that yet. If and when I've stayed at my preferred weight for a couple of years then maybe I'll write about that. For now, I'll just tell you about how I went about losing it. 2) I know that a few people have some rare metabolism or thyroid condition which requires surgery or some kind of special treatment. If that's you, then these articles are not for you. If you suspect you have some such condition, here is my advice: Stop using that possibility as an excuse not to try to lose weight. Go to the doctor, take some tests, then come back here if--as I suspect--you don't have any rare metabolism condition. If you are like me you don't have a metabolism problem, you have an eating problem. And for heaven's sake, please. pul-eeze don't call it, or think of it, as a "eating disorder"! Yikes. Drop that term like a hot baked potato... Hmmm...with real butter and sour cream...and chives...oh, and bacon bits and cheese. Sorry about that. :-)

Well, there is your intro. I want you to think about this little (but big) hard-to-swallow pill I've set on the dinner plate here before you. Think about what it would mean to take an ELEM-6 pill first thing every morning for the next ten months. Think about this for a few days and then I will tell you more about just how I got started and how, perhaps, you can get going in the same direction. See you back at this blog spot in day or two.

--Allen

Weight Loss, Self-Image, Time Management and the Apple Cart

2009-10-02T07:26:00.015-07:00

Little did I imagine, back in November of 2008 (the 19th to be exact) just how much an appointment with my doctor was about to change my life. People see my weight loss and think that's the big change. From their vantage point I know it is strikingly true. My appearance is so changed that some people at church are even struggling with a bit of cognitive dissonance and saying things like, "That was weird--I didn't recognize you for a moment there." I have to admit that, even for me, the thin-ish guy in the mirror is strangely unfamiliar still. I actually think my face looked much more friendly and warm when it was more rounded. And now that I have gone and shaved my head, my appearance looks, even to me, more different still--rather turtle-like really. Except for my white scalp and skin, I now look like one of the BlueMen (I love their music/act!). I suppose I'll get used to that turtle-headed guy in the mirror, but perhaps I'll need to try and purposely smile more to make up for the kind of gaunt monkish look my face has now taken on.

As I began to say, my appearance is not at all the biggest change since I began to lose weight. The biggest change is a shift in how I see and manage that ever-faster moving element in my life--that illusive, fleeting, mercurial, conveyor-belt-ish thing we call time (Remember that song by--Who was it?--called Time? It was all echo-y and psychedelic). My doctor had been on my case for two or three years about my weight. She said I needed to get more exercise and to do it more regularly and intentionally. I would always answer that I just couldn't fit it in to my busy schedule. I was already getting up at 6:30 or 7 and that seemed pretty early to me.

As I left the doctor's office with my prescription for Metformin--and a glucometer with which to prick my finger several times a day and record my blood-sugar levels--I determined that, convenient or not, I'd have to find a way to squeeze some exercise into my routine. The only place in my schedule for any new activity was in my mornings. Ugh. This would mean getting up earlier. I began getting up at 5:30, but after getting dressed and wrapped up (It was cold then in late November) it was ten-'till-six which didn't leave much time to walk and then take a shower. Eventually I found that the only way I could get ready and get in a sufficiently long was to get up at--gulp--4:45. Some days were really miserable. Now, almost one year later, this formally absurd hour of the morning seems a pretty "normal" time to get up. Nowadays for me, "sleeping in" means sleeping all the way through to 5:30 or 6:00. I guess it just proves that one can get used to nearly anything.

Well, Time compels me to wrap up this post and hit the "Publish Post" button so my waiting readers--both of you--can have a fresh morsel to consume. Now I must do some further research into something called Single Malt. Perhaps I will blog about my findings at some future time--Time permitting that is...

Consumerism Nears its End--for Me at Least

2009-09-28T19:28:00.018-07:00

That might be overstating it a bit, but it is virtually true, if not literally so. My personal consumption is not over yet, although the end is in sight. You see, today I bought the last pair of shoes I will ever wear. I came to this realization as I drove home with them and thought, "How long can I make these shoes last?" The answer I gave myself was that, with prudent care, I guessed I could easily get a good 15 years out of them. That's when I dawned on me that, considering my age--fifty-nine--any actuary worth his sea salt would tell me that these were indeed most likely my very last pair of shoes. Mortality will certainly bring consumerism to an end, if nothing else will.

Look, I know we all have to consume; it is a necessary, and even in a number of respects, a good thing. But we Americans have gone a bit overboard. I think we'd all, if only reluctantly, admit to that. Now admitting something is the same as confessing. I belong to a church tradition (Reformed) which values written and spoken confession of beliefs, sins, commitments and indeed, all kinds of important things. Confession, as it turns out, is good for the soul after all. And when it comes to the issue of consumer sins, perhaps we all have a good deal to confess.

Although my wife and I are both very frugal, she is much more so than I. And although we both subscribe to the motto, "Use it us, wear it out, make it do or do without," I do more of the buying of new things than she does. I like to shop (I confessed to this in an earlier post). Here I have to admit to being absolutely crazy about Walmart. OK, I'll make this a formal confession: I love bargains and I LOVE WALMART! There, I've said it. Yes, I know, I know; everything in the store in made in China. And to think that for years I used to scrupulously boycott anything made in China. Somewhere in the course of my boycott though, I was sucker-punched by reality.

I remember one time needing work boots and calling around to places to ask them if they had any work boots not made in China. I spoke to the manager of BootWorld who assured me that they had shoes which were indeed made in other countries--like Srilanka, Bangladesh or some such place. Anyway, I go to the store and look around awhile. What should I find but a really big sturdy cardboard store display with the word Caterpillar in big bold letters and an all-American manly-looking scene with photos of huge earth-moving equipment and big burly all-American guys in their Caterpillar work boots with their feet propped up on a giant muddy tire about ten feet high. "Man," I think, "this is the work boot for me." I get a pair and, when I get them home I what do I discover when I look at the label way inside on the underside of the tongue? "Made in China." "What?!" Caterpillar work boots--made in China?!! I took them back and the manager agreed to a refund. I made my righteous Ghadian stand, but it was one of my last. In the months following that episode my ever-vigilant label-checking revealed that nearly 97.3% of everything in any store I went to was "made in China." So much for my solidarity with the suffering masses in the Peoples Republic...

Worse than the effect all those unavoidable Chinese-made products had on my self-indulgent consumer habits was the idea my wife ran across not long ago in her reading. In the book by Timothy Keller (Ministries of Mercy, The Call of the Jericho Road) she read where he quoted John Newton to have said, "We are to spend a penny on the poor for every penny we spend on ourselves." This has cursed and haunted me ever since my wife and I discussed it. It's bad enough that we talked about the idea. She had to go and set up a little offering jar where we are to put a little slip of paper with what we have spent on ourselves. Let me tell you, this really makes one think every time one--I!--spend money on myself. I am forced to think, "Did I really need that?" and, "OK, now I have to spend an equal amount on some poor person--who will it be? How will I get them something they need?" As you can imagine, this has really messed with my buying habits.

Well, even as our consumerism must end, so too with this post. Here I sit contemplating my mortality, my comparative neglect of the poor, and to top it all off, how the shoes I now wear will most likely be on my feet as they lay me in my grave... Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute! Why must I have shoes on when I'm buried? Can't these shoes be better used by giving them to a poor person? I can be buried barefoot, thank you!

Of Shin Splints and Time Management

2009-09-24T06:07:00.005-07:00

It's 6:09a.m. and I would normally be nine minutes into the second hour of my morning walk. But because of a nasty shin splint I am instead here in my silent living room at the keyboard of my iBook. Sometimes a pesky problem in one area of our lives leads to a nifty solution in another.

I have been quite bothered by not finding time to blog for almost three weeks now. And, in general, I have of late been wrestling afresh with the seemingly eternal issue of Time Management. Enter the shin splint. It came on--for no apparent reason--one week ago. At first I continued my two-hour walks, but the pain soon curtailed that. This morning it was a bit better, but forty-five minutes into my walk, my very unhappy right shin told me, "that's enough!" That's when it occurred to me that I could--I should--use the remaining hour to get back to the blogging I'd been so missing. It also occurred to me that perhaps, now that I'd reached my weight-loss goal, I might cut my walking routine from down from two hours to one. One Time-Management issue solved, others yet to be managed.

The other related issue I came to a new approach about was how I so often am hesitant to even begin a project--like writing a blog post--if I do not have a big block of time in which do do a really good/thorough job of it. For me, with writing, that usually means a solid two hours. I have now decided to try and get over that attitude and instead re-train my hyper-critical inner-editor to loosen up and accept smaller slices of time and (gulp) sloppier writing. I know he'll just hate both of these things, but if he can't make this transition, well, he'll just have to understand that he can be replaced.

What does this mean for you, my loyal readers? [Imagining one has readers is a helpful motivational mental tool] It means that you will see some much shorter and more 'rough-drafty' posts. As I mentioned in another post, this blog has, amoeba-like, divided into two blogs: this one, Random Acts of Intelligence, which will deal with my personal take on life issues and popular culture; and my other blog, The Plumbline http://plumblinepress.blogspot.com/ which will feature more crafted articles dealing with theological issues, especially truth claims and relativism.

Well, there you have it--had it not been for a nasty little shin-splint, you would not have had this post to waste your--er--um, I mean, to pleasantly fill a few minutes of your precious time. You're done now so you'd better hurry up now and get back to managing your time!

Bye for now... --Allen

Shoecare Advice from 2018--Part-II

2009-08-29T20:53:00.006-07:00

I just read what I wrote last tiem, and I see I LefT a number of things out. For one thing, how the PeoplE came to be so overwhelming in favor of SingleSourceNewGovernmentProvided (SSNGP) Shoecare. I suppose one big factor was when, back in 2013, the Clothing Czar launched a series of GoodWiseMediaMoments (GWMMs) (I almost forgot you guys haven't begun to get GWMMs on your UMD--Universal Media Device--yet). Come to think of it, you guys probably haven't even been issued your UMDs yet. Ugh, I'm beginning to realize how much technology has changed since your time. Anyway, a Universal Media Device is self explanitory. They are really cool, except that only the New Government is allowed to make them. I suppose that's why GoodWiseMediaMoments (GWMMs) pop up so frequently.

All that above was to explain how and why so many people got on board with SSNGP Shoecare. They even finally swayed me, in spite of my libertarian leaning views (Don't worry, I'm using a very secure free and independant (!) network to compose/send this, so don't be anxious for me. I don't even worry about this being archived on the blog in 2009 because after 2012 everything on the OldInternet gets... um, nevermind--it's complicated and something you don't need to know right now. Just don't keep any paper copies of things I've written--of any other subversive stuff. Bad idea! Trust me.).

ANYway... The GWMMs would pop up and show some poor guy with no shoes and then, in your earbud, that Orson-Wells-like voice would ask if you really wanted to deny this guy decent shoes. Other GWMMs would constantly remind us of how many people could not afford decent shoes and how the big shoe companies were charging prices many could not afford (although $20,000 now sounds like such a sweet deal! You can't even get a pair of flip-flops for that nowadays!). Then there was that holograph of that little girl crying over her stubbed toe--you'd see her everywhere. That one really got to me.

Anyway, after a year and a half of GWMMs promoting SSNGP universal shoecare, everyone with a decent pair of shoes was feeling guilty about everyone without them. I think it was in early 2015 that the RollingRealTimeVote reached a majority and that familiar tone sounded in my earbud letting me know the People had once again spoken and that yet another NewGovernment program was being launched in order to make us all SafeandSecure.

All this space and I haven't even begun to tell you about what a bureaucratic nightmare it was dealing with the Department of Universal ShoeCare. I'll have to give you the details in another post.

A word to the wise: DON'T print this--or any other Tea Party type communications. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Shoecare Advice From 2018!

2009-08-10T20:15:00.008-07:00

You're not going to believe this, but I am blogging from 2018--no jive! Don't even ask me to explain how I did it. All I can say is, I know 99% of the stuff on the Art Bell show is bogus as a 3-dollar bill, but one guy he had on back in 2009 was the real deal. That's all I can say for now ( You can listen for re-runs or you can just go to... oh, sorry--you folks back in 2009 don't have that website yet. Never mind.

Anyway, the big thing I have to tell you is this: DON'T SIGN UP FOR THE SHOECARE PROGRAM WHATEVER YOU DO! I might be a bit overwrought at the moment and I know I am finding it difficult to manage my agner [Oh, I forgot--the old word "anger", like many other words from back then, has had its letters rearranged back when--nevermind, that will lead to a whole new topic ond open one giant can of rowms. Just know that it is hard for me, even after only three reays--I mean years--here to spell everything the old way. I offen now forget which is the old wa and which is the nu (new?) se?].

Wer was I--oh yes, shoecare. I suppose it was a sign that I'd conceded the last vestige of my conserve bent when I checked the box for shoecare during O-pen enrollment. I'd been holding out on taking all the government care that had been offered me for the past nine reays. I told myself I was standing on principle, but I was beginning to feel a fule for insisting on being independent and not letting the nation meet my sabic needs like it was for doing for everyone else.

So I finally gave in and checked the box because my favorite New Balance shoes were about ready to need replacing and, what with the economic situation, I knew I couldn't come up with the $35,000 for a new pair anytime soon. That was back in Febama of 2016. Here it is Baragusta 2018 and I'm still waiting for my GoreSteP shoes. I can't believe I gave in. I should have gone on the... um, let me just call it a worldwide network that the authorities have yet to penetrate--and got me some OldStock genuine New Balance shoes. Sure, they'd have cost me a QOG (That stands for Quarter Once Gold. That's the currency on the... um, the network I mentioned earlier). If I'd done that, I'd have had a real pair of OldStock New Balance shoes in a week or two. But stupid me, I just had to go for the "free" government shoes. Because of that decision I've been waiting two years for my first pair of GoreSteP shoes. All this time I've kept my last pair of New Balance together with duct tape and material cut from one of my two government-issued shopping bags. Ive got to hand it to them on that one--that GoreWeave is strong stuff! OK, I know it's a CAS (Crime Against the State) to use the bag in an unauthorized manner, but what could I do?

It all started when my application for shoes was denied because I'd not worn my GPS during my morning walks and so didn't have the VN (Verification of Need) documentation I needed. I know I know--"Your GPS, don't leave home with out it!" Who hasn't heard this PSA a thousand times? I just forgot to take it with me on my walks. I forgot it because I refused to have it implanted like everyone else was doing. While everyone found ithe GPS implant convenient, I thought it was really creepy.

Anyway, they denied my claim and so I was stuck with those six-year-old New Balance shoes. They were worn to tatters, but they had sentimental value to me because they would be my last pair of self-bought, free-market shoes. I guess I took it for granted when a person could just up and decide it was time for a new pair of shoes and just walk into any shoe store in town and buy any pair one wanted--wow!--that seems like a lifetime ago. Just think--some young kids today will never know what that was like to go out and buy your own new shoes...

Well I've gone on way longer than I ever intended and still have not told you about all the time and trouble I've gone through just to get the Feds in Chicago (back in your time the capital was in the District of Columbia) to send me my NSV--New Shoe Voucher. I'll have to continue this at some other tiem. To be continued...

AR-GP2018.goog08

Back in the (blogging) Saddle Again!

2009-08-04T21:52:00.007-07:00

My "mini-Job" series of trials my be coming to an end, at least that is my hope as of this moment. I have begun the work of getting myself whole again, but still have a way to go. If you read my previous post (A Bucket Full of Trials) you know what I am referring to. In a ten day period I had a series of small problems or, as Christians often call them, trials. The chronology has run like this:

1) My computer died--kaput.
2) A tire on my truck went flat--IHOP style.
3) I stupidly lost my very expensive prescription glasses in the San Diego bay--glug, glug, glug.
4) An abscess developed in one of my wisdom teeth--throb, throb, throb.
5) A crown came off another one of my teeth--fall into the Gap.
6) I develop bronchitis--cough wheeze cough.
7) I develop laryngitis--raspy Truman Capote voice.

There you have it, a perfect seven. Seven little annoyances right in a row. Here is where the rebuilding project stands:

1) I have a new computer with upgraded Windows programs, but am having "issues" with it. Need I say more?
2) Got a new tire--two new tires to be exact. No problem there (Tire Depot on Adans Ave. Highly recommended).
3) My new glasses came in but I am having issues with them too. Looks like I'll have to go back to the eyeglass place to...I dunno--argue with them?
4) Wisely had the wisdom tooth yanked. Not really too bad, pain-wise.
5) Got crown glued back in place but it is too high. Will have to go back in to get is sanded down.
6) Bronchitis is hanging on. I may need to go see the doc if it doesn't clear up.
7) My raspy Truman Capote voice began Sunday and remains. Did that sound come out of my mouth?

Here is how I would honestly rate each of these things on a scale of one-to-ten, ten being worst and one being just a minor annoyance:

1) 2.3
2) 1.6
3) 3.1
4) 2.5
5) 1.6
6) 1.8
7) 1.6

All things considered (Who has time to consider all things? NPR does, now that I think of it).
I am no worse for the wear and, I hope, somehow in some way a bit improved from having had to cope with these minor trials. Compared to what many other folks have to cope with on a daily basis, these things are, as Paul referred to them, "light and momentary afflictions."

May god bless you in all your trials, both big and little and whatever comes your way.

Shalom,

AR

A Bucket Full of Trials

2009-07-20T22:04:00.006-07:00

This week I feel like the subject of the TV show 48 hours. It was in that span of time that, 1) My computer at work suffered a fatal crash, 2) My tooth began to ache, 3) My right-rear tire went flat, 4) I lost my prescription glasses. "Ugh" sums it up nicely. Sometimes it seems that life's trials come in buckets full.

Today was the day for me to begin the recovery process. I went in to see my dentist, Dr. Jepsen, and found I needed a wisdom tooth extracted. I made an appointment to have that done. I also made an appointment with the Optometrist at the Walmart store to get an eye exam and a new pair of glasses ( In the meantime I am using a 7-year old pair that leaves much to be desired). I hired a homeless guy (a good friend) to put my spare tire on in place of the flat. My place of work, First Presbyterian Church, will get me a new computer. So, all things considered, I am not really all that bad off. I have a very great deal to be thankful for. And although I had some moments of feeling irritated and sorry for myself, in general I feel as if I have handled this cluster of trials not too badly. Glory to God for his grace and guidance!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you, my faithful readers, know what I have been up to lately. I love to dialogue and would love to communicate with you about anything on your mind. Thanks for reading my blog and staying in touch. God bless you!

-AR

I'm Just a Happy-Go-Lucky Risk-Taking Fool!

2009-07-18T21:23:00.006-07:00

Friday afternoon on his radio show Dennis Prager was extolling the benefits of risk-taking, of not always "playing it safe" in life. He told of all the experience he'd gained from having tried things which were out of the ordinary and diverged from the safe path. In particular he encouraged young people to travel to foreign countries and gain self confidence as well as rewarding experiences. He was not encouraging people to take unreasonable or radical risks, but just encouraging his listeners to try some things out of their usual comfort zone. It got me to thinking about how I am often kind of a--I hate the term--"stick-in-the-mud" choosing most often to do only familiar things that are not very adventuresome. His words nudged me a little in the direction of being a bit more daring the next time an opportunity presented itself.

Later that same day I attended the graduation of a friend. The keynote speaker recounted a study taken of people over the age of ninety-five. One of the three things they would do differently if they had life to live over was to take more risks. Well, that cinched it for me. I would break out of my conservative approach to things and take some risks along my life's usually predictable path.

