The complacency of fools will destroy them.

    - Proverbs 1:32, second sentence (New American Standard Bible)

Wisdom is the speaker - the author - of the portion of the proverb that includes this warning. Wisdom is shouting in the street, imploring any and all to listen and obey her words (vs. 20-21). The picture created in my mind by this proverb always has been that no one follows wisdom or listens to her. Although she offers her answers freely, she is ignored - disregarded.

How often have I missed this lesson of complacency while focusing on the other wisdoms of the proverbs? How often am I contented to a fault (especially with my own accomplishments), pleased with myself, appathetic, casual or indifferent?  What will I do today to gain wisdom? Once I hear it, how will I implement her instruction? What must I do to surrender my will and my actions to receive the benefit of her warning and instruction?

Please, take a few minutes to contemplate this idea? Should you have similar concerns about yourself?  I do not ask that you listen to me. I implore you to listen for wisdom and to heed her warning. I do not wish that either of us would perish.

"Look down."

                                -  The Holy Spirit, circa November 1971


Just in case it is not yet obvious, I should make clear that this voice of God generally has not unlocked for me the great, unexplained mysteries of the universe.  God never has told which stocks to buy or sell.  The results in my life could not have been more profound if He had told me such things, but the subjects He has addressed with me have been much more mundane.  He also never tells me what another person has done behind closed doors.  What other people do is none of my business.  God apparently intends to keep that just the way it is. 

Instead, the very first time I heard THAT voice, all it said was, "Look down." 

I was a high school senior at the time and had lost my mother's car keys in the middle of a  large  public park.  A half dozen friends had helped me comb every square inch where I had set my feet in that park.  The keys still were lost and I was on the verge of getting home after the time assigned by my parents.  (Young readers might not be able to imagine a world void of cell phones where teenagers were "corrected" for not arriving at home on time, but I definitely grew up in one.)  This was about as close to the proverbial "needle in a haystack" scenario as I ever had come.  I was both frustrated and afraid.

I was retracing my steps one more time from the car across the park, when apparently out of nowhere the idea popped into my head, "Why don't you pray and ask God for help?"  I did not hear a voice, I simply received an idea.  And that's when the first miracle happened:  In absolute contradiction to my impatient nature and personality, I did as the voice suggested.  I stopped walking right there in the middle of that park, planted my two feet firmly on the ground, closed my eyes, and with my mouth I prayed, "Father, please help me find my mother's keys."  That's when I first heard God's voice. 

I do not think I heard an audible voice; but this time it was a voice and not just a thought. I had never heard it before that day.  The voice was clear with a distinct tone and resonance.  It gave me a very simple instruction.  The voice said, "Look down."  That's when the second miracle took place.  Even though I had walked across that same stretch of grass, both with and without my friends, several times and had looked directly at it immediately before having stopped and prayed - knowing there was no way in the world those keys could be anywhere near where I was standing - I still obeyed the voice.  I looked down, and there were my mother's keys.  I thanked God, told my friends, and hurried home. 

Several months later I was attending a meeting hosted by a traveling evangelist.  I had told many of my friends the story of the voice and the keys and had invited them to attend this meeting.  I was young and naive (okay, so I'm still naive) so I was taken by surprise when the evangelist took up an offering.  As the paper bucket was winding its way down the long row toward me I heard that same voice say,  just as clearly and distinctly as it had the first time, "Give them two dollars."  I had no question in my mind about the author of that voice so I was eager to obey it.  I reached into my pocket, removed my wallet, reached inside, and found single dollar bill; nothing more.  This may seem a simple thing to you, but I was devastated. 

How could this voice that must be God have erred?  If He had the capacity to catch my attention in a way I'd never known before at the very moment I was about to walk past my mother's keys for the umpteenth time, how could He not know that I did not have two dollars to give?  I was certain this was the same voice.  There was no mistaking it.  I was certain He could not have made a mistake.  But I could not reconcile how He could have given me an instruction it was impossible for me to obey.  I was perplexed and still powerless to obey.  So I sat and, once again completely against all my natural predispositions, I waited for an answer to appear.  Meanwhile the while the collection bucket drew closer to me by the second. 

Then the voice said, "Look in your Bible."  It is difficult for me to express the sense of both joy and relief I experienced in that instant.  I had used a one-dollar bill to book mark a page in my Bible almost a week before that meeting took place and I had completely forgotten about it.  I grabbed the bill from the book just in time to drop the $2.00 into the bucket like the voice had told me. 

Please remember that I was not anticipating either of these events.  Neither was consistent with anything I ever had experienced.  I understand that these events perhaps could be explained by some natural phenomena.  I appreciate that either event's occurrence in a vacuum could be explained by mere chance.  But if you ever experience two such events, then you probably will obey that voice without arguing just the way I do now. 

I have not heard this voice many other times, but I have obeyed it each time.  Each time its instruction has been correct.  The little bit I do understand about the laws of probability influence me to conclude that this voice is real. 

This is not the way the Holy Spirit usually communicates with me.  I will try to explain that in a later entry.  But these were the first two events that made it possible for me to believe that God might be gracious, kind, loving and forgiving enough to speak to me.  Before that, I had no evidence that He ever would speak to me or that I would be able to discern His voice. 

