The Anticipation of Advent

Our family is in the middle of celebrating one of our favorite Christmastime traditions.  In 1994 I made a lovely discovery at a local discount store of 4 ceramic figurines that I used to create our family Advent Wreath.

These 4 figures sit around the perimeter of a wreath with accompanying colored candles that we light in 4 consecutive Sunday nights before Christmas.  Then on Christmas Eve we light all of them and the center white candle which is next to a babe in a manger that I also created out of clay bake and some matchsticks and straw.

Week One: Mary — an angel came to Mary and announced to her that God was going to use her to give birth to the Savior. The Virgin would give birth.

Week Two: Angel — angels were used by God to announce to Mary and Joseph  (and later to the shepherds) that Mary would give birth to a baby boy that they were to name Jesus for He would be the Savior. Angels are messengers of God.

Week Three: Shepherd — While shepherds watched their flocks by night, angels came to the lowly shepherds to invite them to come behold the baby born in the stable. The darkness of the night was penetrated by such bright light as the Glory of the Lord shone into the night to make the great announcement.

Week Four: Wise Men/Kings — Wise men sought out the promised Messiah, they had used knowledge and prophecy to seek Him. When they did finally come face to face with the Savior as a toddler, they presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Gold was the Gift given by Melchior, a king of Arabia. He is said to have been the oldest of the Three Kings.

Frankincense was the Gift given by Balthazar, a king from Saba – present day southern Yemen. Frankincense is resin from the dried sap of the Boswellia tree – a tree that has grown on the craggy slopes of the Arabian Sea for thousand of years. In ancient times, Frankincense and Gold were equally valuable.  Frankincense is harvested by making slits in the bark of the tree and letting the resin slowly bleed out and harden into white “tears”of Frankincense  The primary use of Frankincense is the same today as it was in ancient times: it is a very strong incense with a sweet aroma that is used today in religious services.

-The Gift given by Caspar, a king from Tarsus – present day Southern Turkey. At the time of Christ, the world’s finest Myrrh came from Southern Arabia and it is generally thought that this was the origins of Caspar’s gift.  Myrrh is resin from the Commiphora tree and is harvested by cutting slits in the bark of the tree from which Myrrh resin hardens into dark red crystals. In ancient times, Myrrh was among the most valuable substances known and, at the time of the birth of Christ, it was worth seven times its weight in gold. It can be used as an incense or it can be ground into a powder and mixed with oils to make a balm or processed into an oil. In ancient times, myrrh was used in the mummification of the Pharos in Ancient Egypt and to anoint kings.

Christmas Eve: The Babe in the Manger – Emmanuel, “God with Us: …The promised Messiah was not born in a palace but in a lowly manger.

“Behold I bring you good news of great joy for all the people:
to you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord –[Luke 2:10,11]

So, each week before Christmas our family gets to focus on what the true meaning of Christmas is all about. It isn’t just about baking cookies, hanging lights and decorations, or buying presents. Our celebration of Christmas is a time in which we really look at the greatest gift of all. The birth of a Savior to save us from our sins, from a God who literally reached down into time to give us a way to have a relationship with Him.

Merry Christmas everyone. May you receive the greatest gift of all. And if you already have, may you relish it all the more in this season of Advent. For even when the celebration of the Advent of Christmas is over, we still have the anticipation of the return of our Savior.

Crazy Bird Fever Scare

Something  MUST be done!  

Theres a new problem with our 10 year old male Patagonian conure. He has always been a very good and healthy boy, but I went to pick him up a couple of days ago and his right foot had some red at the ankle. I thought it was blood from maybe a pulled blood feather, cleaned him up and found no source on examining him.

Yesterday, his foot was red again,,, it looked more pinkish red but was a mess. I noticed some red digested food under his favorite perch and that his food bowl was empty (unusual) and thought he might have gone down there to eat? Cleaned him up, examined his foot area again. Nothing more.

Today, he’s done it again. Appears maybe that he is regurgitating?! He eats the pelleted fruit colored food, some of which is that red color. However, I also have concerns over the possibility of his shredding the newspaper tunnels that we make for him that he loves to play in. One of the later papers used did have some red ink on the paper. But I removed that days ago, when trying to figure out how his foot got red.

Oliver is really missing his paper tunnels to play in, but I must get to the source of what’s going on with him. He is acting like his usual self otherwise. Though I am a bit puzzled by this sticky, gloppy, reddish pink that keeps ending up all over his right foot which is his favored foot for head grooming and preening. I also did find traces of the substance around his beak, but not his vents or eyes. Tonight my daughter pointed out a good size glob on his open cage door. I used a wooden craft stick to scoop into a baggie to take to vet in the a.m. if she needs to see it and Oliver is clean at the time.