The very next day (earlier today) such an opportunity presented itself. It was so good and so inviting as to seem heaven sent especially for me in order to have me enjoy and learn from a little risk-taking. My wife and I were out sailing today with my brother and sister to celebrate their July birthdays. There were nine of us on the boat altogether. The weather was fantastic and we'd had a good sail from the marina in Chula Vista up to Glorietta Bay where we anchored for lunch and relaxation. At some point my brother and sister jumped in the water for a swim and to just cool off in the water. They are both, unlike me, bold and adventuresome. At first I followed my usual non-participatory pattern and didn't even consider joining them. Then I remembered the two--two--admonitions that had just so recently come my way, challenging my stick-in-the-mud ways.

That did it. I decided I had to take the plunge and break the old boring Allen Randall mold. I was already wearing casual shorts so didn't need to change. I took off my shirt; took my wallet out of my pocket, congratulating myself for having the foresight to do so. Oh, and my watch would likewise need to be taken off and stowed safely in the fanny pack I'd brought. Then there were the car keys to remove from my pocket and place with the other things. It was a good thing I remembered also to take my cell phone and my pocket camera off my person and place them in the tote bag. Now I was all ready to defy my personal conservative convention and take a liberating leap into the San Diego bay. Yes! Go for it!

Over the side I went with a splash. Freeze frame. In the nanosecond just before my head goes under the water my nephew Shane yells, "Your glasses!" I pop up out of the water to the realization that I'd forgotten to take them off. In the half-second that this thought took to sink into my newly risk-friendly brain, I saw, in my mind's eye, my $500+ pair of prescription Flexon frame glasses descending toward the bottom of the bay. I dove down as fast as I could hoping to catch a glimpse of then and extending my hand in the hope I could race ahead and catch them as they sunk. No such luck. They were gone--forever. My sympathetic shipmates produced a pair of goggles and snorkel, but the bottom proved to be too far down and the water too murky for there to be any chance of my recovering them.

After about twenty minutes in the water I climbed back aboard the now fuzzy boat and joined my blurry family and friends for the sail back to the dock and the rest of the double birthday party for my brother and sister. One small irony was that, as we neared the marina, a young woman on a power boat passing near us, going in the opposite direction, lifted her top and, for apparently no particular reason, flashed us. I have never been to Marti Gras and such an event has never happened to me in my entire fifty-nine years, but on this one day, and at this particular time, it did. All I can deduce is that God, in his great wisdom and mercy, arranged it such that my view was even more obscured than when they pixelate stuff like this on TV. Is this Murphy's Law or what?

As I drove home, my wife read out the exit signs to me so I'd know when to change lanes and where to get off the freeway. Since it was twilight and all the cars on the road had their lights on, the view in front of me as I drove looked just like the night sky on the fourth of July. Once back home I fortunately found a seven-year-old pair of glasses and the fuzzy world came back into acceptable focus.

All I can say is that I've had just about enough risk-taking for one day. In fact, I think I've had enough to last me another decade or two. The way I'm feeling just now, it'll be some time before this risk-averse stick-in-the-mud takes any more plunges into adventure.

Our Shared Longings

2009-07-18T10:27:00.005-07:00

I believe there are certain universal longings shared by all people. The four things we all long for are love, joy, peace and power. Of course not everyone longs in equal measure for each of these things. Sometimes I feel the need for peace more acutely than I do for joy, but I need and long for each of these attributes to some degree at all times.

On a human level every individual can experience the warmth of familial love, moments of ecstasy, times of peace and aspects of personal power. The drive to experience these things more often, and to an ever greater degree, drives all human ambition and activity.

Those who are followers of Jesus Christ and have come to God through him have access to these things in a double and deeper sense. Jesus told his followers he was imparting his peace to them. He said it was a peace such as the world at large was unable to give. It was an extraordinary peace. It was a peace so deep even the prospect of death could not ultimately disturb it.

Everyone needs to give and receive human love. If you have been to a wedding you have probably heard the preacher refer to first Corinthians thirteen. That is the great passage where the apostle Paul writes of the essential qualities of the highest form of love--which is Gods love, "agape" love. It is the love that, unlike all human love, "never fails."

Not only do Christ's followers experience extraordinary love and peace, but they also posses a joy which is almost undefinable. Jesus prayed to God the Father that his followers would experience the joy shared by the Son and Father--a joy which flowed from their unique oneness and intimate fellowship.

Lastly, those who belong to Jesus have access to a special power which only comes from a dynamic connection with the God of all creation. It is a power that proclaims, perseveres and overcomes. This power emboldens the believer to unashamedly proclaim the gospel. This power enables Christ's followers to persevere through every trial, difficulty, doubt and discouragement. This power ultimately gives Jesus' people the ability to overcome sin, temptation and the Devil's traps and to cross the final finish line with a victorious and living faith.

The marks of Jesus' followers: love, joy, peace, power.

2B2BB

2009-07-14T21:36:00.008-07:00

That stands for Too Busy To Blog Blues--which should explain why no new posts for a few days. My goal it to be posting five or six days a week. That will take some discipline--something I've been working at building into various areas of my life lately. I'll have to get up a bit earlier or cut my walk down a scotch, or perhaps write at lunchtime. We'll see. This I'm posting this just so there'll be something up and current. Lord forbid this blog ever go dormant!

I should mention that this blog, Random Acts of Intelligence, is devoted to personal slice-of-life type things and social commentary, espeecially now that I've started another blog, The Plumbline (plumblinepress.blogspot.com) which will deal with Biblical/spiritual/philosophical issues--especially touching on the question of whether people do or do not have access capital-T Truth and, if so, how and in what fashion.

Please forgive that this post is more along the line of an announcement than a thoughtful article. I'll knuckle down and get my next post up before too very long.

Climate Change--Bring it On!

2009-07-11T05:34:00.003-07:00

It looks like climate change has come to San Diego this summer--and I'm lovin' it! I already love the wonderfully mild weather here, never very far from 70 degrees. A heat wave is when it gets above 75 and a cold snap is when it dips to below 65--brrr. If a breeze happens to be blowing, you have to consider the wind-chill factor, which can make it feel like 60. So far this summer we are having an amazingly mild one.

How one feels about the weather is quite a personal thing. To my wife, San Diego is nearly the Antarctica. She grew up in Houston and apparently acquired a mental thermostat much different from mine. A pleasant day to her is somewhere in the 90s. For her, the only thing which could improve upon that (for me unbearable) condition would be to have eighty percent humidity to go along with it! That's why this summer has seemed to her a virtual ice age. For me, the weather couldn't be fine-ah. Ahhh, the sweet mid-to-high 60s--that's the zone for me.

No sooner than the latest data for the past decade had come in, than Al-gore apparently issued a decree to his minions to drop the sacred term, "global warming," and replace it with the new sacred term, "climate change." The minions got the message, didn't skip a beat, and kept right on predicting impending world-wide disaster. A billboard in our neighborhood shows a boy who looks to be about ten standing in rising water up to his chest and admonishes us who are driving by to get with the program or this kid's future is sunk.

Is the earth's climate suppose to change, or is it suppose to remain constant? If I am not mistaken, scientific data have long ago established the latter. I am therefore driven to the inescapable conclusion that--hold your head-gear--climate change is normal! Nothing to see here folks, move along. Yes, yes, I know, human activity is putting its awful carbon foot on the global climate accelerator and is driving us off the weather cliff. "Eeeeek! Honey, slow down! You're gonna get us all killed!"

Everything above was preface to what I was wanting to say, but I've run out of time to say it. I wanted to tell you why I love climate change. I'll have to write another post on that in a day or two. The bottom line for me is: global warming; global cooling--either way, I'm good with it. Meanwhile, Google Weather tells me we're in for a scorcher here in San Diego today: we're facing a high of 76! Bring it on!

And now, a word from one of our sponsors...

2009-07-07T20:36:00.011-07:00

CCC
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Otium cum dignitate

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*In commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin*

A special non-Saturday meeting will be held
this Friday, July 10th at 4:00p.m.

Excalibur Wine and Cigar Lounge
7092 Miramar Rd. 92121

"Come when you can, leave when you must."

Buddhism--Get Ready to Speak to its Followers

2009-07-06T21:34:00.005-07:00

What follows is from: wri.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/buddhism.html

For centuries, Buddhism has been the dominant religion of the Eastern world. Today it remains the predominant religion in China, Japan, Korea, and much of southeast Asia. With the rise of the Asian population in the U.S., Buddhism has made a tremendous impact in the United States. Presently, there are over 300,000 Buddhists in the U.S. It remains the dominant religion in the state of Hawaii and many prominent Americans have accepted this religion, including the former governor of California, Jerry Brown.(1)

The Origin of Buddhism

Buddhism began as an offspring of Hinduism in the country of India. The founder was Siddhartha Gautama. It is not easy to give an accurate historical account of the life of Gautama, since no biography was recorded until hundreds of years after his death. Today, much of his life story is clouded in myths and legends which arose after his death. Even the best historians of our day have several different--and even contradictory--accounts of Gautama's life.

Siddhartha Gautama was born in approximately 560 B.C. in northern India. His father Suddhodana was the ruler over a district near the Himalayas which is today the country of Nepal. Suddhodana sheltered his son from the outside world and confined him to the palace where he surrounded Gautama with pleasures and wealth. Despite his father's efforts, Gautama one day saw the darker side of life on a trip he took outside the palace walls.

He saw four things that forever changed his life: an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a beggar. Deeply distressed by the suffering he saw, he decided to leave the luxury of palace life and begin a quest to find the answer to the problem of pain and human suffering.

Gautama left his family and traveled the country seeking wisdom. He studied the Hindu scriptures under Brahmin priests, but became disillusioned with the teachings of Hinduism. He then devoted himself to a life of extreme asceticism in the jungle. Legend has it that he eventually learned to exist on one grain of rice a day which reduced his body to a skeleton. He soon concluded, however, that asceticism did not lead to peace and self realization but merely weakened the mind and body.

Gautama eventually turned to a life of meditation. While deep in meditation under a fig tree known as the Bohdi tree (meaning, "tree of wisdom"), Gautama experienced the highest degree of God-consciousness called Nirvana. Gautama then became known as Buddha, the "enlightened one." He believed he had found the answers to the questions of pain and suffering. His message now needed to be proclaimed to the whole world.

As he began his teaching ministry, he gained a quick audience with the people of India since many had become disillusioned with Hinduism. By the time of his death at age 80, Buddhism had become a major force in India. Three centuries later it had spread to all of Asia. Buddha never claimed to be deity but rather a "way- shower." However, seven hundred years later, followers of Buddha began to worship him as deity.(2)

The Way of Salvation

The question Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, sought to answer was, Why is there pain and suffering? Also, he held to the Hindu belief of reincarnation: after death one returns to earthly life in a higher or lower form of life according to his good or bad deeds. This belief prompted a second question that needed to be answered, How does one break this rebirth cycle? The basic teachings of Buddhism, therefore, focus on what Gautama believed to be the answer to these questions. These basic tenants are found in the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path. Let us begin with the Four Noble Truths.

The First Noble Truth is that there is pain and suffering in the world. Gautama realized that pain and suffering are omnipresent in all of nature and human life. To exist means we will all encounter suffering. Birth is painful and so is death. Sickness and old age are painful. Throughout life, all living things encounter suffering.

The Second Noble Truth relates to the cause of suffering. Gautama believed the root cause of suffering is desire. It is the craving for wealth, happiness, and other forms of selfish enjoyment which cause suffering. These cravings can never be satisfied for they are rooted in ignorance.

The Third Noble Truth is the end of all suffering. Suffering will cease when a person can rid himself of all desires.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the extinguishing of all desire by following the eight-fold path. "The eight-fold path is a system of therapy designed to develop habits which will release people from the restrictions caused by ignorance and craving."(3)

Here are the eight steps in following the eight-fold path. The first is the Right Views. One must accept the four noble truths. Step two is the Right Resolve. One must renounce all desires and any thoughts like lust, bitterness, and cruelty. He must harm no living creature. Step three is the Right Speech. One must speak only truth. There can be no lying, slander, or vain talk. Step four is the Right Behavior. One must abstain from sexual immorality, stealing, and all killing.

Step five is the Right Occupation. One must work in an occupation that benefits others and harms no one. Step six is the Right Effort. One must seek to eliminate any evil qualities within and prevent any new ones from arising. One should seek to attain good and moral qualities and develop those already possessed. Seek to grow in maturity and perfection until universal love is attained. Step seven is the Right Contemplation. One must be observant, contemplative, and free of desire and sorrow. The eighth is the Right Meditation. After freeing oneself of all desires and evil, a person must concentrate his efforts in meditation so that he can overcome any sensation of pleasure or pain and enter a state of transcending consciousness and attain a state of perfection. Buddhists believe that through self effort one can attain the state of peace and eternal bliss called Nirvana.

Above from: http://wri.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/buddhism.html

Christians would do well to become conversant with Buddhism if they (we) want to reach our culture. Young people who have come of age without any religious instruction will be attracted to a number of elements in the eight-fold path. I will be considering what some of these elements are in upcoming posts. I think Buddhism will also appeal to some middle age folks who may be tiring of the nebulous nature of the New Age philosophies they adopted in the eighties and nineties. Stay tuned.

2009-07-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law. Matthew 7:28 & 29

In a world heaped high with words, the words of one man surmount them all. Amidst the cacophonous voices raised to give us their two cents worth, one voice speaks with calm and priceless clarity. Of all the boastful claims of knowledge made by the many, there is one who speaks with true humility and wisdom.

May his life-changing words find welcome in your soul today.

4th of July Quiz

2009-07-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

Who is John Galt?

(Hint) ---------->

Grateful for the Blessings of Liberty!

2009-07-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

And... special greetings and blessings to those of you fortunate enough to be born on this important and historical day.

However you celebrate today, I encourage you to pause, reflect and be grateful for (as Michael Medved puts it daily) "This, the greatest country on God's green earth."

It is our tradition, here at the Randall homestead, to read the Declaration of Independence each year on this date. Its primary author, Thomas Jefferson, certainly exhibited great wisdom, passion and courage in penning this incredible document.

May all the blessings of liberty abound to you and yours this special day!

For more on this subject, you might want to visit the site of a fellow blogger, Bryan Burton: http://christisvictorious.typepad.com

Peace Vertical, Peace Horizontal

2009-07-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. (Romans 5:1)

Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18)

Back when I was a young peace activist I did not have peace with God, myself or with the great majority of my fellow human beings. True peace was not possible until I accepted the Terms of Peace offered me by God. Once hostilities ceased on that front, a pacification operation was begun in my heart and mind that continues to this day. Once I was an angry pacifist, now I am becoming a peaceful warrior.

I have become convinced that this peace with God--this peace which only the death of Jesus Christ could secure--is an absolute prerequisite in order for us to truly be at peace with one another. The new pacifism I now practice requires much much more from me than marching or petitioning or pontificating. It requires a surrendering, a laying down of all arms of every sort--even, perhaps especially, of loaded words.

Lord, thank you for the peace you have brought to my life. Thank you for sending your son to die so things would be set right between us. Father, you know I have far to go on the road of peace and much more to learn. Show me more the way of Christ so I can love even my enemies as Jesus taught.

2009-07-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

World peace, personal peace, peace of mind, peace and quiet, peace treaty, peace symbol, peace sign, peace conference, peace maker, peace march, Prince of Peace.

I would like your help in exploring this many-faceted topic. Let me know what you think. I will be doing some posts on this theme over the summer and would love to have your input.

Peace--

Allen

The Peace of the Buddha vs the Peace of the Christ

2009-06-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

Buddhist teachings about peace repose at the core of its worldview and ethical teachings. Being a peaceful person and helping to create a future karma of peace for oneself and the world are at the heart Buddhist practice. Consider this statement:

Even if we feel our cause is just, if we in thought, word, and deed make war against injustice, we are still part of the problem and not contributing to the solution. On the other hand, if we concentrate on putting our own minds at peace, then we can broadcast peace mentally and generate peace through our actions. We should use a peaceful mind to act for peace in the world. From Buddhist Ideas for Attaining World Peace, by Ron Epstein (Lectures for the Global Peace Studies Program, San Francisco State University, November 7 & 9,1988)

One might be inclined--many have--to take a few select statements of Jesus, such as,"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God," and suppose that he and his predecessor of four centuries, Siddhartha Gautama, were on the same page about this subject. There seems a sort of mania on the part of religious unifiers to show that all the great religious thinkers of the past drew from the same universal well of divine inspiration and that their differences are only peripheral and inconsequential. This unifying impulse is, I suppose, commendable on some level, but it winds up muddying things for those seeking clarity regarding religious and spiritual values.

Jesus spoke about peace a great deal. Just when you might begin to think that Jesus had perhaps slipped off to India in his younger days and hijacked the Buddhist teachings on peace, he comes out with,“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword" and really throws you for a metaphysical loop. Luke, recording the same teaching, has Jesus saying, " Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division." What's a follower of Jesus to think? Do these discordant sayings of the Prince of Peace rattle your mind and disturb your heart? Not to worry, the Master has a word for you: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled..."

The Buddha would have us become human prayer wheels for peace, blowin' in the wind, "broadcast[ing] peace mentally" to the tumultuous war-ravished world around us. Jesus would have us speak the sword-sharp Truth about Himself and redemption--a truth he promises will brings division and even pit people against one another.

The Buddhist path would have us eschew any effort to battle injustice or confront oppressors, and instead have us create good karma for the future by means of projected peaceful thoughts and gentle friction-soothing actions. Isaiah exhorts us to, "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows." [emphasis added]

The paradox in all this is that there is a profound peace for the followers of Messiah Jesus, even as they confront injustice and fight oppressors, for as Jesus told the original disciples, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

If all this hasn't given you enough to think about, I'll just leave you with this final thought from the Apostle Paul:

"And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen." (Romans 16:20)

I've Got the No Time to Write a Post Blues

2009-06-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

These days I am feeling a certain sort of obligation (a good obligation I am glad to have placed upon myself) to write a post every few days or so. I certainly would not want a whole week to go by without a posting of some sort. This (writing) is a new discipline and, in the scheme of things is no doubt an answer to my prayer for more discipline in every aspect of my life.

Today I had hoped to spend an hour or two at the keyboard, but it was not to be. It is late and I am left with but these few moments right before bedtime (In that respect, this post is rather more a journal entry). As today unfolded, I did a few chores, like shopping and emptying the cat's litter box, and then received an impromptu lunch invitation from a good friend--which I happily accepted. Coming home I had a visit from my brother and his girlfriend. We went to a neighborhood pub, the Ould Sod, for a beer and then home for pizza and some good and meaningful conversation. These things filled the day.

I did note, on a little index card during the day, a few potential topics, such as: neatness, order and what they mean; the peace of Christ contrasted to the peace of Buddha (now possibly a series); what makes a "man's man" or, a "manly" man; the cigar smoking interior decorator and a few others. These and other ideas will have to vie for next up to bat on this blog.

Please let me know if there is a particular topic you think I should explore. Who knows? You might just tip my hand in one direction or another. For now it is night-night time and in the morning the beginning of a new work week.

May the Lord shed his grace and goodness upon you and may your life be drawn ever more into orbit around him and his eternal truth. Amen.

2009-06-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

No man’s really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be; till he’s realized exactly how much right he has to all this snobbery, and sneering, and talking about ‘criminals,’ as if they were apes in a forest ten thousand miles away; …till he’s squeezed out of his soul the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him safe and sane under his own hat.

--G.K. Chesterton The Secret of Father Brown, 1927

The Face of the Buddha vs The Face of the Christ

2009-06-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

The image of the Buddha greets one regularly in my neighborhood. Not just at the vegan restaurant on the corner, but even in less likely places such as gas stations and even the local hardware store. I've noticed that even Walmart is offering Buddhist inspired decor. A local furniture store is named, The Eye of Buddha.

