I Did It For You Dad

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A young boy overhears his dad complaining to his mother about struggling to find time to wash his new truck that sits covered in filth in the driveway.  The following day, as the dad is mowing the lawn, the 7 year-old son who adores his father, decides to help out.  He drags out the water hose, soap, rags, and brushes, and begins washing his dad’s prized possession.  He begins with the tires, using a stiff brush just like his dad has taught him.  The only problem is that it’s a wire brush that had been used to scrape rust away from an old metal bench.  But the wire brush did such a good job removing the dirt from the tires that the boy decides to use it to clean the rest of the truck.

Of course the paint job is ruined.

The son’s actions were born from the purest of motives; love and devotion to his father.  “Daddy, I was just trying to help.”

But the the results of those actions were horrible.

How does the father react?  Pleased with the heart of his son.  Not so pleased with the result of his actions. The aftermath of good intentions.

“Son, you shouldn’t have done that!”

It’s easy to see what we should or shouldn’t have done……….after the fallout is done.

nut job

I drove past this truck this morning, parked in front of the Carter County Detention Center, where Rowan County clerk Kim Davis is currently jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples (I have a little trouble finding any value to the presence of this strangely decorated truck).  News crews have poured into our town from all parts, as have protesters/supporters.

As I turned into our high school last night for a football game, Kim Davis supporters were standing in the middle of the highway at the school entrance, as well as aggressively approaching the entering traffic, trying to force everyone to take a flyer.  Inappropriate.  Downright threatening behavior.  So much so, that I replied to my son Kal’s question of “what the heck are those people doing dad?” with a simple, “They’re nuts son.”

Various reports are circulating of protesters informing random people that they’re bound for Hell.

Sincere Christians have gathered over concerns of religious liberty and unfair persecution to pray.

But my hometown is a circus, with rallies scheduled for Monday and Tuesday (with a visit from Mike Huckabee).

It’s a hot topic of conversation, obviously.  Everyone has an opinion that they’re quick to share.  As I usually do, I’ve watched from a distance, digesting information, reading comments on Facebook from all sides of the issue.  Plenty of people seem to have very strong opinions in support of Kim, against Kim, against gay marriage, supporting gay marriage, against the Supreme Court, for God, against God.  And most people think they’re right I guess.

So much so, that I’ve decided that I could carefully lay out everything I believe about God, the Supreme Court, gay marriage, the importance of doing a job that we’re paid to do, grace, truth, obedience, division……..and I would be at odds with family members, church members, gay friends, and basically people on every side of every issue involved in this mess.

I think it’s always good to form opinions about PEOPLE based on their heart, dedication, and the motives (just like the boy who ruined his dad’s paint job) that drive the actions.  But when the dust settles, judgement can be made about the value of those actions based on the results.

I don’t know the heart of Kim Davis.  But I do know she is willing to go to jail for something she believes in.  And I don’t know if she actually has any vision of a specific intended result.  Is her opponent the Supreme Court and its decision?  Is it her hope to lead others to Christ?  I don’t know.

There could be a bigger picture here that I’m not seeing, but the developing little pictures aren’t looking so good.  I do know that God is in control and He certainly can’t be please with the actions and words and hearts of all involved in this battle.

Matthew 28 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Making disciples comes first.  This is not achieved by standing on a street corner and obeying the imaginary command, “Therefore, go stand on a street corner and yell at the people that you have determined are bound for hell.”

Sadly, this type of action gives someone who isn’t a Christ follower a pretty decent path to never become one.  “If that’s what being a Christian looks like, then I don’t wanna be one.”  Christians don’t have to be agreeable to things that go against God’s word.  But we don’t have to be obnoxious either.  It shouldn’t be that hard to avoid being the very reason that someone chooses to find the message of Christ unbelievable.  People don’t need help finding excuses to make excuses.

Results won’t always match intentions, even when intentions are pure.  Side effects of actions can’t always be seen in advance.  Division among Christians is certainly not healthy and that’s a disturbing development that I’m seeing and hearing (I’m sure that some folks won’t hesitate to tell me that I’m wrong……..but by doing so you are trapped into making me right).

