Heaven Is …

I am a child of summer. I would LOVE nothing more than living in a perpetual summertime. I love being outside in nature. I love hearing birds sing and lawn mowers at 6 am. I love wearing nothing more than shorts and a shirt and going around barefoot. I love open windows and cool breezes. I love green flowering and fruiting plants. I love the sun’s warmth on my skin like a blanket. I love summer.

I am not a child of winter. I don’t miss cold, snow and wind chills. I don’t miss frosted windows, windshields and mustaches. I don’t miss the hollow sound of creaking, empty trees dealing with overweight snow and brittle winds. I don’t miss bundling up in layers upon layers of clothing just to get the mail. I don’t miss the salty roads, dirty snow piles, and slush. I don’t miss the sunless days where cold comes on you like a prickly sweater. I don’t miss winter.

I tell people, who don’t live in the south that we have one spring, two summers and a really hot season. I don’t miss winter. Of course this is a preference and I know others who have EXACTLY the opposite view of mine. I have a distant relative with whom I share the same name, who lives in Norway and LOVES the winter and can’t wait for summer to be over. Others I know love the changing of the seasons and would miss summer leaves turning to fall, fall colors turning to a white blanket, winter white turning to the new growth of spring, and spring sprouting into a full blown summertime.

I cannot see myself in a cold climate again. But I can’t say I will NEVER be in a cold climate again. I find an even deeper truth than my love of summer. I find that God has plans that may not have ANYTHING to do with my preferences. What happens if God calls my wife and I back to Michigan, or to a church in Northern Alberta? No, sorry God, I prefer summertime. How about Hawaii or the Florida Keys?

Actually that is a picture of heaven for me. Right now, my preferences and God’s plan are often at odds. But there will come a time when they are one and the same. There is a place where I will be just where God wants me to be and that will be the same place where I prefer to be. That time and that place is heaven. I can’t wait (well, I can, but you know what I mean) to move there!

Heaven is where your preferences and God’s plan become one.

Rights and Responsibilities

A leader in the restaurant business, someone who lobbies the government for restaurants, was quoted as saying that it would violate the "rights' of free speech for restaurants to HAVE to post the health department's grade of their cleanliness in the window for all to see. In essence, it is their RIGHT to be dirty and not tell customers about it.

In this political season it is time for us to define rights vs. responsibilities. We seem to be abusing the word "right" quite frequently and we tend to ignore our responsibilities even more frequently.

Our Declaration of Independence tells us that we are given rights by our Creator and among these are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It doesn't say that these three are all the rights but it does say that they come from God. The government was not established to give us rights. The government was to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" according to our Constitution. The Bill of Rights then gives us our amendments to the Constitution by telling us there are "LEGAL rights" that we have in order to insure our "GOD GIVEN rights" like the freedom of speech and freedom to carry guns.
But here's the thing. We infringe on people's GOD GIVEN rights only when we don't take up our GOD GIVEN responsibilities and that has NOTHING to do with the government. We seem to have the whole thing backwards in our world today. We think we need to establish my RIGHTS through Government intervention so that others will act responsibly; THAT is backward. WE need to act responsibly so that others will have THEIR rights and then the Government can stay out of it.

Take the restaurant guy above. His belief is that it is the RIGHT of the restaurant owners to put up whatever THEY want on THEIR windows on THEIR restaurants and if a patron gets sick, well, then we'll deal with who's responsibility that is. So because of that attitude the Congress has to enact a law telling restaurant owners that they no longer have that right and the right of the patron to know their meal is safe is a higher "right" or priority.

What if. What if the owner put in BIG BOLD LETTERS that this restaurant is CERTIFIED by SOME BIG CLEANLINESS AGENCY as being the CLEANEST IN THE WHOLE WORLD. What if the restaurant owner would pay the patron twice what his sickness cost if he got sick from his food. What if the restaurant owners took RESPONSIBILITY instead of trying to avoid it. IF they would, there would be no law needed in Congress.

What if people took responsibility for their actions THEN the rights of all people would be protected and there would be VERY LITTLE NEED for Government action. What if instead of trying to deceive the most customers we attempted to educate the most customers because we had the best product or service. What if.

Take responsibility for your actions and your rights will be protected. Take only your RIGHTS without the responsibilities and you will lose both.

