How forgiveness works

Vicki kinda snapped at me this afternoon, and I barked back at her and she got her feelings hurt and I kinda bit at her and told her she snapped before I barked. We were both a little cranky, I'd just finished about 4 hours of weed eating and was pushing myself the last hour to finish and not quit, like a long distance run or something like that. She'd been cleaning all morning and was doing something on the computer that she thought I should have done already.

Anyway, after a few minutes she said, I'm sorry you barked at me and I forgive you. I appologized to her for her snapping at me and forgave her back. Now we are all happy and luvy-duvy.

Rules Y’all

Rules Y’all

There are rules and then there are rules. If I told you baseball bats were bad, you’d probably laugh at me, especially if you played the game. You may not know what I know about baseball bats. I may have seen someone beaten to death with a baseball bat or I may have been hit and injured severely as a kid. As a RULE, however, if you get hit hard enough in the nose with a baseball bat, your nose will be broken. Now here is a more broad spread RULE, Blunt-force trauma can kill you. You should protect yourself from blunt-force trauma.

Now some might make rules, teaching their children to stay away from baseball bats. “Don’t go near people with baseball bats”, they say. They may make them wear protective clothing or even stay in the house on pretty days when people might be outdoors playing with baseball bats. Others step out against such silliness and make their kids play baseball or softball when they are little, even buying them expensive bats to play with. The first think, “maybe these people don’t understand how dangerous the bats are”, so they write curriculum to teach the dangers of baseball bats. The folk who play the game look down on the legalists, thinking “Don’t they see how safe the game is and how foolish it is to make rules about bats. No one is getting hurt by a bat”. Yet the ‘legalists’ keep seeing the problem. One of them probably works or worked in the ER and saw blunt-force trauma injuries every day, many of which may have occurred with a baseball bat. But the folk who play baseball then make their own rules, such as wearing a helmet while playing baseball, and if you are on deck, you must stay in the on-deck circle, and if you are not batting or on deck, you must stay in the dugout. Even unwritten rules, such as “if you see someone close to you swinging a bat, duck or get away”

There are rules and then there are principles. I do not intend to research and document all of the rules, but like blunt-force trauma can kill you, water in your lungs makes it hard to breath. The acceleration of gravity can cause blunt-force trauma. There are laws of thermodynamics, so if you put your hand in boiling water, it will burn you. That doesn’t make boiling water bad, you just have to know the law and obey it. Don’t put your bare hand in boiling water. There are laws of physics, so don’t jump out of an airplane without a parachute. There are laws of mathematics … they must be understood and obeyed. They can make you rich or poor, like in the case of compounded interest on your savings account or on your credit card. There are dietary laws and principles that follow. I’m no nutritionist, but if you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight, I think. Kind of a mix of dietary and mathematical laws. Dental laws, or principles, such as if you eat a lot of sugar, your teeth will rot, (a mix of dental and dietary law). So, laws can be blended, I guess.

The Lord gave us laws; they are called the 10 commandments, or the ten words of the Lord God. The rest of His testaments are also His Words, as Jesus is called His Word. The word was, the word is, and the word will be. The rules are simple and simply stated, but they are far reaching in principles, as are the rules in physical life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your might. Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Simple. Now, if you love God, you will obey him. Obedience is the evidence of your love of the Lord. OK, but what do you obey? His law? Which is summarized in Love God and Love Your Neighbor. So, really simply put, if you love God, you will obey him by loving your neighbor. Now here is where it gets complicated. Here is where man starts messing up and “keeping his kids away from baseball” or buying them baseball bats in excess.

The good news is that we have the good news, the Gospel of Christ to tell us the right way to deal with “baseball bats”. We have the entire Old Testament full of history, poetry, and prophesy to show us what was done right and wrong by the people. Better still it is a revelation of the Person of God whom we are bound legally to love. The New Testament then is also the history of Love in Christ, the poetry of Love and the prophesy of Love in Christ. It is, it was and it forever will be.

I had a dream this night, about my older kids disrespecting me. Oh, it was just a dream, so you don’t have to think it was about you, my child. Anyway, in my dream it was like we were about to play a game of some kind and there were many people involved. Besides my own kids, there were relatives, church members, movie stars and sports figures. It was like I was a coach, or maybe just a chaperone or something. I wanted to teach them a lesson, to communicate to them some principles that would help them in life and in the game and they walked away. I got some more insight and wanted them to come back to me and learn from my wisdom, but only three of the five of them came back, while the others stayed away. The ones who came back to hear what I had to say did so with reluctance and with arrogant disregard. I was crushed. In my dream, they looked down on me as a legalistic fool. They did not realize that I was just trying to teach them some principles that would save them from pain. It woke me up, so I have tried here to put it into words, but the thoughts I had when I first woke up did not make it to this little Blog. I don’t know what I have written, but it is not at all what woke me from sleep early this morning.

I think I would like to go back to sleep now, but not before saying, following rules and principles in physical life and in spiritual life is not always a bad thing. These laws are meant to be blended. One must test the rule against the base rules, the Ten Words of the Lord God and their ultimate purpose, to glorify the Lord God Almighty and All Gracious.

