House meetings

I sat there….amazed.

It was my first house meeting.

I was 29 yrs old.

We  had moved to New Jersey to  enable me to pursue a dream.

Return to college….  take some courses in counseling.

A local church had offered to help us out with housing.

They had an ongoing outreach to various groups…

Vietnamese boat people.

Missionaries on furlough.

Single young people wanting to deepen their relationship with God.

(Yea, he really exists – I talked to him this morning.

Young men trying to reclaim their lives/ just coming off the violent streets of Paterson …

And now…our family.  Recent transplants from the Midwest.

We had two little girls in tow…

And now that we were here, I ( at least)  was expected to participate in the “house meeting”.

I had no idea what to expect.

15 to 20 of us were sitting around  the conference room.

The tone was informal , relaxed yet moved @ a steady clip.

All of us had busy lives and this was not a time to just socialize.

“Was there anything anyone needed to talk about?”

Parking…parking had become an issue.

When Debbie came home from the grocery store with a trunk full of groceries, she  was not able to get anywhere close to the apartment..Wondering if there could be a way to keep that front spot open for those sort of things?

Use of the kitchen…

There were 3 different families sharing 1 commercial kitchen.  We each had our own living quarters, but shared a common kitchen area.  Different meal times,  different menu’s.. all three of our young families had children…

We lived in that setting  for about a year before moving to our own home.

The house meetings were only once a month as I remember them, but made an impact on me that exists to this day.

I experienced first hand the freedom of addressing issues with the people in my life  instead of walking around on egg shells .

I did not see this sort of communication role modeled growing up.

I did begin to implement it in our home from that point on especially as the kids got older.

“Kathy took my good shirt and got it a stain on it….”

“Angie won’t share the remote on the  TV…”

“John  comes into my room all the time without out permission and starts bothering me when I’m trying to get a nap”….

“but she shouldn’t be taking a nap @ that time…”
 

You get the idea…

Once I tasted the freedom of genuine communication, it came to the job site with me.

Not to mention any names, but some of the  people in my work circle, suck when it comes to communication.

They will take things without permission,  promise to be somewhere @ a certain time but have no intention of actually following through…

Give me awkward messages to give to the customer..

Recently my cell phone rang while I was on the job….

“Doug, could you tell so and so we had to pull out but promise to be back in a week?”

my response…”Just a second..you can tell him yourself, he’s standing right here

   Yea, it doesn’t win me any brownie points by  refusing to play by the old rules of no communicating/ or being a door mat  but that’s OK

I would rather tell you the truth up front, I can’t make it when you’re asking me to rather than lie, get my foot in the door and have you upset with me for not showing up.

Mrs DM and I work at keeping this  level of straight forward  communication alive in our relationship….

It is not automatic.

And we don’t do it perfectly I’m sure.

She’s a little slower to bring stuff up…hates conflict even more than I

Over the years, I can’t think of any  volatile subject that hasn’t been  discussed/ some of them multiple times.

Sex, money, parenting.. you know..the stuff every couple has to sort through

We ‘ve probably had the “sex” conversation 50 times in the 30 plus years of marriage.

Sex is  like fire.  It is a gift, but it can also cause a lot damage and pain.

Money.  Money = control.

Really the issue isn’t money.

There are a half a dozen other issues under the surface that are the real issues if you’re having a conflict about money

personal space, trust, greed, fear, materialism, etc.  those are the real issues.

I told someone  yesterday,   we haven’t been able to do things financially for our kids as much as I wished…But from where I sit, all of them prefer to address issues in their personal lives rather than play “let’s pretend”, and to me that is priceless.

Thanks for reading along ! DM

Blogging relationships and the process of thinning

We have 80  different apple trees on our property.

They are a sight to behold when they are all laden with fruit….

These are pictures from 2009 and 2010:

Ginger gold

Red Delicious

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I was out in the orchard today checking on the 2012 crop.

Noticed they are about ready to go through their thinning process :

I took this picture this afternoon.

If you look really closely, there are larger apples as well as little tiny ones.

Just to give you an idea, the larger ones are about the size of a quarter…the smaller apples will drop off in the next week or two so that the tree will pour it’s energy into the apples that remain.

I’ve been blogging since 2007.

Hard to believe.

Noticed on my counter this morning there have been over 300,000 hits, whatever that means

During this time my wife and I have become friends with people literally from around the globe.

I’ve met 4 of you in person, in some cases more than once.

A handful of you are also friends on face book, so that has added another dimension to our interactions.

I have been very intentional from the very beginning to include my wife in all of my interactions on line.   We share the same e-mail address, same Face book account, etc.  Most of us have heard accounts of people running off with someone they “met” on line.  Unfortunately  that sort of thing happens in a broken world.

and I don’t want it to ever  happen to me….