As I have written more than one time in this blog, I would not expect anyone to believe any of this is true just because I say it. I would hope, however, that some readers would be provoked to sufficient curiosity to consider the possibility that God might be kind enough to speak simple instructions even to a person so undeserving as I am. My encouragement is, if He will do that for me ,then He certainly is kind enough to do the same for you.

Please approach Him in your own way.  Ask Him what He wants you do do.  Be willing to accept  whatever happens.  Do not try to insist that God speak to you in any certain way or on any certain subject.  Be open to the possibility that He might have something more important to say to you than whatever happens to be occupying your attention.  He is God, not a Magic Eight Ball!  Be willing to admit that you don't know what you don't know, and it is amazing what He might reveal to you. 

After you do these things, please share your results with us here. 

"Those people who say they hear god talking to them scare me to death!"

An acquittance said something along those lines at a small gathering not too long ago.  Some obviously deranged person had committed an act of unspeakable violence and gained national media attention after telling law enforcement officers that god had told him to kill a bunch of people.  (Why does the media encourage such atrocities by publicizing these lunatics' rantings?) 

I have yet to hear of any person use that excuse without thinking he was either crazy or lying.  Fortunately I am not responsible for judging such people. 

Yet I speak regularly with people who tell me that god has somehow communicated with them; whether through circumstances, feelings, voices or other people.  I do not think these people even remotely mentally disturbed.  They are from all walks of life and various spiritual traditions, many being quite different from those I have known.  Their experiences are almost as varied as their personalities and the things they hear seem contradictory to me.  I accept these people as they are and, again, am glad I am not responsible for judging them in any way. 

In the middle of a more recent discussion about differing world views, a good friend suggested that an approach like mine represented some sort of closed system where any idea that contradicted existing conclusions must be rejected without further contemplation because it contradicts God's perceived will.  My friend seemed genuinely indignant.  His apparent position was that anyone who rejects an idea as being against God's will is arrogant because there is no way any human being could be aware of God's will. 

After contemplating my friend's suggestion as openly and honestly as I could for many hours over the next few days, this post pretty well reflects what I have been able to conclude about my own experience.  I would appreciate any suggestions that might help me correct or refine these ideas. 

First and foremost, I do not expect anyone to believe anything just because I say it.  Second, my experiences of hearing God's voice has influenced me to be less arrogant than I was before that process commenced, because my continuing response has been "Who am I that God might be aware of my existence, much less that He should condescend to speak to me?"  But if God has in fact seen fit to speak to me, then who am I to question His judgment?  That is one of the most difficult conclusions I've ever had to draw.

As I have tried to listen for God's voice, the things He has said have required me to change my mind about quite a few things through the years.  I have had to repent.  I've had to admit I was wrong, ask to be forgiven, and ask for His help to turn and go in a new direction.  I frequently have had to adjust my behavior as well as my thoughts.  That process almost always is difficult, but rewarding.  I suspect He will continue to correct me so long as I continue listen to His voice. 

One byproduct of that process is that, in those instances where I am fully persuaded that I have heard His instruction, I am fully surrendered to His will and not to my own.  Is that not what humility seeks; to subject one's own decisions and value structure to those of some higher or more noble authority?  As I perceive that condition, I am not right.  I merely am surrendered to the will of the One who is right. 

Am I completely missing the point here? 

Sometimes hearing requires waiting.

I am not by nature a patient person. I am not particularly fond of waiting. Pleasant thoughts do not bombard my conscious mind every time I have to wait; whether it's in a line at a store, for a traffic light to change, for the next spot in the arena restroom to come open, or for my wife to finish dressing. That is about as kindly as I can describe myself any time I am required to wait.

Decades of experience tell me that waiting is a necessary element of any life, and I have yet to accept it for what it is or learned to endure it well - much less to enjoy the process.

We were speaking in the last entry about hearing God's voice. That process requires listening. In my experience it also frequently requires waiting. How foolish it is of me to be surprised by this discovery!

The psalmists understood this process. "Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD." (Ps. 27:14) "Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes." (Ps. 37:7) "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." (Ps 62:5) "I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning; indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning." (Ps. 130:5-6)

Through the prophet Isaiah God declared "Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame." (Isa. 49:23) And Jeremiah (Ch.14:22) declares, "Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? Therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things."

Holy scripture repeatedly encourages us to wait on God, to trust Him while we wait, and when the time is right He will perform what needs to be done and will reveal to us what we need to know.
Even more surprising is the fact that God actually waits on us. "And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him." (Isa 30:18)

How arrogant I must be! I grow impatient waiting for God to answer my questions or to solve my problems, as though the one who created the universe should be my servant or owe me anything. Yet in spit of my arrogance He is waiting on me; waiting for me to be ready to receive the mercy He has in store for me!

Perhaps we should wait a bit longer while that sinks in.  While I am being impatient, fretful or even angry, God is waiting on me so he can show me His mercy! 

I Must Listen For His Voice

Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." (John 10:27)

A friend recently related to me how he had shouted down a fundamentalist (I believe he called the person "a right winger Christian") by asking him, since the other guy said he took The Bible literally, "How does it feel to be a sheep?" I saw no need to respond at the time. My friend was in transmit mode and his receiving program appeared to be shut down at that moment. The fact that I did not try to reason (okay, I wanted to argue with him, I admit it!) is a small miracle in itself. Instead, I contemplated my friends story. Later that evening after I had decided that it felt quite nice to be a sheep, I almost called my friend to thank him but I realized I still just wanted to argue with him.