Do right and be light.  Don’t force feed the concept of being right. Know that your own “rightness” doesn’t change hearts but your righteousness just might.  Righteousness should look a lot more like being Christ-like than a lot of the things I’m hearing and seeing.

Silent and prayerful observation would seem to have more value than misguided outbursts.

A young college student I spoke with at Friday’s football game may have summed it up best:

“I don’t stand with Kim Davis.  I don’t stand with the Supreme Court.  I stand for Christ.”

Sounds pretty good to me.

Now let’s get this circus cleared out before the Westboro kooks decide to show up.

The UPS Truck Ran Over the Cat. Where’s My Gun?

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gun control

Some years ago, my daughter had a Calico cat that I despised.  And I had a gun that I’d never fired.  But no, it’s not what you think.

I can’t recall the exact sequence of events on that fateful day, only that a UPS van that turned around in our rural driveway, plowed over poor Daisy.  But Daisy didn’t die.  She was left in a sad distorted mess and destined to die.  It became my job to put her out of her misery.

That brings us to my brief history of gun ownership.  Events in my life had led me to purchase a small caliber pistol for potential protection against the presence of some evil folks who lurked on the outskirts of my work life.  But I had never fired it.

My experience with guns (here in the heart of hunting and gun-loving friends) consisted of one bold shot into a pond with a .22 rifle as bored teen that sent a large frog a long distance through the air……..in a lot of pieces.

So I find and load my pistol, and drag poor Daisy to a secluded spot behind our house to bring her life to a merciful end.  The only problem was, that even though she couldn’t move, it still took me three shots to get a direct hit.

twit of the year

Apparently I turned my head, closed my eyes and flinched each time I shot.  But I finally finished the deed.  I’m pretty sure my kids still think of this story every time they see a UPS truck.

But why do people buy guns?  Why do people vehemently defend their right to own guns?  And why do politicians bring up gun control laws every time a news story of gun violence reaches national airwaves?

I couldn’t begin to get inside the mind of an avid gun owner.   But I think the main reason that people purchase their first gun later in life is simply to protect themselves against the presence of evil people in their world.  A couple of horrific news stories motivated my wife to arm herself………not against guns, but against godless evil people.

Make no mistake, it is of greatest importance to be more heavily armed that whatever potential evil we may face.  If somebody wants to assault me with bare hands, then I want a baseball bat (since I’ve never been in a fist fight in 47 years, I don’t imagine I could win one now).  If someone comes at me with a knife, I’ll be needing a gun.  If danger shows up with a gun, I’ll most likely need a bigger gun.

I won’t argue just how big of a gun is big enough.  And I won’t argue the finer points of intrusions and registrations that gun control regulations present.

But I will toss this out there:

There needs to be a shift away from freaking out about what people possess (guns), and serious consideration of changing the way people think (heart)

The problem with so many problems is that government wants to step in and overstep in cases where inaction is perfectly fine.  But politicians want to grab every horrible headline and say, “Yes, I am going to fix that for everybody.”

Hillary Clinton certainly wasn’t going to miss her chance after two TV journalists were fatally shot on the air last week.

“We have got to do something about gun violence in America. I will take it on. There are many people who face it and know it but then turn away because it’s hard,” Clinton said. “It’s a very political, difficult issue in America. But I believe we are smart enough, we are compassionate enough, to figure out how to balance the legitimate Second Amendment rights with preventive measures and control measures so that whatever motivated this murderer who eventually took his own life, we will not see more deaths, needless, senseless deaths.”

Gun control would have prevented this double murder?  Probably not.  You simply can’t ignore the condition of a man’s heart in all these discussions.

She claims that it’s a political problem (and of course, she will fix it).  But it’s not a problem of laws, regulation, and ownership.  Gun violence is a problem of moral decay.

Laws can be made to bring and maintain order in society.  But government cannot enter homes and legislate the presence of moral values and respect for life.

