Breaker, Breaker

My son Thomas drives a big rig. He trained at school and tested to receive licensure for operating a semi tractor truck and trailer over the roadways of America.

It's not for the faint of heart, nor is it for people who are unable to direct the placement of a 53' box into spaces that require navigation and negotiation around and through narrow streets, blind corners and tight spots which use every bit of his training to achieve safely.

Often, considerable thought is spent about the people who drive the big rigs. When I was a child and into my young teens, our neighbor's sons were all truckers. They'd bring their trucks to the street in front of our house and allowed us to climb inside and examine it in detail. They'd show us about the CB radio, the air horns, the brakes and the sleeper cab so that we could see what a little part of their world was like.

I don't think people realize just how much our lives depend upon people like my son. You cannot name a single business that survives without the use of a big rig truck. It isn't possible.

The seed farmers use is brought to places for sales by a big rig truck. The bread on the store shelves is brought by a truck. The underwear on your butt is brought by a truck. The medicine you take or the essential oils you rub on your head is brought by a truck.

The nation's heartbeat is measured by the trucks going to and fro carrying the lifeblood of commerce.

During the 1970's, there were trucking strikes when convoys of trucks would slow down traffic and simply stop rolling in protest of high gasoline prices and low wages for the long hours they worked keeping everyone clothed and fed.

I wondered at the problem which I couldn't fully comprehend and listened to adults both praise and demonize the action.

Give some thought to those men and women behind the wheel. They are sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers and truckers. They are often away from the people they love the most so that strangers can go to their local store and get what they need and want without a second thought.

Sissies need not apply

I live pretty close to a couple of cemeteries. Often, Jared and I find ourselves strolling through the one closest to us as part of our outdoor adventures simply because there is virtually no traffic unless a funeral is progress in which case we go the other way out of respect for those who are bidding a temporary goodbye to a loved one.

Another reason besides traffic considerations for going through the cemetery is to read the markers. Some are quite brief and others have a great deal of sentiment. A recent addition shows the deceased person's love of the Chicago Bulls basketball team with a marble basketball on the marker. Most impressive.

But the main reason I like to go through there is to keep a connection to those persons who were once living, breathing, vital beings who have now transitioned to the other side.

I do genealogy not just for my family members, although they ARE first, but also for those who are not immediate family. I say that because we are ALL family. God is our Father and no matter our address or station in life, no matter the earthly wrappings of our outward appearance, we are all alike unto God.

We are His children.

This life is kind of the place to examine those relationships both in the family into which you have been born in mortal life and the wider family to which we are all bound by the cords of divine lineage.

The way we treat each other here is NOT an extension of the love we had in our premortal realm. There, we knew who we were and who everyone else is to us. But then, we come here to this earth and a veil of forgetfulness is placed upon us so that this learning experience can be an honest effort without the Cliff Notes of the preexistence.

Life is hard. Sometimes by our own choices and sometimes by the choices of others it is made hard. Sometimes it is just hard because it is. Circumstances of mortal life will not always be easy, pleasant or perfect. The test is to see how we will handle that circumstance regardless of the method of delivery.

Will we be spiritually strong or will we throw away those feelings because they are not politically popular in the corruption of the world under which we dwell?

Frankly, sissies need not apply.

This life is hard. And it is, according to John Wayne, harder if you are stupid. By that he meant that it is made harder by choosing stupid but easy stuff over choosing the difficult but right things to do. There was a line from a Star Trek movie that said "Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing". When we learn that our spiritual progress means putting aside something even though we have the ability to do it because of the harm that may well come from making that choice to go ahead, we are learning to grow beyond being sissies for whom the world must pamper and coddle and cajole into being the steadfast sons and daughters of God that He can use to become coequals in the great process of doing His work according to His plan.

I'm sure that will not be a popular thought process for people who are hoping they can remain gospel weaklings and still be acceptable and accepted by God. The concept that the reward precedes the work has become pretty consuming in our world and it is producing people who are pretty useless.

It isn't that there isn't a spark of the divine within them, but rather that they are not recognizing or applying that divine gift within themselves to become more than infants in their progression. We cannot remain helpless and unfocused in our efforts to grow and mature into the trusted and useful tools in the hands of the Master.

To do so is to be a perpetual sissy ever fearful, never coming to grips with the purpose for which they have been created.

That doesn't sound very palatable to me.

I'd rather come into the kingdom bruised, scarred, and slightly battered knowing I had worked hard and tried to become something useful with all the gifts God has given and stand before him with the opportunity to hear him say "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" than to hear anything else.

I just hope this sissy can overcome self and learn more of Him before it is everlastingly too late.

I WON! I WON! I WON!*

Yep, the title says it all: I WON! I WON! I WON!*

Note the asterisk at the end?

Well, that is because I won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes in the form of a $10 check. It was legit, I deposited it in the bank and smiled as I savored my win.

Why, you may ask?

I figure after all the years of trying that winning ANYTHING is a plus and I didn't have to buy anything to win the ten spot.

Please, no autograph requests after 9 p.m. at night. I need my beauty sleep in order to be at my best for my public appearances all over the county.

I wonder if I should charge a fee for the signing?

Valentine's Day

We are a scant few days away from Valentine's Day 2016.

Those flowers, chocolates, fancy restaurant meals, cards and sentimental moments of marital bliss are all being offered in splendor over the various types of media.

My heart aches for all who do not "feel the love" as others do.

Sometimes the love that is missing is romantic love that takes the breath away and sweeps one off of their feet both metaphorically and literally.

Sometimes what is absent is that feeling of sure belonging in a family where none is present.

Ofttimes, the missing love is simple friendship.

We have immediacy in our ability to communicate, but that doesn't mean we actually have the all important heart to heart connection that breathes life into our being.

We have a multitude of means with which to express our love both quiet and full blown parade of emotional outpouring.

But still there are multiplied millions sitting on the sidelines of the "love-in" that the advertisers of the world would have us to believe is a shared emotion.

Not everything in the heart of a neighbor is joyful. Not everything in our own is either.

Valentine's Day needs to become a day to see to the needs of those who are not in the mainstream of the parade of candy and love in.

Shared service can show people on the fringe that there is more to the fabric of love than the spectacle of romance for the sake of show.

Though there are many traditions old and new that surround the "day of love", the most lasting show of love is the kindness that makes a place for one and all at the table for the Supper of the  Lord.

Sometimes, it seems like the invitation to that seating has been lost in the mail.

I know that there are many others who have felt that disconnect from the joy of love.

Divorce, death, separation of time and distance, and the loss of what once was are all ways that the love once held dear shatters into irreparable shards of broken hearts, the symbol of the Valentine expression.

Take some time to ponder over who is lonely, who might feel lost, who is feeling an empty space in their heart at a time where others are showered over with a multitude of gifts.