How wonderful it is to be a sheep! I do not have to know the answers. I do not have to understand how things work or why they happen. I do not have to be able to explain anything to anybody. I am not responsible for their enlightenment. All I have to do is hear my master's voice and follow it where ever it leads me.

I will try to revisit this in a few days. For now, it might help us all to contemplate this process from our individual perspectives.

A Simple Change Of Mind Was Not Enough

Having surrendered to the inevitability of this new perspective, implementing it was a very different thing.  No matter how much I studied or how hard I worked, some of these paradoxes still eluded me.  In other instances I seemed completely incapable of following even the most basic of instructions. 

Several people offered answers to many of these questions, but their solutions seldom reconciled.  Picking the proposed solution that made the most sense to me or that most quickly alleviated the resulting anxiety eventually proved ineffective.  I needed help.  I needed help from a source whose experience and authority exceeded my own and who proved more reliable than anyone else I knew at the time.  Little did I know that same Jesus already had provided just what I needed. 

Jesus promised to send me a helper.  Jesus called this helper the Holy Spirit and said he would teach me everything I needed to know.  (John 14:16-29)  This was going to lead to another problem, because some people (Jesus referred to them as "the world") would not be able to detect this Holy Spirit or become familiar with him.  (John 14:17)  The Apostle Paul warned us that these communications from the Holy Spirit would not make sense to people who did not know how to relate to him or discern his instruction.  (I Corinthians 2:12-16)  They lack the requisite capacity to be aware of or to sense whatever the Holy Spirit sees fit to communicate, leading to the understandable result that they would reject any conclusions based on the evidence He offered. 

Another problem lies in the fact that different people purport to receive apparently conflicting communications from the Holy Spirit at the same time.  This can happen even among the most accomplished of those who endeavor to follow Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Chapter 15 of the Book of The Acts of the Apostles tells us how Paul and Barnabas could not agree on whether to take John-Mark with them on their second missionary journey.  The text does not tell us that the two men prayed or asked for the Holy Spirit's instruction.  Perhaps they did not do that.  Perhaps one of them did and the other did not.  Perhaps both did and perceived to have heard differing instructions.  The text does not tell us.  The text does tell us that an irritation or contention over this issue became so extreme that they elected to go their separate ways. 

As unverifiable as this help seemed to be, it was and is the only solution to my problem I have been able to identify as having been provided by Jesus and His Father.  I was going to have to learn how to develop a sensitivity to His communication methods.  Being wholly unable to explain - much less detect - this newly discovered presence in my life,  I had no other options.  I had to approach this Holy Spirit in the best way I could identify and ask His help.  I did not know how to ask His help, so I just did it.  I got down on my knees and asked this Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to me and to help me.  He did.  He continues to do so today, so long as I remember to stop and ask Him for his instruction and help.

I Had To Get A New Set Of Glasses

Without getting too bogged down in the details, I was having problems with the book they called The Bible.  Its local advocates claimed that God was somehow responsible for its contents and that He had chosen to reveal a part of Himself and of His will to people through it.  God did not appear be a very effective author because some parts of His book did not make sense to me.

The Bible claimed that God could not lie, yet certain of its passages contradicted what I knew for a fact to be true.  Other parts seemed to contradict one another.  If God can do anything, then how is it not possible that He might lie? 

Perhaps the most obvious example of The Bible's apparent flaws, to me anyway, was its claim that Jesus had said that it was more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).  In my seventeen vast years of experience, I never had found that to be true.  I always enjoyed receiving gifts.  I found even a modest amount of pleasure in receiving clothes for Christmas or my birthday presents.  I certainly found that more satisfying than than giving away anything. 

My simple mind offered only three possible solutions to this dilemma:  (1) Jesus was wrong; (2) The Bible had not accurately recorded Jesus' words; or (3) there was a very slim chance that I might not be one hundred percent correct.  The last of those options was the least likely to apply because I was absolutely certain of what I had seen, heard, felt and known up to that point and all of those things screamed to me that this part of The Bible had to be wrong. 

I was troubled by the obvious limitations exhibited by any deity who was not be able to maintain the integrity of his own publication.  Since by definition an all powerful being could not be subject to limitations,  that lead me to focus my attention on the unlikely integrity of the book itself.  If God by definition was not fallible, then it was impossible for Him to author a flawed book.  If any portion of The Bible was unreliable, then I could perceive no way to have confidence in any of it. 

There are few events I am likely to remember until my dying day, but this almost certainly is one of them.  I was driving home from work one afternoon stewing over this dilemma when the thought occurred to me, "Why don't you try it and see what happens?" 

For perhaps the first time in my life, I acted on a good idea.  I gave and I liked it!  Giving did not have to mean that I had lost something.  Done with the proper attitude it could be a rewarding experience.  So I elected to give some more.  The results have far exceeded the pleasant feelings the practice generated.  The list of benefits is extensive and far exceeds the purpose of the present post. 