If you think it could never happen to you, then the slide has already been greased.

Every so often, I will meet another blogger and really “click”…a genuine friendship will begins to form… (like an apple) but then one day, when I log on to visit their blog… poof..they are gone,  no notice..just gone….like those small apples that will fall off during thinning.

Even though I know it’s a natural and healthy process, it leaves  me a little sad….

That happened again this week.

Blogging friend dropped off the radar.

I was tempted to feel like Puff the Magic Dragon..

Remember the song?

the little boy sudden stops coming to visit…

Fortunately for me,

I am surrounded by several loving nurturing relationships…..both on-line as well as in person.

I thought about the apple tree  and its ability to only grow so many apples in a season…

There’s a reason for that.

Even those of us that tend to be more social than others can only maintain and invest in a limited number of relationships.

I used to think there was no limit to the number of friendships I could stay current with.

Not any more

Those of us that blog, blog for different reasons….

If you’re a blogger, why do you blog?

If you’re not a blogger but enjoy reading blog posts..what do you get out of it?

Is it possible to have genuine friendships with people and never meet them in person?

Do you have any friendships that started on line and matured into something significant in your life?

DM

A trip to the Vet

Little Moe is the latest addition to our family

A pet chicken…

and not just any chicken mind you…a handicapped chicken

Here’s a recent photo:

He’s got a gimpy leg.  His right one just wants to flop

Last night I posted a 40 second video clip of Little Moe hobbling around on our face book home page.

A good friend and fellow blogger Kristina got after me and said I needed to take him to the vet.

Now in my mind that is a $35 to $40 office call/ not to mention any treatment that might have been suggested, so I let the need be known on face book.  I was willing to take him to the vet but we were not in a position financially @ this point to cover the cost.

Would you believe I had 2 people step forward, willing to underwrite Little Moe’s visit…

There are still  lots of kind tender heart-ed people out there, I meet them all the time.

I asked my wife to call the clinic first thing this morning to see if they’d see a pet chicken

Yep

The Vet clinic called at 2:30 this afternoon  and said we could bring him in for a check up….

Here are some action photos from our time @ the vets:

Little Moe in the pet carrier waiting to see the vet

the Vet and I before he examines Little Moe

Little  Moe getting a check up

As I was driving into town I thought about the situation

What if there was nothing that could be done and this little bird is in constant pain?

What would be the loving thing to do?

What would you do?

At first the Veterinary  thought there was a broken bone

The more he manipulated the leg and felt around, he decided it wasn’t broken

Rather, Little Moe seems to be missing some tendons in that area of his leg

I asked if he were in pain.

Nope, didn’t appear to be

There was really nothing that could be done, in terms of a splint etc.  it just is what it is.

We talked briefly about some guy on the TV last night who shoots a bow and arrow with only his feet….

I guess that came up because Little Moe seems to be making allowances for his handicap in other ways.

I’ve had 3 different people suggest to me I ought to write a children’s book with Little Moe as the main character….

Any takers in the audience who would be willing to team up with me on this?  I’m thinking the story line doesn’t have to be really very long..

I think I need an illustrator as well.  If you’re at all interested let me know.

Well, I better go outside and shut the door to the chicken house.  I let Little Moe and his friends free range during the day, but have to lock them up at night or they may wind up as someone’s dinner in the middle of the night.

DM

Silent

Did you ever wonder what you would have done, had you been an average German Citizen living in the early 1940′s when they started to round up your Jewish neighbors?  I’d like to believe I would have done something and not just sat quietly on the sidelines minding my own business.

Now I’m not so sure.

In a way I have been doing it for the last 30 years because

#1

I don’t like to rock the boat

# 2

while I knew something was up, I haven’t seen or heard anything directly…until last night.

I heard Amy Johnson tell her story. she was a director @ a planned parenthood facility.

For 8 years right out of college she worked for Planned Parenthood, becoming a facility director

..until she watched an ultra sound procedure of a 16 week old child in the womb.

She’d been looking women in the eye for 8 years telling them that blob of tissue  would not feel a thing if they had an abortion, the nerves did not develop until much later in the pregnancy….

it was a lie.

Until one day she was asked to be in the room while the doctor performed an ultrasound guided abortion.

She watched on the monitor screen as that little baby fought for it’s life being chased by the tip of the suction machine…

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Here is a beautiful 2 minute clip from National Geographic that shows what life really looks like in the womb, as early as 6 weeks….

I will be silent no more

Hungry

“
That was then and this is now.  Things are different  today.” 