Exposing Yourself

The kids were giggling like crazy as we played outside on a hot summer day. We had a "kiddie" pool but within minutes it was as warm as the ambient air. The only source of coolness was the garden hose. With towels wrapped protectively around their heads and held there by their upraised arms like a boxer defending against the opponent's blows the kids tried to keep the stream from hitting them with a full-on facial. I manned the hose with my thumb on the end to get the pressured stream as the three of them giggled and briefly exposed their face and upper body. I would quickly switch from one to the other "just missing" each of them as they closed up again. But every now and again I would catch one of them exposing a little too long and they would get a mouthful and nose-full of cool well water. Now only two kids were giggling while the third caught their breath and dealt with the sting up the nose.

You have so many options in this world now that you can expose yourself to; what do you chose and how do you chose what to open up to? This becomes an important question because your exposures have a lot to do with the kind of person you turn out to be.

Expose yourself to bad and you will get used to and maybe even become bad.

Expose yourself to good and you will get used to and maybe even become good.

Expose yourself to get-rich-quick and you will fixate on money.

Expose yourself to the smart and wise and you will be too.

Expose yourself to anger and you will be angry.

Expose yourself to love and you will experience love.

Expose yourself to fast food and you will crave the Big Mac or some King sandwich.

Expose yourself to art and you will appreciate it, understand it, and seek to make it.

The wisest man who ever lived said "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Solomon knew the GIGO principal. (Garbage In Garbage Out; Good In Good Out) We all know that principal but most of the time we believe we can hold that towel and our arms over our face and not get blasted up the nose with the BAD. We do this because the BAD has a better PR firm working for it. BAD looks so tempting to us while GOOD looks so boring. BAD is instant gratification and GOOD is delayed. A Big Mac and a La-Z-Boy now is so much more appealing than celery and a gym.

Next time we will discuss GOOD vs. BAD and how to decide between them, but for now learn from the sting of water up your nose and don't do it again. Guard carefully what you expose yourself to.

We Suck at Receiving Gifts

When you sell something to me we exchange items of value. I give you money and you give me something, or some service and the deal is done. We each go away with what we started with only in a different form. You got money lost the thing, I got the thing and lost the money. Even Steven. This is good, and it works and it is what most economies are based on.

But what if I gave you more money than you asked for? What if you gave me more "stuff" than I paid for? There is an imbalance created, a vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum. The imbalance must be resolved.

In Native American tradition in the Pacific Northwest giving was a sign of power. A powerful chief would give away everything he owned as a sign of his wealth and power. This was called "potlatch". Think of the power and confidence behind that kind of a gift, that kind of an imbalance!

We sometimes resolve the gift imbalance by acknowledging the givers creativity and insight. Artists do this when they put a painting in a museum or a song out on the internet. "Here's a free gift" they say. We don't pay for it but we acknowledge it and then, if it is good or powerful, we pass it on and we become givers by sharing with others.

Sometimes we repair the imbalance of a gift by becoming closer to the giver. What was a simple transaction in business now becomes a friend to a friend. We develop a sense of preferred customers, vendors or clients because of the gift.

BUT sometimes we develop a sense of resentment. "Why are you rich and powerful and I am not?" so a cycle of dependency is created "You NEED to give to me because you are rich and powerful!" This gifting hurts both parties.

The key to giving gifts is in the sense of FORWARD motivation. If my gift to you inspires you to do something so you can give to another and another and so on; then the gift has a forward momentum. If my gift to you causes you to resent me and begin to EXPECT that gift or an BIGGER one next time and the next and so on; then my gift has a negative momentum that is destructive to both of us.

People love to give gifts. Not just because of the sense of power like the Native American Chief but simply because that is how we were built by God. But as receivers of gifts we generally suck. We don't know how to receive gifts. We become resentful and dependent.

So here is your quick primer on receiving a gift: 1] Thank the giver profusely and ask if there is anything that you can give them in return. 2] Understand the gift is from the heart and a love for you, or just people in general and don't resent it. 3] When the opportunity presents itself (and it WILL) give back, not necessarily to the one who gave to you (in fact, it would be better if not because the joy then spreads). 4] Lather, rinse and REPEAT!

How to be Wealthy

"Every life has a scoreboard and how you choose to keep score is up to you." Roy Williams.

