Creative Fortune Cookies

Don’t you just love the pseudo-prophets who write your future in the fold of a Chinese fortune cookie?!? I mean, how do they know so much about me? How can they offer so many people the hope and revelation they have sought for all their lives, or at least since the wonton soup?!? Amazing!

If, like me, you’ve eaten in Chinese restaurants w-a-y too often, you’ve read every fortune cookie imaginable. And that gets you mad! “Can’t they come up with anything just a little more original?” I’ve always wanted to create a few fortunes myself. Like—

The eggroll you just ate was poison.

The person across the table is recording your conversation.

Oh, and he has a gun aimed at you under the table.

You will be married this time next week.

Your baby’s gender will be male; species yet unknown.

Wherever you go, that’s where you are; unless you’re not here.

Eat more horse.

Depression is good for high blood pressure.

Never fear the unknown. Discover it.

God is not out to get you. I am.

Does your wife know you’re here?

Whatever your “fortune” holds remember that you are the one ultimately responsible for what comes about in your life. Well, unless you put yourself in God’s hands; and that can be a risky business in itself. Maybe the government, or the church will…, nah, never mind.

Fortune cookies are fun; some more than others. No one wants to entrust their future to some dumb artificially flavored, colored thingy with a piece of paper cooked inside. But life is about trusting— in your own abilities, and in others. Learn to do it. Risky— yes. Worth it— also yes.

Maybe you can write a couple zingers along the way that will make the Fortune Cookie Hall of Fame.

For what it’s worth,

Gary

I am waiting

I Am Waiting

BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

I am waiting for my case to come up

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier

and I am waiting

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find

the right channel

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did

to Tom Sawyer

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “I Am Waiting” from A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation, www.wwnorton.com/nd/welcome.htm.

Source: These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1993)

New maps-Old roads

New Maps-Old Roads

My last few months as a senior in college I worked as the Athletic Director for the local YMCA. Since it was a somewhat smaller Y, I was responsible for just about everything. But it did have one perk I had not quite counted upon—the summer tour! So, the summer between college days and my first year of grad school found me working as a swimming coach for the YMCA on tour throughout North America. Our team hit national and local parks and swimming clubs across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. We competed with local outcroppings of the Y and anybody else who wanted to swim against us. One of the places we toured was Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now, growing up as an inner city kid in Baltimore, MD, I could never have imagined a place so majestic, so alive, so grand. Jackson Hole got to me. I fell in love with the town, the people, and, of course, Grand Teton National Park. I vowed that I would return yearly!

For the most part I was able to do so, until the onslaught of kids eight years into our marriage. But in our early marriage Starr (my dangerous wife) and I made the 2,400 mile trek from the East Coast to the Tetons an annual pilgrimage. For a couple of years we tried to see if we could find my our way to Wyoming without ever opening a road map. I was guided by my heart, by my passion for the West, by my memory, and by a small piece of paper with route numbers. Yup, you got it, never missed a turn; well, okay, maybe a few where we had to back track.

Until, one day, the Wyoming Department of Roads put in a NEW road, then redirected and renamed the old ones. I was forced into unfamiliar territory. You guessed it; we got totally lost. Old roads now had new route numbers; and there were now new roads where before there had been only buffalo and antelope. Now I’m not one of these guys who is afraid to ask directions. By humorist Dave Barry’s standards I may not be a “real guy,” but at least I don’t stay lost long, either. I ask for help. Saves time and frustration.

You need to do the same. When you’re lost…, ask directions.

The point of this chapter is this— unless you are consciously living your life continually immersed within contemporary culture, you need help finding your way. It is harder to find your way when new roads overrun the old ones. Simply put, you need a new map. Your cultural map is out of date; you think the old route, but find new signs that make you go “HUH?” You’re on the wrong road, even though you want it to be the right one. What happened, you think? You’ve been buffaloed (sorry, old Wyoming joke).

Like it? You can find the rest at Amazon. Available in Kindle and Paperback.

Mystery & Mysticism

Dr, Gary, Davis, Needinc, Clueless, Christianity, Christian, science, mystery, Awe We’re missing something in Western culture. We’ve lost a sense of awe of amazement, of wonderand reverence. We’ve settled for scientific discovery as a finding in the natural world, be they earth-bound or galactic. Though the scientists, biologists, geneticists, astronomers and medical researchers who uncovered them are far more thrilled than the rest of us, in general, outside the scientific community; we have come to accept discovery as commonplace— as if we have been doing this since the inception of the universe. Not so.