Back in the late 50's, when I was a kid, there seemed to be an island craze which swept, if not the country, then at least our city. Tiki torches were ubiquitous. When I was about fourteen, I carved, from an 8-foot section of palm, a tiki to go by our backyard pool. It had big pukka shells for eyes. I remember my dad completing the exotic ambiance of our backyard with a one-foot high cement Buddha placed on a little pedestal. This Buddha was fat. It seems fat Buddhas are out of fashion these days.

I find the image of Buddha attractive and interesting. The perfect serenity and calm of his features has, I think, a universal attractiveness and appeal. Who among us has not gazed upon the soft and somewhat feminine features of the Buddha's placid face, with those smooth and relaxed eyelids so calmly and completely closing off all the stress and care of the outer world, and not longed to somehow attain this same deep inner peace and detachment from all worldly cares?

This stress-free Asian face reflects a deep peace which shields its soul from all the clamor and strife of the material world. It's the face of determined and disciplined detachment from a tumultuous and tragic world. The Buddha sits there silently and serenely inviting us to join him in that place where all earthly care has ceased and no striving disturbs the glassy stillness within. In this unlined face it is evident that all wants and desires have been released and all mental and physical tension have drifted away like some wispy vapor. This face silently whispers that all is--or at least can be--peace and perfect harmony.

Christ's face is portrayed most often as reflecting some deep emotion. He is either seen in anguish as he himself suffers upon the cross, or weeping in sorrow when at the grave of Lazarus. His face reflects protective concern for the woman about to be stoned. This is not to say that images of Christ cannot be found depicting him in relative ease, it's just that images of him in some sort of sorrow greatly outnumber the others. There is indeed the Prince of Peace aspect to Christ, but it is not the peace of detachment from the world, but a peace which comes at the cost of first engaging with and overcoming evil.

The Christ we find depicted, whether in the Bible or in art, is a Christ who is fully engaged in the world. We find him hotly debating opponents one minute, then dramatically delivering a demon possessed man the next. He makes no effort to shut himself off from suffering and pain around him, instead he seems wade into it and absorb it. Isaiah tells us, "He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." This is the face of a man who feels deeply an inner grief over the plight of our struggling and suffering humanity. He weeps over Jerusalem. He gets angry and overturns the tables of the money changers. He cries out to the multitudes. He rebukes the pharisees. Christ is anything but placid and calm in the middle of the mess of fallen humanity.

The two faces reflect two ways of being in/coping with the world around us: We can, like the Buddha, shut it out and retreat inward to a serene and silent reflecting pond deep in the tranquil inner monastery of our souls or, we can engage the hurt and struggles happening around us and "weep with those that weep" allowing our souls to both confront and mourn for a broken and wayward world.

The Confessions of Saint Allen, No. 3

2009-06-24T19:30:00.001-07:00

I drive a gas-guzzling SUV. I suppose if Al Gore were to measure my carbon footprint, I'd become a whole segment for his next movie. As it is, I'm afraid I'll soon be required to submit to the new Cap-and-Trade program before they'll allow me to keep driving it.

For my confession is to be complete, I need to let you know that I have gone deeper in enviro sin than you may have imagined from the paragraph above. You see, the SUV I drive is not even a modern one with gobs of government-mandated pollution controls stuck all over it. The awful truth--and I can't hide the fact--is that it has no pollution controls on it whatsoever (There--I've said it). That's because it's a 1968 Chevy Suburban. The good ol' 3-door model. This thing has enough metal in it to make half-a-dozen Honda Civics. It gets about nine miles to a gallon. In a few years, when New York is fourteen feet under water, I know that I will personally be responsible for an inch or two of it.

Why am I so blase' about killing the planet? Well, it all goes back to Y2K. Remember? The computer glitch that was going to bring the gears of modernity to a sudden infrastructure-crashing, business-confounding stop at the rollover into the new century? That's why I drive my planet-destroying vehicle. The genesis of my fall from harmony with the planet goes back to early 1999. That's when I began noticing this '68 Suburban parked here and there downtown.

Being the prudent person I am, I saw it as the perfect worst-case-scenario vehicle to get us (me and my wife) through the wilderness years following civilization's post-Y2K collapse. So one day I left a little note under the wiper asking the owner to call me if he ever decided to sell it. He called me that evening. Next thing you know, bodda-bing-bodda-boom, I'd bought us our Y2K back up plan. This baby would be just the ticket to ride out the coming social upheaval. "Heck," I thought, "this thing is so spacious inside, why there'd be room for our three cats, a good stock of Friskies Special Diet cat food, their litter box, thirty or forty gallons of water, and a good portion of our book collection." I calculated that there'd even be room enough for a small fridge to boot. Then of course we'd need to invest in a diesel generator. Excellent thinking!

Well, you may have noticed that the social collapse following Y2K was somewhat less than total. Therefore we never did have to head for the hills and make the 'burb our back country survival headquarters. We grew to like the old Suburban so much we decided to keep her, notwithstanding the way it would warm the globe in the ensuing years. We still take her out to the back country, but now it is only for a week-end of camping.

There you have it. Another from-the-heart confession by the guy you don't want to spar with in traffic--especially if you're in a Prius.

The Karma of My Neighborhood

2009-06-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

I live in a San Diego neighborhood called Normal Heights. The joke around town is that it is anything but. My wife and I don't really fit the political/cultural make up of the area (I'd guess this neighborhood went 98.7% for Obama. The other 1.3%? Peace and Freedom. We really don't mind and actually like the charming and somewhat quirky flavor of the area. Up on Adams Ave is a very popular coffee house called Lastat's. It has lots of gargoyles making faces at you from many vantage points on/around the building. It's a popular hang out for the goths and several other sub-culture groups. I guess sub-cultures of a feather flock together. A friend of mine and I had coffee there once. It was nice. Next time I go there I think I'll wear one of those knit hats that come with dreadlocks sewn around the inside edge.

Anyway, that was all introduction to a recently overheard conversation I want to tell you about. It perfectly captures the flavor of our little Normal Heights community. I was out for a walk when, not far from the vegan/yoga restaurant I saw a younger looking woman on a bicycle stopped curbside asking directions from an older earth-mother type. The younger woman had on some flowing Buddhist style clothing and one of those odd pear-shaped shoulder sling things lots people in the area carry. Anyway, as the girl on the bike began to peddle away, the earth-mother woman called out to her, "Good Karma Sweetie!" "And to you" the younger woman called back over her shoulder as she peddled away.

Mr. Rodgers' attire might clash here, but I think he would have felt right at home in this neighborhood.

Report Blog Tech Problems

2009-06-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

If you experience any problems when opening or closing this page, individual posts, or comments or other functions, please use the comments feature to this post to report the issue. Thanks!

The Confessions of Saint Allen, No. 2

2009-06-22T17:43:00.002-07:00

I smoke Cigars. I suppose I should begin by explaining how I fell into this delightful habit. It all started with C. S. Lewis. Actually, it was more the Inklings [Excuse me while I google Lewis, Inklings, smoking]. OK, I'm back.
Here are the basics (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings):

The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Although Christian values were notably reflected in several members' work, there were also atheists among the members of the discussion group.

"Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."

As was typical for university literary groups in their time and place, the Inklings were all male. (Dorothy L. Sayers, sometimes claimed as an Inkling, was a friend of Lewis and Williams, but never attended Inklings meetings.)

A number of Inklings participants were smokers. And drinkers. They smoked pipes and/or cigars. A few years back I began to think about--and envy--the Inklings and their camaraderie. I could picture them gathering, Friday afternoons, at the London pub they frequented, the Eagle and Child (Which they renamed the Bird and Baby). By all accounts they enjoyed brandy along with their cigars, cigarettes and pipes. We live in a much different day and age with a much different set of values.

I had quit cigarettes more than a year before I began smoking cigars. By this time, I had no residual cravings for nicotine whatsoever. What drew me to cigars was the mental image of the Inklings and the camaraderie they shared. I began to wonder if there were, anywhere in all of San Diego, a place where men got together for interesting conversation. I could find none. Still, the picture in my mind remained. It was a picture of men of like mind sharing themselves and their thoughts together in a way which was pleasing to them and fulfilled the need all men have for camaraderie.

As fate would have it, that month National Review (a political fortnightly) had a full-page ad from Thompson Cigars for a sampler pack of six cigars--which came with a free humidor/carrying case. I went for it and ordered the cigars. I smoked them one by one and found one brand I really liked--C.A.O. (Still my favorite: the Brasilia Samba. Ummm...) I was so inspired, I began, in January of 2005, the Chesterton Cigar Club--named after none other than the great Victorian journalist (and cigar smoker), G.K. Chesterton (Seems everyone in that period dropped their first to names to initials. Just call me D.A. Randall)

There you have it--confession No.2. It is 7:00p.m. straight up. I am now going to go select from my humidor a big beautiful cigar and celebrate a day well spent relaxing, shopping, putzing and blogging by lighting one up and contemplating my next confession.

* The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England, for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949.^[1] Its most regular members (many of them academics at the University) included J. R. R. "Tollers" Tolkien, C. S. "Jack" Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Christopher Tolkien (J. R. R. Tolkien's son), Warren "Warnie" Lewis (C. S. Lewis's elder brother), Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, R. A. "Humphrey" Havard, J. A. W. Bennett, Lord David Cecil, and Nevill Coghill.

**The Eagle and Child is a pub in St Giles', Oxford, England which is owned by St. John's College, Oxford.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings

Confession Series Explained

2009-06-22T16:49:00.001-07:00

Below begins a new series. It will be an occasional series. That is, these "confession" posts will only appear from time to time. As the spirit leads, I will reveal some aspect of myself/my life that runs counter to something. That something could be the prevailing cultural norms, or current Christian norms (however defined), or it could be some revealing opinion of mine I feel readers might find curious, instructive, entertaining or interesting.

These will be my own personal, particular "confessions" or points of view I happen to hold at the time I express them. Some, even many, of the things I believe are in flux--but this flux is not one with wild parameters. Instead, it is a flux which continues to to be refined by what I discover, with God's guidance, to be true. This, I trust, will be a life-long process of discovery--lead ultimately by the one who some two-thousand years ago said, "I am the way, the truth and the life."

I belong to what is called a, "*confessional church"--the Presbyterian Church (USA). I have come to appreciate this aspect of the church. I don't mind opposing points of view. I like it when people declare, plainly, what they believe. I can handle disagreement and dissenting points of view--this sort of tolerance is a conservative/liberal value I hold dear.

*A confession is a public declaration of what a church believes. Individual Christians certainly confess their own personal faith, but a confession of faith is more than a personal affirmation of faith. It is a statement of what a community of Christians believes. Such statements have not always been called confessions. They have also been called creeds, catechisms, affirmations, formulas, definitions, declarations of faith, statements of belief, articles of faith, and other similar names. Whatever their form, confessions of faith express what a body of Christians believe in common. (From http://www.brookingspres.com/acc.htm)

The Confessions of Saint Allen, No.1

2009-06-22T15:24:00.001-07:00

I like to shop. There, it's out on the table. (Oh, about the "saint" business: Since it somehow got applied to my buddy Augustine, then I figured what the h...oops, I almost forgot, we saints have standards to maintain. Ahem, ahem.) Where was I? Oh, shopping. Yes, well I suppose shopping is one of those things psychologists and sociologists [By the by--I'm beginning to think I'd really like to be a sociologist. At least I would if I didn't have to produce any long boring papers with lots of statistics and charts and graphs and things. I'd just want to go somewhere, like the airport or a local park and people-watch for an afternoon. I'd take a little pocket notebook and jot a few observations from time to time. Perhaps get a latte and have a friendly conversation with the the person at the coffee cart. I'd get home in the early evening, pour myself a glass of chardonnay and write a short opinion piece based loosely on my day's experience. That's the kind of sociology that would interest me. I think I'll check it out on Monster-dot-com]. Where was I? Oh, yeah, shopping. Anyway, as I was saying, I'm a shopper. I'm also a guy. I have the impression that guys generally don't like to shop. A guy only goes shopping if he is drug (dragged?) along by his wife or goes dutifully, perhaps resentfully, when sent on out by her on a shopping errand, "Oh, and honey, don't forget the maxi-pads. Thanks sweetie." [OK. I'm an amateur sociologist, you don't have to tell me: I know, I know, some guys have a live-in girlfriend instead of a wife. Also if I were a sociologist, I could do a "study" about this thing of guys not liking to shop. I really need to get over to Monster-dot-com]. Like I was saying, I like to shop. I went shopping just today--at Walmart. I like shopping at Walmart. I like the regular unprofessional looking old folks who greet you at the door. They're nice. I haven't done it, but I bet you could stand there and have a nice ten-minute conversation with any one of them. Do you think a sociologist would do a study of Walmart greeters? I would. [How much do sociologists get paid, anyway? Who in the h... oops. I mean, who in the heck pays them?]

[You don't want to go too long without a paragraph break. People freak out when they see a whole bunch of text with our a paragraph break. That's my theory anyway--as an amateur sociologist] Yes, shopping. Another reason I like shopping is I love bargain hunting and getting a good deal. Man, I'm jazzed if I look at "Your savings today" on my receipt and it is into the 40% range! Yippee--I done really good today! I stroll through the lot to my car feeling grrr-ate. "I bet the best anyone else did today was 34%" Best of all is when (I plan my shopping so this rarely happens, but it still does sometimes) we are out of something and have to get it and--it's on sale! Yes! I suppose the feeling I get then is the same as the one regular guys (Ones with the "sports gene"--which I don't happen to have) get when their team scores. I am a big comparison shopper. I love to evaluate things and figure out the best deal. Most evaluations are based on the two main factors: price and quality. There are also other factors which can come in to play, such as: desirability, ease of use, name brand, storage, calories, recyclability, etc. It is a game of sorts--a game I find both rewarding and relaxing.

Well, that just scratches the surface of why I like to shop. I could go on and on I suppose, but that's enough for one post. Sociologist have studied people's reactions to long posts and...

2009-06-21T02:06:00.000-07:00

The post below is the final one in the 26-part series which chronicles the year-long period culminating in my conversion in 1972. If you followed along I hope you found it a rewarding investment of your time. Thanks for stopping by. Next week I plan on returning to doing a more random selection of topics. I hope to maintain your interest and make returning to this little blog worth your while. Comments and dialogue are enthusiastically encouraged! --Allen

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 26: The Starting Line

2009-06-20T23:35:00.000-07:00

There I sat as the preacher asked any wanting to follow Jesus to raise their hands. It was only recently that these alter calls had been tempting me. After a year of thinking about it, I had concluded that the Jesus I had read about in the Bible was not a con artist, a lying schemer out for money or manipulation of some sort. I eventually, later, also came to the conclusion that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels was not insane. He was not suffering from religious delusions and thinking he was God when he was, in fact, not divine, but merely another flawed human being like everyone else. The elimination of those possibilities had left the third alternative, which was that Jesus was all the Bible claimed him to be: God come to earth in human form to give his life for a fallen and rebellious world--a world he loved so much that he was willing to become one of us and suffer an agonizing death in order to save us. From reading and thinking about the whole of what he taught, and how he lived and loved, and died, and the life-changing effect he had on his disciples and millions of others through the centuries--from all that I had come, little by little, to believe that he was indeed the way, the truth and the life--the unique Savior through whom sinful humans can come to a holy God.

But still--even assenting to all this in my mind, still--I was not yet a follower of Christ. For although I had come to believe a number of things about Jesus, I still had yet to commit my heart and life to him and begin to follow him as a disciple. I was very close to becoming a Christian, but there was one final step to be taken. I had been reluctant to take it. It was a decision which would have deep and profound implications for every aspect of my life and my future. If I were to take this final step, there would be no turning back. It had to be a complete and unreserved commitment.

As the preacher continued to invite people wanting to follow Jesus to raise a hand, I had a sensation which was like the feeling one might have watching the last train for some destination leaving the station with a loved one on board. You should have gone with them but for some reason had procrastinated. Now, in a few moments time the train would pick up speed and you would be left behind for good. I saw that train as standing for spiritual progress and growth and those on it were headed for a real and meaningful destination. I however had been clinging to the platform, frozen in indecision and moral cowardice. Now was my time. I had to make a choice and act upon it while the opportunity was open. My creator was knocking--had been knocking for some time, patiently, persistently--waiting for me to respond. He had been calling me. The next move was mine. Would I make it? I would. I wanted to be part of God's unfolding work in the world. I needed the forgiveness and new birth he offered. "Yes," I said in my heart and mind, "Yes, count me in. I will follow you--beginning here and now. Come into my heart and life and do whatever rebuilding is necessary. I submit to your will. Just lead me and show me the way.I will give it my best, but I will need your help and guidance. I am yours. Amen."

I am not a very outwardly emotional person. I did not have tears of joy or jump up and down with shouts of praise. I did not experience and rapturous spiritual sensations. I just quietly walked out at the conclusion of the service with a profound inner peace and sense of freedom. There was also a feeling that I was on the right track--a totally new, but at the same time very ancient track. It was the Way. Jesus was the guide. Our journey would now begin. The first step had been taken. Many more would follow.

-------------------- * --------------------

Postscript--
I walked out of that church building that June evening a changed young man. That change awakened me to seeing things--even things in the physical world--as if with new eyes. I remember being struck by beauty of the tree just outside the door to the church, and the flowers on the church grounds. The greens of the leaves and the colors of the flowers were so much more vivid than I'd ever seen them before; the colors more saturated, more deeply tinted. This seems to me now an unusual and in some ways trivial experience. I only relate it to show that, though my conversion was accompanied by no overtly spiritual sensations, sill I was profoundly effected--even in the way things appeared to me. It was as if I had never really seen the richness of God's creation around me every day. This changed way of seeing things was only one small advance indicator of how I would need to learn to see everything through new eyes and with a new God-enhanced understanding. That change continues to this day. Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 25: Welcome Home, Son

2009-06-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

By Father's Day, 1972, I had attended almost fifty or so Sunday evening gatherings with the Jesus people who met at All Saints Episcopal Church in Riverside. It hadn't taken long for me to figure out that these were not meetings of the local Episcopal church youth group or of Young Life, but that instead, the hundreds of converted hippies there were simply borrowing the building for their weekly services. The previous summer Lonnie Frisbee had been the preacher. Chuck smith Jr had taken over from him after a few months and now, a year later, Greg Laurie, another young evangelist was preaching there.

When I came for the first time in June of the previous year, I'd gotten into a bit of a debate with a former high school acquaintance who had been converted and was now one of the Jesus people. He had challenged me to read the gospel accounts--which I had to concede I had never read--and to decide whether I thought Jesus was a con man, a deluded fanatic or was, instead, all he claimed to be. With this challenge in mind I had read through the four Gospels and after continued on to read the Epistles as well. As supplementary "research" to my reading, I had attended the Jesus people gatherings nearly every Sunday evening. Those gatherings followed a by now familiar format: a band or singer would do a set of Christian rock or folk music; that was followed by everyone singing songs--some old gospel songs, some lively new clap-along ones, and yet others slow and worshipful. During these last type, quite a few in the audience would raise one or both hands and perhaps close their eyes as well and tilt their heads upward.

After that, the preacher would get up and give a twenty to thirty minute evangelistic Bible lesson. At the end of his talk, he would always give the alter call. I had sat through so many of them the pattern was quite familiar to me now: He would begin to pray at the conclusion of his preaching and, as toward the end of the prayer, he would shift to addressing the audience and say something like,

..and now, while all heads are bowed and eyes closed, I'd like to invite you--if you have never opened your heart to Jesus and invited him in as your Lord and Savior--to do that now. God has a plan for your life. He wants to change your life and forgive your sins and show you a whole new way to live. It all can start tonight. You can be born again--born from above, and have a fresh start in life. You may be a drug addict or have done lots of bad stuff in your life. You can come to God just as you are. He loves you more than you can imagine. Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for every single sin you have ever committed. He paid it all--even for the whole world. You may be thinking you have to get cleaned up before coming to Jesus. You can't do it. You don't have to cleaned up. He'll receive you just as you are. Just come to him and he will change you from the inside out. If you want to know him tonight, I'd like you to just raise your hand and let me know that. While every head is still bowed, will anyone say yes to Jesus? I see that hand in the back. Yes sister, over to my left, I see your hand. And you, yes and in the middle there--I see your hand too. He's calling, he's calling the lost sheep. Over on the side, I see your hand. The Bible says there is rejoicing over one sinner who comes to repentance. Is there anyone else who would like to give your life to Christ tonight? Yes, both of you up front here. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. His Spirit is calling the lost sheep and the prodigal sons home tonight.