I didn’t buy his answer.

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I was in my early 20′s , experiencing a spiritual hunger and restlessness I hadn’t  gone looking for it…

it had popped out of the ground of my life like a mushroom.

One minute I was minding my own business, doing my own thing, the next thing I knew, there was a hungry for something spiritual that was real.

It  started when I read  the following account:

“All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another.  They would sell their property and possessions and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed.  Every day they continued to meet as a group in the temple, and they had their meals together in their homes, eating the food with glad and humble hearts, praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people.  and every day the Lord added to their group…”

Just for a second, try not to get hung up in the “churchy” words and just try to imagine what it would be like to be involved with people on that level of relationship…

Certainly not like any church experience I’d ever had.

I tend to chew on stuff like this,  So there I was at work one morning,  setting up scaffolding with Lester.  He was in his 60′s,  an old retired farmer.  minding his own business, and there I was, wound tight, asking him  about deep spiritual things on a construction site.

You got to love him ….we’d worked together for a few years so he didn’t just write me off as some nut job.

His answer didn’t satisfy me but I let it go…..

There was a major disconnect when I would read about the 1st century Christians and what  passes for “Christianity” today.

A major disconnect

I have a hair trigger when it comes to hypocrisy and  phoniness.

I have been known to get  agitated and  leave the room.

What happened was, my hunger for deeper, genuine relationships actually increased.

We’re all at different places in our lives.  As I’m writing this,   I’m talking to someone who is spiritually hungry, but put off by organized religion.

Ever wonder how you can sort out all of the conflicting voices out there telling you this is truth…no, this is truth…no, there is no such thing as absolute truth,  all paths will eventually lead you to the truth…bla bla bla.

Here’s a tip-  look @ the person  or the source of who’s talking to you and look at their life...If they’re married do they seem to have a healthy marriage or does it feel phony. If they have children…do they look like they’re nurtured, or is something not quite right? Does this person for some weird reason give you the creeps?  (don’t discount that sort of thing/ I think it’s discernment)

We moved to the East Coast so I could pursue some schooling.    A local faith community took us under their wing, full of imperfect but genuine people who had also decided they wanted nothing to do with the phony crap that passes for “church” today.   It was there I had my thirst for deep significant relationships slaked.   We were there 5 years.  When we did eventually return to the Midwest, I brought back with me the know-how , the first hand experience on how to cultivate those same type of relationships….genuine, loving, trusting,  practical and real.

Reminds me of doing an internship at an organic farm for 5 years.

After 5 years you would  hopefully come away with the ability to grow fresh vegetables.

So here I sit this morning thanking God for the spiritual hunger and restlessness he puts into my heart so many years ago now  and for the ways he regularly satisfies it.  DM

Oatmeal days

Talking with a nice lady on the phone.  She had a case of the midwinter spiritual rot.  And a terminal cold she’s had since September 1.

“Well,”  rasps she, ‘you don’t ever get depressed, do you?”

“Listen,” says I, “I get lows it takes extension ladders to get out of.”

“So, what do you do?” asks she. “I mean, what DO YOU DO?”

Nobody ever pinned me down quite like that before.  They usually ask what I think they should do.

My solace is not religion or yoga or rum or even deep sleep.  It’s Beethoven.  As in Ludwig van.  He’s my ace in the hole.  I put his Ninth Symphony on the stereo, pull the earphones down tight, and lie down on the floor.  the music comes on like the first day of Creation.

And I think about old Mr B.  He knew a whole lot about depression and unhappiness.  He moved around from place to place, trying to find the right place.  His was a lousy love life, and he quarreled with his friends all the time.  A rotten nephew worried him deeply – a pianist.  He wanted to sing well, too.  But when still quite young, he began to lose his hearing.  Which is usually bad news for pianists and singers.  By 1818, when he was forty-eight, he was stone-cold deaf.  Which makes it all the more amazing that he finished his great Ninth Symphony five years later.  He never really heard it!  He just thought it!

So I lie there with my earphones on, wondering if it ever could have felt to Beethoven like it sounds in my head.  The crescendo rises, and my sternum starts to vibrate.  And by the time the final kettledrum drowns out all those big F’s, I’m on my feet, singing at the top of my lungs in gibberish German with the mighty choir, and jumping up and down as the legendary Fulghumowski directs the final awesome moments of the END OF THE WORLD AND THE COMING OF GOD AND ALL HIS ANGELS, HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! WWHHOOOOOOOOOOM-KABOOMBAM-BAAAAAAAA!