The primary point is that I actually had been wrong!  Me?  Of all people!  As absurd as it seemed at the time, what I knew I had seen, heard and experienced was not necessarily the most reliable source of information for making some decisions.  If this change of approach had been able to alter the results in one decision making area of my life, was there a chance that it might impact other areas as well?  My experience since that date suggests that the answer is yes!

I had been experiencing the world through lenses that were filtering what really existed and were allowing me to see less than the entire picture.  I did not know what I did not know.  This was my first step toward trying to identify and discard my self-limiting filters.  The process continues so long as I will remain active and attentive to it.

I Was Stuck On Stupid.

My mother did not tell me that story until I was much older.  I had no idea what was going on outside of the limited capacity any teenage boy can muster.  I did not know what Jesus himself had told my mother, so how could I care?   


What I did know was that I was terribly frustrated.  I wanted to be a good person.  I took no joy in harming others.  I was by nature empathetic.  At the same time I was naturally inclined to act in the most selfish manner available.  None of that made sense to me. 

The culture where I had grown up told me that good people obeyed the ten commandments.  I had no problem during my early teens with things like murder, adultery or worshiping grave images, but some of the lesser crimes on that list seemed unavoidable. 

The people at my church told me that Jesus had an important part to play in my well being and that he had died in my place.  Some well-meaning bozo showed me a place in The Bible where Jesus said I would obey his commandments if I loved him.  (John 14:15 and 23, perhaps.)  No matter how hard I tried, I could not follow his simple instructions. 

Like Bre'r Rabbit, I'd already stuck myself to this particular tar baby and there was no way of letting go.  I found it impossible to improve my performance and equally impossible to ignore my dilemma.  This thing was impossible to understand but equally impossible to ignore.  I was absolutely unable to avoid a handful of meaningless activities that, according to this Jesus, demonstrated my ingratitude for what he had done for me. 

How could any good person behave like that? 

Something had to give.  Nothing would.

What happened to me? I was apprehended!

To this point we have endeavored to discuss the problem, its causes, and my participation in both.  Paul Simon probably said it best in The Boxer in 1968: "Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."  We filter what we see and hear, giving attention to what we are predisposed to like or to believe while vanquishing the balance to categories labeled "Ignore" or "Explain Away."  Most of us invoke that process without being aware (a) that we are doing it or (b) the values and processes we are using to differentiate these types of information.  We do not know why we tend to lend credibility to certain information types and sources.  We just do it. 

Having tried to explain most of the filters I had subliminally accepted as I began to enter adulthood, it seems fair that I explain the one intentional filter I have chosen for straining observations in order to get to the truth as best I can perceive it.  Here it is: I have been apprehended by Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 3:12)


I was not looking for this thing to happen.  Like many others, I had a general feeling that there must be something more to life than what I was seeing, but I had developed an expectation that whatever it was must be found in those things I had learned to value.  Perhaps my least selfish perception at that point was that this greater thing might lie in helping others attain the same things I had learned to value.  I was living my life, doing all the things I had come to enjoy doing, when Jesus confronted me and gave me a choice. 

Some recoil at the suggestion that a person has to make a decision to avoid turmoil in whatever form it might exist.  I do not perceive the choice I was offered in that way.  I think that perception is a misleading result of the misunderstanding I suffered (and that perhaps many others still suffer) before I made the choice I was offered. 

I now understand that my problem at the time was that I had no options - no choice - before Jesus apprehended me.  I was doomed to the limits created by those limiting filters I had placed over my eyes, ears, head and heart.  I had no choice before Jesus gave me one. I was doomed to keep doing what I always had done and getting the same results I always had gotten. I was stuck and did not know it. I did not know what I did not know.

Jesus came to me and, in his own way, said, "Follow me and I will show you a better way." 

I am not suggesting that I am a relatively good person because I made this choice, nor am I arrogant enough to believe that the choice was offered to me because I was a relatively good person.  On the contrary, none of this started with me. 

In fact, I was totally unaware of the first evidences of this part of the story when they took place.  God was moving before I even knew that He existed.  Unlike many powerful and influential people, God is a gentleman.  He does not force himself onto anyone.  He asks permission.  He appears to respect each person's "right" to be left alone.  He does not bust down the door like the SWAT team. 

God sends his son Jesus, and Jesus stands at the door and knocks.  Evidently he also respects parental rights, because that is where the part of the story I do know begins: with my mother.  My mother relayed this story to me years later. 

Sometime before I turned five years old I almost died.  How it happened does not matter.  That it did happen does.  My older brother and I were the only two children our parents had at the time.  My mother's baby was about to die.  My mother prayed in the hospital waiting room with the unselfish love that perhaps only a mother can truly experience.  She prayed to God for her baby's life.  God answered.

I did not see or hear any of this.  I was knocked out in an operating room with tubes running in and out of me to and from who knows where.   When my mother prayed, Jesus appeared to her.  He told her I was not her child but his.  Then my mother did what perhaps only a mother could do.  She said, "Yes, Lord," and gave me back to him. 

None of this had anything to do with any good or evil I ever had done.  None of the credit or the blame could possibly lie at my feet.  I was not aware of it at the time and my mother did not tell me about it until many years later.  Many years after I had told my mother that I had met Jesus, she finally told me this story. 