Toward the end of the alter call, the band would slip back up on stage and begin to softly play an instrumental. The preacher would invite everyone to stand. Then he would tell those who had raised their hands, " While the band plays this next song I want those of you who raised your hands to come forward here so I can pray for you. Jesus said, 'If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my father in Heaven, but if you deny me before men, I will deny you also. So you need to be bold and publicly stand up for Jesus. He went to the cross and suffered for you, you can take a stand for him."

The band would begin to play more loudly now and many people would flock to the front of the church and stand there, most of them with their heads bowed. It seemed that each week, ten or twenty young people would go forward to profess their faith and be born again. When the music concluded, the preacher would lead those standing there in the Sinner's Prayer. The preacher would instruct them, "The prayer I am about to say, I want you to say out loud after me. Repeat after me, "Dear Jesus / I know I am a sinner / I know you died on the cross for me / I thank you for dying for me / And rising again from the dead / And I believe that all my sins are washed away / I give my life to you / Show me what you want me to do / Give me power over sin and help me to follow you / I receive you now as my Lord and Savior / I thank you for giving me eternal life / Thank you Lord Jesus, Amen."

With that, the preacher would ask those who had just prayed to go to a back room where they would be given a Bible and instructed in the basics of living for Jesus. The band would play one last song and then then everyone would leave the pews, mill about and there would be a lot of hugging and exchanges of, "Praise the Lord!" among the crowd.

I knew this routine by heart. In previous recent alter calls I had sometimes felt some inner stirring or a softening of my heart and a longing to perhaps know what it was like to be a follower of Jesus. At other occasions I'd felt an oppressive psychological heaviness, a burdensome mental weight which felt also at times like real lead weights on my shoulders. Sometimes I felt nothing, or just an inner emptiness and weariness. Tonight, Father's Day, was different however. Tonight...

Father's Day Revisited, Part 24: The Paradise Fire Escape

2009-06-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

The sun was setting as I drove the final fifty mile climb from Yuba City to Paradise. All the way the redwoods and pines got thicker and taller by the mile. It was one of those sunsets which paints the sky and clouds with a full palette of vibrant hues, from deep deep purple to the faintest pink and everything in between. Shafts of yellow-orange sunlight burst from under a low floating huddle of clouds to the west. Different vistas came into my view, but only for brief moments as as I'd come to a rise or the road turned. As I drove I ventured glances, drinking in the fiery sky as often and for as long as I dared before having to turn my eyes back to the black road and yellow line. Although the thought did not cross my mind at the time, looking back now it was almost as if God were saying to that young questioning skeptic, "Watch this!"

Arriving too late in the day to do the repair job I'd come to do, I sized up the little town as the first buildings began to appear, hoping there was a movie theater or bowling alley or bookstore or somewhere to spend a couple of hours after I'd found a motel in which to spend the night. The town was not looking promising in the nightlife department as I drove the main road. Looked like they rolled up the sidewalk early here--and, after all it was a Monday night. I had about resigned myself to watching the game on the motel TV when, off to my right I caught sight of a small lit sign that said, The Fire Escape Coffee House. "Well," I thought, "if nothing else, I could hang out and have a couple of cups of coffee there if it turns out there's nothing else to do in town."

I found a motel, checked in, put my gear in the room and watched a little of the early newscast on the TV. I was antsy and so switched it off at the first commercial and went out to the truck. I'd go back and see if that little coffee shop I'd seen was open. As I parked the truck I saw someone open the door to the coffee house and go in. As I entered I smelled the brewing coffee and noticed the business was one of those which used to be a home. In the big sunken living room off to my left was a scattering of couches and overstuffed chairs. Six or eight people were there and I could hear the low sound of their mingled conversations. Something wasn't right though. There should be a register near the entry. There was not. Instead I saw a tall sofa table near where I stood and on it were some books and several little stacks of literature. I stepped over to look and saw that the books were really paperback Bibles and the stacks of literature were fliers for various Christian concerts and things. "What kind of business was this?" I wondered. A little yellow flag went up in my mind.

As a woman approached me another flag was quickly raised. "Hi, c'mon in," she said, noticing I'd hesitated in the entry by the literature table. Extending her hand, and taking a step closer, she offered, "I'm Sarah--and you are?" I'd have to decide quickly if and how to make a fast exit if I determined I'd stumbled upon the hangout of some cult or something. Perhaps I could say I just stopped by to get directions to somewhere. "Um, I'm Denny. Is this a coffee shop?" I asked. "Yes, we've got a fresh pot," she said, sensing my alarm. "Would you like some?" "Maybe, um, I don't know, well, you see I thought..." "Oh, we're a coffee house, just not a business. The coffee's free. Everyone is welcome to come by and hang out any time. We're mostly Christians and we meet here a few times a week to fellowship in the Lord, sing, study the Word and talk--things like that. Can I get you some coffee?" One year ago and I'd have been out the door before she knew what had happened. I still felt somewhat threatened by Christians, but being around them so much more in the past year had mellowed my antagonism. In addition, I was wanting to find knowledgeable, reasonable Christians I could probe and question of to see what a "normal" Christian believed and how they came to believe it.

"OK," I said, "I'll have a cup, but I can't really stay for long though," I added as insurance just in case these people turned out to be weird or Pentecostal or who-knew-what. Sarah though seemed very calm and warm--not weird or high-strung like some religious fanatics. She appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties. She was a little tall--at least she was a couple of inches above my five-eight--and had very long dark brown hair. It was the length one saw only occasionally. It went down, in loosely tied bundles, to just below her waist. She was casually dressed, wearing a very plain looking and modest corduroy dress with a long row of big wood buttons which ran from bottom to top. Most of the others, who I could see in my peripheral vision and were seated in the big sunken room off to my left, looked to be younger than Sarah, perhaps in their mid to late twenties.

Sarah showed me to the big coffee urn and I filled a large styrofoam cup from it and looked around for a place to sit. I wound up at one end of a very long and low couch, a good distance from the only others on it, a young couple sitting together with a big Bible open between them atop their two knees. At first I thought we'd just sit around and talk, but it seemed a meeting was about to start. A skinny young man with a neatly trimmed beard reached down and lifted a guitar out of its case and began to tune it. The guy on the other end of the couch who looked like a college student extended his hand to me and said, "Hey man, glad to have you, praise the Lord, how'd you hear about this place?" "Um, I just got in to town and saw it as I drove in," I replied, wondering if everyone else here knew one another or whether I was the only "independent" soul in the place. Sarah, who had met me at the door, now joined the group who were turning their chairs and circling up around a big old well-worn coffee table. The young guy with the guitar began a song and the others tentatively began to follow along. "We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord..." I recognized the songs and knew the words to most of the half-dozen they sang. I didn't sing along. I didn't want to give the impression the I was a fellow Christian.

After the last song and after Sarah had prayed for the Lord to, "touch every heart and speak to everyone here through your Word, Father, and by your Holy Spirit show us your way and show us Jesus so we can follow him and love him and serve him better--in his precious name we pray." Now a man in his fifties, perhaps Sarah's husband, opened a big Bible which looked as it it had seen a great deal of use and had been leafed though for years, and said, "let's take a look at Hebrews, chapter one," and began to read, in a firm voice, but rather slowly, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." He then began to go on to explain that passage and in doing so quoted from five or six other places in the Bible, some in the New Testament, some in the Old. The gist of it seemed to be that if you wanted to hear from God, you'd have to read what Jesus said and also that the life of Jesus itself was some sort of way God was speaking to the world in general. "Huh," I thought to myself, "wasn't I just a few hours ago trying to figure out how God, if there is one, communicates? Another weird coincidence I suppose, that I should just stumble across this place and hear this particular thing tonight."

There was some discussion, some more songs were sung, and finally, after the Bible teacher said a prayer, we were apparently dismissed to "fellowship." A couple of people introduced themselves to me but I was feeling kind of awkward as an outsider and I headed for the door. Sarah got there ahead of me and thanked me for coming. Before I could slip past her she asked me, "So, Denny, do you believe in Jesus?" I paused, trying to decide whether to give her a long or short answer. I settled upon short. "No, not really." "Why not?" she replied. This woman was really plain spoken, I thought as I pondered an answer. "Well, I guess I'm just not capable of believing something I can't see or prove or verify," I ventured. "I think I just don't have the capacity to believe and have faith like some people seem to have." "I see," she said, "but would you like to believe?" she asked. I was taken aback by that question. I had never before considered it from that angle before. How was I to answer such a question? I paused for a good while, trying to formulate an honest answer to her simple, but stark question. Finally I said, "Well, if it is true, yes, I do. I mean, I would want to believe it--if it was true. But if it's not, then no, I don't. I don't want to believe in a lie or an fairy tale or even something that just sounds good and makes you feel better when you are troubled. No, I'd rather not believe something like that."

Although we were having a rather intense conversation about God and faith, I didn't feel intimidated or pressured as I sometimes had when talking to Christians. Sarah was soft-spoken, her voice plesant and her demeanor calm. She seemed genuinely concerned for me and was willing to listen to what I had to say. She also seemed wise. I got the impression that she had been a Christian for many years. "OK," she said, "If you want to believe, but are finding it difficult, then you should ask God to help you with that." "Yeah," I said, "but that's the thing, I don't even know if there is a God, so that wouldn't do much good I don't think." She put her hand on my shoulder, like a mother would when giving instructions her boy before he left for school, "Denny," she said, "I'm going to be praying for you. And you can pray too. Even if you don't know if there is a God or not, you can just reach out with your mind and heart and say, 'God, if you are there, if you exist, I want you to help me to believe. If the Bible is true and Jesus is the savior, I want to believe. Show me the way to faith, Lord, and I will follow.'" she concluded. "Just try it. It couldn't hurt. If there is no God, you haven't lost anything. But if there is, I believe he will answer you prayer and help you to believe." She took her hand from my shoulder and continued, "Denny, Jesus said we must 'ask, seek and knock.' He said if you ask, you'll get an answer; if you seek, you will find what you seek; and if you knock, the door will open to you--so go ahead and ask him. You have nothing to lose. I'll be praying for you. God's going to help you find the answer if you seek him." I couldn't really argue with her logic, and I did feel her genuine concern for me. I thanked her, told her I'd give it a try, said goodbye and thanked her for the coffee.

Back in the motel room I watched Johnny Carson and tried to wind down so I could get some sleep. My concentration wandered back and forth from Johnny and Ed McMahon to the coffee house and what Sarah had said to me. After a little while, I turned off the TV, lit a cigarette, lay back in bed, and did as Sarah had suggested.

In the morning I tried calling the customer whose shower unit I had come to repair only to find out they'd moved months ago. Someone back at our office had messed up and had not called the customer in advance to confirm the repair order before I was sent. My services were not needed here in Paradise after all. "How strange," I thought, "that I'd be sent all this way here just to spend a couple of hours with some Christians in a coffee house." Who might have arranged for that to happen?

My experience in Paradise at the coffee house--what I'd heard in the Bible study and what was said to me after--lingered and replayed in my mind the whole way as I drove back down to Riverside. My life was in transition. I was newly married and happier than I'd ever been--than I'd ever known it was possible to be. Cher had married me even though I was not a Christian. I felt no pressure at all from her that I become one. Yet I was restlessness inside about the whole Jesus issue. Inwardly I continued to ask and seek and knock. The following Sunday would be Father's Day.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 23: The Spirit in the Sky and the Jukebox at A&W

2009-06-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

I exited Highway 99 in Yuba City because I'd seen the sign for an A&W Root Beer stand. My train of thought still was circling around the question of whether God communicated with people in any way shape or form or whether, as some thought, God was an impersonal creative force from which all life drew energy. The idea of a personal God who knew and sought out individuals in order to communicate with them seemed very unlikely to me. It also seemed unsophisticated and "low-brow." That's what the fundamentalists and Pentecostals believed about God. The impersonal life-force concept was not only more sophisticated, but also more attractive for a number of reasons--the main one being that an impersonal force had no explicit moral code which one was obligated to follow. The Jesus I had read about in the Bible spoke of a Father in Heaven who required holiness but who could be reached by prayer and who loved, listened to and cared for those who came to him with faith and accepted Jesus. Still, how was one to know for sure? Does God really somehow point the way for people as they struggle to find the truth and understand life? How was one expected to have faith if there was none there to begin with?

I turned the company truck into a space at the A&W and headed for the store to get a hamburger and a frosty mug of root beer. It was late in the afternoon, long past lunch, and so the place was empty. I was hungry and glad there would be no line. I stepped inside a big enclosed patio area with big tables and bench seats. A great place to take the family. I went up to the window, put in my order, and then sat at one of the tables to wait. While I waited my mind kept mulling that pesky question about whether God, if he existed, ever communicated with people in any way. As these thoughts occupied my mind, a young man came in, walked to the window and put in an order for a large root beer to go. As the girl poured it, the young man walked over to the jukebox, put in a quarter, punched some of the big lighted buttons and walked back to the window to get his drink. As the arm inside the jukebox selected the record and began to swing it over to the sideways-mounted turntable, the young man picked up his root beer and walked out. I watched as he hopped into an older model ford pick up. As he pulled out of the driveway, his first song was beginning to play. "How odd," I thought, "the guy pays for some songs and then leaves without even listening to them. What's the point in that?" I recognized the song instantly. They were still playing it on the radio from time to time. It was Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky, a song about having faith in Jesus and going to heaven when you die. I picked up my burger and root beer and sat down to eat as the last notes of Spirit in the Sky faded. The jukebox mechanism dutifully put that record back in its slot and then reached for the next selection. As I took the second bite of my burger, I heard another familiar song rising from the jukebox. This time it was Put You Hand in the Hand of the Man From Galilee.

"Wait one second," I thought to myself, "how is it that, just when I am all perplexed and asking inwardly if God ever somehow communicates to people, just then some guy I don't know from Adam crosses my path and just happens to drop two Christian songs in my ears--and all for my sole benefit? "What's going on here?" I wondered. How was I to understand this strange coincidence? I couldn't help thinking that perhaps, just maybe, Someone was trying to give me a little hint at the answer to the question I'd just been wrestling with. This thought boggled my mind and helped prepare me for what was about to happen to me in Paradise.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 22: Radio Preachers on the Road to Paradice

2009-06-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

The day came for me to get in the company service truck and set a course for Paradise--California. I headed out early in the morning and as I settled in for the long drive up the I-5 I scanned the radio dial, as was my habit. I'd stop at a station if it were to be playing one of my favorites, but I was mostly looking for radio preachers. My determination to come to a conclusion about whether Jesus was a con man, a nut or really was indeed all the Bible claimed him to be was for me now stronger than ever.

I had finished reading the paperback modern English New Testament I'd been given the previous year. I was fairly certain Jesus was not a confidence man--out to scam gullible souls for his own profit or phony fame. The Jesus described in the Bible simply didn't fit the M-O of a con man. That narrowed the choices down. Could it possibly be that, for two-thousand years, millions of people had followed teachings and had even sacrificed their lives on the basis of some mentally ill man from the first century who'd believed a religious delusion that he himself was the only path to God? If that were the case, human history would be absurd--a planet thus deceived would be the laughing stock of the universe--if there were anyone out there to laugh.

The teachings attributed to this Jesus: were they the teachings of a schizophrenic, a delusional megalomaniac? That didn't seem to be the case at all. If it were the case, Christianity was the biggest fraud to ever come down the pike. I felt that, although I did not fully understand many of his parables and teachings and his dialogues about the nature of God and the way to eternal life, taken together they seemed to have a certain coherence and underlying logic to them. The Jesus I found in the Bible was not spouting theological speculations or mere personal religious opinions, but was making authoritative and bold declarations about God, himself and all humankind. If these things were not true, then he was a madman indeed.

I listened to many radio preachers of all kinds. Only a couple of them did I find intelligent and somewhat compelling. Most of the rest of them I felt were charlatans or out for money or, if sincere, then nutty as could be. Some wanted me to send in for a little piece of some cut up revival tent which was guaranteed to heal me or bring me money or success. Others were begging for money to keep broadcasting the gospel and saying they'd pray for me personally if I'd just send them money. I thought, "If--just supposing--if I were to ever, somehow, some way, to be convinced of the truth of Christianity, why then I'd have to be associated with all these nutty idiots. I'd be in their same Christian club." The thought of it made my intellectual skin crawl. No--I couldn't stand such an association, could never do it. No way. Not in a million years.

But then I'd think, "Well, what if it is real after all, and everything about Jesus were to be true? What then? Do I reject it all because there are some wacky religious fanatics running around doing stupid stuff in his name?" I had to admit that that wouldn't seem right. "I suppose I'll have to just ignore the crazy radio preachers and base whatever decision I come to on what I find in the Bible and whether I can believe it or not," I thought to myself. I continued in this vein, thinking, "...and even all that finally comes down to the one big question about Jesus. If he was not all that was claimed for him, I can forget the whole thing. No need busting my head trying to figure out if this or that miracle took place," I figured, "because if Jesus fails the test, then the whole thing--the Bible, Christianity, the church--they all go up in smoke and I can proceed with my life and not be bothered."

If in my mind I became convinced Jesus did not live up to what his followers had claimed for him, I felt I could then honestly assert that I had put the Biblical Jesus to a fair intellectual test and found that he and all the rest of it was unbelievable to me. These questions about the meaning of life, God, life after death and all the rest would no longer be worth my being concerned about. Could I believe what I'd read about him in the Bible or not? I still didn't have a definite answer to that one question. That's what I was hoping to I'd be able to determine at some point. Does God--if he exists--ever help a seeker with any hints? Does God communicate with people in some fashion? Christians claimed so. If so, how does he do it? As I pondered this last question, I notices a tall A & W Root Beer sign signaling a stand right near the next off-ramp.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 21: A Hippy Wedding

2009-06-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in one's life events converge in a way which leaves one wondering, "Am I meant to learn something from all this? Is someone or something trying to get my attention?" The weeks from late May to early June of 1972 had that sort of feel to them, as if things which were meant to be were coming together as intended. Cher and I had planned the wedding we wanted. Many things were coming to what seemed an ordained consummation. To begin the series of events, I turned twenty-two years old on the twenty-third of May. Eleven days later our wedding day arrived. It was to be a hippy wedding in every aspect, except that we had a real official Episcopal priest, Father Olsen, do the ceremony. He however, though not too radical to look at, did have a very progressive and hip outlook on the world and religious matters, so from that standpoint he fit right in with the counter-culture spirit of our ceremony.

Cher and I had made our own wedding invitations from scratch, writing them out by hand. After listing the day, time and location, there was a note at the bottom which read, "Bare feet requested." We thought this a nice touch. Cher had made us matching off-white smocks from muslin material. On the backs of them were embroidered brightly colored sun, moon and stars. It was a small wedding with perhaps thirty or so in attendance. Cher's sister, a committed Christian and talented singer sang to us as we stood in a shady spot, held hands and prepared to take our vows. Family members and friends stood in rows of circles around us. Someone had brought gardenias and in the warmth of the June day their fragrance was nearly overwhelming. As Father Olsen opened his Bible and began, "Jesus himself blessed this sacred institution by performing his very first miracle at a marriage ceremony in Cana, of Galilee..." At this moment I was as emotionally high and full as it seemed possible for a person to be and not faint or simply die from sheer joy. We exchanged our rings and vows in the shade of an expansive old Magnolia tree and then milled about the lawn in our bare feet and muslin hippy smocks while family members and friends came up to congratulate us. I felt half in a dream and under a spell of love which seemed so deep and of such an eternal nature it seemed a spiritual experience.

