Honesty is not easy.  It is not painless.  It generally invites change.  Change from what we thought was important, who we thought we were, even the rutted pattern of our daily life.  If you are a Jesus believer, he says, “Where I am you must be.”  You might be a believer, but you are only working from the mind, the creed.  Honesty will generally tell you that you are anywhere but where Jesus is.  Your prayer is for him to give you what you want in your set of priorities.  His plea is to change your life.  If you are in recovery, page 58 of th ..read more

 Now and again we can get some bad news, such as a physical illness, cancer, chronic stuff, or that we are being laid off, or our rent has doubled, or the car is come to the end of its useful life, unexpectedly.  Fear can then dominate our emotional life.  Fear can be buried in various ways, none of them very good, or good at all.  If we are in a fit spiritual condition with some trust in a God or some spiritual power of our own discovery,  then the fear need not dominate us emotionally.  We will have the tools to face it in a balanced and healthy fashion.  I ..read more

 I ran into a drunk who is in recovery.  She no longer drinks and feels much better physically.  She is helpful to others, and tries to avoid any bad habits in thinking and acting.  But she had one fear she could not get over.  It was the lack of money, $$$ since her drinking gifted her with the consequences of unemployment.  I reminded her of something that was passed onto me when I was “unemployable.”  She was rich with ‘spiritual currency.”  In her drinking days, she was spiritually bankrupt.  Each day of prayer, service, avoiding emotional drama ..read more

 I cannot relate to the little girl who has a vision of Mary and decides to dedicate her life to serving her God, doing good for people, becoming a religious and being quite pious.  That was never me.  When I was a little boy I was clueless and though I did a lot of stuff on the outsides, I remained clueless for another 30 years or so.  I can relate more to Jesus and Buddha.  They did stuff before eventually going into their “desert experience.”  I am an “eventually” guy.  Playing a role got old and I was not very fulfilled in it.  Outsides OK.  Ins ..read more

 Many So-called Christians are whiners and complainers.  “Life is not going my way,” or “ I am a failure.”  They are what I call Good Friday Christians.  They think that Good Friday is the finish line.  If so, then the one they say they believe in, was a complete failure, and his life was over on Good Friday.  Two things I notice.  One, he did not complain a lot.  He even forgave people for being mean and nasty and hurting him very badly.  He did have his moment of feeling abandoned, but he sucked it up and surrendered to the God he believed in. &nb ..read more

 Aspen Airport is always an adventure in the winter time.  Some locals won’t go anywhere from Aspen in the Winter, but not me.  My last time out it was snowing a lot early in the morning so I was not sure I would go anywhere on my “scheduled” flight.  Aspen Airport calls for a lot of surrender along with hope.  The snow stopped and the sun came out.  My plane, which was actually there, pulled away from the gate on time.  “Thank you God” prayer was a bit premature.  About to take off, the pilot said something was wrong with the runway.  Yuck!  W ..read more

 So many parents and grandparents introduce children to God and religion in a sudden fashion.  In daily routines with children they make little if any reference to God.  Rather the adult takes the child to church to be with God in some devotional activity that makes no sense.  It is too great a leap for the child to go from daily routines to suddenly shown something churchy or devotional.  Eventually, the child will refer to this as being “dragged to church.”  As adults they may be tepid at best about worship and prayer.  Rather, start with what the child kno ..read more

 The Internet can cloud the mind.  The Internet was supposed to make things easier, but in fact one can end up taking so much time to do this and that in maintenance, password issues, information overload and so on, that you don't seem to have any time to pray, play and just enjoy the day.  I had this with a new iPad that seemed not to transfer passwords in the downloading of data.  I realize I am a dummy, but now cannot stay that way.  It takes more time to do something when a dummy than when up to date on the how and why of the Internet.  But I must re ..read more

 Billy, the next door neighbor to Nellie, has loved her all his life.  They grew up the best of friends in London before WWII.  In the novel, “Nineteen Steps,” he wants to marry her, but he is quite shy.  She falls for another guy, Ray Fleming, an American airman in London.  Nellie thinks Ray is dead since his plane was shot down over France.  She knows she will love him like no other.  But get on with life, right?  She accepts Billy’s proposal.  Now he is at the altar waiting for Nellie to walk down the aisle.  Ray shows up, released from a PO ..read more

 If you have lost everything, wife, family, job, home, car, health, why are you still frightened?  As it is said, "What have you got to lose?"  But fear is not always about losing something.  It is deeply rooted in some people, such as alcoholics after they sober up.  They still have fear, though they have lost everything.  Sobriety programs are meant to deal with this fear because it goes deep and is so much a part of the individual struggling to have some better life.  Not drinking is only the start.  But many a "normal" person still has deep seated fe ..read more