Celebrate Life

 "We believe that every day on this crazy planet is worth celebrating." ~ Blue Man Group 

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Death comes for us all

"To win any battle, you must fight as if you are already dead." ~ Miyamoto Musashi

In all of human history, written or unwritten, there is one truly universal experience.  Death.  It is something that i believe everyone dreads at some point in their life.  It is an unexplorable, untestable, mystery.  Do we cease to exist?  Is there an "ever-after"?  This all contributes to a natural hesitation of giving literally "your all".  

For me, this proverb lends itself to say, "just how far are you willing to go?"  "What is the true price are you willing to pay?"  If you are in a place where 'life and death situations' is a real possibility, more often than not, anything less than every ounce of  your will to do your duty, complete your mission, can result in not only the failure of your job/mission, but likely contribute to the death of others, and likely yourself anyway.  But, it is only natural to come head to head with that eternal, most serious, fear.

In those situation, the only way you can "give it your all" is to come to own the fact that we all die.  It is only a matter of what day/time.  So, give yourself over to the knowledge that, in the history of time, you are already dead, so, give it everything, and fight as if you are already dead.

Now, a deviation from this one train of thought i have also come to know, and live by.  I LIVE as if i am already dead.  I am diagnosed as "severely depressed".  So much so, every time i see my Psychiatrist i am given a set of questions, basically asking if i am planning on harming myself or others.  I have been asked, more than once, if i have certain... instruments, at home.  But, as a Christian, my belief is that, it is not up to me to determine when i will leave this life.  That is ONLY for God, only for my Lord Jesus Christ to say, "it is time".  So, for me, i live my life, every day as if i am already dead unto MYSELF.

If you have navigated by this page, and you are struggling, PLEASE do not fight this fight alone.  You are not weak to seek help.  

If you, or someone you love, is contemplating suicide:  Call, or text 988 - from anywhere in the United States.  If you are at your wits end, and you are not in the United States, i am researching other services around the world to share as well.

988l Suicide & Crisis Hotline

Veteran suicide prevention

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Shōgun - life & death

As the theme of my blog here might lead you to believe, i can confirm that i have been watching the show Shōgun.  I have been intrigued by the samurai since the very first release of Shadowrun in 1989 and i learned of Street Samurai.  Even though the similarities between a cyberpunk "samurai" and one of Feudal Japan end, almost at the use of the word.  However, since then, i have spent time delving into learning more about both worlds.

"We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that." - Toda Mariko (Fictional character, Shōgun, Netflix, 2024)

When i heard Mariko say the line above, it struck a cord with me.  I know without question that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and i am fully confident that He has provided humankind with free will.  However, mankind is finite, and with so many of us running around, our desires often conflict with each other.  Then, toss in the rhythms of nature (weather, tectonic plates, etc.) life is unpredictable and, no matter how much power and/or influence a person might acquire, we never control everything.

We do not choose to be born.  We do not choose our DNA.  But, we can choose HOW we live.  We can choose how we react to the things that come at us every day.  I do NOT, and WILL NOT, EVER, endorse suicide, but we can choose how we face death which is indeed a universal constant among us humans.

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 "Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us." ~ John Stott

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Birth leads to growing, leads to living, leads to teaching, leads to sacrifice, leads to victory

If you don't preach the holiness of God in such a way that your people don't see themselves as the sinners they are, then they'll never truly see how great a Savior they have. ~ Chan Kilgore 

I am quite fond of Christmas.  So much so that anytime i think of the season, any anxiety i feel ebbs, a sense of true joy (which is a rarity for me) begins to flow through me.  The thing is though, Christmas is only the announcement of the coming of the Hope of mankind.  We cannot leave the image of the precious newborn baby, and the imagined peaceful setting, the singing of the Angels to the shepherds.  The young boy grew up, and but for a pair of brief glimpses of Jesus growing up in Luke 2, we are led to the ultimate purpose of Christ's humbling Himself.  To live a holy, perfect, life, to offer Himself up in our place for punishment of the sins we have committed, and then to rise again on the third day to defeat death.

Christianity is unique among all the faiths of the world.  It is the only faith where the object of our worship, took the initiative to not only come up with the plan, but then ensure that the plan was fulfilled in perfect Holiness, and Justice.  The Worshipped provides the path for those who have faith in that plan, and even that was not of the worshipper, but of the object of that worship.

The birth, led to the life, that led to the demonstration, that led to the teaching, that led to the sacrifice, that led to the defeat of our ultimate enemy.  These brief post cannot possibly adequately convey all that has truly taken place, but i do pray that if you find this, and you feel the tug of God on your heart.  Pray.  Ask Him to reveal Himself to you, and seek out others to worship among.  I am praying for you as well.

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Bringing things up to the present

 If there are any reader's left from when i posted regularly 8 or more years ago a quick update recap...