After the wedding we had a simple, modest and casual reception pool-side in the back yard of my mom's home there in Riverside. We mingled for a while with our guests, then it was time to get in Cher's green Volkswagen bug and head for our honeymoon in Desert Hot Springs. Friends had waxed the car all over and had written well-wishes through the white haze. Long strings with empty cans attached clanged and made a racket at we headed down the street to our new life together.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 20: This Way to Paradise

2009-06-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

By the spring of 1972 I had given up hope of ever making a career as a Fuller Brush salesman. As an alternative, I'd landed a job doing something I had more experience with: working with fiberglass. I found an entry level job at the Corl Corporation factory in Riverside. At first I was just a "finisher," wet-sanding and machine buffing fiberglass tub-shower units to eliminate imperfections left from the manufacturing process. These tub-shower units were mostly sold to mobile home manufacturers. Fiberglass finishing was miserable and unrewarding work, often spent on one's knees or bending in awkward, unnatural positions in order to get at the spot which needed sanding or other attention. In addition, after hours of sanding, the very fine-grit sandpaper we used would wear right through your fingertips until they oozed blood. I soon figured out why all the experienced finishers had their fingers wrapped in masking tape. I found the work tedious in the extreme and the hours dragged until my lunch break when--glorious retreat--Cher would come with a friend and we would have a sweet half-hour to visit with each other. Then I'd reluctantly force myself back to the drudgery and a seeming eternity until the final whistle blew signaling the end of my tortuously long shift.

Within a couple of months I was promoted to a much better position. I would now be one of the company's two fiberglass repair reps who would be sent to repair products in the field. These were shower units which were flawed or had been damaged in some way during installation. I had a company pick-up truck to use in which I carried a complete fiberglass repair and refinishing kit. I also had a company credit card and a small expense account. The mobile homes in which our products were installed would wind up in parks all over California as well as in the various states of the southwest. I was usually sent out to do a week-long loop. I would be sent to the repair order which was farthest away and then make repair calls as I headed back to Riverside. I liked the variety of work and the road trips to various states. My boss would give me my upcoming repair trip by telling me the the farthest city on my itinerary.

"You are going to Paradise," my boss told me one Monday morning. I was a bit unsure whether he might be joking around. "Excuse me, what did you say?" I replied. "I said I'm sending you to Paradise" he said with a bit of a smirk, emphasizing the word Paradise. "C'mon," I said, "What's the deal? Where am I really going?" "O.K, here's the deal: you are going to Paradise--Paradise California--to do a repair up there and then I have a few more for you as you come back down." I still wasn't sure he wasn't pulling my leg until he showed it to me on the map. There it was, right up at the top of the state, near Chico. This conversation struck me as particularly odd, especially since I'd been reading the New testament for several months and had begun to wonder about whether there really could be other "dimensions" to our existence or other facets of reality beyond the purely physical world of material objects. "So," I thought, "I going up to Paradise--wait until Cher hears about this!"

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 19: The Proposal

2009-06-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

The time had come. I walked into the little jewelry store and came out with a plain gold band. It would have to do double duty, first serving as an engagement ring and then, about six months later as a wedding ring. It's circumference seemed impossibly small as I looked at it and it wouldn't even go on my little finger, but its size was my best guess and anyway we could have it re-sized later if needed. The next thing to decide on was the actual manner of my proposal itself. My counter-culture thinking ruled out the standard venues, such as some up-scale hoity-toity restaurant or any other Hollywood-style setting. No, in keeping with my hippy sensibilities, I would keep it low-key and simple. Christmas was only a few weeks away and I could make it a gift or perhaps combine it with another gift. Cher played acoustic guitar and the one she currently had was not in the best of shape. Yes--a new guitar was called for. At the guitar shop I talked with the owner and considered my budget. Money was no object--I was willing to spend thousands, if I'd had it. As it was, I had a few hundred. After agonizing over all the various brands to choose from, I settled on the best I could afford-- an Ibanez. I bought a nice new case for it, paid the store owner in cash and carefully nested the shiny new guitar in the plush velvety interior of the hard-shell case. Once home I took the guitar out and, in the little compartment in the case used for picks and things, I placed the small white cardboard box with the little gold ring inside.

When Christmas day came I travelled to Cypress where Cher and her sister were living with their mom. I had gift wrapped the case which held the guitar, trying not very successfully to disguise the tell-tale shape. She was thrilled upon opening the package and discovering the guitar and wanted to sit down and begin playing it. I had to coax her into opening the little compartment so she would find the other surprise it held within. Upon opening it there was, of course, a moment or two of no reaction as the meaning of it sunk in. Then suddenly she threw her arms around me and gave me a very long, very tight and reassuring hug. "Yes," the answer was "yes!" She ran to the other room to tell her sister who came to the living room to give us both a hug, along with her somewhat surprised congratulations.

We talked over wedding dates and somehow choose June 3 of the upcoming year--1972. Why we couldn't wait just a few weeks until her eighteenth birthday I cannot now recall. Whatever the reason, it added the complication of us having to get a parental permission form filled out and submitted to the county clerk. We decided we'd have an outdoor wedding on the big lawn adjoining All Saints Episcopal Church. This was the very spot where, just one year before, on a warm June evening I'd first encountered a whole flock of Jesus People who had gathered there to praise Jesus and listen to their hippy preacher. In the six months since then I had read through the New Testament and Cher and I had had a number of conversations about God, yet I remained very much the agnostic and skeptic. I was not about to make any feigned profession of faith just to get myself on the same spiritual page as the woman I loved. On the contrary, I wanted to keep a very sharp and bright line between my feelings for her and my evaluation of the things I was reading in the Bible and hearing from Christians.

I was unaware that serious Christians do not believe in marrying someone who is an unbeliever or is of another faith. However, an acquaintance of Cher's--a "brother in the Lord"-- took her aside and strongly counseled her against, "being unequally yoked together with an unbeliever." She told me later what he'd said to her and she let me know she was not interested in his advice and would marry me anyway. This comforted me and increased my confidence that she loved me as deeply as I loved her. It however made me a bit leery of the rules these Christians felt obligated to follow and often tried to impose on one another. I'd perhaps have to watch my step in the future.

It was one thing to believe some Jesus character walked on water or rose from the dead two-thousand years ago--it was quite another to have some dusty old book dictate your personal life choices. The Ten Commandments were OK, I supposed, on some level, but this "following Jesus" and "living for the Lord" 24/7 was really a bit much. I felt completely and comfortingly convinced I was a basically good and moral person. I didn't need any all-seeing God snooping around my life, looking over my shoulder and second-guessing me about every little thing--especially when it came to things like sex, or smoking or an occasional "hell" or "damn." Those things were my business alone and no one else's. Hey--I would never snatch a purse from an old lady or murder anyone or knock over a 7-11 so give me a break already. God's judgement and repenting and all that is for really evil people like Charles Manson or Richard Nixon or General Westmorland and the like. Surely God must have bigger fish to fry than to monitor a nice twenty-one year old guy who happened to be in love with a seventeen-year-old Jesus girl. After all, it wasn't like I was trying to talk her out of her Christianity--heck, she could stay a Christian forever, it really was irrelevant to me. Let's not mix faith and God with life and romance and personal decisions, I thought. Faith is for church and Sunday service. I could see I would have to keep from letting my feelings for Cher sway me toward making some emotional decision against my better rational intellectual judgement--not to mention against my absolute autonomy and right to run my own life the way I saw fit. Yes, a guard would have to be kept.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 18: Only Half Way Across the River

2009-06-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

It was the the fall of 1971 and the family had just come from the hospital where we'd said our last goodbyes to grandma Randall. I was still an atheist/agnostic materialist with a cynical view of all religious claims and a particular hostility toward Christianity. However there was one new complication in my personal world: I was dating--and deeply in love with--a young Christian woman--one of the "Jesus People," an emerging subgroup within the evolving cultural landscape of the late sixties. Her freshly minted faith and my agnosticism made for interesting, and occasionally tense, conversations. We were about to have one of those now. After my hospital visit at my dying grandmother's bedside, she had said to me, "I'm praying for your grandmother, and so are some others at my sister's church--we put her on the prayer list." That was something I was not in the mood to hear and which flew in the face of my coldly rational outlook on things. I got angry with her and spit out suddenly, caustically, "What is it with you Christians? Didn't you hear what the doctor said? The woman is dying. She'd old, her time is up, and she's dying--d-y-i-n-g. Your silly prayers aren't going to do her one damn bit of good. You and your Christian friends can pray all you want; biological reality says that old woman will be dead by this time tomorrow. Damn it, there's nothing to do. Get over it! Face reality--stop pretending your prayers can change the hard facts of this uncaring material world. Damn, just don't give me any more of that crap about God and prayers and all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo! Let's just drop the subject!"

I think I even surprised myself at the emotion behind the words I'd thrown at her. She hadn't done anything to deserve my Mr. Rational mini tirade. As I recall, she didn't argue back, but had simply said, "Well, we'll pray anyway." and left it at that.

The call from the hospital the next day was that our grandma had somehow made it through the night and so had survived for one more day. Her condition however remained unchanged. The following day my dad gave us the news that grandma was somewhat improved. Perhaps this would be one of those long drawn-out deaths that only came after a weeks-long or, God forbid, months-long series of family-fatiguing ups and downs. The day after showed surprisingly good improvement and, to everyone's amazement, grandma was alert and talking. The following day saw grandma walking the halls and telling the nurses about Jesus. The doctors had no explanation. They were as dumbfounded as was the family.

Now the family trooped back to the hospital, this time to visit the same woman we all thought we'd be burying about now. As we had done before, we each took turns sitting by her bedside. When my turn came and I entered her room, I could hardly believe the change in her appearance. Was this really the same old woman who, just four days ago, was at death's doorstep? It didn't seem possible. Yet there she sat, smiling, and her eyes now full of light and life. She seemed anxious to talk to me. "It was all so beautiful," she said with an air of wonderment, as if still seeing something fresh in her mind's eye. "What was beautiful gramma?" I asked. "The rainbow, and the river and, well, just everything--it was all so full of light and the colors--my!--the colors were so vivid. I've never seen anything like it! There were so many more colors than I even knew. The beauty of it all just took my breath away," she said with her eyes closed as if remembering and relishing it afresh in detail. Then her voice took on a different, almost matter-of-fact, down-to-earth seriousness as she reached out, took hold of my hand and said, "He told me I could not stay--that it was not my time--that I wasn't finished yet and would have to go back." "Who told you, gramma?" I asked. "Why Jesus did," she replied and continued, "I wanted to stay with him more than I could say, and I somehow knew he knew it, but he kept saying to me, 'no, you must return, just for a little while' and I didn't want to, but knew I had to because it was not my time yet." She went on, "We were right in the middle of the river. I could see the other side and the hills and beautiful sky and oh, all the colors, but he just turned me around, very gently, and I knew I had to go back to my side of the river. That's the last thing I remember until, until I woke up here--was it yesterday?" "I don't know gramma, maybe, I said. "I just know you were really sick and we didn't think you would make it." I was dazed by what I was hearing from her. I didn't believe it was real in any sense of the word--just something that happens sometimes when people are very sick and on medication and things--but I could not deny the tone of absolute certainty in her voice as she was telling me about what she'd seen. It was clear to me that she had been genuinely deeply moved by the whole experience--or hallucination, or whatever it was.

I had no idea what to make of it all. My girlfriend could have really needled me now about my earlier scoffing at her prayers, but I don't recall her doing so. She probably just said something like, "Praise God--he is so good!" when I told her the news. I wasn't about to admit to anything supernatural having been at play in my grandma's recovery or any prayers having anything to do with it. Yet somewhere inside of me the perfect steel architecture of my starkly rational understanding of the universe creaked and shifted. One key rivet had popped and now the whole taut and steely structure was not quite as snug and inflexible as it had once been. Grandma may have beaten the Grim Reaper, but the Hound of Heaven was still at my heels.

Postscript:
Grandma Randall went on to live a full twelve years more, from 1971 to 1983. During those years she travelled twice to Alaska, bought a house in Chino Hills; did lots more gardening; painted pictures; blended more Green Drinks and taught Sunday school and crafts. As she had done in her previous eighty-six years, grandma always received, with humble gratitude, all the "gracious plenty" God had to give her. She lived a full and blessed ninty-eight years.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 17: Grandma Randall Crosses Over

2009-06-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

Even health food nuts die, eventually. It seemed grandma Randall's time had come. My dad used to drive out to visit and check on her on her little 5-acre place in Romoland, an undeveloped rural area not far from Hemet. There she lived alone, grew all her own food, and played her favorite hymns a little Hammond organ. On one of those visits, dad noticed she was quite jaundiced. He took her to see a doctor who promptly admitted her to the Circle City hospital in Corona for tests. Nothing was found in the first set of tests, so more were scheduled. I should mention that our dad was the administrator of this small private hospital and so grandma got the best of care. Further tests were inconclusive and could not pinpoint a source of her problem. Meanwhile, grandma was going downhill, getting weaker by the day and losing weight rapidly. X-rays were taken to check for anything which may not have been detected by the other tests. Everything looked OK. Nonetheless, grandma condition kept worsening. Finally, for lack of anything to do, it was decided to do exploratory surgery to see if the doctors could find any explanation for her rapidly failing health. Finding nothing they sewed her up and sent her back to her room.

The doctor attending her said our grandma didn't have any disease, cancer had been ruled out, no infection could be found--in fact no medical cause for her worsening condition was apparent. The nurses monitored her vital signs and kept her comfortable. Another week passed by and her condition continued to deteriorate. The day came when the doctor suggested to my dad that the family be called in because, "Your mother's time has come. She is eighty-six and her organs are simply shutting down. Your mother is dying of old age, nothing else. The family should see her this evening--I don't think she'll make it through the night." I went to the hospital accompanied by my girlfriend and soon-to-be fiance', Cher, to say goodbye to my grandma. This was all new to me. I knew next to nothing about dying people or what to do around a dying person. I met the family in the hospital cafeteria where they had gathered. My dad filled us in on what the doctors had said about her condition. There was nothing to be done. She was comfortable, not in pain, but failing fast. It was after nine o'clock. We each ate our chosen comfort food from the cafeteria vending machine and chased it with coffee which was overly strong, being left on the hot plate much too long.

We held our little family meeting there at a round table in the nearly empty cafeteria. It was a small hospital, after visiting hours, and there were only a few others in the cafeteria, mostly hospital staff. As my toddler cousin entertained herself pouring piles of sugar on the tabletop, we each took turns acknowledging the inevitable along with our sadness and agreeing that grandma had had a long and full life. It was decided we would take turns privately saying our goodbyes to grandma in person, one at a time. My turn came and I walked tentatively down the dimly lit hallway, not knowing quite what to expect. What I found was a woman who looked much too small and already dead. Her face looked only vaguely familiar, for her teeth were not in. But more than that, her face looked starkly skeletal, her cheeks and eye sockets sunken to an extreme degree. There were the obligatory tubes and wires and things still dripping and monitoring while doing their own death watch. Besides the occasional soft beep of of her heart monitor, the only other sounds were the rattles and gasps which came at unnervingly long and infrequent intervals. The time between them was so long I would get myself poised to spring out of the institutional bedside chair and go call into the hallway for the nurse. Just when I was about to do this, her chest would heave and noisily draw in another gurgling gulp of air. This happened several times in the few minutes I spent with her and it set my nerves on edge. I didn't say anything to my grandma's form and didn't even know what I could or should or wanted to say. I just kind of did my duty--a nightmarish duty it seemed--by spending those minutes in her room. I felt at a loss for what to even to think about during those minutes. I felt out of place, embarrassed at my own awkwardness. To myself I seemed like an intruder, even as her grandson. I escaped back to the cafeteria in the briefest time decency would allow in order to show I had done a proper farewell and had not just stuck my head in the door of her room. I felt a little guilty for not knowing how to say goodbye to a dying loved one. They hadn't taught us that in vacation Bible school. It being late, and all of us having taken our turns, we hugged one another and each headed home. Someone from the hospital would call in the morning with the news.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 16: Wrinkled Faces and Grandma Randall's Green Drink

2009-06-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Matilda Randall, my grandma, was a Baptist Mother Teresa. At least she shared a good many character traits with the little Albanian saint. She also had Mother Teresa's deeply wrinkled and leathery brown face. From both faces, with their shining deep-set dark eyes--radiated a deep goodness--a grace--a love which was both kind and gentle, but which was certainly not soft and marsh-mellowy. In contrast, this gracious loving radiance was solid, rock-like, even severe, if that term can be connected with the concept of love. This was a love that one sensed came from beyond the individual and her personal particular emotions. Instead, it emanated from, and was entwined with, her life's mission. Both these women of God were indeed on a mission: Saint Teresa to bring God's loving embrace those dying alone in the world's gutters, and Saint Matilda to bring that same embracing love to the little sphere of her family's world.

That's why Grandma Randall started Riverside Christian Day School in her own home for her first grandson and a few neighbor kids. She went on to Shepherd that school as it--and her grandson, Tony--grew. That is why she saw to it that us kids were enrolled in Vacation Bible School each summer. That is why she tried to get us to eat the good, wholesome, organic food which she grew in her very own garden where she spent a good deal of her time.

The food she fixed for us was one aspect of grandma's love we least appreciated at the time. We considered grandma a health-food nut. We loved Swanson's frozen dinners and Tater-Tots. We really did not care for chard or kale or wheat germ or millet. Topping our list of least appreciated health food was her infamous Green Drink. Grandma Randall's Green Drink was her own concoction of every healthy item known to humankind blended up all together in a big Hamilton Beech blender and served--not chilled with ice, no: cold drinks were not good for you--but at room temperature with a little green foam still bubbling on top of your glass. We hated that stuff. When we complained about the taste, she acted amazed: "Don't say that; why, it has chlorophyll--very good for your liver-- and wheat germ; which has lots of vitamins and fiber; and millet, and celery and..." she would go on to list a half-dozen of the who-knows-how-many ingredients, all found in her Green Drink--as if this somehow answered our complaint. In her fixation with health food grandma Randall was way ahead of her time!

Grandma Randall played a significant and unusual two-part role in my conversion. Part one was that she prayed for me, the black sheep of the family. Not so unusual, that. I suppose all grandmothers pray for their grandchildren--at least I know all Baptist grandmothers do. Come to think of it, praying grannies may be God's most effective below-the-radar force in his dogged and unrelenting campaign to draw a lost world back Home. The other part Grandma Randall played in my conversion was truly an unusual one. She died. Sort of...

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 15: Grandma Randall vs The Episcopalians

2009-06-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned that the three of us kids were raised in the Episcopal church. My brother was an acolyte, helping the priest by performing ceremonial duties during worship such as carrying the processional cross and lighting alter candles. As a young child witnessing the worship ritual and hearing the recited prayers, the impression that settled upon me was that these adults were mostly bored with the whole matter and were personally uninvolved in the motions they were so deliberately and carefully walking themselves through. I felt a little resentful at being made to share in their boredom. All the robed people up by the alter doing their important tasks of positioning this or that object exactly here or there seemed to me to move way too slowly. Not only that, but they would unnecessarily drag out what they were saying to make it take as long as humanly possible to drone out the required words. This slow-motion performance seemed very tedious to my young, wandering and restless mind. I'd sit there next to my sister on the hard old oak pew in my white starched long-sleeved shirt and clip-on bow tie and crane my head back as far as it would go until I was looking straight up. I'd let my eyes wander in among the big dark brown wood beams which crisscrossed the high ceiling and intersected with one another in mid-air. Meanwhile, the distant voice of the priest droned on and on as it read, in that sophisticated and practiced high-church monotone fashion, from a prayer book or perhaps some mimeographed sheet.