ANY IDEAS ON WHAT IS GOING ON WITH OUR CONURE?

Bird vet informed me that what Oliver is doing is um…er… well, he’s displaying his desire to help create some babies. The regurgitation is supposed to be attractive (believe it or not). Although this has NEVER happened before.

Here in Indy we’ve had an unusually tropical and long spring/summer and into fall. About mid year I began making these newspaper tent/tunnels on the top of his cage that he enjoys playing in and shredding. Although some people are concerned that the inks used in newspaper could be toxic, the vet told me that years ago the toxic inks were removed to protect even people who were eating newspaper!

So the weather and the availability of a “nest” helped launch Oliver into hormonal overload.  The end result? No more tunnels for Oliver because I don’t need a frustrated bird on my hands. He doesn’t like cold showers and I’m not really into turning this place into a LOVE nest for conures. No thank you!

Crashed and Turned

Some of you will have already heard about this, but since today is the anniversary date of a major life-altering event, I decided to reblog it.
September 17, 1987 is a special date on the calendar for me. You see, it was 22 years ago today that my life took a major hit. While driving our Kawasaki 550 motorcycle I was broadsided by the car of a young lady performing an illegal U-turn. My life as I had known it (had planned) would never be the same.

It was just before the impact and I was waiting for morning rush hour traffic to clear from one of the two major one-way streets located at the end of my commute to work in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. I knew that I had to wait a few moments more before the traffic cleared. So I took the opportunity to shoot up a praise to God. “What a gorgeous morning it is Father. There is not a single cloud in the sky.” Additionally I am going to be early for work, and I am excelling at my job.

Looking back on that moment now, I realize that was the last minute in which I had no chronic pain in my life. I really do forget what that felt like. Perhaps God answered me with ” Oh sure, you think it’s beautiful and hunky dory now, but let’s just see what you think in a minute.” I believe that in Heaven, God was gathering the angels to watch what was going to happen next.

After crossing the intersection, I noticed that a car traveling in the opposite direction quickly pulled along the opposite curb as it going to park. But then it happened. The sudden impact broadsided me full force as the black bumper of the Civic instantly crushed my Left Ankle. I found myself startled (WHAT just happened), in great pain as my foot was hit by the car then pushed off the peg, and dragging along the pavement. On top of all that, my head was wizzing by the bumpers of cars parked on my side of the street as I was still moving forward although at an angle of a track bike (like the GT racers we just saw here in Indy).

I jerked with all my might to keep from going down. All the while it occurred to me that I am now driving on the wrong side of the street (from jerking up), my foots dragging, and I must stop in just a few yards BEFORE I enter the intersection with the other major one-way street. AAAAAAH!

This is where I testify to the miracle on my motorcycle. God was at work greatly in my life. He got me to stop the motorcycle before getting hit again. I did NOT go down even though broadsided. I think part of the credit for that goes to the fact that I raced bicycles at Major Taylor Velodrome and in racing class and training we would purposefully jam our bicycles into each other to learn how to avoid wrecks and react to unexpected pedal in your spokes.

Once I had managed to stop the forward movement of the cycle, I was standing there with both hand squeezing the calipers on the handlebar (clutch and brake). I was managing to stay balanced on my one right leg, but it was heavy and my other foot was mangled. What was worse is that I couldn’t shift the cycle into neutral because it would have been done by my useless left foot. I was stuck there!!

Just then, a VERY pregnant woman came up the sidewalk to help me. I remember thinking that the gutteral screams that came out of me were not very feminine (surprised that I sounded like a guy) and that I could even scare her away if I didn’t quiet them.

She came up to me and saw that I had a problem, but couldn’t hear me very well through the running of the motorcycle and due to the fact that the visor of my full face helmet was down. So she was fumbling around trying to undo my helmet. I swallowed all screams of pain and yelled, “PUT… the KICKSTAND…. DOWN!” Once she did that, I killed the bike by turning off the key with the assurance of the kickstand there to keep me from falling over.

I took off my helmet and looked down at my foot. It looked like the ends of two of my toes were missing and I knew that my ankle foot was broken. The lady had called the police and ambulance and wanted to help me to the sidewalk. I initially declined since she looked like she would deliver her baby if she lifted half of my weight. However the incessant throbbing convinced me that I should accept her offer.

We managed to get me to the sidewalk, a couple of very painful steps, and then I was down. Only then did I see that the only damage to the motorcycle was to the left case guard that helps protect the engine… a $50 part!! Another miracle.

