Opinion

I don’t wear short pants because my shins look horrible.  They are destroyed.  I started destroying them back when I was eight years old and living at MacDill AFB, where my dad was stationed as part of Strike Command.  At the ends of those tall, apartment-like government quarters we lived in, stood large AC units, and when we military brats discovered them we played there a lot, mainly Zorro.  One day I tried to jump the long space between two units, and while I got my left foot on it, the middle of my right shin hit the corner.  You know the episodes of Family Guy where Peter f

When we think about living on purpose, it can mean different things to different people. Personally, one of the first aspects that comes to my mind is the desire to not only love God and be thankful for who he is but to also love my life and appreciate who I am. This is not to be confused with being arrogant or satisfied about where I am in my journey, but rather it has everything to do with having peace and contentment in our soul as we allow God to change us into his image.

Three years ago I could mow the lawn in peace, with a weekly expectation that it would take me less than two hours to finish. But then my wife started watching gardening shows  Have you seen Victory Garden? Her’s is nothing like that. Have you seen the movie Labyrinth? Yeah, like that.

Children understand the importance of choosing teams in an orderly manner.  Most groups choose two individuals to be captains. They use a simply way of determining who goes first to pick a team member, this is followed by the other captain choosing until all team members are selected. This is sportsmanship. This civil process eliminates potential arguments or fights.

Last year my wife and I celebrated our 40th anniversary.  (I thought it was only 30, but she insisted it was 40, and so I looked into it and found out she was right.  Where has the time gone?)

It’s VII:XXIII at night, and I’m going to finish this by X, because I have to go to bed by XI and get up at VI:XV in order to get ready to take my grandkids to school by VIII:LV so they can be in class by IX.

Catch any of that?  I remember having to suffer through Roman Numerals in elementary school, a whole chapter in my math textbook, but not in high school.  And little by little over the years (it was actually probably pretty quick) I forgot all but the basics; long numbers are now a mystery to me.

Decisions are a part of life that we face every day. With everything from what we will wear to purchasing a new washing machine, our choices contribute as key components of our success and failures which are also directly connected to our peace and joy. Sometimes we are strongly influenced with the mesmerizing sparkle and emotional excitement that pulls us into a hypnosis and this crossroad can be a dangerous place to make a long-term commitment.

One night I loaded a cart with plant starter trays, but I kept thinking to myself, “I am loading solar lights,” and I was going down that aisle to stock.  I held the idea firmly in mind, and actually went to that aisle.  And sure enough, there was a customer looking at solar lights. Wow, it worked!  I made that person go down an aisle I wasn’t stocking! I smiled a smug smile and strolled to the trays aisle.  There stood a customer, looking at the trays.

I had a serious conversation the other day with a middle aged man and we talked for a couple of hours about God. I’ve known him for years and we’ve had these discussions before but I noticed he has become stronger in his opinions which by the way are based on atheism. He is a likeable person, hard worker, great husband and popular. He is also a very talented artist and sculptor and concentrates much of his artwork on the dark world of the supernatural.

Memories can be a wonderful place to visit when they are pleasant and filled with peace and joy. On the other hand, not all of our experiences have been good and can be more like a haunted house on a dark and stormy night. We all have our collections of thoughts and our own task of trying to figure out a way to deal with them. As most of us know, there are positive ways and negative ways to handle our past experiences. We can look around and see that many people are not doing such a good job when it comes to emotional management.