This Episcopal tradition came to us through my mom and her parents, who presumably had received it from their parents. My dad's mom, whom we called grandma Randall, was a Southern Baptist and worked to deliver us from Episcopalianism by exposing us to Baptist influences whenever and however she could. I don't think we ever attended any Baptist Sunday services, but us kids were packed off to VBS--vacation Bible school--every summer. There we would make things such as real leather wallets on which we tooled designs such as eagles or crosses or pine cones and then we'd finish it off with shoelace-sized leather stitching all around. We made Indian beaded bracelets from kits and pictures pounded onto copper sheets and then mounted on wood plaques we had stained ourselves. Grandma Randall was in charge of the craft component of her church's VBS and she saw to it that we had good quality materials and tools to work with.

I'd have been happy to do crafts all day, but the gospel lessons could not be overlooked. We'd needed to hear a Bible story and most often that meant the giant flannel-board was brought out. As I recall, the flannel-board stories were done by missionaries who were home on furlow. The story might be Daniel in the loin's den or Jonah and the wale, but what ever it was, it ended with a miniature Billy Graham crusade-style plea by the missionery for us to invite Christ into our hearts to become our Lord and Savior. Heads would be bowed and all eyes closed (except for some curiosity-inspired peeking). You'd raise your hand if you wanted to, "answer the knock of Jesus and open the door of your heart." Did I ever raise my hand? I don't know. I can't say I remember ever doing so, yet I wouldn't be surprised if I were to find I had. Nothing even remotely similar to this ever went on at the Episcopal church. That might be the reason that VBS felt kind of like spiritual contraband. I felt a vague guilt, at being involved in something a bit clandestine, something we were not really suppose to be doing. It was, on the part of my grandma, perhaps a kind of "sneaky" evangelism--sneaky for the sake of the kids. Grandma Randall was trying to steer us away from the spiritually sterilizing and stultifying influence of the Episcopal church.

Don't miss the next episode: Grandma Randall goes to meet Jesus.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 14: A Good Dad, and Loved

2009-06-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, While my buddy and I were chasing dreams of striking it rich as crab-catchers in Alaska, my dad, at the age of forty-eight, was entering the newly created Medex program. It had been pioneered at Duke University in the late 60's to meet the projected future demand for health care. In 1971 California was getting aboard this new health-care train. Dad heard about the program because he had been a Navy corpsman during WWII. In signing up, he joined the first class at UCLA of those who would go on from there to become "PA's"--Physician Assistants. This new category of medical professional was created by an act of congress and UCLA was chosen as the institution in California which would train the first new recruits--drawn mostly from the ranks of retired Navy corpsmen.

My dad's career path was, in a number of ways, an unusual one. He had joined the Navy in order to get away from a stern, cold demanding father, Dr. George Borand Randall Sr. [A Google search of his name shows him listed in Senate records from 1918 as a "Randall, George Borand, Noncombatant Commissioned Officers of the Army."] From all accounts, he had left private medical practice to become an Army physician during World War I. He saw combat in Europe and had suffered lung damage due to inhalation of German mustard gas. It seems he spent the rest of his life on a military disability pension and never returned to full time private practice.

As near as I can tell, my dad never received any fatherly warmth or affection from this man and never--in words I ever heard him express--mourned his passing. In 1940, at age 17, dad made his move to leave home and escape the icy presence of this man for good--he joined the Navy. Both his parents signed the required permission slip for this underage young man to join the military--his father willingly, his mother reluctantly. He came to the Naval Training Center, San Diego for boot camp and, later, as a corpsman, to Camp Elliot with the U.S. Marines. From there he shipped out with the Marines to the South Pacific shortly after Pearl Harbor. Like most of the men of his generation, dad never offered up stories of the war years. One had to pull them out of him with direct questions. In his later years I spent time in conversation with him about these events and can recall just the basic outline of his story. [I now regret not getting an audio recorder and documenting those conversations.]

Dad saw combat in many of the South Pacific theaters, as they are called in military terms. He was aboard ship convoys when kamikaze raids rained down on them. He vividly described the frantic ship-board efforts at putting up smoke screens so the Japanese suicide pilots diving down at full speed from straight overhead could not see their intended targets. He also told of the charming life of the natives on the island of Samoa and how he became a special favorite of a local chief after circumcising the Chief's infant son. Dad picked up a number of Samoan phrases which we kids heard often growing up: Saweela peesa, fi moly moly! Roughly translated, "Shut your mouth--keep quiet!" Another was a song the Marines had made up which was set to the tune of Deep in the Heart of Texas." I would put the Samoan lyrics to it here, but I suspect, though I am not sure, they may be "R" rated.

After the war, dad was reunited with his wife, Olive, a Navy Wave. They began a family soon thereafter and my brother, "Skipper" was born in 1946. I followed four respectful years later, being born in Minneapolis in the middle of 1950. Two years later, when our parents moved to Southern California, our sister, Lauren was born. A couple of years were spent in West Riverside and then we moved into a new tract home on Gertrude Street in Riverside proper. The tract of middle-class stucco homes had been carved out in the middle of hundreds of acres of orange groves, and was still virtually surrounded by many of them. In spring the fragrance of orange blossoms filled the night and was sometimes nearly overwhelming. In winter it was the pungent odor of the smudge pots alight along with the sound of hundreds of wind machines keeping the air moving and the oranges from freezing.

One thing I came to learn--to deduce really--about my dad was his deeply felt inadequacy at not living up to the expectations that he become a physician like his father. Whether his father had imposed this on him or whether he had imposed it on himself, I never did learn. It was, I thought, too personal, too delicate a question for a child, even a grown one, to broach with a parent. Perhaps it could have been tactfully done, but I never did pursue this line of inquiry with him. This insecurity expressed itself in any number of ways. One was that, in the late fifties, dad signed the family up to a local country club there in Riverside--Azure Hills. That was the club where all the doctors, Attorneys and wealthy businessmen belonged. Being a surgical supply salesman, it made a certain amount of sense to join the club, but even as a nine-year-old I could tell we didn't really belong there. We didn't really fit in. It was nothing you could quite put your finger on--one just knew. Dad also didn't really mind when, in later years, people mistook his references to, "being in the medical profession" as meaning he had been a doctor. He didn't mind and often would not correct people's mistaken impression. Perhaps he challenged this inner dynamic later in life when he self-published a book about his experiences entitled, Don't Call Me Doctor.

My dad was a great guy who grew closer and closer to God in his later years. Because of that primary and spiritual relationship he was changing and becoming more Christ-like up unto the very end of his life. He was dearly loved by his family and by everyone who ever met him. People who, decades ago, had only known or worked with him a few months sent notes of great fondness and deep regret at the news of his passing in 1999.

I will write more about him in some future post on some future Father's Day. I know where you are dad. Thanks for all you did to raise me and try to get me on the right road--even when, early on, you were not sure yourself where it was. You left this world with grace, dignity and deep love. You are missed.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 13: The Best Laid Plans of Pot Heads

2009-06-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

As summer came to a close, I made a visit back you see old friends in Seal Beach. That is where, not long after high school, I had shared an apartment with my brother, who was a biology major at Long Beach State. It was in Seal Beach from 1969 to 1971 that my political radicalism and general anti-establishment outlook were nurtured beyond what they had been during my high school years. This may have been partly due to the fact that virtually everyone I knew and hung around with in Seal Beach were pot smokers and most of us also dabbled in the "recreational" use of other drugs, such as Peyote, Mescaline, LSD, Hashish and uppers. The last on that list, Benzedrine--which nearly everyone in the restaurant business used in order to accomplish our very fast-paced work--I used from time to time while working as a seafood chef at a local restaurant called Walt's Wharf. I lived near both the beach and the restaurant and could walk to work. I handled every kind of seafood all afternoon and evening long. Cats would follow me home at night.

One of my pot-smoking buddies, a close friend, was a moody and very philosophically-minded misfit--a lot like me. Barry and I would spend time together alternately complaining about the way society was arranged, how shallow it and its people were in general, and brainstorming alternative ways of arranging society so life would be less "plastic" and superficial and become more "real." We both fiddled around on guitar and knew a few cords and a few folk and bluegrass songs. One old bluegrass song we sang went like this: Ceegar-eets 'n whusky 'n wild wild women, they'll drive a man crazy, they'll drive him insaaaayne / Once't I was married and had a good waf, I had enough money to last me for laf / I met with a woman, we went on a spree / She taught me to smoke and dree-ink whus-key / Oh, ceegar-eets and whiskey..."

Barry had heard from a mutual friend who'd recently come back from working a crab boat in Alaska. He'd worked for something like two months straight and had made about five-thousand dollars--which in those days was very big money for guys our age. It was difficult and dangerous work, but that dangled jackpot of money was strong incentive for us just then. Barry and I talked it over and decided to North and give it a shot. We collected our resources and came up with enough money to get his old '55 Plymouth station wagon road worthy. Beyond that, we had enough for gas money to get us there--and even a couple hundred to spare. After packing the car with all the provisions we'd need--canned sardines, peanut butter, two cartons of cigarettes, a lid of carefully-hidden pot and some books by Krishnamurti and Dostoevsky, we set out from Seal Beach on a beautiful and mild mid-October day. We hopped on the 405 north and caught the I-5 in San Fernando. Once on the 5 we felt we were truly on our way. It just happened that, this being fire season in southern California, there were several major fires ravaging the foothills north and east of the city. This filled the horizon with billows of reddish brown smoke and darkened the sky. It felt to us like we were escaping a city which was doomed to some long-foretold apocalyptic end. We talked about this as we drove away from L.A. But soon, taking the place of those thoughts, were youthful testosterone-fueled dreams of doing dangerous and manly feats of gritty ocean courage aboard some rugged ship in those deep cold Alaskan waters. We would come back all buffed, sinewy and flush with cash!

One tactical concern of ours was my somewhat unresolved draft status. A year-and-a-half before I had refused induction into the Army and was told my formal indictment would soon follow. It never did--and, as it turned out, never would. Because of this unresolved legal matter, we felt it would be wise to try our crossing into Canada from a minor border town rather than a major one. Our plans had us driving across a good portion of British Columbia in order to get to Prince Rupert, from where we would take a ferry to our destination, Sitka. We decided to skirt a crossing at Vancouver and instead go east via Hwy 546 to where Hwy 9 heads north. We would attempt our crossing at the little border town of Huntingdon, near Abbotsford. Our thought was that the border guards there would be less diligent and watchful for draft-dodgers than at Vancouver. Although I prided myself in being a draft fighter, and not a draft dodger, I knew that my coming into Coming into Canada might look suspicious to the authorities.

As it was, our plan failed on all counts. We were turned away for "lack of financial resources." In short, the Canadian government felt that, should we have a mechanical breakdown, or for any other reason, have problems in reaching Price Rupert, we would have insufficient funds to assure we did not become an undue burden to Her Majesty's Sovereign State. What was required was proof of a U.S. bank account, in one of our names, with at a current balance of least $2,500. That we did not have. Consulting the good old Drawing Board, we decided to look for work in the nearby farming communities bordering Sumas. We felt sure some farm or business could use at least one--if not two--strapping young men as laborers. We approached this and that farmhouse--no luck. We tried getting dishwasher jobs at every little restaurant we could find--no help wanted. We tried gas stations and auto repair shops. We looked in the local paper. No jobs were to be had anywhere it seemed. Reluctantly, and in utter defeat, we pointed Barry's '55 Plymouth wagon back south and headed for home. Sometimes the best laid plans...

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 12: It Soothes the Soul of the Savage Skeptic

2009-06-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

As the summer of 1971 was nearing it's still warm--and to me almost magical--glowing end, everything in my immediate world seemed to enter of period of transition. One change, the most significant to me, and the news of which I welcomed as if I'd won the lottery, was that Cher, the seventeen year old young woman I had fallen in love with that summer, broke up with her boyfriend. I had been hoping this would happen and felt our budding relationship could now deepen and grow. I had told her as much in poem form. We began to see each other more regularly now, spending time together horseback riding and often just talking for hours.

Our conversations were most often about Jesus, the Bible, and spirituality as well as current events such as civil rights and the war in Viet Nam. Earlier that summer, she had given me a copy of the album her sister had recorded with her church group, Konoinia. That was the first "new" Christian music I'd heard--except perhaps for a couple songs, spun off from the Jesus Movement, that made it to radio such as Put Your Hand In the Hand of the Man From Galilee and Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky. Attending church with her on Sunday evenings, I had begun to become familiar with contemporary Christian music--the Jesus-People music. I remember Debbie Kerner was the song leader and a soloist at All Saints Episcopal, leading the newly formed congregation of former hippies in choruses of, We Are One In The Spirit, which included the lines, "We will work with each other / We will work side by side / And we'll give up our dignity and crucify our pride / And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love / Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love." This revolution in Christian music seemed to burst upon the late-sixties/early-seventies scene in a rapid proliferation of Jesus People music, composed and performed by groups such as, The Way, Mustard Seed Faith, Love Song, Selah, Blessed Hope and Children of the Day.

This new musical expression of the gospel message, with styles from folk to hard rock, was very controversial and much debated within the "mainline" churches, but had a profound effect on me and many in my generation who had written Christianity off as irrelevant. When we heard our music, we were much more receptive to the message it brought. That message was the same orthodox come-to-Jesus message you'd find at any Billy Graham crusade, only to us much more palatable when filtered through Fender or Peavey amplifiers and accompanied by familiar, contemporary music played by very hip/hippy looking twenty-somethings with joyful abandon and enthusiasm. This music, with its gentle-as-a-dove gospel lyrics about the love of Jesus, cleverly snaked its way, serpent-like, into my soul. This served to contemporize the dusty two-thousand-year-old message of Jesus in a way my twentieth-century mind could grasp and identify with on some level.

Here I should make it clear that, although I had come under what seemed a veritable barrage of Christian influence from every angle, I was, in fact, not any where near being or becoming a follower of Jesus. I was very much a skeptical "outsider"; observing the Jesus People as they gathered, listening to their music, and continuing to read the modern English New Testament I'd been given and challenged to read. At this point, the "alter calls" I sat through at the conclusion of every Sunday evening service were as irrelevant to me as a Don Adams TV commercial for "twenty acres of beautiful pine-covered God's-country mountain property in Big Sky Oregon." Wait. On second thought, I'd have been a much more likely potential customer for that TV-commercial property than for the Jesus gospel acreage they seemed to be offering me on Sunday night.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 11: Of Brooms and Baptists

2009-06-12T18:43:00.001-07:00

It was becoming clear to me now this would not be the easy and quick sale I'd hoped it would be. This seemed confirmed as my gaze drifted from the picture on the wall of the giant Jesus at the U.N. building to the big black Holy Bible atop the buffet keeping company with the family photos. To the woman's question about how my day was going, I observed that it certainly was hot outside today and I sure appreciated the cold lemonade. I didn't want to admit to her this was my first day as a Fuller Brush salesman and that I had yet to make a sale. I think she sensed this though. As I reached down in to my sample bag and brought out a slim catalogue of our latest products, she said, as if making a further comment on the weather, "Do you know that God loves you very much and sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for you?" There followed a moment of awkward silence as she waited for my answer and I tried to think of something to say which wouldn't blow the sale. "Um, yes" I said, "my grandma is a Baptist and I know they told us that at vacation Bible school." I figured this acknowledgment of mine might put this topic to rest and we could get on with discussing our new line of products made especially for the modern kitchen. It was not to be.

She reached over and, before I could draw my hand back from the table, she placed hers on mine. She tried to make eye contact with me but I saw it coming and turned my head as if I had just heard something in the distance which called for my attention. Anything to avoid what I was afraid would come next. She gave my hand a little squeeze and said softly, almost confidentially, as if just between us, "I'm glad you know about Jesus, but do you believe in him? Have you placed your trust in him and asked him to forgive your sins and come to live in your heart?" Another even more awkward silence ensued. I no longer cared about making a sale, I just desperately wanted to extract myself from this embarrassing inquisition as soon as possible and get back to knocking on doors where no one was home. The problem was that this woman had my catalogue under her other hand and the unspoken one-sided agreement seemed to be that, if I would just listen to what she had to say, she was willing to buy something from me afterwards. The odd thing was that her teen-aged daughter had taken a seat at the table with us as if we were going to have a little family discussion. She may have been a mute for all I knew, for she never said a word the whole time. I suspected though that she was praying, with her eyes open, the whole time. I somehow got the impression that I was not the first salesman to fall into the snare of this mother-daughter evangelical tag-team. "Well," I began, "I think Jesus was kind of a revolutionary and said lots of things about love and peace and brotherhood sort of like Woody Guthrie did and the establishment just couldn't take his radical ideas and so they had him killed as a rebel." With this answer I had managed to move things to slightly safer territory. I didn't really mind speculating about Jesus' political troubles in some abstract fashion, but to discuss my sins and how Jesus had died to forgive them was beyond the pale. "The Lord has called us," she said, mercifully letting go of my hand, "to tell everyone the good news of the gospel and promised that his Spirit would help them to see the truth and come to Jesus. I will pray for you that God will lead you to the path of salvation." With that, it seemed she'd done her duty and would soon free me to go on my way. I felt our tension--mine and hers--dissipate somewhat and she asked if I would like some more lemonade. "No, thank you," I said, "I need to be going and so..." She opened the catalogue and pointed to the Easy-Breezy kitchen broom with matching dust pan. After filling out the order form I collected my things and she showed me to the door. I wished her a good day and she in return said, in a sincere tone, "God bless you." Before I turned to go I saw her daughter, still seated at the dining room table, now with her head slightly bowed. I continued up the street in an odd daze of unreality at what had just happened. I'd never forget my first sale as a Fuller Brush man.

This encounter was just one of a number of them I seemed doomed to experience in the next ten months. I would come back to the car where it was parked downtown to find a gospel tract tucked under the wiper. I'd absent-mindedly give the radio dial a spin only to have it stop on a station blaring some preacher. I'd bump into an old acquaintance from high school and they'd start witnessing to me about being "born again." I'd go into a public restroom and there would be a psychedelic sticker saying One Way--Jesus! Mostly these things irritated me, but in tandem with my reading the gospel accounts, they felt "aimed" at me by I knew not whom.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, part 10: Death of a Salesman

2009-06-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

A person can't spend all his time falling in love and thinking about God--one has to make a living. My dad was letting me, his 21-year-old grown son, stay with him but he also expected me to find a job and pay some for my upkeep. I began pouring over the classifieds in our local newspaper, the Riverside Press Enterprise. I had been a paperboy for them back in the early sixties. The day after Kennedy was shot, I rode my route with my big canvas handlebar bags stuffed full with the papers I'd folded and banded that afternoon. As I peddled to my customer's neighborhood, people were stopping me left and right pleading with me to sell them a paper. They pull their cars along side me, waving a dollar bill in offer for a ten-cent paper! Unfortunately, I had not had the entrepreneurial foresight to stock up with extras before starting my route that day. But I digress. That was in 1963. It is now eight years later and I am living with my dad on a little horse ranch and trying to find a job.

