Good Things Coming 2012 But It won’t be a Fun Ride

I think it’s going to be a good year for us. I don’t think the economy is going to bounce back. I don’t think the political climate is going to change. I do think people will become even more fed up with the current system and demand something.

Will they stick with it long enough to see it happen? I don’t know.

I think more people will climb out of the box they are in and try something new. Why? Because they will have to the economy is going to force creativity, change and systems to die.

I believe while our choices will become more difficult and the answers more obvious getting from one to the other will be more challenging.

The noise from the far left and far right will grow more deafening. It will take intense concentration to listen beyond the obvious headlines and sound bites to hear the real story.

I think truth will make a comeback and conventional wisdom will lose some of its ground.

Critics will go into overdrive as they try to quiet the masses but for once the masses will see clearly why the words that come from their mouths have little meaning, less content and smell like crap.

2012 will be a tough year but a good year. We often find our greatest strength in our biggest weakness.

There are those reading these words right now that will begin to nit and pick and poke and prod and that is okay, in fact it’s more than okay they are needed. Not because they bring value to the conversation but simply because they will help the rest of us better understand when we are on the right track.

I’m ready bringing it on 2012.

Cancer Dancers 2010

When I first found out I had cancer (2 years ago) I was so afraid of cancer that I had no fear of anything else. I started dancing in odd places and calling it the cancer dancer. As I look back at the past few years this makes me laugh a little and gives me reason to get a little watery in the eyes.

Natural Virtues can Lie to Us.

I think we all get to a point in our lives when we lose confidence in our natural virtues.

For years you get by on your personality, your ability to do this or that and one day you find it’s just not doing it anymore.

This is the part that ticks people off: I think that’s all part of Gods’ plan. Not because He’s some big puppeteer trying to pull strings and make us do as He wishes.

He wants us to learn to draw from Him rather than our own abilities and it’s really difficult.

If you have come to a point where your gifts no longer get you by perhaps it’s time to go a little deeper and stop pretending you can do it all.

God has been showing me all the things I’m not that good at and to tell you the truth it’s hard but I can see where when I get this down it can also be freeing.

Our culture tells us to be all that we can be and to improve the area’s of our weakness.

We learn to use our gifts rather than to give them away.

Perhaps these natural virtues aren’t all I’ve cracked them up to be?

Perhaps my real strength will be found, yes I said “Will Be Found” in my weakness.

Free Will, We All Have It. Don’t Forget

I have some hope that people will actually start listening to one another. This hope comes from conversations or notes I’ve read from some of you on Face Book or in real life.

Most of us are so dang sick of sound bites, news clips, manipulation of facts and party politics that we are ready, or getting close to ready, to shut up and start listening to each other.

I just finished meeting with a young man who worked on my campaign for Secretary of State. Our conversation is private but something he said is too good not to repeat.

“God didn’t give us free will so we could take it away from other people.”

This doesn’t mean you can’t offer opinions, ideas or that you have to agree.

But what it means is you do have to play nice.

Waiting for the Tow Truck.

Do we truly understand ourselves or is that the thing God spends eternity exposing to us?

We think we know what we are all about but as we age our physical vision fades and practical vision becomes more clear.

That idea grabbed me by the back of the neck this morning and is still shaking my foundation.

Oswald Chambers says it like this: “We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves: it is the last conceit to go. The only One Who understands us is God.”

I don’t know if it’s cancer or middle age or just my place in life right now but all that I thought I knew about myself is residue at the bottom of a blender.

This is not a bad thing, it’s not a comfortable thing but somewhere in the depths of my spirit I know it’s a God thing.

Life has a way of creating traffic jams in our lives. We feel like we are stuck on a freeway and all we want to do is take the first exit but often times those exits eventually lead us right back to the same highway and into the same traffic jam.

I think I need to put on my turn signal, pull the car over and just sit on the side of the road until His tow truck shows up. (smile)

The Trouble With Leaving Town.

The problem with leaving Eugene for any amount of time (even two days) is you see how normal the rest of the world really is and you wonder if we are mislead, arrogant or can’t see ourselves as we really appear to the outside world.

I read the Oregonian for a few days and when I come back, open the RG and find 40-square miles surrounded by reality. The headlines have nothing to do with my life or the lives of most of the people I know.

I like living in this area (I live in Springfield) but when you get out of town you really discover how different this place is and it’s not all good.

I wonder sometimes if we don’t fall into some false sense of thinking we’re right and the rest of the world is wrong.

When I visit Portland, Hood River or Mount Hood I find the “Hippy Vibe” alive and well but minus the need to fight and argue over every little detail in life. In other places in Oregon they welcome alternative lifestyles but it’s not like a religion. Go to Cottage Grove and you find people who disagree actually get along. No one group runs the show.

I think we need to come down off our high horse for a minute. Perhaps we need to look around and see that the squeakiest wheel really isn’t the majority and probably shouldn’t be running the show.

But I guess if you want to issue blame it should go to each one of us who allows the minority to rule the place we call home.

But that’s takes work and people can’t just sit on their butt and wait for it to happen.