Uplifted, exalted, excited, affirmed, and overwhelmed am I MANALIVE!  Out of all that sorrow and trouble, out of all that frustration and disappointment, out of all that deep and permanent silence, came all that majesty-that outpouring of JOY and exaltation!  He defied his fate with jubilation!

And I never can resist all that truth and beauty.  I just can’t manage to continue to sitting around in my winter ash heap, wringing my hands and feeling sorry for myself, in the face of THAT MUSIC!  Not only does it wipe out spiritual rot, it probably cures colds, too.

So what’s all this noise about winter and rain and bills and taxes? says I to me.  So who needs all this talk about failure and confusion and frustration?  What’s all this noise about life and people being no damned good?

In the midst of oatmeal days, I find within Beethoven’s music an irresistible affirmation.  In deep, spiritual winter, I find inside myself the sun of summer.  And some day, some incredible December night when I am very rich, I am going to rent me a grand hall and a great choir and a mighty symphony orchestra, and stand on the podium and conduct the Ninth.  And I will personally play the kettledrum part all the way through to the glorious end, while simultaneously singing along at the very top of my lungs.  And in the awesome silence that follows, I will bless all-the-gods-that-be for Ludwig van Beethoven, for his Ninth, and his light.

MANALIVE!

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Mrs DM came home from a long day of working with disabled kids .  She looked tired.   , I suggested we retire to our old favorite stuffed chairs  and I would read,…

as in out loud,  while she sipped on a cup of blueberry tea.

I grabbed one of  Fulghum’s books off the shelf.

I periodically post excerpts of Fulghum’s books on my blog.  On the right hand side of the blog home page you’ll see  Robert Fulghum listed.

click it, it will take you to the archives.

Now if you want to know what I like to listen to on  my “oatmeal days,”  my sound of choice is U2.

Personal favorite Shake Rattle and Hu.

I’ll  watch the whole album.

Here’s a little teaser to wet your appetite:

DM

no regrets

In 1987  I penned a list of long-term  personal goals.

It wasn’t as easy as you think.

I never know who is reading my stuff so if you’re a regular, bear with me 30 seconds while I give the context

I was 29 years old. Married to a very supportive wife, 3 young children, working full-time as a carpenter, pursuing schooling on the side to potentially be a marriage and family counselor.   VERY  involved @ our local church in youth work and Saturday work days.  Things were very tight financially  but overall, I felt things were going pretty well.  My wife felt otherwise.  Plus we were living 1000 miles from home.  Things came to a head.  She was angry because she saw me reaching out to other people’s kids while ours were being neglected, doing work on other people’s homes while stuff @ our home went untouched. I’m embarrassed now to even think I was so  dense

There’s a song by Sanctus Real on Christian radio right now that captures that time in my life perfectly

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames, I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling, but on the inside

Oh, I can hear her saying

Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They’re just children from the outside
I’m working hard, I tell myself they’ll be fine
They’re independent, but on the inside

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I dropped out of everything.  Focused my energies where they belonged…first and foremost a husband and father.

Made a list of long-term goals (back to where I started this post)

I  set some long-term goals.  A 5 year goal, a 10 year goal,  a 20 year goal , a 30 year goal  and lend of life goals.

Here’s  a portion of my end of life goal:

#1  I would have loved my wife, children, brothers and sisters with no regrets.

#2   I would have a  home in the countryside  with animals and growing things.

#3  That I would have been faithful to God to the end...that I ran the race well.

(Life is a marathon/ not a  50 yard dash)  If I’m going to make the long haul, then by golly, I need to know how to set a long-term pace/ and that includes knowing how to live a balanced life)

We live in such a materialistically saturated culture.

I know financial pressures first hand. I know what it’s like to not have enough money to  take the kids to the dentist. Clothes shop @ the  Salvation Army.  Grocery shopping @ Aldi’s.   Not have enough $ for postage stamps.   Drive old cars donated to help out families like ours.

I also know that in some mysterious way, I have been led.  We just celebrated 33 years of marriage this past weekend and our relationship is still smoke’n!

We survived the teen years and I have great lines of communication with all 4 of our children.

My relationship with my parents and siblings has never been better.

Came across a list from the book by Bronnie Ware titled The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

In it, she lists the top five regrets of those lying on their death beds.

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I had not worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had kept in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier

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I read that list and can honestly say @ this point.  I have no regrets. None, Nada. Period.

I am so thankful things came to a head back in 1987.   If you’re reading this post and are wondering about your life purposes…your goals, if you feel trapped…you know what I’m talking about.  This is not a bad place to be.

It may mean in the deep recesses of your sub-conscience  the real you, is crying out for you to stop long enough to set some goals.

Quit running a hundred miles an hour…..

in the wrong direction…

DM