How do you measure how successful you are? How do you keep score of your wealth?

"Wealth is measured in months. How many months can you survive if you no longer got a paycheck and you lived completely on your investments and savings? Once that becomes indefinitely - then you are wealthy." Robert Kyosaki.

Some people measure success by their ability to hurt others. The more they hurt; the more successful they are. I knew a couple of guys who measured a successful cruise by how many women they were able to "bed" in the days of the cruise. We all know people who use crazy measurements for success. Most people tend to measure wealth and success by the amount of THINGS they have and how expensive those THINGS are.

Let me give you a few measures of success that you might now have considered before. (I borrowed much of this from Roy Williams, sorry Roy):

1) How curious are you? The more curious you are - the more successful and wealthy you are. Never lose the wonder of discovery in the universe. Never quit learning, experimenting, and discovering and your coffers will overflow.

2) How LITTLE do I need to be happy? "It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor" said Seneca. Contentment is wealth and success, just one dollar more is poor-ness.

3) Have I proven that I care? Everyone who eats a whopper leaves a little more depressed because no one REALLY cooked that meal, but something grilled at home, burnt, and dry, and without your favorite pickle relish but done with a love for you - makes you RICH! Success is a race to prove I care about you.

4) Have I made someone's life better today? The people who focus on making other's lives better are the wealthy ones. The hoarders, racked by selfish ambition are the poor. What have you done today to make the world a better place for the people in it?

The point is that money in the bank is a poor scoreboard of success and wealth. Don't get caught up in the common, ordinary, crowd-following measurements of wealth and success. Don't be a slave to what advertisers tell you is success. I pray I have made your life just a little better with these words simply because I care about you.

The Garbage Man

I lost my cell phone this week. I get so frustrated when I cannot find something that I need. My kids used to have a trick they love to play on my OCD tendencies: they take something from my neatly organized office and hide it until I cannot work anymore due to something being out of place. I simply cannot work efficiently when something is missing. Car keys, cell phones, and wallets are a particularly frustrating waste of time when searching. Sometimes it seems like the world is out to get you when you search and search and search and never find.

At one of the companies I worked for I was known for a period as the garbage man. My department "lost" sample glass that was worth millions. The sample was a special polished glass that we were coating and if successful would mean contracts in millions from this Japanese company. We finally narrowed it down to our Quality Control department who had the glass and placed it here. Here was next to a large garbage can. The garbage can was empty. I went with the garbage crew to the dumpster container at the docks. The container had been picked up 30 minutes ago by the garbage company. I called the garbage company and found the truck in route to the dump. I asked them to wait for me there and I met the truck at the dump. We went into the landfill together and I watched as he dumped the container and began to sort through the cubic yards of trash. After about 30 minutes I found a small wooden crate with Japanese shipping stickers and 50 pieces of glass inside. The garbage men were laughing and shaking their heads, the landfill bull-dozer guys were amazed and pointing at this guy in dress pants and tie going through their mountain. I cleaned up what I could and took the hour journey back to my company. I found the glass, I saved the contracts, but what I mainly got was a reputation. I was the "garbage man", I was the guy who you could count on to go to the dump for you, I was the guy who could put all of the pieces together to solve a problem, I was the guy who could get the job done, I was the guy who never gave up. I was the garbage man.

Life is frustrating, unpredictable, and even seems to be stacked against you. We are ALL missing something important and we ALL are looking for it. It may be different for each of us but we are still looking for it. In scripture the Psalms tell us that God REJOICES over those who seek him, and we will not be put to shame IF we seek him and seek him with all our heart. But the emphasis is always on the seeking and not on the finding because God is interested in the JOURNEY and not the destination. Our destinations have all been worked out already but how we handle the journey is up to us. How you handle the search and the seeking will decide your reputation, how you are remembered, and mostly define your life. I'll be remembered as the garbage man in that company. If you focus on your journey and your seeking; how will you be remembered? If you give up and let the life just happen to you; how will you be remembered? Now, where is my cell phone?

