Is there not a cause?

My brilliant pastor, Jentezen Franklin, this morning preached on the subject, "You need to get free of 'What's in it for me?'" He used the passage in 1 Samuel 17 where David's brothers and other men tell David what rewards would be given to the man who slays Goliath.

These guys were all focused on the prizes -- great riches, the king's daughter in marriage, and tax-free living for life. But all that talk didn't sit well with David, who said, "Is there not a cause?"

By that David meant there was a better reason than personal rewards to go after Goliath. This thug was insulting their God and everyone who believed in him. What more incentive did they need?

My pastor then lit into preachers who do things not for the glory of God and furtherance of his kingdom, but for self-aggrandizement and income opportunities. Then he turned it onto the rest of us, saying the cause of God's kingdom should be enough motivation to get us to serve others; we shouldn't need any other incentives, such as payment, recognition or fame. Amen and amen.

He kept repeating the line, "You need to get free of 'What's in it for me?'" And it got me thinking about the health-care town hall screamers and the current crop of conservatives in general. (By the way, Franklin himself is clearly pretty conservative, so this message surprised me a little, but he didn't take it where I'm about to.)

This very morning on the way to church I had been saying to My Lovely Wife that the theme of these protests makes me sick. I saw on TV a woman with a look of disgust say of President Obama's proposed plan, "It takes away from those who have been paying for health care for years [and] reduces our health care so that everyone else can have it."

Yes, and isn't that horrible? I mean, I got mine, so SCREW everybody else! Am I my brother's keeper? Why should I be expected to give up a tiny fraction of the abundance that I have so that my neighbor who has nothing might have something?

I've never really been able to put my finger on what it is about conservatives that nettles me so much, but this is it exactly: They go on and on about how great America is, America love it or leave it, God bless America, but they're not willing to give anything up to help their fellow Americans. Anyone who suggests Americans pool their resources to help out the least of these is decried as a SOCIALIST!

I wonder if any of them have ever read the last four verses of the second chapter of Acts. The first Christians were total pinkos.

I voted for Obama in the primary election, but I liked Hillary Clinton's health-care reform plan better. So I'm not suggesting everyone should just go for Obama's plan; it definitely needs work. What I am saying is that it appalls me that people think it's OK to let their fellow Americans -- even children -- go without health care.

Believe it or not, I actually liked George W. Bush for a minute when he was running for president in 2000. That line about ushering in an era of "compassionate conservatism" got my attention. But those words turned out to be not only a lie, but an oxymoron. In today's American politics, conservatism is by definition the opposite of compassionate. It is service only to oneself, regardless of the cost to others.

What's in it for me? How about a better night's sleep knowing some child won't die because her parents' insurance company didn't want to pay for a liver transplant? How about fewer people hitting you up for money while you're walking downtown because medical bills will no longer drive anyone into homelessness? How about the avoidance of a rebuke at the Judgment Seat of Christ when he says, "Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me."

Snowy day in Georgia

Buster

Buster had a really good Buster day Friday. He got some treats; he got to go for a walk and eat some grass and smell a freshly dug hole in the ground; he got to snuggle next to Daddy on the couch all night and even drink from his water glass; and he got to curl up in bed with Mommy and Daddy and Gibby.

On Saturday morning Buster got up with Daddy and coached him through getting dressed and ready for work, like every day, then went back to bed. Daddy kissed Mommy, kissed Earle, kissed Gibby and kissed Buster on the head before setting off.

Around 11 a.m., Mommy went to take a bath, and Buster walked her down the hall, talking all the way. And while she was bathing, he went into the den, lay down under a table and went to sleep.

Forever.

Our big boy would have been 18 at the end of May. He was an anniversary gift from Rox's mom to her stepdad when the kitty was just a few weeks old, big feet and big eyes and all. Bob named him Patches because of his mottled coloring.

Patches learned quickly that he wasn't allowed on tables or countertops, so he would sit up straight on a chair or a stool, like a person. Cracked me up, even though I didn't really like the guy very much.

See, Patches and I got off to a bad start. The very first time we met, there were a lot of people in the house and I was sitting on the floor, engaging in conversation with someone at the table.

Suddenly I heard that nasty scream that comes with a cat fight and felt something sharp slicing across my finger. The little bugger bit me for no reason!

I forgave him for that, but I distrusted him for a long time and never did warm up to him much for all the years he lived with my in-laws. He was no trouble, but we were generally indifferent to each other.

Bob and Jeanette lived next to a lake and had a purple martin house in the yard, so there was plenty of wildlife for the kitty to watch. One of them got the idea to put Patches in a harness and tie him outside so he could enjoy the fresh air. He took to it immediately, spending long afternoons, year after year, lazing in the shade of a pine tree -- and often needing pine sap combed out of his fur.