A reasonable and responsible person easily could conclude that a desperate young woman could imagine almost anything with her child at death's door in the next room.  I certainly would not blame you if that were your reaction to this part of the story.  I would not ask you to take my word - or even my mother's word - that this story is true.  I would implore you, however, to keep an open mind.  Please try to remember that you don't know what you don't know.  Please keep your mind open to the mere possibility that such an event really could take place.  For your own sake, please do not reject it until you have collected some more information. 

Remember that the best evidence available at the time taught men that the earth was flat well into the 15th Century.  Everyone believed that time was constant until Albert Einstein proved that what everybody knew to be true was false.  Many people who know that "the theory of relativity" exists do not understand that time one of that theory's non-constant things. 

Please, keep an open mind.  That's all I ask.  What could that really hurt, anyway?

"Glenn Beck is a racist."

       - All of Glen Beck's detractors every day since July 28, 2009 



"Barack Obama is a racist."

          - Glen Beck, July 28, 2009

I disagreed with Beck when he said that.  I still disagree with him.  But I have listened to Beck explain his position several times and I can understand (a) that he did not draw that conclusion without having some evidence to support it and (b) why he might have reached that conclusion.  I have no reason to believe that President Obama is a racist.  Even if he is one, what real difference would that make.  Would that totally discredit every other word the man said or every political or social idea he supported? 

I'm not really sure why Glen Beck's detractors in the media think he is a racist.  I honestly stopped listening to most of those people long ago.  I have listened to why some of my friends think Beck is a racist.  I can understand (a) that they did not draw that conclusion without having some evidence to support it and (b) why they might have reached that conclusion.  Even if he is one, what real difference would that make?  Would that totally discredit every other word the man said or every political or social idea he supported? 

What does seem (to me) to make a difference is that, rather than engaging in an honest discussion about the very real political issues facing our country the people on both sides of all of those issues waste their time and ours bickering about things like this that might not exist and would not make any real difference if they did. 

Another thing I've noticed is that all the people who articulate a belief that one of those two men is a racists will defend the innocence of the other man with equal vigor.  A similar dynamic seems to be present with respect to almost every one of the issues (both the important and the not so important issues) that exhaust our nation's capacity to talk about our political and social differences.  We seem so intent on demeaning our opponents and defending the public figures who purport to reflect our existing thoughts and feelings that we have no mental and emotional energy left to contemplate the wisdom of our existing positions, much less how we came to land in those particular places. 
It seems to me that an open-minded person who is sincerely interested in discerning and understanding the truth of things would ask herself or himself a number of questions after making these observations.  Some of the more obvious questions might include:
 
How can two groups of people with no apparent learning disabilities with equal access to the same information draw such remarkably different conclusions? 
 
Does that apparent paradox reflect a healthy condition in our society? 
 
What, if any, conclusions could be drawn by the vehemence and polarization that seems rampant within our society? 
 
What if any of my existing perceptions and conclusions am I unwilling to relinquish in order to accurately and objectively divine the truthfulness of any of these issues or questions?  For that matter, can any person ever find the truth if he or she is not willing to abandon any existing conclusion, perception or fundamental assumption that refuses to yield to objective observation? 
 

Those last two might be the most important questions any person must ask upon realizing that he or she does not know what he or she does not know.  Those likely also are the two questions most neglected by every person who comes to that realization.

"If it feels good, do it."

         - Anonymous, circa 1968

"Turn on, tune in, drop out"

         - Timothy Leary, 1966

I suppose it was inevitable that sex, drugs, the sixties drug culture and drug music had to be mentioned somewhere in this process. Given a person with my dispositions and confessed background they seem almost mandatory.

My experience with any of those things other than the music was limited at most. Let's just say that the statute of limitations ran decades ago on any crimes of indulgence I might have committed and that I have tried to make personal amends to any individuals whose trust or personalities I might have violated. Up to the point that finally I partook of those forbidden fruits, however, their allure was ever present.

How could any young person not find appealing the suggestion that enlightenment and understanding could be obtained at the mere cost of a pill or a puff of smoke? Where could the harm be found in the comfort and fulfillment granted by the passionate embrace of another person who deems you a worthy candidate of her affections? Maybe that Bible they told me about in Sunday School banned adultery, but I wasn't married. If a person kept his consumption of mood and conscious altering substances under control, where did the Bible condemn those things?

Still I had some nagging sense that both were somehow wrong. Worse than that, I dreaded the disappointment my father would suffer when I eventually got caught. (I always got caught. I did not know then how fortunate I was to get caught. I just always did.)

While the youth of America frolicked all the way from The Summer of Love to the gruesome murder at Altamont, I suffered in a hippie hell of my own creation. Because I kept listening to the music and watching the movies and reading the books, I wanted to participate in all the indulgences those genres romanticized and glorified. At the same time something inside me held me back. I would like to think my reluctance was due to some virtue, but the real restraining power was nothing less than fear. Fear that I'd get caught. Fear that my father would be disgraced or humiliated. Fear that I'd go to hell. Fear of whatever other unknowns were out there. I was paralyzed by fear. Stuck in limbo wanting to tune into whatever felt good, doing it, and dropping out of the guilt associated with all those feelings.

It was at this point in my life that the vague, powerless message I heard at my church became almost less than useless to me. By this time my family had moved to a different congregation; one that at least had the good sense to teach that there were consequences to one's actions. If they ever explained how to deal with the guilty feelings associated with my past actions or how to get help avoiding the same mistakes again in the future, I never heard it. All I heard was "Guilty!"