Though the Ancients may have been visited by extra-terrestrial beings to start them along their path of technology, in more recent days, say the past 2,500 years, we have come to rely on innovation and invention. A rudimentary scientific method was initiated by Parmenides in the 5^th century BCE. The “scientific method” as we know it, was formulated almost entirely by Galileo Galilei in the 16^th century; his question-hypothesis-speculation provided us with an even more precise approach through which to screen and test our findings.

Still, there is something missing. It is that sense of mystery when we gaze into the heavens. With the naked eye we cannot even see their end: with a telescope, a little deeper; with the Hubble Telescope, deeper; a radio-telegraph, even deeper. Wouldn’t you think that measuring something 45,000,000,000,000 light years away might provoke a sense of awe onto the gazer? How far away is that, actually? Well, try this— http://scaleofuniverse.com/

If we could use the world’s largest electron microscope, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, we would see the order and accident of the universe at a minutia level, far below the atomic level. Coupling the breadth of the universe with the order and accident at the 0.0000000001 yoctometric level (quantum foam & string theory stuff), it should be observably obvious that the universe, this earth, and our own bodies are very intricate entities.

But with these incredible measuring devices where is the mystery? Where is the awe and amazement? As science uncovers more of the complexity of our world, be it across the universe or within the electron of an atom, it seems, to this writer, that there is little probability of it all staying in balance through mere coincidence and chance. The survival of the fittest hypothesis seems just too simplistic.

Is it possible that the mystery and awe have been there all along? Just not discoverable with our measuring tools. Rather, it is within the human spirit, of which we all partake; but also for whom this universe was created. It has been said that God creates: we measure. Maybe our past mystical experiences were not merely flights of fancy after all; but rather explanations of what we had actually seen, yet not measured. Mysticism unmeasured.

If it turns out that We are what all of this is about, then there will truly be a time of celebration and rejoicing…, not to mention our great humility and contrition.

For what it’s worth,

Gary

We’re not in Kansas anymore

We’ve decided to share some of my book with you. So on Thursdays, for the next few months, you get a taste of what I’ve written. Feel free to tell me what you think. Or click the link at the bottom and get the whole thing for yourself, and your Christian friends, who really need to hear this.

We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Now think back with me for a bit. In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, two shifts took place; one revolutionized the film industry forever. The first shift stunned audiences as a modest black-and-white Dorothy (Judy Garland) was transformed into a living color Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz. There, she met the scarecrow, the tin-man and the lion, also in living color. The second shift slipped into the movie with a bit more subtlety. Dorothy’s first words, as she scanned the horizon of this strange new land called Oz were “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto!” Truer words could not have been spoken. North American audiences were wowed at the vibrancy of color movies for the first time. And Dorothy’s scripted words heralded an era that would become prophecy fulfilled some 30 years later.

Look around you today and you find a world substantially different than the one you grew up in. Whether you grew up in the 60s, 70s or the 90s, or 00s the world has taken a turn around a corner that cannot be retraced. The last century saw two of the worst wars imaginable, a flu epidemic that annihilated 30,000,000 of the world’s population in 1918-1919, the nationalizing and unification of Europe, the rise and fall of Soviet Communism, the isolation of the great sleeping giant, China (and then its reintegration into the world economy at the turn of the last century), the proliferation of the automobile, and the introduction of mobile phones to the world’s teenagers. Politically, nationalism gaveway to global commerce and communication. In the field of art, reticent Impressionists succumbed to thedada influences. The century endedwith streaming video and a questionable reality— what IS real, in a new art form, FX movies like The Matrix. And we drove to see it in vehicles that the earlier 1900s could never have imagined.

Time did not stand still. To the contrary, technology accelerated it. From its humble beginnings in the mid 1940s government enclaves, to its wide spread popularization as Macs/Apples, and PCs in the early 80s, to its utility transformation, later woven into “the World Wide Web,” the personal computer overran not only the western world, but ALL of the world. Just as the automobile changed the way we worked and lived in the first decadesof the 1900s, so computerized communications have affected everything from national defense systems to personal privacy, to interpersonal (read cyber) relationships.

It’s a different world out there. The way people think, talk, travel, communicate, eat, and live have all changed over the past 50 years, and especially within the last 20 years. Some things have definitely gotten better; nonetheless, something has been lost—a way of living, a paradigm of living has been lost. Therefore…, this book. The title, Clueless Christianity, came to clarity as I reflected on our continuing (if not complete) inability to integrate our beliefs, faith practices, and Christian into the ever expanding pluralistic, and often antagonistic, culture around us.