In the Contemplation of Life and Twinkies

I get amazingly varied comments when I tell people that I like Twinkies, especially frozen Twinkies. My wife refuses to buy them for me, my friends and neighbors shun me, and my doctor beats me up. Today, when I bought my two boxes, the grocery store checkout asked me how many kids I had. I smiled to tell her when I noticed that it was the Twinkies that prompted her to ask the question. She assumed I had kids whom I was buying the Twinkies for. When I said they were for me she could barely contain her surprise and confusion. There are a few situations in my life where it would be much easier to explain myself if I had a toddler running around at my knees: going to a G-rated cartoon movie; playing with Lego's, and buying Twinkies. For some reason each of these seem inappropriate or even creepy unless there is a kid around.

Let me attempt to explain Twinkies to you: they are shallow and simple and a welcome vacation from the opposite. Some days I am studying "Advanced Thought Particles" and the History of Ancient Chinese Philosophy and how it compares to the writings of the Jewish thinker Maimonedes in the 13th century. Some days I am dealing with near death hospital experiences, surgeries, and communication issues that could destroy marriages and relationships with grown children and their parents. Sometimes I am making decisions that cost jobs, change work flow, start or kill new businesses, and investing tens of thousands of dollars in one direction or another. And sometimes I just eat a Twinkie.

To me, Twinkies are like a mini Harley-Davidson motorcycle; they are rebellious. Every time I get the sugar rush from the "cream-filled sponge cake" I am making a statement of defiance, of standing against "The Man!" Twinkies are a dirty, delicious secret that won't destroy my marriage, won't kill me financially, and I can't find a "Thou shalt not partake of cream-filled sponge cake" in the Bible anywhere.

So as I pull the clear wrapper off my Twinkie let me give you some Twinkisms (A Twinkism is a shallow and simple contemplation of life while chewing an authentic Hostess Twinkie).

- Shouldn't Allstate change its name if its disclaimer states "not available in all States"?
- If pro is the opposite of con, then shouldn't the opposite of progress be congress?
- If a kid refuses to take a nap can he be charged with resisting a rest?
- How did Tonto feel when his partner was called the Lone Ranger?
- If ghosts can walk through walls why don't they fall through floors?
- How fast do hotcakes sell, really?
- Do Chinese people have tattoos in English?
- Is there an interstate highway in Hawaii?

Boy that was good, sugar rush coming, and time to get back to real life. Enjoy it.

God’s Plan for your Life

It was 125 in the sun and 109 in the shade. Not the hottest day in Vegas but it was up there on anybody’s scale. Out in the sun we worked making sure to drink plenty of water and put on plenty of sun-screen. It was not easy work either and the sweat poured off our bodies almost as fast as we could down the Gatorade to counteract it. Some worked inside painting where it was never quite air conditioned. Others worked cleaning rooms where the homeless slept for a night sharing a bunk with all of their worldly possessions. Still others sat down and played games with homeless kids who lived in a dorm setting with their moms for the night and roamed the city in the heat looking for a job during the day.

It all was hard work, inconvenient traveling through traffic to get there, and a crazy drive to get home to take a shower afterwards. We had done our duty. We had fulfilled a mission. We had served others and gave them what they wanted. We had a new check mark on the omniscient’s score sheet. Now we could move on with our own lives concentrating on just our needs and wants.

But we were lying to ourselves. Serving is NOT for those who are being served; serving is for those who serve. It is a self-delusion to think that service is for the one served. NO ONE who serves others will NOT BE CHANGED in some small (or large) way. That is a double negative, so let me say it in a positive way. EVERYONE who serves others WILL BE CHANGED! You cannot avoid it, you cannot forget it.

Some will be changed in a small way where they, just for a time, get out of their selfish lives and feel what it is like to have a taste of God’s plan for their lives. Once back in their world they will fall back into the selfish ways they are used to but there will be a memory of God’s plan in the back room of their mind to be pulled off the shelf later. Some will understand what they did was not just for the people but it made them feel great afterwards and they will wonder why. They will seek that feeling again, again, and again and they will find their lives changed.

A few of us will truly understand. A few of us will realize that God’s plan for our lives is not a profession (you can serve no matter what your job); God’s plan is not a skill to acquire (you can serve if you are amazingly talented or if you have trouble tying your shoes); and God’s plan is not a destination you can arrive at. God’s plan for your life is a process and that process is activated/implemented by service.

You want to know God’s plan for your life? Start serving, keep serving, and then serve some more. You will not only find God’s plan for your life you will be smack-dab in the middle of it.