Instead, government officials constantly claim to fix problems that they can’t fix, but all they achieve is poisoning impressionable minds with false hope of easier and better lives by someone else’s provision.  The result is that misguided souls experience the disappearance of personal responsibility.  Dependent people become hopeless people.  Hopeless people become angry people.

Just as you can’t fight a war on poverty by passing out checks & removing incentives to work, you can’t fight a war against hatred and violence by ignoring moral issues, placing blame on objects, and cultivating false hope with empty promises.

We don’t have a gun problem.  We have a people problem….a hope problem.  Ever increasing government intrusion and chatter breeds hopelessness and helplessness.

God and self, in that order.

Big government……silence is golden.  You can’t really fix a lot of things.  People can fix things.  But the more you intrude and the more you talk, you continue to demonstrate a fine ability to make matters worse.

Missing What Matters While We Do What Seems Urgent

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“Oh, take your time, don’t live too fast
Troubles will come and they will pass”  -Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Simple Man”

There’s no time like the present to be fully present in the lives of those we love.

I saw a post on Facebook recently, an article link about “what men really think about.”  After reading it, I realized that most of the normal “man thoughts” didn’t really describe me.  My mind was consumed by one thing, logistics.  I think my wife could possibly have an overload of logistical thoughts as well.

There is a silent danger in busy lifestyles to have our present thoughts consumed by thoughts of “what’s next”.  Who needs to be where at what time?  How will I get everything done?  How will I deal with ____ problem tomorrow?  How will I fix problems at work?  How will I carve out future time with my family?  How will we pay for college (for 4)?  In what areas do my kids need guidance or redirection?

You get the picture.  The mind is distracted from the present.  Compound this with the tendency to have over-filled schedules, running quickly from place to place, event to event, and you eventually risk living a life that lacks depth.  Healthy interactions are replaced by an urgency to maintain schedules and show up on time.

Eventually, we miss too much of the present because we are distracted by an unhealthy urgency to maintain what’s next.

I’m not suggesting that we live safe, idle lives out of fear of overload.  We should always be willing to consider doing more than we consider ourselves capable of doing, for the purpose of developing faith in God, and a reliance on His strength and not our own.

But just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should do it.  Recognize when life becomes too much and too fast.  Our level of distraction when interacting with loved ones is a good measure of this.

My son Kal has a great love for his three dogs.  Of our four children, he is the first to actually follow through on the promise of, “if I can have a puppy, I will take care of it.”

When I got out of bed for church on Sunday morning, Kal was nowhere to be found in the house.  He was already outside playing with his dogs.  By the time he came in and got dressed for church and got his breakfast, we were nearing the point of running late for church.  Being  late isn’t a big deal to me, but since I had a class to teach, I at least wanted to not be late late.

His mother and sister had already left, but I realized his big brother was still in bed.  But just as I started to go roust big brother from his slumber, Kal launched excitedly into a tale of something his puppy Zelda had done earlier in the morning.  I wasn’t the least bit interested in hearing this story.  And we really needed to get moving to get to church on time.

But there was a gentle nudge inside me as I looked down and saw the excitement on his face as he talked…….just as I was ready to tell him to tell me later because “we gotta go”.

This is Important to him.  Today and forever…….to have his dad’s full attention and to place value on his words.

“Look him in the eyes and listen to every word he says, like it is the most important thing you will hear all day”.  

This is the thought that crashed into my brain.  So I listened.  And I’m sure that those two minutes that I almost lost because I was RUSHING to be somewhere on time, represented the most valuable two minutes of my whole day.

Simply being present in the present.  Getting something right that I’ve gotten wrong hundreds of times before.

If it’s important enough for  our kids to talk to us about (or ask questions about), then it’s important enough for parents to give full attention to and provide answers.

Distracted parenting means we aren’t watching or listening like we should.  Value the words of your children.  Be attentive enough to see opportunities for praise and encouragement (and correction if necessary).