In an environment like that I suppose it was inevitable that I eventually would give in to my baser desires. Absence might make the heart grow fonder, but abstinence only made me want all the more the things I could not have that others were enjoying.

My stint of unbridled self-indulgence was longer than it was deep, but it evntually was as thorough as I was able to make it. After a few years I thought I understood Solomon's words, "all is vanity." Unfortunately my dilemma was magnified. At that point I suffered the vanity and frustration of the emptiness my egocentricity necessarily generated but I also had accumulated a number of unhealthy habits along the way.

Keith Moon, who likely was the greatest drummer of the rock 'n roll era, already had gotten Peter Townshend's wish: "I hope I die before I grow old." Keith's body aged well beyond his years because he never found a way off of that same roller coaster. I was looking for a soft spot of ground where I might land relatively unharmed but I still could not muster the guts to jump out of the car.

I had proved the truth of the old Kinks' song, "Timothy Leary's dead." What a bummer!

Vanity, vanity. All is vanity. There is nothing new under the sun.

"Most people get their thinking in this generation like we tend to get colds,

through casual with complete strangers."

"We've got some world views, some philosophies we've got to get rid of. "
                                  
                           -  Stephen Mansfield, April 5, 2010



There is no way I can improve on that quote, but I will provide some information about its author.  Stephen Mansfield wrote the authorized biography of Derek Prince, perhaps the most important Bible teacher of the second half of the 20th Century.  Here is a link to his publisher's bio on him.  (How many people would have the guts to write books about the Faith of Barak Obama and about the Faith of George W. Bush?)  Here is a link to Stephen's website.

"A Shaolin priest can walk through walls.

"It is said that listened for he cannot be heard; looked for he cannot be seen; felt he cannot be touched."

                                             - Kung Fu the television series, circa 1972

I was raised in a mainline protestant church.  They taught me all the old Bible stories like Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  I learned about Moses and the exodus of the children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt.  They taught me to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and the words to many traditional hymns.  There were a few people there who obviously loved me and everyone else with an unselfish love I could not comprehend.  By the time I was 13 or 14 I began to sense that something was missing. 

One day I something provoked me to read the story of how Moses was sent to confront Pharaoh.  Perhaps I'd seen a movie about the story that made me wonder about a certain part of what happened.  For whatever reason, I found the part of the story in Exodus Chapter 7 where Moses threw down his rod and it became a serpent.  The next couple of verses said that Pharaoh's magicians threw down their rods and they became serpents too.  Moses' snake ate the other snakes, but even a snake that could be eaten by a more powerful snake sounded a good deal more spectacular to me than whatever it was I was seeing around that church at that time. 

Even at that age I frequently found myself wondering what else was out there, what might be around the next corner.  I was just beginning to become aware that evil existed in the world.  I had experienced some disappointments.  Several friends had lost parents.  Many things did not turn out the way it seemed they should.  If God was good enough and big enough to turn sticks into snakes for Moses, why should he not be willing to do something similar for people today? 

I developed an expectation that there must be some sort of power in the universe, something more useful than the old stories and songs they taught me in Sunday school.  If God had been in the power business before, I saw no reason why he could not and should not be so now.  The people at my church either had no idea how to tap into that power or else they saw no need to grace me with their special knowledge.  Somewhere I had gotten the impression that shamen or other people who did wield this sort of power did exist in "the mystic east."  My ambition became to go there and study with those people and learn the knowledge of that power. 

Hindsight teaches me that my intentions at the time pretty much were all selfish.  I did not know any better.  I was a kid trying to find his way in a world that was getting bigger by the day.  That meant I was growing comparatively smaller.  I had no use for this powerless religion they were teaching me at that church.  I surmised it was good enough to hold me over and keep me out of hell-jail until I could find the real thing, but I believed there must be more something useful, more practical; and I wanted to find it. 

My perception has changed dramatically since then, but I think I understand better now what was happening within me at the time.  The people at that church were doing the best they could do and were sharing all they had with me.  The problem was that none of it seemed very practical at the time.  It might get my ticket punched to board the train headed up rather than the one headed down when I died, but what other use was it?  I needed help now.  I did not need ideas or stories about what God had done for some other guy who had died centuries before the language I spoke had even come into existence!  I needed something with some oomph to it and I needed it as soon as I could get it.  If these guys did not have it, I was willing to seek it among those who claimed they did. 

I also understand now that, as stubborn as I have been my entire life, I began to develop at that stage capacity to admit that I might be wrong about a few things.  How valuable that has been throughout the remaining years of my life. 

The Kung Fu television show did not appear for another several years, but something in the spirit of that show depicts what I had hoped or expected to find at the end of my search.  I did not know what it was.  I did need to believe that there must be something more than was being shown to me. 

Without being able to articulate it so effectively as my buddy Max Reed, I was just beginning to realize that I did not know what I did not know.

"Turn on your radio, baby, listen to my song,"

is a line from a little known song from Harry Nillson's Son Of Schmillsson album.  (He perhaps first came to prominence in America by scoring the soundtrack to Midnight Cowboy.)  I listened to that song dozens of times from my college years on. That is its sole connection to our topic.  The human brain works just like a computer in at least one way: Garbage in, garbage out. 