Like it? You can find the rest at Amazon. Available in Kindle and Paperback.

insanity

It’s often said that the definition of insanity is “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Although attributed to Albert Einstein (1879-1955), the definition is so widely used that even the great genius himself may have usurped it elsewhere.

Nonetheless, we all do it. We all continue in the same procedures, the same management practices, the same life-style choices, the same patterns of daily life, and wonder why things always seem the same; monotonous, flat, zestless, perfunctory. Ergo, insanity. And I am just as guilty as anyone else.

So, how do we confront this irksome, repetitive monotony? Surely there are training courses and books and articles in abundance that can help us change our ways. But is it simpler than behavioral re-patterning? Is it more basic, something intrinsically connected to the human condition? This writer believes it to be so.

Our desire for sameness is a reflection of our need for safety, stability, security. Change, though also needed and usually necessary, threatens our inherent security levels and launches us into uncertainty, hinting of future instability and a relinquishing of our personal and/or corporate safety.

Change, whether it be continuous change (improvements on past ideas or inventions, like automobiles), or discontinuous change (major paradigm shifts, like smart-phones), is a natural challenge to our way of life. We need to adapt to the “new,” which implies letting go of the old. The earth is no longer flat; nor is the British Empire an empire; nor is the atom the smallest particle. Shifts in discovery and invention challenge the way we perceive our world: they change our patterns of life on an individual and global scale.

When change is disruptive of our way of life, be it for better or worse, but especially for the worst, we must adapt and challenge what comes our way. The formations of nation-states across early China and medieval Europe were bloody affairs, uprooting peoples and destroying cities and lands. The same can be said for the formation of the United States. On a personal scale the arrival of a new baby is disruptive of a way of life; so also does moving your family to a new location bring uncertainty into the formerly predictable way of living. Insanity.

This ever-changing, uncertain world makes it all the more imperative that each of us formulate a set of core beliefs and principles that are both true to reality and aligned with truth. To not have these core values in your life is to foster further instability and insecurity.

It has taken me years to construct my core values; and they still require tweaking every year of so. What about you? Are you aware of your core values? At rock bottom, what holds you together?

For what it’s worth,

Gary

extent of our ignornace

An early 2014 research study brought to light an intriguing commentary on life in these United States—

· 33% of High School graduates never read another book in their lives.

· 42% of College grads never read another book.

· 80% of US families did not buy or read a book in 2013.

· 57% of books are not read to completion.

· 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore or searched for a book online in the last 5 years.

· 70% of all books published never earn a profit (mine being some of them).

Based on these observations we might conclude that people in North America are becoming increasingly uninformed about the world around us; be that fictional, scientific, historical, or present day. On an educational level, Finland ranks #1. The United States ranks #22. Maybe it’s all that ice, sub-zero weather and tundra.

Our ignorance is simply revealed in these questions—

· Where were Shakespeare’s plays performed? (The Globe Theatre.)

· Who is the President of Canada? (Trick question. Canada doesn’t have a president. Look it up.)

· What is the latest theory about the creation of the Universe? (It created itself.)

· When was Muammar Gaddafi President of Liberia? (He wasn’t; he was dictator of Libya.)

· Who are your State Senators?

· What was the tipping point of the Second World War? (D-Day, the capture of the German Enigma machine, the Battle of the Bulge. Your decision.)

We are a nation where very few people are motivated to learn, to stay abreast of world events, or who have forgotten our own history. Thus Deconstructionism. If we do not READ we will simply go with the predominate opinions/positions handed to us by our TV/Internet news media. And HISTORY? Who has time for it!?! I mean, whatever could History teach us?

Our ignorance is not yet complete. But it is NEVER too late to challenge what’s trending.

For what it’s worth,

Gary

Transparent Truth

In our present era there seem to be all kinds of truths; convenient truth, relative truth, truth, Truth, your truth, my truth…, & the list goes on. What’s true for you may not be true for me. In the realms of personal preference, in fashion, and politics, this is all well and good. But…

What about the issue of Ultimate Truth? The conclusion of many people is that there is no such thing. Truth is determined between the interplay of truth, the experience of the moment, and the individual; thus, relegating Truth, true-Truth, any truth, to the realm of relativity.

This leaves us on quite unstable ground; for there is no common understanding about what we are talking about, no shared definition of what we mean by what is true. So, what is true? Who’s to say? Truth becomes whatever is convenient for us at the moment. Liberators or invading forces? Comforter or manipulator? Scientific breakthrough or stating the obvious? A matter of perspective.