I ran down the columns of minuscule type: Auto mechanic; Bartender; Carpenter; Drill-press Operator; Estimator; Fork lift Operator; Fuller Brush Salesman... Hmmm... Career opportunity for motivated person. No experience necess--will train. Base pay draw against commissions for first 3 weeks, straight commission after. Apply in person, Mon thru Wed. In the late-fifties, the Fuller Brush man used to come by our house twice a year. Dad would always buy something--whether he needed it or not. Being a fellow salesman, they shared a special kinship which would not let dad send the poor guy away without an order or some sort, if only for a whisk broom or two. Perhaps the Fuller Brush man was a fellow Mason and had given dad the secret handshake. Then again, dad had nearly zero sales-resistance himself and so perhaps would have bought something no matter what. I think the man came by our house as regularly as he did because he knew 2982 Gertrude Street was a sure sale.

I put in my application to become a Fuller Brush Man and aced the interview--which probably everyone did--and then, after being shown how to fill out an order form, was given a big Fuller Brush sample briefcase, a catalogue and a territory to work. Off I set, a spanking new salesman with shiny black slacks, white shirt and tie and with my long curly hair carefully rubber-banded and tucked up at the nape of my neck. The mustache had been allowed, but not the beard. It had been reluctantly sacrificed to The Man in the interest of gainful employment.

There were fewer and fewer housewives these days so I'd often have to knock on five or six doors before finding someone home. Then, it would invariably be either an elderly couple, or a middle-aged woman in her forties or fifties. In the course of an hour, I'd found a few folks home, but no one in need of any of our well-made and handy products. I was beginning to get discouraged when, at the next house where someone was home, I got invited in. This seemed a good sign. The woman who'd greeted me with a friendly smile looked to be about forty. Being late July it was quite hot out, perhaps in the mid-nineties, and as she ushered me to the big maple Early American dining room table she called out, "Cynthia, please bring some lemonade for this young man." As I seated myself I noticed, on the wall near where I sat, a large framed picture of a giant half-transparent Jesus standing outside the U.N. building. He had a concerned look on his face and was rapping a knuckle on one of the upper floors. This Jesus had sandy blond hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and was draped in Ben-Hur-like first-century robes. I began to feel an itch under my white collar. As Cynthia smiled and handed me a big glass of lemonade and her mom, with a note of concern in her pleasant voice asked me, "How have your sales been so far today?" I already didn't like the direction the conversation. I could see I'd have to try for a quick sale and, I hoped, a speedy escape...

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 9: Transitions, Trying on New Lenses

2009-06-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

At some point--I only had a very vague self-awareness of it at the time--I began moving from being a skeptic looking for problems with the Bible, into someone with a different frame of mind--one fraught with peril for any atheist or agnostic: I was becoming a "seeker." I was certainly not there yet, but I was moving steadily in that direction. I was beginning to genuinely want to know, if possible, what was ultimately True--about existence, God, self, life. I was just beginning to let go of the need to find the answers I wanted to find and to start seeking whatever answers there really were there to be found--whether those answers suited me or not. In short, I was beginning to embrace the mind-set that led to the recent downfall of that great and influential atheist, Anthony Flew: I was beginning to follow the truth wherever it might lead. The serious agnostic/skeptic, when considering the possible existence of God, must be ever vigilant to maintain an appropriately detached and cynical eye. One must carefully guard oneself against any undue influence (charming or persuasive people, books or arguments) which may be attached to the subject under examination (in this case, the Bible, Jesus, Christianity) lest one be led into accepting unwanted premises (there is a cause for the existence of the universe), and as a result, perhaps find oneself stumbling into inconvenient or even disastrous conclusions (I must owe my existence to the same Cause to which the universe owes its existence. Or: there must be some universal moral right and wrong--it can't all be a matter of personal opinion and taste).

This gradual transition from sincere cynical skeptic to sincere seeker was critical to the way I was assimilating the information I was gathering from my reading of the Bible and my observations of Christians. From my mid-teen years on I had been/become a pure materialist, not believing there was--or could be--anything beyond the material world. Now I was beginning to be willing to consider evidence for the possibility of a spiritual dimension to existence. This was a thousand football fields away from Jesus, Christianity--or any religion at all--but it was, for my part, a new openness that would set the stage for the experiences and thinking that were to shortly follow.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 8: Smitten and Searching

2009-06-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

I continued to read the gospel accounts in the modern English paperback Bible I'd been given. In my search of the gospel accounts I had found many things, such as walking on water and miraculously feeding five-thousand people, that I rejected outright and some other things, like the parables, that I didn't understand too well, but I was still in search of a good, glaring contradiction I could use. besides keeping my eye peeled for contradictions, the other thing I kept in mind, as I read about Jesus and his teaching, was my friend's challenge that, if Jesus was not all he claimed too be, then he must, logically speaking, be a liar or a lunatic. I was withholding judgment on that score until I'd finished reading the four gospels.

I was now taking the Jesus girl to church every Sunday evening and I was beginning to fall in love with her as well. Although an unabashed atheist and revolutionary, I would sit there with her and her friends during the service, enjoying the music, observing the people and trying to take in the content of the sermon. Being in this particular church--All Saints Episcopal--seemed a strange thing to me on several levels. One was that this was the very church I'd come to with my family when I was a little boy wearing a starched white shirt and a little bow tie. Essentially, nothing about the building had changed in the least since back then. It looked exactly the same. I found myself staring up at those same great big heavy wood beams in the ceiling--just as I'd done as a boy (only now, instead of that starched shirt and plaid bow tie, I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had long hair and a beard). But if the building was still the same, the service could not have been more different. Instead of an organ and choir, there was a Christian rock band. Instead of a man with a collar intoning and droning on about Gawd, there was a one of the Jesus People--Lonnie Frisbee--in a muslin smock, with shoulder-length hair, beard and sandals passionately preaching like some modern-day John the Baptist. The sermons seemed completely extemporaneous and not done from notes.

Each week the routine was basically the same: the band would do a set of Jesus music for about a half hour, then someone would get up with a guitar and lead everyone in praise choruses interspersed with old hymns, such as, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. After the music and singing, the hippy-preacher would tell an Old or New Testament story and then he'd explain what this meant to us as individuals living here and now. He might tell the story of David and Goliath and then, coming out from behind the lectern, and with the Bible either still in his hand or tucked under one arm, he would make the transition by saying, "Some of you are just like that little shepherd boy, David--you're facing Goliath-sized problems in your life right now--problems which seem to big for you to handle alone. You may be strung out on drugs or totally bummed out about your messed up family or maybe you're so lonely you just want to curl up and die because you have this giant-size hole inside you and your heart is empty or it's hard as stone--well only God can give you the boldness, the courage and the hope, like David, to come up against your Goliath. Only God's spirit can enable you, by his spirit, to stand up to your giant and put and end to him like David did. And God knows how to take care of giants 'cause he took care of the biggest giants of all--sin and death--that means he took on the sin of the whole world, including yours. He did it by sending his only son, Jesus, to die there on that cross two-thousand years ago. He loved you that much, that he bled and suffered in your place and he died so you could be set free and conquer your giants, and he didn't just die, but he rose up from the grave--he did it to prove he'd conquered death and really was the the son of God, the Messiah, the savior of the world, and you can know him tonight, you can come to him and he will forgive all your sins and cleanse you from the inside out and make you a whole new person--no matter what you've done and no matter how many sins you've committed or how bad they are--he died to pay the penalty for each and every one--and not only that, but he promised to remove them as far as the east is from the west, that's infinitely far, and that means they're totally gone forever--completely forgiven--and forgotten. When you accept his gift of salvation he'll create a new heart in you--he can do it, he has the power to do it--through his spirit--if you'll just come to him tonight, because the Bible says today is the day of salvation, and now is the time to be born again--so just come to him, admit you are a sinner, and ask him to come into your heart and life and forgive all your sins. He wants to set you free from the power of sin and change your life, to make you a new person. Don't put it off. If you are ready to do that tonight--to come to Jesus and be forgiven and start a new life--I just want to pray for you that God would really do a great work in your life and meet you right where you are. You don't have to get yourself all cleaned up first, he loves you just as you are and you can come to him just like you are--with all your sins and junk and he'll do all the changing--he'll do it by sending his spirit to live inside you, so if you want to have a brand new start and if you really want to know the love of God and know you are going to heaven and you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I invite you to show that by raising your hand and I'm going to pray for you right now that God would do a mighty work in your life--by his Holy Spirit--that he would transform you and give you a whole new life--and if that's what you want tonight, if you are hungry for God and spiritually thirsty, then just raise your hand and I'll pray for you. Jesus said, 'If you confess me before men I will confess you before my father in Heaven, but if you deny me before men I will deny you before my father.' The Bible says, 'the angles rejoice over just one sinner that comes to repentance', so raise your hand if you want to be born again and begin following Jesus tonight. I see your hand brother, I see that hand too... and you, sister, I see your hand also."

Each Sunday evening there would be similar program of music and preaching, followed by the inevitable Billy-Graham-style alter call. Each week ten to fifteen or more people would raise their hands to "receive Christ." The preacher would then ask them to come forward and stand at the front of the church to declare their commitment to Jesus. Then he would lead the group in saying, out loud, the "Sinner's Prayer." He would then give them a Bible and say, "Welcome into the family of God." He'd tell them that now, as new believers, they should pray, read their Bible, fellowship with other believers, and tell their family, friends and others about Jesus.

Every week more and more young people would flock to the church to hear the music and the preaching. Each week a number of them would walk forward to pray the sinner's prayer. For my part, I just took it all in and tried to figure out what--if anything--really happened to those who went forward and why all these young people were always hugging each other and saying things like, "Praise the Lord" to one another. I did have to admit that there was an undeniable and palpable atmosphere of joy and exuberance among them. They also seemed to share a deep bond and sense of strong camaraderie with one another. For someone like me, who was somewhat of a loner, it was both a little weird and a bit attractive at the same time. The Jesus girl--and my own questions about Jesus--would keep me returning to this strange scene week after week. I had however no way of foreseeing the strange and unusual events which awaited and would confront me in the months ahead.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 7: Altered States

2009-06-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

I wasn't buying the miracles I was reading about in the Bible, but the fact that my father and I were getting along seemed to defy, if not any Law of Nature, then at least the laws of our natures. It's not that we had settled any of our our differences, it was that we had an unspoken agreement, for the time being, not to raise them. So we didn't talk about politics or any social issues. I still held very radical views and he still held very conservative ones. Considering our past seven years of anger and estrangement, it seemed to me a minor miracle that my father had invited me to come live with him and his new family. Dad had married Shirley three years back and had acquired four children--three young boys and a little girl--in the bargain. This in itself was completely out of character for a man who liked to quote W.C. Fields, "A man who hates dogs and kids can't be all bad." When we were growing up, dad would sometimes amuse himself and his guests by saying in our presence, "Why don't you kids go play on the freeway?" Now my father had a house full of rug-rats and had softened toward me as well.

This surprising change in my father was, I believe, one of the effects wrought by his new love relationship. His love for Shirley was so life-alteringly profound that, in spite of his antipathy toward children, I'm convinced he'd have married her if she had come with a whole tribe of pygmy headhunters. Not only was he willing to accept her four children as part of the marriage package, but he was genuinely trying to be a father to them as well. Their own father had died of cancer four years before--in the hospital where my dad was administrator. That is how he met Shirley, then a grieving widow. Although dad was trying to be a good father-figure to Shirley's children--ranging in age from three to thirteen--parenting was not something he was very adept at.

His two big disabilities as a parent were that he had next to no patience for children's horse-play and its attendant noise, and that his own father had been distant, cold and even at times cruel. I believe my dad was seeing, in these children, his second chance at parenting, of getting it right. And although his efforts were often awkward or faltering, he was giving it the best effort he was capable of. It was a little odd for me, a product of his first effort at parenting, to watch him try to relate to these kids while being both a loving father-figure and a disciplinarian as well. One minute he'd be taking the little girl tenderly in his arms after she'd skinned her knee but then the next he'd be snapping sharply and loudly at one of the boys for running in the house, "Dammit, I said stop that!" Although it was a bit painful to watch him struggle in his new father-figure role, I was feeling, for the first time, real sympathy for him as a parent because these kids were a very big handful at their ages and, on top of that, the youngest boy, Jimmy, was over-the-top hyperactive. If Jimmy came up to say anything to you he'd be on his tiptoes, rapidly bouncing and shaking his hands in the air. And he was already on Ritalin.

A psychiatrist I recently heard on a radio show said that we'd all be doing a good job as parents if we only passed on half the hang-ups our parents had passed on to us. I am not certain just where I'd stand by that criteria. I suppose this calls for an honest self-evaluation. My fathering may have been marginally better that my father's, but I don't know if I can claim it to be fifty-percent better. I know my father did much better than his father. My father, later in life, made a good and successful effort to get closer to us kids. I hope I can be as successful as he was in this.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 6: The Hunted Hunter Sets Out

2009-06-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

To briefly recap, I had been released from Banning Road Camp (a Riverside County Jail facility) in May of 1971; went to live with my dad in Mira Loma, a rural area of Riverside; met an attractive 17-year old girl who was one of the new Jesus People; had gone with her to one of their gatherings; had been challenged by and old school acquaintance regarding Jesus and the Bible; and had determined to look into the issue for myself.

I had never seriously considered the teachings of Jesus or the claims of Christianity. Now I had been challenged to do so. I imagined this exercise would be an intellectual slam-dunk and that I'd easily find confirmation for my already formed opinions. After a day of job hunting, followed by late afternoon chores around my dad's place, such as cleaning out the stalls and putting the horses' hay in their crib, I was ready to take my first crack at reading the Bible. Shutting the door to my room, I sat on the bed, put the Moody Blues on the turntable and pulled off my dusty boots and sweaty socks. As the first notes of Nights In White Satin bagan to play, I laid myself out across the bed, dropped the paperback Bible I'd been given onto the floor and tentatively peeled back the front cover. I had a pencil at the ready, there for putting check marks in the margins whenever I found a contradiction, flaw or logical fallacy.

The first thing I encountered was a long listing of names of all the ancestors of Jesus, afterward summed up by Matthew saying, "The genealogy of Jesus Christ may thus be traced for fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation to Christ himself." No contradiction jumped out at me there--and I wasn't about to read all through the Old Testament looking to see if this Jesus family tree I'd just skimmed over was accurate. I'd have to take Matthew at his word on that one. But, how'd he get all this genealogical information anyway? That too was not something I really cared to look into just now. I wasn't out to nit-pick, I was on the hunt for big, fat obvious contradictions.

Next I came to the Snoopy Christmas Special birth of Jesus story. Angels appear to people and you're told an unbelievable virgin birth story, but then I already knew these unbelievable miracles were in the Bible. I had bigger fish to fry. In the Baby Jesus story I found mention of a king named Herod. Here might be a possibility. If there were no historical record such a king ever existed, I suppose that would be a pretty major flaw. I'd have to look into that. Already, in five-minutes of reading I'd discovered that this Jesus character wasn't portrayed as having lived once upon a time somewhere in some vague Middle East, but in a real and specific place at a particular time in recorded history. Certainly skeptics and historians before me had done some serious fact-checking of the gospels. What had they found? I'd have to look into that as well.

Every other verse in Matthew I found him saying that this or that incident fulfilled some prophecy from somewhere else in the Bible. Here was something else for me to check out--at some point anyway. By the time Jesus got himself baptized I'd had enough reading for one session. In this my initial Bible excursion I hadn't bagged any good contradictions, but then again, I'd just begun. There was always tomorrow...

It was getting late, and before going to bed I went out to the back of our half-acre horse ranch, lit a cigarette--a habit I'd begun at around age 14--and put one bare foot on the bottom railing of the corral. Taking a deep inhale of the Marlborough, I began to think about the beautiful young guitar-strumming girl down the street. She said Jesus was her personal savior and Lord and that his love was real and could change a person's life. As I very slowly exhaled the soothing smoke, my horse, Joplin, looked up from the last bits of her hay and began to amble over to me.

2009-06-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

For anyone just tuning in, I am doing a multi-part series, Father's Day 1972 Revisited. For several years now, inspired by St. Augustine's Confessions, I have written or rewritten my conversion experience afresh each year. Since this radical turning point in my life had its focus on Father's Day (1972) I am now in the habit of having my thoughts turn back that direction each year as June arrives. This annual writing ritual helps me reflect anew upon God's amazing and magnetic love and how he so marvelously crafts his call to each individual soul.

This little blog--and my small band of loyal readers (all three of you!)--have inspired me to write in a little more detail this year than in years past. Father's Day is on the 21st, so in the weeks prior I will try to progress my story a little ever day or two. Feel free to leave comments or questions as we go along and I will try to answer them. Perhaps you will help me see or think about something I've overlooked.

My father is no longer living. If your father is still with us, I wish you the blessing of appreciating and enjoying him while he remains. On a higher plain, I am reminded how good it is to be loved by the great Father and Shepherd of our souls!

Note: Scroll to bottom to begin with Part 1.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 5: Proud Preconceptions and a Paperback Bible.

2009-06-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

So my old acquaintance from high school, now a Jesus freak, had provoked me into searching the Bible for contradictions and, beyond that, to attempt to determine whether this Jesus these people claimed to love was some sort of con man, a lunatic, or was who he claimed to be--if he'd ever existed at all. I felt I needed to determine these things by my own investigation so I could tell myself, and others in the future, that I had made an honest inquiry into the matter and had come to an informed decision. What I was not setting out to do was to explore all the world's religions, or to compare them all with Christianity. I was only interested in doing an adequate enough study of the Christian documents--the New Testament--which would intellectually entitle me to then reject them on the basis of my own first-hand study. This way, when confronted again sometime in the future by a Christian, whether a Jesus freak like my buddy or some high-church suit-and-tie type, I would be perfectly comfortable in asserting, "Yes, I have read the Bible myself and have found it completely unbelievable and utterly unconvincing. It has quite a number of contradictions and logical fallacies in it, such as..." and here I would toss my evidence on the conversational table like slapping down a pair of aces.

Reading the Bible might prove an unpleasant task, but the chore would be well worth doing if--as I was sure it would--it bolstered my reasons for rejecting the Christian message. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "this Bible reading project might just turn out to be as rewarding as my reading of Bertrand Russell's book, Why I Am Not a Christian, a few years back." That was the book I had used to great effect--or so I imagined--in high school when confronted by Jesus People handing me a gospel tract like The Four Spiritual Laws, or when they were so bold as to "witness" to me with something like, "Do you know God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?" I'd reply by saying with a little sneer, "Do you know the Spanish Inquisition killed thousands of Jews and Muslims? Don't talk to me about your so-called "loving" God!" If that didn't do the trick and shut them up, I'd brush them off with the "crutch" charge. They might begin, "The Bible says that God so loved the world he sent..." and I'd cut in with, "Yeah, yeah, all that religion stuff is just a crutch for the ignorant, to keep them compliant. But if it makes you feel good to think about Jesus and God's love, go right ahead--whatever turns you on."

With this less-than-receptive frame of mind, I set out to actually read the gospel stories for the very first time. It's not that I didn't know what was in them--in a vague and general sort of way. I knew they claimed for Jesus a virgin birth, that there was John the Baptist, the disciples, John 3:16, some guy named Pontius Pilate, and, of course, a crucifixion and resurrection. These things I'd learned from Episcopal Sunday school and liturgy in addition to being enrolled in Vacation Bible School by my Baptist grandmother each summer. There, between craft projects (leather wallet, Indian beaded bracelet, pounded copper picture, wood-burning) we would be treated to felt board presentations depicting Bible stories. Compared to watching Bonanza in color on the neighbor's TV, the felt board was rather boring. Nonetheless, the most basic elements of the Jesus story were duly planted in my developing brain--and soul.