My father loved radios and always had at least one short wave receiver around the house so he could listen to international broadcasts and eavesdrop on air traffic controller and sea going vessel communications. My grandmother gave me a small transistor radio for Christmas when I was seven years old. It was my first step toward becoming more like my dad and it gave me a tuning dial and volume knob I could control all by myself.

I started out listening to the same station my parents tuned in every time we climbed into the family car.  They played soundtrack songs and artists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet at night and featured hosts like Arthur Godfrey on weekends.  Weekday mornings they broadcast news, weather and traffic updates and listener call-in shows focusing on local events and special interests like cooking, gardening and home decorating. 

My older brother got his own radio that same Christmas.  Our still older cousin was one of my brother's biggest influences during those years, so after just a few months my brother began mimicking our cousin by using his radio to listen to rock-n-roll and blues stations.  My brother was my role model, so I naturally began tuning to the same stations he had "found."  I did not appreciate the blues at the time, but rock-n-roll?  It mesmerized me. 

It all was pretty tame stuff.  The artists included Roy Orbison, Chubby Checker, The Tokens, Ricky Nelson, Leslie Gore, Mary Wells, Dion and the Belmonts, Neil Sedaka, Elvis Presley, Sam Cook, Ray Charles, The Ventures and The Contours.  These were songs about cars, puppy love, dancing, hanging out and other high school aged activities.  Some spoke of holding hands and kissing.  That kissing idea did not appeal to a second or third grade boy, but the music was exciting and the words beckoned me to come and discover the new world they described. 

Music had changed by the time I reached the fifth or sixth grade.  The British Invasion was in full force.  Bob Dylan had appeared on the cover of Time and Newsweek.  The Beatles and The Rolling Stones battled one another for the top spot in the English speaking public consciousness.  The music from my radio became more sophisticated and more interesting as the artists competed for the attention of the radio listening and record buying pubic: The Who, The Zombies, The Doors, everything from the Motown label.  Bubble Gum raised its ugly head, and The Monkeys television played off the box office success of The Beatles' two block buster movies.  The music changed by degrees at ever accelerating rates so we were able to accept it but still not be truly aware of how rapidly it was happening.  All these varied, interesting and alluring sounds beckoned me to turn on my radio and listen to their songs; and I did -- every chance I got. 

The lyrics were becoming more sexually suggestive and anti-authoritarian.  Like the music, the lyrics changed in degrees, acclimating us as we followed it wherever it took us.  None of that really bothered me.  I knew that stuff was out there, somewhere beyond my grasp.  What it did do, without my being aware of the process, was create in me a hunger -- no a craving, for the fruit of those trees without telling me how to obtain it.  Hormones alone would have produced many of these changes in a boy of my age, but the music added an attractive excitement to the entire concept and the lyrics began to produce images in my psyche that were hard wired to the feelings being generated by both the hormones and the music. 

The Woodstock Festival took place about two weeks before my 15th birthday.  Ninth and tenth graders of those years were becoming aware of the military draft and of the fear and hostility many of our immediate predecessors had toward authority figures in general and toward the Vietnam War in particular.  The music became more edgy to maintain the audience's attention and the imagery more dark and extreme. 

I do not offer any of this to demean or to denigrate any of the music or the lyrics of those decades.  I still enjoy a great deal of it and listen to it from time to time.  The point is that all three of those influences; the hormones, the music and the lyrics, were writing lasting impressions on my psyche and I did nothing to filter them or to influence their impact on me.   

It was exciting and stimulating, so I listened.  I did not just play this stuff as background noise.  I listened.  I played these songs over and over and over again.  I listened to the music.  I listened to the lyrics.  (I had a difficult time deciphering many of them on those cheap speakers, but my imagination was more than happy to fill in the blanks my ears created.)  I felt it.  I lived the music and let the music and lyrics take me wherever its creators desired.  Wasn't that why everyone listened to music? 

Again, the point is not that the music was good or bad, helpful or harmful.  Nor the lyrics.  The point is that they necessarily did impact me.  Without asking my attention, giving me any warning from the Surgeon General, or alerting me to the havoc that was to be wreaked on the lives of so many of the individuals who wrote and performed so many of my favorite songs, those songs had a dramatic and lasting impact on my view of the universe and of my place in it.  The thought never occurred to me that the people writing those songs usually were under 25 years old with almost no real wisdom tempering experience.  I was just an impressionable kid, for gosh sakes! 

Hopefully few other people were as naive (or stupid) as I was.  I cannot speak from their experience.  One purpose of this exercise is to learn from my own experience; and mine had taught me to believe in a world where a life of pleasure seeking and contemplative introspection eventually would help me come into contact with some sort of soul mate whose primary source of joy and fulfillment would to give me pleasure by anticipating and meeting my every whimsical desire.  That would free me to ingratiate the world with all my wisdom and clever thoughts and to indulge my senses and imagination with still more music, ideas, adventures and the occasional chemical influence.  Life would be win-win.  I would get the best the world had to offer and would bless the world with my best in return. 