When parents stop listening, kids stop talking.  When kids stop talking, parents lose a big part of their ability to have a continued positive impact in the lives of their growing children.

Plan ahead but don’t let your thoughts stay in the future.  Live a full life, but don’t let your schedules dictate your life.  And perhaps most importantly, it may be time to make changes in your life when your level of distraction and overload causes you to miss the little moments in the days of your children…………that become collectively huge moments when you miss them.

Doritos and Smoke On the Water

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I write this for everyone who has ever owned a guitar but never learned to play, for we are the ones that ensure the presence of cheap guitars on EBay.

A trip down memory lane of the songs we never learned how to play.

My son Kal got a guitar this week.  An EBay find, $45 for a Fender Squier Mini.

He has no previous guitar experience.  I only hope he surpasses his dad on his musical journey.

Approximately one minute into his journey, I was flooded with memories of my own failed guitar life in the late 80’s.

He plugged into a mini-Peavey amp, turned everything on and got ready to play his first lick.

“Wait Kal, let me find you a pick”  But I couldn’t find a pick.

Rewind to 1988.  A townhouse apartment at the University of Kentucky that I shared with my brother Scott and two friends.  I had a Martin Stinger electric guitar that always stayed propped up somewhere in plain sight.  But I couldn’t play.  Still can’t. But every rock and roller wants to pick up an ax and at least play a recognizable portion of a few key masterpieces.  Iron Man, Stairway To Heaven, Smoke On the Water.

Most guys that came into our apartment picked up that guitar and banged around on it.  Few had any actual skill.  But I could never keep up with a pick.  My friend Cass delivered the same answer time and time again when I told him there was no pick:

“You got a Dorito?

Last night, Kal looked puzzled when I told him I would get him a Dorito to play with.  I ended up cutting up a gift card in the shape of a pick so he could get started on Smoke On the Water.

In those college days, there were no YouTube videos to watch, Guitar tab websites, or guitar tab books to learn songs from. But we didn’t really care about learning songs.  We just wanted to play cool parts.  I tried to figure things out by ear, and my ear was horrible.  My brother had taken piano lessons as a young boy so he had some understanding of music and chords.  He tried to show me some things, but I was too impatient to learn.  I just wanted to shred, and I was too impatient to learn how to shred.

He is now a skilled guitarist, as is my dad.  My dad, brother, and sister once picked and sang together in church.  Afterwards, people who didn’t really mean to be insulting, asked me, “Can’t you do anything?”  And the only answer I could give was, “No, no I can’t.”

But I wasn’t without my moments in my final year of college.  My friend Marty moved in with a Yamaha 12-string guitar, and he actually knew how to correctly play major riffs from awesome songs.  Dust In the Wind, Sweet Home Alabama, Crazy Train, Don’t Fear the Reaper, and Stairway To Heaven.  Of course he freely shared this knowledge with me, and I was well on my way to a few more years of not being able to play.

Upon returning home from college and getting married,  guitar mags were now widespread, as were tab books, so I acquired a sizable pile.  Developed an interest in thrash metal.  And Justice For All, Hangar 18, Symphony of Destruction. But I just really couldn’t play.  Still I clung to this vision of possibly buying a really expensive guitar and hooking it up to the right amp………and the awesome sound would take my playing to another level.

Thankfully I never make that silly purchase.  Soon after, I became a father and unofficially declared my guitar career over.

I still pick up random guitars and play the opening licks from Enter Sandman.  I still laugh when people who know my dad and brother ask me  “don’t you play?”.

And I could only laugh when Kal asked me how he was going to learn how to play.

“YouTube videos son.  I sure can’t teach you anything.”

And a last-minute confession that might get me kicked out of the Metal Militia:  Marty showed me how to play Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” on his 12-string.  And I thought it was cool.

War of Northern Aggression Lives On

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For some people, it has nothing to do with slavery, racism, and maybe even little to do with history or heritage.  An old flag is simply a symbol of modern rebellion.