Yes, God saw to it that I did not go down, that I had NO other damage to my body other than my left knee, leg, ankle and foot. Do you realize that if I had gone down I wouldn’t have been able to even use crutches?

May I just say something about crutches. When I am using them I get the “oh, you poor thing” look from everyone. Others using crutches say, ‘don’t you just HATE having to use crutches?” My answer is a resounding “NO.” I love these crutches. This is the original pair and if they had an odometer on them it would have tripped over the 100,000 mile mark about three times. I don’t know what I would have done without them.

When I am on crutches I can really move!! Just ask my friends. Unfortunately, right now I am recovering from a shoulder injury and can’t use them yet. So I appreciate them all the more, because without their use I am much more limited. Still I do have the famous “black boot” that I can throw on when I am expecting to be “slammin’” (on my feet or walking a lot). Again, I get the looks and the questions “what happened, did you have another surgery?”

I know that people are generally caring and tend to think that injuries are supposed to get better. But the sad fact is that some of us are never going to recover from our injuries. Not in this lifetime anyway. These appliances (crutches, canes, boots, funny shoes) are just our ways to cope in the meantime. To try to live a productive life in spite of the physical challenges.
I now joke that I have been through probably about a dozen sets of guardian angels. They draw lots up there to NOT have to get me as a client.

Almost half of my life has now been in constant pain.
As a competitive long distance runner I used to just push through the pain. No pain, no gain, right? Maybe so, but you will notice that I don’t run anymore. I can’t. If it’s an emergency or something I can lope along with the understanding that I will have to pay a physical price. I’ll be “lame” for a few days, and have to go back to using my crutches.

Worse than that, I often don’t realize that I’m overdoing until after it is too late. Again because my way of dealing with pain was to mentally ‘shove it aside’, I use a kind of self-hypnosis that worked well for me as an athlete, but that can do damage to me now.

Since I am allergic to almost all pain medicines, I can take none. So I really am in constant pain every moment I am awake. But there are a couple of coping skills that I have learned that work for me. Music is the biggest one. When I sing or play, it is a painkiller for me. It helps that I like to sing praises to God with our church worship team and jam on mandolin and guitar with friends. That’s why you’ll hear me turn almost any sentence into the lyric and break out into song.

Another painkiller is laughter. My friends help me with this one. Laughter is the best medicine is tried and true. I know that depression is just a natural outcome when someone is dealing with chronic anything. There are chemical things happening in the brain with seratonin and endorphins and such. Since I am unable to be as physically active as I was as an athlete it’s even more important that I laugh. Like exercise, laughter increases the endorphins; the body’s natural pain killers.

So that is why when you first meet me you may think that I am very silly. I am learning to roll with the punches and not take things too seriously. I realize that things could ALWAYS be worse. And, in many people’s cases, they are. However, I also realize that no matter what happens it is all under God’s control.

Let God be God: get out of the way.
So my plans to be a nurse practitioner were trashed, as were the ability to participate in a lot of the exercises and sports competitions that I enjoyed. Now I have a permanent disability that prevents me from enjoying the life I wanted to live. Besides the walking, standing, foot down time and distance limitations, I have the physical drain of the constant pain. Think about it, when you are in pain you get tired more easily, don’t you. I think part of that is from swallowing down the pain, not expressing it through some means. The other problem is the emotional drain. Frustration of not being able to do what I once did, it’s never going to get better than this, the extra time that adaptability methods require. It just takes more time to do things.

For me, with my bent toward perfectionism, I need to get rid of the “would have,” “could have,” “should have” statements. It just is what it is. I am not God. I am learning more and more the importance of the Serenity Prayer:
“God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things that I cannot change [past, not in my control], Courage to change the things I can [focus on what I CAN do, and learn new ways to adapt], and the Wisdom to know the difference.”

Over the last 21 years, I have learned a lot. I would not have chosen these events. But I now see where God was in control the entire time. “I know the plans I have for you…. plans for hope and a future,” is what God tells me in Isaiah. It is not the path that I would have willingly chosen for myself… motorcycle crash, crushed leg, 31 surgeries, pain and disappointments…. “sure, sign me up.” Nonetheless, I am blessed beyond measure. I have become a stronger person who is learning to take my value less from what I do and more for Who’s I am.

I joke about the fact that with so many surgeries and stuff, the guardian angels have to draw lots in hopes of not getting me as an assignment. I’m sure I have worn out at least a dozen sets. I know that like Paul, God has allowed me to be molded through trials. That if I hadn’t had all this happen TO me, because He cares FOR me, I would probably have been a prideful, arrogant, competitive jerk. So when the trumpet sounds, get ready to eat my dust… cause I’m going to be running into glory!

