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I was reading through one of the love and relationship articles on my website, when I noticed one of the ads on the side.

I glanced at it with a little inner chuckle. It was advertising love and love potions–and they were guaranteed. I scrolled on down, double checking my article for spelling and appearance. As I scrolled back up, I confronted the same ad for love potions again with a fresh thought.

I was struck with the picture of an advertisement on the internet for love through a love potion. The ridiculousness of the thought turned into a hilarious thing to me in a moment.

Here we are with the technology to interact at a world wide level with people from all walks of life in an instant. Was it not a strange irony to find this extreme technology being used to advertise a love potion?

With just a very little thought, I can force this question into realms of human spiritualism, belief systems, and Harry Potter style uses of technology that seem the very heart of irony.

We have come so far, not to have come so far.

Or, perhaps, we want technology to enhance what makes us human rather than remove it.

Well, I don’t know about love potions, but I do know a few folks that find the love and relationship in their life with this technology. And, like anything, just as many use it for false love and relationships.

It seems we can’t create anything good that isn’t all at once as bad as it is good. But, it isn’t the creation. It is the user.

So, do love and be loved. Find a relationship and give to it. Use whatever you have as a good tool in good hands. Love through technology is as magical as all the love potions ever were. To many of us older folks, these levels of technology are rather magical in themselves.

Regards.

Today marks one week since I watched my dad die.

I called mom again yesterday. We talked about how she was feeling and how the family back home was doing. She said she was going to clear out dad’s stuff. She just couldn’t bear it being around anymore. I told her she might want to give it a little time first. It would seem a shame to get rid of everything and then wish you had it back.

Then we chatted about her hobbies and things she could do now. I told her she should take the time to do things she had always wanted to do. I told her not to even give the slightest thought to expense. It didn’t matter to my brother or me if there was even one penny left. My brother and I both live just fine. She should take some time with a friend and travel the world–enjoy the things she always wanted to see and do.

I started naming places to visit and friends she could ask along for the trip. She had a reason not to consider each friend. She had a reason not to see each place. After a bit, when I had just about narrowed in on the perfect place, and the perfect friend, she started crying. She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she sobbed over the phone.

She sobbed, “I don’t want to go anywhere anymore. I don’t want to do anything. We always went everywhere together. I can’t imagine going anywhere without him.”

Well, now I had done it. What I wanted to be a consoling call from her son had turned into a painful reminder of lost love.

All the wonderful stories of puppy love, of first love, of happy ever after had lived out between my mom and dad. They would have completed fifty wonderful years together within just a year and a half. Now, suddenly, it was all over. We were at the fairy tale’s end. We had discovered the ‘after’ that follows ‘happily ever after.’

This wasn’t a romance gone sour. This wasn’t a wanton dream of forbidden fruit that had faded from hope. This wasn’t an ideal dreamed and forever out of reach. This was the romance. This was the dream. This was the fruit fully enjoyed. And now that it was lost, this was the greatest kind of lost love. This was a thing to savor, now gone, now stolen. What was left was the deepest emptiness one could fathom. A hole in the soul.

Mom’s soul mate was gone.

This last week has brought some things home to me. I have looked at my daughter with a new look. I have considered priorities with a new born arrangement. I have genuinely examined my wife from this new vantage and found that I love her all the more.

Let me challenge you to make every effort to bask in the relationships you have, while you have them. You are living each moment for the last time. Taste it. Smell it. Relish it with all the desperation of the deepest breath drawn at the surface of the water from a dive to the furthest reaches your consciousness would allow.

Know the time. Know the riches of this moment’s passing. Heap up the pleasure of being and of being known. Love one another.

Regards.

The other day I heard a couple of Christians discussing which was right about the kind of music they used in their churches.

It was a fairly interesting discussion they were having. It left me thinking how stupid Christians are.

One of them went on and on about how it was wrong to use musical instruments in church. He said it was wrong to add anything to the bible, and used that as the entire basis for his argument. He said that the only instances of worship that were cited in the New Testament didn’t use any instruments. So, since they didn’t use instruments, it was wrong to use instruments.

The second guy kept bringing up the Old Testament. He said the Psalms were full of using instruments. But, this didn’t carry any weight with the first guy. He continued saying the Old Testament didn’t count any more. He said only the New Testament counted for Christians.

So, the whole time, these two guys went back and forth trying to convince each other which was right.

Well, the whole thing was completely silly to me. “Aren’t they both Christians,” I thought? Wasn’t the whole point of what they were supposed to be doing being completely destroyed by how they were acting?

I was left thinking how much they were hypocrites. They supposedly have this great news to share, and they weren’t sharing anything except how stupid Christians are.

I didn’t say anything at the time, but I kept thinking about it.

They were both absolutely wrong in my opinion.

The first guy said it was wrong to use instruments because that was outside the example in the New Testament. Well, if that’s what makes it wrong, then they better not be using any electronics to amplify their voices in his church. That would certainly be outside the example. I bet there weren’t any microphones in the bible. They better not be using any projectors or TV’s in his services. I’m sure those weren’t around either. Can he think one enhancement to the voice is different to another enhancement to the voice? Anyways, the whole point of his argument becomes rather ridiculous in about half a second of thought.