Jeanette and Bob loved that kitty. They let him eat potato chips and ice cream and popcorn. Unfortunately, when Patches was about 12, Jeanette went to heaven. Bob eventually met another nice lady and got married again. They started traveling a lot, and they felt bad about leaving Patches home alone. So on one trip, in late 2005, they brought him along -- to our house. And left him with us.

We were surprised but we welcomed him, as our home had been catless since Rikki had died in 2004. Patches made himself right at home, picking out a spot on the couch for hanging out.

Patches had a gregarious personality and such a stout body that our vet didn't believe us when we told him this was a 14-year-old cat. Dr. Hicks figured him for about 8.

For the same reasons, we didn't think the name Patches fit him very well. Rox had often called him Buster as a nickname, and that became his official moniker. He didn't care; he couldn't hear us anyway.

When he first came to us, Buster would open his mouth but only a squeaky little sound would come out. We soon realized he had gone deaf, but it didn't seem to bother him much. Eventually he got his voice back, and boy, did he like to use it. He always had plenty to say on just about any subject.

One thing he cried for often was a chance to go outside. We tied him up to our back porch virtually every day, and in about a half hour could count on hearing him call out to free him from the spirea bush he always wound his leash around.

It was a natural next step for us to take up the leash and start walking him up and down the block. This he took to with great enthusiasm. He took us on some prodigious walks; I can remember one that covered 12 blocks. In fact, Dr. Hicks told us to cut down on the walking because Buster was losing too much weight!

Buster became a neighborhood celebrity -- the Walking Cat. Drivers on busy Merriman Road would stop their cars to gawk and ask us how we got him to take a leash like that; a few people even took pictures.

A few months after Buster arrived we adopted Earle and then Gibby, and even though he had never shared his home or people with another cat, he didn't seem to mind. And when we moved to Georgia, he saw it as a fun new place to explore. He even knew which driveway was his; he never failed to turn in when we reached it after a walk.

Maybe because I was the one who took him for walks most often, Buster decided to make me his buddy. He wore me down, and I came to love him.

Both of us cherished our couch time together. In the last few months he'd become a little arthritic and had a touch of asthma, but he was a happy cat who had a good life.

I'm grateful that we had that great Friday and nice Saturday morning before he lay down for his final nap. His ashes will go to be with Jeanette, but the warmth of his companionship will always stay here with us.

God bless you, Buster. Thank you for being my buddy. Keep our spot on heaven's couch warm for us, and one day we'll walk and talk together again.

But Valentine's Day will never be the same.

Godfather's Day

OK, so today is Father's Day. Kind of a neutral day for me most years. My dad died 10 years ago, and I'm not a father myself, so ... pfftht.

This morning our church put on a lovely little sketch, playing out the Steven Curtis Chapman song "Cinderella" onstage. Here's the official Chapman video on YouTube:

Let's just say I was glad I stuffed a couple of tissues in my pocket before leaving for church this morning.

The pastor at my former church makes a point every year of telling people we shouldn't glibly go around and wish every man we see a happy Father's Day. For some it's a very painful day because they didn't have a father or because the father they had was a lout (or worse).



And then there are those who, like me, feel a sense of loss at never having become a father, at knowing we'll never experience the reality of that song.

This certainly isn't a matter for pity or self-pity, since the no-kids decision was one MLW and I made jointly and consciously. And our reasoning for the decision -- there are enough mouths to feed on this planet already -- still stands up.

Nevertheless, I still feel a certain emptiness at not having had (or taken) the opportunity to raise a child.

But here's the thing. God isn't limited by our decisions or our ideas of what a family is.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in
Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

At the beginning of May, my nephew and his wife and their three children -- who had started in Michigan, lived the last three years in Florida and the last five months in Marietta, Ga. -- moved into a house three blocks from ours. The youngest of those three children is a 7-year-old blue-eyed blonde named Savannah who is my godchild. And she is CRAZY about her godfather. And I'm pretty crazy about her, too.


God has given me my Cinderella.






Don't you just love a happy ending?

The adventure that was 2007

The year 2007 started with a bang. That was the sound of my abdominal wall bursting open with a hernia the size of my hand. I had just had one repaired on my left side in August of 2006, but this time I opted for the larger, roomier model on the right side. Never settle.

Meanwhile, I was struggling a bit in the new job under the thumb of a certain supervisor. His constant badgering and efforts at public humiliation inspired nervousness in me that led to even more mistakes, and I actually had a panic attack at work one January night in anticipation of screwing up an important task. I truly feared I wasn't going to make it in this job, but a couple of key friends back home were praying for me and helped me get through. They convinced me that the Lord didn't bring me this far to drop me now.