==== Today I am celebrating the fact that though this event was traumatic, it began a new direction in my life. A major turn for what I Biblically believe is guananteed to be for the better.

Growing Chocolates

Hmmm… I just got a great inspiration from friends Jamie and Terri talking on the radio. They were listing their top five things that they think they spend too much money on. Chocolate!! Why do chocolates cost so much? Because we can’t grow our own.

That got my imagination moving into overdrive. Wonder if we could grow our own chocolates? Wouldn’t that be great? Come on ladies, are you with me here? Imagine with me just for fun.

You’d take your seeds of Nestle (TM) Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and place them in a shallow furrow of prepared earth. Of course once you’d placed the seeds in the ground you would carefully mark the row with a dusting line of white powdered sugar so that you could consistently “water” for best production. And we would fertilize with Hershey’s (TM) Cocoa Powder every two weeks for increased flavor.

Naturally, we would not use real H2O. Oh no! We would be “watering” with Hersheys (TM) Dark Chocolate Syrup. We must water at least twice a day until the seedlings start to sprout to a height of two inches when we would thin the row to ensure larger healthier plants. Just go ahead and eat those little seedlings, they are delicious and full of fiber and NO calories. I only grow the best, guilt free variety, you know.

Is your mouth watering yet?  As maturation takes place it is important to watch for unwanted weeds like those pesky rice crunchies and invasive almonds. Oh no you don’t!! This is a pure, rich, melt in your mouth, smooth crop of chocolate we are working on here. Pull those invasives from the roots and chuck them outta there!

Now, remember, our chocolate plants are a “cool weather” crop. Trying to grow them in the months of July and August can easily result in a sticky, melty mess. Fortunately, the chocolate plants are unattractive to the Japanese beetles and slugs that take out so much of the rest of the garden. So, I say, let’s forget about the lettuce and the brocolli and grow ONLY chocolate with a few tomatoes, sweet corn and melons filling in during the hot months.

The nice thing about growing my imaginary chocolate plants is the idea of strolling out into my garden and eating fresh from the garden!! YOU know what I mean. When the true farmer strolls out into the garden to bring in a harvest, one of the perks of the job is eating some of the crop before it even hits the harvesting basket! Oooooh, la la!

Now, dear friends, you know that God chose to start man’s life in a garden. You tell me… what more heavenly garden can there be than a garden full of chocolate? Thanks for coming on this little diversion in divinity with me, it’s always good to share. Anybody else having a chocolate craving?

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Wow today I saw Antonio and I didn’t know who he was. I had often wondered about him. He left such an impression as a junior high student. He was cooler than cool, fathered a child while in Jr. High and probably consider himself as super stud.
I never really could reach Antonio. He was just too cool, too occupied with his teen celebrity status. He did show up, every once in a while to class, to learn about character issues. I never really felt that I had his attention. He must have dropped out of school. He dropped out of sight but never out of mind.
One day in his prime, I saw Antonio. He was high as a kite, hanging out around Post Road. He didn’t even know who I was, the one trying to be his mentor time and time again. When I got his attention, it was funny to him. Enjoy your high, Antonio, I thought. This is the thanks I get for trying to help.
Months progressed and a new school year developed. One day, the kids told me that Antonio got shot late one night on the streets. He is paralyzed, they said. You can’t take gossip too seriously but the kids never really lie concerning things of this nature. Again Antonio was out of sight but not out of mind.
Yesterday, I was downtown at the City County Building, the county seat of Indianapolis. To see all of my brothers in various stages of desperation is quite a sight. Perhaps this is where the terminology “hot mess” is derived. It’s one thing to be on probation and parole with business inside the government seat…It’s quite another thing to go before the judge or the criminal justice system with your pants on backwards or half down your butt.
And then I leave and head to my car. I see this fellow in a wheelchair. I thought that he was going to beg for money. I steered clear. But then I got a glimpse. There was something noticeable. It bothered me. As the distance that was once short grew longer, the Lord gave me a revelation. That was Antonio. His legs looked like toothpicks. Of course, that had to have been him. The kids said he had been paralyzed. He looked much darker in complexion and beyond helpless. All of a sudden, life just didn’t seem fair. He never had a chance.
How is it that the Senator of Indiana could have a wife receiving one million dollars simply for sitting on the board of Wellpoint while individuals like Antonio suffer at such a terrible rate? I don’t know where to begin to bridge this gulf. We worry about the education of our children but if they work their whole life away for an organization like Wellpoint, a million dollars may never be granted. Something has got to give. To redistribute the wealth, one gets called a socialist. Yet is turns out that the wealthy just lied and cheated their way to wealth while getting corporate bailout as a reward for bankrupting their companies.