In December 2014 i was encouraged by my "beloved" (as i referred to her then) to seek a counselor for my mental health.  I had been 'spiraling' for a while and i agreed as i had no idea what else to do.  This led to an official diagnosis of Aspergers (ASD 'level' 1 now - i think), ADD/HD, and chronic depression.  What i did now know was, underlying all this was that, my "beloved" was having an affair.  While i had tried to reconcile, it was pretty not from a very good place mentally.  In the end, she reminded me that "(i) would never force her to stay with me."  We were divorced in mid-2016.  By this time, this blog had fallen silent.  For my own mental health i made the divorce as complete a break in relationship as i can.  I also took steps to secure my budding relationship with a woman i met fairly quickly thereafter.  It was pretty extreme, but i did not know how else to handle it.

While it had not been my intention, i found myself falling in love with a new woman.  One whom God has done some amazing things in bringing back some deep healing.  Some healing i did not even know i needed.  While i do not have a new blog nickname for her, i enjoy thinking of her as my unicorn.  Early on in our marriage, maybe it was during our first "time of intense fellowship", she told me, "Just because i am mad at you, that does not mean that i do not love you."  This was the first time, ever, someone has told me this.  But more than that, ever since then, she has walked that out.  

All of my children have grown and are out of my home.  Two are completely out on their own.  My middle, fellow "aspie", lives with his mother, but he has a fulltime job and drives.  I am proud of each of them.

Through all of this, God has been faithful.  He has been my guide.  My strength.  While i do not  know how, or why that all happened, i am confident that in it all, it is for His purpose and His glory.  This is a world fallen, and one that seeks to go its own way. "Therefore God gave them up in the lists of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth for God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."  (Roman 1:24-25, ESV)

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"I have no desire to die on hills that look nothing like Calvary." ~ Jackie Hill Perry 

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We can all learn to cherish things a little bit more

“Those who celebrate war have never participated in it. Those who have participated in war never celebrate it”. ~ unknown

While i am a military veteran, having served for twenty two years, i am blessed in that i never served in an area where the oxygen to lead ratio was never higher than a gun range.  This means that i have never been in close proximity to where the affects of war are experienced first hand.  However, i have paid attention to demonstrations, to after action reports, been in close (but safe) proximity to high explosives, and other... more graphic, sources.  

I grew up being influenced with the propaganda of the glories of war.  At one point i idolized the 'glories' of battle.  Eventually, i learned what the military is ultimately for.  When those in "power" are unable, or unwilling, to find other ways to achieve what they want, or what their country "needs" (real or perceived), military conflict is the last result.  Or it should be.

While there is a lot of boasting, and joking at other branches expense, there is a real comradery built up between those who have gone through incredibly hard things.  Be it physically, or mentally, or both.  I do not know of a single veteran who cherishes war, but they all have amazing memories of the men and women of who they served with.

There is a lot to be said, and so many applications, about not being quick to judge another until you have been in that person's shoes.

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Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future

"Surprise, Speed, and Violence of Action." ~ Combat arms motto 

When i was a young man, i was aimless.  I would not stay at a job for more than three of four months.  Eventually, potential employers noticed the pattern and it got to a point that even part time jobs were an option.  Top of the "Want Ads" in the newspaper was "Army National Guard".  There was so much i didn't know then, but to cut to the point here, the Infantry, particularly a "Heavy Weapons, Anti-Tank Infantryman" are not trained for very many civilian careers.  Fortunately, i am blessed in that, God was starting me on a journey that would straighten out a very wayward young man.  

While i have learned over the years that my "quote of the day", is not applicable in day to day civil life, i still do remember how it is.  But, also, i wrote a whole lot of "checks" as that young man.  Checks against the "account" of my body.  And, my body has decided to come collecting.  So, there is not a whole lot of "speed" left. 😄

Not a day goes by that I'm not smacked back into reality.  ~ Alyson Murphy 

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Grace initiates, not our effort

 "When you find a spark of grace in the heart, kneel down and blow it into a flame." ~ Charles Spuregon

I struggle as a father to be a consistent encourager, but i try to find the thing(s) that are good within my children's situation to praise them.  To encourage them.  In a similar way, when us older Christians see younger brothers and sisters in Christ struggling.  We need to remember that we also struggled.  That we STILL struggle.  Breath in to them the grace that God breathed in to you.  While we are at once justified, we must walk out our justification day by day, step by step, breath by breath.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."  (Ephesians 2:4-10, ESV)

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Our testimony and our pride

I have been talking with an associate of mine, about our respective Christian testimonies.  As we were reviewing certain times of our lives, where we overcame difficulties, we both felt that it could come across as boastful.  "Look at what we have over come."  "What we have done."  That sort of thing.  But upon reflection, those are the times we can brag, because it is especially in those times, God has been good.  He has provided our strength.  He has provided the path.  He has provided the endurance.  Even if we came out the other end covered in debris, dust, cuts, sores, bruises, and a tear stained face - He was with us.

Be unashamed of your testimony, but remember to give credit where credit is due.

"I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."  (John 15:5, ESV)

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."  (Psalm 139:16, ESV)

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Daily Ramblings

 “Never take counsel of your fears.” ~ Stonewall Jackson 

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