Anyway, the body shop patched me up in mid-February, but

I soon noticed that I was rapidly losing weight -- 14 pounds in six weeks.

The surgeon said people don't typically lose weight with hernia surgery, so I should see my primary care physician. So I had a complete physical and blood work, which indicated my white-cell count was a little low. The doc had it redone to make sure it wasn't a glitch, and it came out even lower, so she sent me to a gastroenterologist, Dr. Harris (I had also complained of getting full after a couple of bites), and a hematologist, Dr. Jaye.

Over the next few months I had an abdominal CT scan, a colonoscopy, an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (aka upper endoscopy or EGD), a pelvic X-ray, a capsule endoscopy (for which I swallowed a tiny camera and walked around all day with electronic equipment harnessed to my torso) and a gastric emptying study (for which I ate radioactive oatmeal and lay on a table while a sensor determined how quickly it moved through my system).

All of which led to exactly nothing in the way of diagnosis. Granted, I did learn that all those systems are in fine working order. But the question of my low white-cell count remained unanswered.

My first meeting with Dr. Jaye went well until she used the word "lymphoma." That got my attention, let me tell you.

After a difficult and disappointing search, we found and joined an excellent church with a terrific preacher. Free Chapel, led by the Rev. Jentezen ("Jensen") Franklin, is 45 miles away in Gainesville, Georgia, but it makes for a nice Sunday morning drive. The Spirit is present there and the teaching is Rock-solid. The music rocks, too.

During the summer, I read the book "What Would Jesus Eat" by Don Colbert. As a result, my lovely wife and I practically eliminated processed food from our diet, started living on whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables and cut way back on the alcohol. We have stuck with that regimen, and guess what? Food tastes better and we feel better.

However, she has not lost much weight and I have not gained back much, and my white-cell count continues to drop and puzzle everyone. More on that in another post.

Just after my return to work in March after my surgery, God gave me the best birthday present ever: I learned that the evil boss, who is from another country known for bad teeth, was effectively being fired as the company had declined to renew his work visa. He would have to leave the country in late fall. Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!

Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my Glory, you lift my head!

In August I got away from him even sooner than expected when I grabbed an opportunity to move to the morning shift after 16 years of working nights. He managed to avoid deportation and got his work visa renewed after all, but he's been removed from his supervisory position and our paths almost never cross anymore.

The year ended well as my lovely and I took 10 days around Thanksgiving to visit friends and family in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan. Then my 6-year-old goddaughter and her family moved in December from Florida to Marietta, Georgia, a scant 25 miles from our home. They went to church with us on the Sunday before Christmas and then came to our house, where we baked a birthday cake for Jesus.

All in all, I can't believe how blessed I am. Thank you, Lord.

My miraculous move

I figured I was going to live out the rest of my natural life in Ohio. After growing up in Michigan and then living in Indiana for five years, my lovely wife and I moved to Northeast Ohio for a new job. That was where Jesus kicked down the door to my heart and rescued me from depression, suicide and meaninglessness.

We loved our neighborhood, the park system, and the church that adopted us as two of its own. I moved up in responsibility at my employer and was good at what I did. Sometime around 2000, burnout began to set in and I felt a need to redeem the time by doing something significant with my life. I read a lot of books and prayed through a lot of nights.

God responded and gave me a destination and a deadline: The Carter Center in Atlanta and May 2005.

I resigned from my supervisory position in May 2005 and took a lower role. This allowed me time to teach a class at a local college. In April 2006 I offered my students extra credit for attending a national conference that was occurring nearby, and attended myself just to verify their attendance. There I met a guy who works at a large company in my field in Georgia, and we hit it off.

That summer my company hit hard times, was sold twice and started laying people off and offering buyouts to more experienced employees. I called my acquaintance in Georgia to see if he knew of any openings anywhere, and he ended up hiring me. So in November 2006 I pocketed the buyout money and we headed to Georgia, within shouting distance of the Carter Center.

God had brought me to the doorstep of my goal, and made someone else pay my way. He's clever that way.

Allow me to introduce myself

Hello and welcome. I've been meaning to start a blog for more than a year now, ever since I moved to Georgia, and now I've finally hauled off and done it.

I'm not using my real name for now because I'm not sure what I might say about certain things and people. I work for a high-profile company that might look askance at certain things, so I'm erring on the side of caution. If you're looking for a certain person's blog and are not sure you've found it, check my profile; anyone who knows me well will recognize me in the details.

My plans for the blog are to tell about my adventure in pulling up stakes and moving to the South from Ohio; to document a health challenge I'm going through right now; and to share my thoughts about faith and other subjects.

I hope you enjoy it.