Praise Him for his Grace and Mercy, for otherwise… well wow. Otherwise, I have no idea what or where I’d be, but praise him for I find myself tonight ever blessed by his presence in my life. Praise him for His rules and regulations, but praise him for he took the blunt force trauma in my place, and in Him I am alive and breathing the fresh air of His Word, His Law.

My head got stuck

I did an inspection at Mike and Waynette's house this afternoon. Waynette was taking care of Jackson. Their front porch has double columns with a space in between each column. April arrived and Jackson said "Look mom, I going to put my head between these posts" Then he looked at me and I told him I thought I could do that. I didn't think I could, but low and behold, my head fit perfectly between those posts. I went ahead and pushed it all the way through, so that it was sticking out on the other side and I looked at Jackson and made a funny face. April and Waynette just laughed but Jackson just went on about his little hyper-active way. My head was stuck. I pulled it back out, but my ears began to roll up and the harder i tried to pull, the tighter my head got wedged between the poles. I made a little joke about it so that I didn't panic in front of those ladies, but inside I was thinking somebody might just have to get some olive oil and grease my head in order for me to get loose. My ears still hurt a little, but I slowly wiggled my head back and forth and finally got out without them really knowing how close I was to a melt down.

Can't Sleep

Crazy day, went to work at 5:00 and got sleepy, so I took a 1 hour nap. My first inspection was north of Skiatook and I almost fell asleep driving on Highway 75. I did fall asleep driving back to Tulsa! (not really). I got to my 1:00 inspection early, so I was done by 1:00, and had nearly an hour and a half to kill before my 2:30, so I parked at Drysdales parking lot and took another nap, about 45 minutes. I finished up in Owasso, got home about 5:20 so I laid down on the couch and dozed off for at least 30 minutes. After supper, Alyson came over and I walked and talked to Adelle, cause she was cranky. She finally fell asleep. I watched a little TV till 10:45, went to bed, but cannot fall asleep. My head just keeps buzzing with stuff. Like rapid day dreams, not calm night dreams. I try to slow them down, but the thoughts just come and change even faster. Fishing, gardening, landscaping, camping, 4-wheeling, hunting, gardening, landscaping, swimming, landscaping, fishing, boating, running, running, running. I really run fast and long in my dreams. I'm thinking I need to pass on the day time naps, but I get lethargic, with my head nodding and my eyes burning. I think my blood sugar or metabolism or something is just slightly out of whack.

I thought typing a blog would make me sleepy, but here it is 11:30 and I feel more like eating than sleeping. Discipline!!! I may not be able to make myself go to sleep, but I can make myself not fix a bowl of ice cream at midnight.

I'd read my Kindle, but it is gone forever. I have some books, but ... I'd rather read a fishing magazine. I should read my Bible. Maybe do a study in Ephesians or Philippians.

I've been listening to old John Wayne movies in my truck while driving from inspection to inspection. It's weird, because there is more crazy sound effects in those old movies than there is dialect. They always have to have 2 or three songs, where some dude plays the guitar and serenades the cows, or a bunch of cowhands sit around the campfire at night singing in 4 part harmony. In one, there is a high pitched black girl who works around the ranch house, and she breaks out in song. The sound effects are horrible too. You have to remember, though, they just started adding sound to the films when these were made. One guy says, "We have to stop them, Tom, they are headed for the falls" then, suddenly you hear the roar of the falls, then silence except for the sound of the oars in the water, then the roar of the falls again, then silence and a little more dialect, then the roar of the falls again. I hope they didn't go over, but since I'm driving, I never know. the movie does not show up on my screen unless I'm in park. Anyway, I'm on like my 5th John Wayne movie. I don't know how many there are. the box has 5 discs and I'm only on Disc 2. I intended on watching a little of the movie when I pulled into Drysdales parking lot, but the movie couldn't hold my attention and I drifted off.

Today my Adobe 9 Standard program messed up. I could not convert my reports and invoices to PDF, so I couldn't send them out. I tried everything, and finally just uninstalled the program and downloaded it again. The website wouldn't offer me my previous download, tried to make me buy a new one for $449. I clicked on the little "chat with a technician" button and Chris came on and helped me. I was able to upgrade to Adobe 9 Pro and get LifeCycle Design, all for $159. I got it downloaded between my 2:30 and 4:00, but don't know if it will be working when

I get in the office tomorrow or not. I will be taking Vicki in for her 5 decade colon inspection in the morning. She can't drive after the procedure, so I will bring her home and get her cozy. I had it done a few months ago, and it was really no big deal. I slept most of the day after the procedure, but what else is new. I do that almost every day here lately. I am going to try to get a little cardio in in the morning before we have to leave. I won't have time to do my regular workout, but I forgot to let them know at the gym, so somebody will be there at 5:15 to put me through the paces. I guess I'll ride my bike over there, tell them I can't stay, cause I have to leave the house at 6:00 to take Vick in, and then ride back home, take a shower and head to the hospital. I won't be getting my inspection reports done again. They will start to back-up on me and then I'll be stuck, doing an all evening in front of the computer.

Well, I've already blogged about 10 times the volume I intended to write, so I'll call it quits for now. Sleep tight y'all.

I ran for months leading up to my 8 day elk hunt, training for a half-marathon. I climbed mountain trails twice a day every day in colorado. Since I got home I haven't run over a mile at at time and I've only done that twice. I have to get motivated again.