Truth, for the most part, should be obvious— staring us in the face. Maybe not so much at a cellular or galactic level; we might need some help delving into those mysteries. But TRUTH should be part of the basic human condition, existing within us, observable around us.

Truth should be, and is, transparent to the keen eye.

So how/when did we start redefining truth in our own terms? Why did we feel the need to do so? Is it simply a matter of divergent philosophies, divergent religions? Or merely personal preferences; Truth that suits my agenda, my priorities. Then is it Truth at all? Truth, just for you?

I would challenge you to examine the way you determine what is true. What is true scientifically? What is true about the origin of the universe? [The newest theory is that the universe “created” itself.] What is true about yourself? What describes you to others? What is true about God? Is there one? Can we adequately describe everything without him? Hummm.

Oddly, some of these questions will take in depth study and personal reflection; a few deep conversations over a dram of Single Malt might also help elucidate things.

Truth can arise to become more and more transparent as we seek it. It is not as clear-cut anymore to simply grasp it where it is. Over time, Truth’s transparency will become more obvious.

What do you think?

For what it’s worth,

Gary

St. Patrick, the man, not the myth

Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius, Irish: Naomh Pádraig) was a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family.

“He entered the church, as his father and grandfather had before him, becoming a deacon and a bishop. He later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any [particular] church. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick; but the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and other early missionaries had tried to establish. Uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he lived from 378 to 493, dying on March 17^th, and ministered in modern day northern Ireland from 433 onwards.” (Wikipedia)

Patrick understood people; he understood Ireland. Instead of confronting the native Druid religion, Patrick incorporated their worship of the sun into the Christian faith as worship of the Son. He used their bonfire celebrations as part of the Easter celebrations. He used the ancient Druid symbol of Spring, the Shamrock, to explain the three Persons of the Trinity— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He endeavored to build a community of believers, a parish structure, rather than the pyramid hierarchical structure he had experienced in Rome.

Patrick knew the importance of blending the worship of Jesus Christ with the warp ‘n woof of daily life. He understood people have roots in their culture and communities…, and needed roots that would reach far deeper to the God who made them. So he brought Christ to them in a language and culture that they already knew.

So, when, and if, you reach out to God, try to do so in a way that is fitting with your culture, your language, in your community. You’ll be amazed at how well Jesus understands you already. You’ll still be Irish, or Ghanian, or Jewish…, but different.

Er-in go bragh (look it up.)

Gary

Why my heart aches

There have been too many times in life where my heart has been crushed by the suffering of others. Their experiences and anguish were hard to hear. I can’t imagine how they lived through those times. Some had gathered the fortitude and faith to persevere; others, not so much.

What the human spirit, heart, and body can endure always amazes me. I remember a woman, a teacher, once came to me with grey hair. The day before her hair had been auburn. The beating she had endured the previous night had been so terrifying that it turned her hair grey in a matter of minutes. Her husband is now in jail. How did she endure such terror?

Another person I know has almost lost her mind and any will to live because of a brutal rape. Another woman came to me after her 6^th abortion. Sixth! She wasn’t sure who she was anymore; she wasn’t sure she could ever have children.

Other friends have lived through “less” traumatic experiences— the suicide of a husband, the loss of a job, living on the grace of others after months of unemployment, the loss of their child. My heart aches for these people.

Over the years, I have been able to move from sympathetic to empathetic, allowing me some distance to garner wisdom and perspective on their horror. It is hard to help another when we are in the thick of it with them. When there, we can offer comfort; but little else. We have not the strength.

On a grander scale, my heart aches for this world— the natural catastrophes, the fires, floods, and earthquakes; but also the human devastations— genocides, regional wars, terrorists attacks, the manipulation of the balance of trade, the prices of oil and grains, and forced poverty and human sex trafficking. The injustices I read online every hour. All of this weighs on me heavily.

How should I, should we, respond to this mess?

My first thought is to become a part of the solution. To make a difference! To be one-of-many who count the cost and throw themselves into the fracas. Who, instead of protecting our own interests, look to the needs and well-being of those truly in need.

Sure, my heart still aches. But at least I am doing something. How about you?

‘Nough said,

Gary

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We’ve decided to share some of my book with you. So on Thursdays, for the next few months, you get a taste of what I’ve written. Feel free to tell me what you think. Or click the link at the bottom and get the whole thing for yourself, and your Christian friends, who really need to hear this.

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