Also, I seem to remember where Jesus said the Word of God would never pass away. Yes, he said that as recorded in the New Testament, but, at the time he said it, the New Testament didn’t even exist. We didn’t have the New Testament. It wasn’t written yet. And it wasn’t put together as a unit until the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. So, Jesus was surely talking about what we call the Old Testament. That was all that existed. So, if he said the Word wouldn’t pass away for him, these stupid Christians should follow their leader.

Ok, the second guy was being absolutely judgmental and over-bearing about the whole thing. So, it wouldn’t matter if he were right or wrong. He was still dead wrong.

After giving it more thought, I’ve realized how I don’t have an argument to stand on either. Wasn’t I doing the exact same thing those stupid Christians were doing by judging them and calling them hypocrites?

My whole point is one of tolerance. Yes, there are right things and there are wrong things. Whether we all believe them or not doesn’t make them any more right or wrong. Anyone that is honest with himself, and chooses with integrity to what he believes is right will have to stand before God on that basis. No one stands or falls on the basis of your or my judgment.

We can share beliefs and go on. Each person’s honesty with the facts they have will be their guide and their judge.

Should we argue, or discuss our differences? I think only where it is profitable. If it is a vain discussion, it does nothing but separate people further. This is true in every arena of life.

So, show a little charity when it comes to other people. Be honest with things you encounter.

If you are wrong, then get right. It’s really pretty simple.

Regards.

Have you ever sat thinking about something that happened to you in the past, even years ago, and felt all the emotions of the moment all over again?

Boy, I sure have. And that remembered moment can ruin the day I’m having now! Is that not bizarre?

I can remember when I was around twelve years old, before my voice changed, and I was singing in a group. We were at camp standing around a campfire. There was this really, really cute girl in front of me. She turned around and said to me, “You have a very nice voice.” Ok, maybe I was a late bloomer for one, but I know by what I said to her that I was a complete idiot.

I responded to her, “I know,” with all the graces of a complete moron.

What on earth was I thinking?

Was I always that stupid?

What ever happened to “Thank you,” or “You’re very kind,” or even “Well, you’re very cute. What’s your name?”

For crying out loud, I could have said almost anything EXCEPT what I did say!

So, any time I want to feel absolutely ridiculous, I can just think of that moment. It’s amazing how emotions work in the first place. It’s even more amazing how they work with our memories–and that they can be just as powerful when the moment is remembered.

Power and Control come to my mind when I think about emotion. Emotion can be completely crippling. It can also drive us to the point that it even alters our personality.

Most of us have a certain level of confidence. Some more, some less. It is wired in directly with how we are feeling about ourselves at any given point. It establishes the life background of healthy pride that carries us. When it is damaged or attacked, it shakes us at the very core of our emotional stability.

I call it my stupid button. Do NOT press my stupid button.

I can be having an entirely un-eventful day, or even a great day, and have it totally changed when my stupid button is pressed.

My stupid button is wired directly to both my established level of confidence and my personal pride. When you press my stupid button, both of these core elements in my stability are attacked simultaneously. This triggers the emotion that we commonly call embarrassment.

Well, being embarrassed by itself is one thing. But FEELING embarrassed because someone made us feel stupid, consequently shaking our very foundation, is like pushing the last radioactive rod into the reactor. If something isn’t done quickly, there will be an explosion.

This is where I’ve told people things like, “Go outside and practice falling down. I’ll be out in a minute,” and I wasn’t joking. This will take a full grown man back to a teenager in a chest pushing contest of, “come on, punk. Let’s go punk.”

So, don’t make me stupid.

Why am I sharing this? Because, this isn’t just true at work. This isn’t just true playing your favorite sport. This isn’t just true in a classroom. This isn’t just true in a fight or a debate [often the point of a debate].

This is most true with those you love.

Indeed, the most hurt, the worst fights, the most damage I can remember in my marriage was a direct consequence of pressing my wife’s stupid button.

Now, we could all argue that we should have better self control. The difficulty here is our relationships are the places we have made ourselves vulnerable. The closer the relationship, the more vulnerable we are. And, a truly loving marriage even paints a perfect target in the dead center of our stupid buttons. We know it all, and we know how to press it just right.

I have ruined some of the best times with my wife in the past by pressing her stupid button. I often interact with friends by having to be saying comical things in a conversation. When I meet new people, I try even harder to make things fun with laughter and light-heartedness. So what comes out the easiest? Where do any comedian’s jokes come from? Friends, family, life, and experience are the sources of all our good stuff.

It’s rather incredible more public comedians aren’t maimed, hurt, and killed by their loved ones. Their loved ones are so often the center of their quips and routines. The same goes for preachers. I guarantee Sunday lunch has had it’s share of the wife’s scorn for words that she knows he should never have made public–and which he is very sorry he did.

So, guard your words. Practice keeping your mind a couple of phrases ahead of your mouth.

And, where your wife is concerned, don’t you dare push that stupid button. Believe me. It will ruin your day. It will ruin your night. It can ruin the next several days and nights. It’s just plain stupid.

Find some new material.

Regards.