I now don't even know who gave me the Bible I first read back then, back in the summer of 1971. I know it was a paperback, contemporary version, done by J.B. Phillips. This smoothed the way for me to confront the story and teachings of Jesus plainly, without the "Thees and Thous" of the King James distracting me. In addition to beginning to read the Bible, I decided I would add to my "research" a weekly visit to the Sunday evening gathering of the Jesus people there at All Saints Episcopal Church. It was not until later I learned that Lonnie Frisbee and his Jesus-freak followers were only borrowing the building and were not a part of that church. They were Hippies-turned-Jesus-People evangelists sent from Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa by Chuck Smith. My motives for meeting with the Jesus People were very mixed. On the one hand, the beautiful Jesus girl was going there and I could give her a ride each week. For that I was willing to sit and listen to a hippy preacher. On the other hand, I could observe the Jesus freaks and try to find an answer to the question in my mind, "What could have so influenced all these peers of mine as to make them give up pot and free love in exchange for some crazy rule-infested Jesus lifestyle?" It made no sense to me. I, however, was an intellectual. I'd get to the bottom of it: a mass psychological malady of some kind no doubt.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 4: A Brief Encounter With a Jesus Freak

2009-06-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

This Sunday evening church excursion was not turning out anything like I'd planned. Instead of ushers telling me, as I'd hoped they would, that I couldn't come into the church dressed as I was, I was welcomed by a hundred or more Jesus people, most of whom probably assumed I was one of them. I was chagrined I'd let myself get snookered into being part of this gathering of Jesus freaks. And now, to top it off, here was an old high school acquaintance calling me "brother." When I informed him I was no "brother" and that I'd just given someone a ride there and was not at all interested in religion, he looked genuinely surprised, but then, getting his evangelical footing gushed, "Hey man, you should really check it out--God loves you, Jesus proved it by dying on the cross for you. You know, the Bible says..." I cut this off immediately with, "Don't tell me the Bible says this or that or some other thing. That Bible of yours is full of contradictions and fairy tales--no one believes that stuff anymore." But before I could quote some Bertrand Russell for his enlightenment, he held out his big Thompson Chain Reference Bible toward me and said, "Well, show me one and we can talk about it." This so startled me I forgot my Bertrand Russell and just stammered, "Well, I know they're in there, it's well documented. I couldn't tell you just where they are right this minute, but I know they're there." At that moment I was blushing inside with intellectual embarrassment. I had prided myself on being an intellectual, someone who dispassionately looks at all the available facts, considers them very carefully, applies logic and reason and then follows the truth wherever it might happen to lead. In that instant it became blindingly obvious to me I had never even come close to doing this regarding religion, the Bible or the claims about Jesus. Oh sure, I'd gotten drunk with a buddy one time and we'd read Revelation and laughed it to scorn. That of course wouldn't really count as having read the Bible. I was intellectually busted and I knew it. Of course I was not about to concede that to this Jesus freak.

Next he tried another angle, asking me, "Well, who do you think Jesus was then? The Bible says..." "Yeah, yeah, I know what the Bible says about Jesus--I was went to Sunday school all the time when I was little, right here in this church in fact. You can't really expect me to believe any of that walking on water stuff or the virgin birth or the resurrection and all the rest of it. Besides, no one is really sure if Jesus even existed." For some reason, my declaration of unbelief didn't seem to faze him in any way for he simply replied, "Jesus was either a Liar if he said things about himself he knew weren't true, a lunatic if he believed all he said about himself and it was not true, or--or he was exactly who he claimed to be if everything he said about himself was true. He must be one of those and, as for me, I know he's my Lord and savior, praise God!" My only retort at this point was to try and brush it off by saying, "Well, his followers probably just made all that stuff up after he died." About this time Cher came up and wanted to introduce me to someone--which was a sort of salvation to me at that moment. As we began to walk away my friend called after me, "I'll be prayin' for you brother." "Ugh," I said under my breath and thought, "Yeah, you just do that. Whatever floats you religious boat buddy." Still, as satisfied and self assured in my unbelief as I was, it seemed a worrisome chink had been found in my atheistic armor. I'd have to see to that. Already I was determining in my mind to find at least a few of the many contradictions I'd referred to so that, the next time some Jesus freak button-holed me I'd be ready with better come-backs. I especially didn't like having to concede that I hadn't read the book I was rejecting. That just didn't look intellectual and would need to be addressed. OK, I'd have to read the Bible--at least once, at least the New Testament gospels with all their unbelievable fairy-tale miracles. It would be worth it in order to bolster my anti-Christian arguments. I could handle it, no sweat.

Thus was I drawn yet another little step into Gods loving and so well-disguised trap.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 3: Not Saved by the Ushers

2009-06-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

The mysterious young Jesus Person neighbor girl asked me--me--an atheist/agnostic/, seeker, rebel, hippy guy--for a ride to church. Going to church held absolutely no appeal to me, but spending time, even half and hour, with this girl did. Perhaps I could find a way to give her a ride but avoid sitting through a church service. A plan began to form in my mind and was, from my point of view, brilliant. I would wear my favorite very well-worn hippy bell-bottom jeans, the ones all faded and frayed and with the knees torn out. A white T-shirt would be good and, in spite of the sultriness of the evening, I'd wear that old army shirt emblazoned with Magic-Marker peace symbols--the one I'd sewn a large American flag,upside-down, on the back of. And, just in case all that was not enough to get me denied entrance, I went barefoot. Yes--that would do the trick! I had it all played out in advance in my mind: Of course, the ushers would deny me entrance, she would go to the service; I would take a walk and smoke a cigarette or two, Afterwards, we'd go for a coke and conversation and I would explain to her why I could not possibly be a Christian what with all the derss codes and regulations etc. At least that's the way I'd envisioned the evening unfolding. I was in for a rude awakening. As we pulled into the parking lot of All Saints Episcopal Church, I noticed something unusual--there were more than a hundred, perhaps two hundred, young people, most of whom looked like hippies, milling about on the expansive lawn of the churchyard. Something was seriously amiss, especially my plan for getting barred at the door of the church. Just then, as I turned my dad's station wagon into the parking space, Cher excitedly pointed toward the lawn and exclaimed, "There 's pastor Lonnie, he's really cool." "You mean that guy with the beard, in the muslin shirt?" I asked. "Yes, wait 'till you hear him--he's really anointed" she said in a low whispery voice which seemed one of admiration. I could see that my carefully thought-out plan was shot. I hadn't come up with an alternative as we got out of the car and headed for the lawn--she eagerly, me very reluctantly. Before I knew it we were seated on the lawn, everyone singing "cum-by-ya" and a guy to my left slings his arm over my shoulder in brotherly fashion. The muscles in my shoulders and back tightened, but I sought to look cool and unimpressed. "Oh no" I thought, "The Jesus people again--I can't seem to get away from them." As I contemplated this unexpected turn of events, Lonnie began to preach a gospel message with passion and plenty of happy hippy feeling. As I listened to the young preacher tell me how Jesus had died on the cross for me and was seeking me out like a lost sheep and all I needed to do was to open my heart to him and I'd be born again and have a whole new start in life because God loved me more that I could ever imagine, and loved me even no matter how many sins I'd committed and if I were to come to Jesus He would put a whole new plan for my life into effect if only I'd open my heart and invite Him to come in and be my Lord and Savior. I was unmoved and appeared, like I had for years carefully practiced appearing, aloof, skeptical and unmoved. I felt very out of place, here with all these Jesus People singing love songs to some Jesus I know had died two thousand years ago. The whole thing I considered to be completely absurd. I couldn't wait to get out of there. It wasn't to be. Someone who knew me from Poly High came up to me, threw his arms around me and exclaimed, "Denny, praise God!--it is so good to see you here brother!" That last statement irritated me greatly and I challenged him by informing him, "Hey, I just gave someone a ride here, I'm no part of this, I just happen to be here and don't know what in the hell all you people are so excited about."

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 2: Clouds, Horses and a Plan

2009-06-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

The mysterious beautiful guitar-strumming girl spoke to me. She told me her name was Cher--short for Sharon. She said she lived in the little house behind us with her mother and older sister. She talked of God. Her sister had recently become a Christian and now she too had come to Jesus and been born again as well. Of course I'd heard of and seen Jesus People before--had even argued with some of them in my senior year at continuation school. I softened my usual off-the-shelf anti-religion, anti-God handy arguments in an effort not to offend her and instead introduced her to my deeper, thoughtful, philosophical-seeker side. I listened to her tell of God's love and his sending Jesus and I in turn told her how, when I was in a cynical frame of mind, I didn't believe there was a God, but that sometimes, in a better mood and looking at the beauty of nature--especially a blue and cloudy sky--I felt like some sort of a Creator just might exist after all. I suppose I was desperate to find some common ground with her, no matter how small, so that this Jesus girl would not write me off and want nothing more to do with me.

The something we did have in common was horses. Her mother had a big Tennessee Walker and her sister had a Quarter Horse. They were all experienced riders. I was a novice, having just bought my first horse, a Palomino mare I'd named Joplin. Before long Cher and I had arranged to go on a ride together. This was the first time I'd ridden bareback--or barefoot. This was new to me--more like hippy horseback riding than cowboy style riding. As we leisurely walked our horses through a field of soft sandy soil, my horse paused and began pawing the dusty loam with her left front hoof. Before Cher could finish saying, "Hey, don't let her lay down" Joplin had rolled over on her side, I'd slid off her back and fond myself holding the reigns of a horse who was joyfully rolling back and forth in the soft soil, snorting with delight and creating a shallow bowl-like impression in the soft ground. While I was still trying to figure out what had just happened, Joplin decided that, since her itch was now sufficiently scratched, and she'd gotten enough tan powdery dust worked into her coat, she would get back on all fours and let us continue our afternoon ride. I picked up the crumpled bareback blanket from the ground and, with a leg-up assist from Cher, managed to get back atop Joplin's back. I was somewhat chagrinned and humbled; I know Cher got a good laugh over my little equine behavior surprise, as I suspect Joplin did as well.

On our horseback ride I learned that Cher's sister was a singer in a new Christian church-based group named Koinonia who had just released an album. I could tell she was proud of her sister, but I sensed a little sibling rivalry there as well, especially since both of them played guitar and sang. Even as I was becoming increasingly attracted to her, I learned that Cher had a serious relationship with a young man who considered them as good as engaged. Of course this new information only made the Unobtainable all the more deeply desirable to me.

I'd only known her a few weeks and, living only a few houses apart, we had not exchanged phone numbers. I would often walk past her house hoping she'd be sitting out on the lawn playing her guitar and indeed I often did find her there, under the same little tree where we'd first exchanged words and first made eye contact. These walks allowed me to stroll over as if I'd just happened to pass by on my way somewhere. The first time I got up the nerve to ask, in a very offhand way so as to protect my ego, "Do you want to go get a Coke or something later this evening?" Her reply was, "OK, but do you think you could give me a ride to church too? There's a service tonight at seven." "Sure, why not? Where is it?" I asked. "It's in Riverside--at All Saints Episcopal." "OK, I know where it's at, I'll pick you up about six-thirty." I didn't show it, but I was a bit flummoxed. My folks had been members of that church in the 50's and we'd gone there most every Sunday back then--before my dad left mom for a younger woman in 1965. I knew it as a formal, rather stuffy, upper-crust sort of place. I'd sit there on the hard old wood pew, in my starched white long-sleeved shirt and clip-on bow tie and look at the big brown wood beam work up by the ceiling as a voice far up front intoned something like, "We most humbly thank and praise Thee, Almighty and Gracious Gawd, for Thy exceedingly great and precious gifts which Thou, in Thine great mercy and compassion, hast so lovingly bestowed upon us..." I just could not imagine this Jesus Person girl, with her bell-bottom jeans going to that church. On the other hand, it didn't really matter much why she went there--the important thing was that I'd be with her for a precious half-hour as we drove there. That's what really mattered. I really didn't want to go to a church service there though. I came up with a plan...

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 1: The Beginning; a Summer, a Sunrise, a Seduction Begun

2009-05-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

My very first memory is of being lost and alone in a thunderstorm at the age of four, but I will not start there. I will begin at age twenty-one, in 1971. I'd just been released from Banning Road Camp after serving 66 days of a 90-day sentence for violating the terms of my probation. The specific term I'd violated stipulated that I not be arrested while on probation. The court took note that I had gotten myself arrested in Seal Beach for possession of marijuana. This was not my first scrape with the law and my father was concerned about the trajectory my life had been taking of late.

That is why, upon my release from the Road Camp at Banning, I was met by my dad and my brother, Skip. From Banning the three of us drove to the nearby San Jacinto Mountains for a few days of camping. At the conclusion of our Father-sons camp-out, the plan was that I go live with my dad, his new wife and her three kids on their little half-acre horse ranch situated in Mira Loma, only about 7 miles from Riverside where I'd been raised.

I had not been on good terms with my dad for the previous ten years, and for the past few had been living on my own in several different So-Cal locations, most recently Seal Beach. So this new situation felt a bit strange, but at this stage in my life a change of this sort was a real ( but unrealized by me) godsend.

Enter the beautiful neighbor girl. I first saw her on a misty morning in May as she walked past our house on her way to school. I was intrigued and enchanted from the first. Her long, straight chestnut-brown hair and slim figure were the easily identifiable outer allurements which got my initial attention, but of course there was, in addition, that deep and difficult-to-pinpoint intangible something--was it something in her bearing?--which captivated me. In the next week or two I made a point of being where I could watch for her in the morning and evening hours when I knew she would be walking to or from school.

Although I'd seen her walk down our street, I had never seen which house she had come from. A week or so later, on a warm Saturday afternoon as I walked down the street I saw her sitting on her front lawn, playing a guitar (these were semi-rural properties with deep yards and no curbs or sidewalks). As painfully shy as I was, my feet seemed to instantly overrule me and walked right up to where she was sitting. I sat down and listened as she finished strumming and then somehow I found a voice and introduced myself. Unwittingly I had just set a tentative foot into one of God's cleaver and loving traps. To be continued...

Calvary Chapel(s) Then and Now

2009-05-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

Lonnie Frisbee was preaching at Calvary Chapel Riverside when I first began going there in the summer of 1971. In the days ahead, I will be blogging about my experience there in the early 70s and also about Calvary Chapel Chino in the late 70s and early 80s. I am interested in contacting a few people from those days so, if you happen to know anyone who was involved in either church back then please send them to this site or have them contact Allen "Denny" Randall at First Presbyterian Church of San Diego.

Here in the Lap of Luxury

2009-05-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

As I pulled my socks on this morning it hit me once again--I live like a king and am surrounded by luxuries galore! Here I sit, my feet luxuriating in clean soft white cotton socks casually tossing words out into a peaceful little cyber-pond like some monarch reclining on pillows and absentmindedly casting cherry pits into a lake. I have it all! A mere few steps from where I sit, a pair of servants patiently await my wishes. One with a bucket of clean, fresh cold water, and a companion who stands at the ready with steaming hot water for my every need. On the other side of this very wall is a room which half the world would likely walk a hundred miles to find, for it is filled with the finest food from around the world: grains of all kinds, exotic fruits, nuts and spices. Fresh crisp vegetables of all sorts, different kinds of oils, sauces and dressings, each with a different and delightful flavor. Oh my--I see the time has arrived for me to take my royal carriage to town and attend to some court affairs. This will therefore have to be continued another time, for I have but begun to innumerate the many luxuries which fill our dear castle here. Until then, adieu...

This Day

2009-05-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Thank you Lord for granting me yet another day of life. Let me have and express gratitude for everyone and everything I experience today. Save me from the hurry and distractions which would blind me to who and what you would want me to see today. Father, may I be a blessing in some way to each person I encounter, even those I pass on my way from here to there. In the midst of the city help me to be mindful of your creation all around--the sun, sky, trees, birds and every living thing. Please help me to order my thoughts such that my mind will not be filled with clutter and clamor, but instead will follow the threads of thought which lead to true wisdom and understanding. Let my words today be measured, thoughtful and loving so that I may encourage those who are weary and discouraged. May I use the gift of this day to draw closer to you and to bring you glory. May it be so.

Comment Goose Eggs and a Mother Hen Blogger

2009-05-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

You'd think I was watching for eggs to hatch. In the hours and days after I've laid a--I mean written a post, I'm checking, checking, checking to see if anyone has read or had any response to it. Perhaps I need to get up, rustle my feath--I mean edit it a bit to coax it to life. Now whole days have gone by and the goose egg sits there with not even the slightest little crack appearing. Oh you poor little post, no one has anything to say about you. You have apparently delighted no one nor roused any-one's ire. I suppose it is the same principle in action as the watched pot. The funny thing is, people have given me feedback in person to some of my posts, indicating which ones they've read or enjoyed. This is gratifying but still... I just can't stop fretting over those goose eggs. Perhaps I should simply chalk all this fretting up to New Blogger Syndrome. I need more patience and to be content to let some of these little posts fend for themselves and garner comments--or not--as they deserve and as time goes by. What do you think? Want to hatch an--I mean, leave a comment?

Memorial Day Confession

2009-05-25T11:04:00.002-07:00

I am a reformed/repentant pacifist. During the Viet-Nam war I was a passionate and proud follower of Gandhian pacifism. I not only dodged the draft, but made a personal cause-celeb of fighting the draft in a dramatic and public fashion. My hometown (Riverside) paper featured an article about my plans to refuse induction into the armed services. A Los Angeles based draft attorney and I had dreams of taking an appeal of my case as far up the judicial chain as possible, perhaps to the supreme court. He was a real ACLU-style attorney, motivated more by ideology than money (For his services I payed him one Fender Jazz Bass guitar).

From 1968 to 1970 I worked at organizing anti-war activities at my high school, attended meetings of the Students for a Democratic Society, joined the Peace and Freedom Party and marched in massive anti-war demonstrations. I can still hear the chants of "Ho, Ho, Ho-Che-Min--the Viet Cong are going to win!" David Harris came to our city and his speech convinced me to return my draft card to the draft board and to refuse induction if drafted. I was duly drafted and, after moving to the revolution's mecca, Berkley, I refused induction at the Oakland Induction Center. After doing so I was shunted to a little side room where a kindly FBI agent, in his 60s with graying grandfatherly hair and very calm demeanor, asked me, "Son, do you realize the seriousness of what you're doing, and the 5-year prison term you will serve if you are convicted?" I told him I did and politely declined his invitation to change my mind. The indictment and trial I so eagerly looked forward to never did materialize. It seems the courts were so clogged with similar cases they were only taking a few high-profile ones in order to make an example of them. I felt cheated, ignored and disrespected. That calm conversation with the nice FBI man was the last dealing I was ever to have with the U.S. government regarding my draft case.

As a pacifist I of course had a great and profound love for all humanity (in the abstract) but also great (righteous) hatred of whole swaths of it in reality: the evil U.S. government--and all who loved or supported it; the military; capitalism; the police, the wealthy; all Republicans, right-wingers and Christians, along with most main-line Democrats. These all were summed up as The Establishment. For those who have not indulged in this sort of spiritually delicious hatred, it's pleasure is difficult to describe. Its main intoxicant for us revolutionaries was the way it made one feel so pure and morally superior to one's enemies. And not them only, but also all the common folks who could not see with our enlightened clarity the evil of the whole American enterprise.

The reformation of my thinking as it regards pacifism has taken some time and has a number of causes--which I will leave for some future post. Here I will only note that I can now, thirty-nine years later, observe Memorial Day with deep appreciation and gratitude for all the warriors who fell in battle. Whose lives were given for a country which treated me so gently when I was railing against it. It was difficult for me to let go of my pacifist/Gandhian identity--for it was a very important aspect of how I understood myself and how I wanted others to see me. It was also a sacrifice to say goodbye to my cherished hatreds and ideological righteousness. They were heady but adolescent pleasures, and so had to be left behind. This Memorial day I am at peace with my anti-war past. Although I judge my actions from back then quite differently now, I am neither proud nor ashamed of them. They have been given a decent and properly respectful burial under a shady tree which watches over a little green field in my soul. That revolutionary young man may not have died in battle, but he did die. He had to lose his life--in order to find it.