I had no idea I'd become such a narcissistic twit.  I honestly thought I was just like everybody else.  I'd never bothered to sit down and measure out how this Nirvana actually could take place or how it could benefit anyone other than me.  That idea appeared in just enough of the songs I heard to let me believe I actually had made a contribution (I suppose by having agreed with the premise of a song that some form of giving to others was altruistic), but the ideas never resulted in any action that actually might have generated any sort of benefit for any person other than myself. 

I do not blame the songs for where I eventually found myself.  I do not blame my parents, society, my peer groups, or anyone else.  Blame has nothing to do with this exercise or with what really matters in life.  That at least is my present perspective. 

I was what I was.  And I did not know it.  I was not aware of my self-serving state of mind or personality.  Even if I had been aware of it, I had accessed no information or influences that might have suggested that a completely self serving state of mind was not the optimal position in the universe for any sentient creature.  Why should it not be. 

I was what I was because of the decisions I had made and the actions I had decided to take (and not to take) up to that point.  My universe was tiny and contained.  I did not know what I did not know. 

Fortunately for me, I was to begin to encounter things I did not know.  I have learned some of their lessons.  I have not learned others.  An additional four decades of (mostly conscious) experience have opened my awareness to many things I did not know back then.  I am at least partially aware now that any life lived with that sort of limited awareness would have been worse than wasteful for a person like me.  My only hope for any relief lay in the necessity that I acknowledge that my information was incomplete.  There actually were things I did not know and I had no idea how useful and important they were.  I did not know what I did not know. 

I presently am aware of how crucial it is that I continue this process until I draw my last breath.  I still don't know what I don't know.  My sense of personal fulfillment and my value to others can improve only to the extent that I continue to throw off the shackles created within my mind by the various influences and events I have experienced throughout my life. 

I don't know what I don't know, and the possibility that something new might be revealed today creates possibility of continuing purpose in my life. 

The songs were just one of the many influences that created mental and emotional prisons within my head.  There were many others.  I selected this topic only to help demonstrate how the process takes place in our psyches over time, usually while we are not even aware of them. 

What about you?  Are there things, events or experiences that have impacted the way you view the world and your place in it?  There must be, whether you are aware of them or not.  If you cannot name at least three, then perhaps you should set aside a few minutes each day until you can name at least three of them.  After all, you don't know what you don't know. 

Until next time,

"How many of you would seek career counselling from an 18 or 20 year old?"

I was a middle aged man sitting with several hundred other people in a business seminar the first time I heard that question.  My initial reaction probably was not unique within the group.  "That might be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard."  The speaker paused while we swallowed the bait. 

"But that's exactly what most of you here in this room have done."  My immediate response to this was that I'd wasted my time and my money attending this stupid meeting.  The speaker probably noticed a similar look on many other faces throughout the crowd and smiled to herself as she watched the hook set deeply inside each of us. 

"Because that's how old most of you were when you decided what you wanted to do for a living or picked the major focus of your studies in college."  Netted!  "You either got a job or went to college to get the kind of job you wanted, and statistics tell us that most of you are doing pretty much the same sort of job now, no matter how many years have passed since then." 

"Some of you chose well.  Others made decisions you later wished you had not made.  Whichever decision you did make, you made it with all the wisdom, knowledge and experience of an 18 or 20 year old.  The good news today is that you don't have to live with that young person's decision any longer if you don't want to."  Ahhh, catch and release!

Just in case it's not obvious to you, the point of this entry is not that some of us made bad career moves when we were young.  The idea here is to demonstrate one peculiar dynamic of decision making: All decisions are based on incomplete information.  We might make as good a decision as we possibly can make and it might be based on all the information within our reasonable grasp at that time; but the mere passing of time always reveals additional information, some of which might have been helpful if we'd had access to it at the time we made the decision. 

Our ignorance at the time of any decision likely also will limit our capacity to pursue information from outside sources.  If we have no reason to believe or to expect a potential problem exists, what reason would we have to seek a solution to that problem. 

The simple point of this elementary exercise is to attempt to demonstrate the primary function behind this blog:  We don't know what we don't know.  We do have the option of continuing the learning process so that we can know more before the end of the day today than we did when we finally fell asleep yesterday.  We never will know everything, because something new will exist when tomorrow comes that did not exist today. 

This simple yet irrefutable dynamic will continue to impact our lives for so long as we live.  We never will escape it.  The instant after our deaths in this world, a new universe of information will come into being that will evade our consciousness for so long as time exists.

Please do not be discouraged.  That is not the end of this effort.  Only the beginning.  Many of us will not pursue knowledge, information or understanding if we do not perceive that we have a need.  So before beginning this adventure together, perhaps each of us should take a few moments to consider individually how what we did not know has impacted us in the past.  Do not limit yourself to your career.  Ask yourself how this might have affected every area of your life.  How has it influenced your relationships, your religious or political beliefs, the foods you eat, and your recreational activities. 

If your experience is anything like mine, the more you think about it the more obvious this will become to you: You don't know what you don't know!

Relax.  Let us embark on this adventure together, have some fun, and see if we cannot find some benefit from the process. 

Coming Soon

"You don't know what you don't know." I first heard my friend Max Reed utter that expression sometime during 1994 or 1995, and I've been thinking about it ever since. The more I think about it, the more profound that statement seems to be.

Think about it. Please.

Then, after a while, we can all begin to discuss it here, if you wish.