On a family vacation to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, I lost count of how many Confederate flags I saw flying proudly from the backs of pickup trucks.  Some were riding up and down the beach.  Some on the roadways.  I noticed other motorists and beachgoers giving these flag wavers an enthusiastic thumbs up or a toot of the horn.

I noticed that all of the flag-waving vehicles were from North Carolina or Virginia.  Always in pickup trucks.  Always a Chevy, Ford, or Dodge.  Most had fishing rod holders mounted to the front or rear bumper.

Real Southern Americans.

Fed up with being bullied by the loud minority of our country.  The anti-southern movement.  A ridiculous awakening that insists  we heap shame on their ancestors and blame them for current problems.

Current political climate thrives on separating voters by the perception of “haves” vs. “have-nots”.  But generations of people actually believing it’s up to the government to lift them up and hold them up has led to explosive growth in a frightening new segment of the population……the “will-nots”.

These are the blamers and excuse-makers.  They look in every direction except the mirror for answers on how to lift themselves up.  The path of least resistance is to drag someone else down.  And they’re running out of excuses and people to blame.  So they have begun digging hard into the past.  Somehow past injustice has suddenly become very relevant to current situations.

But it’s only a smokescreen.  Just another avoidance of personal responsibility that is so dangerously vanishing in our “I deserve” society.

There really is no end to this whole wave of stupidity.  The Confederate flags may come down from government buildings, but it doesn’t stop there.  A wholesome show like Dukes of Hazzard is taken off the air.   A Nathan Bedford Forrest statue is being taken down in Memphis.  NAACP is pushing to have Confederate leaders sandblasted off the face of Stone Mountain in Georgia.

The sentiment is twisting quickly toward the divisive point that all who fought for the Confederacy were horrible men.  Their ancestors, and all white southerners in general, owe the rest of the country an apology.  Meanwhile, Union soldiers were all choirboys simply because history says they fought for a noble cause.

But the simple truth is that Confederate soldiers did not fight to preserve slavery and Union soldiers did not fight to end it. The reasons wars are fought and the reasons that soldiers choose to fight cannot be blindly joined together.

My guess is that many of those today who have found a moral high ground of acting as if they would have undoubtedly defected from the south to fight for the cause of the Union army……..are the same ones who support baby-killing under the cloud of women’s rights.

Push someone down to make yourself look taller.

I think the southern man doesn’t feel like being pushed down.  They owe no apology.

Symbols take on whatever meaning man gives them.  The Confederate flag is being pounded like never before as a symbol of racism.  But this past week, I saw it as a symbol of rebellion.  A rebellion against stupidity and bullying.  A time to be louder than the loud minority that is re-shaping the way our country views work and morality.

Get off our backs.

Stop blaming us.

Don’t lift yourself up by trying to push us down.

As I stood on the beach each day fishing with my sons, I silently cheered for each Rebel flag that passed.  My youngest son waved, gave them thumbs up, or threw them horns.  I eventually followed suit.

People who have lived in harmony with African Americans for their entire lives are suddenly painted in a corner.  They now have a real reason to rebel, not against black America, but against senseless bullying, northern ignorance, and shameless political maneuvering.

Maybe the true rebel spirit dictates that a lot of folks would voluntarily put their Confederate flags away as soon as it became their idea to do so.  If you shame someone with unsound or twisted information or make demands from a shaky stance of moral high ground……..you’re just fueling the desire for defiance.

Not heritage, not hate.  Defiance.  Rebellion.

If it’s truly hurtful today, maybe the right person has to speak about it in the right way to achieve the right results.  That hasn’t happened yet.  The loud logic still deepens the divide and digs the feet of southerners deeper into the sand.

Just Buy the Paint

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Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Arguments rage over gay marriage and Confederate flags. Christians swing their bibles at non-Christians with an obsession with identifying what sin is. Two thoughts crept into my small brain. 1) The mirror is powerful. Perhaps Satan distracts us with talk of sin while we fail miserably in the area of obedience. Matthew 28:19 “Go and make disciples of all nations” When we look in the mirror, how devoted are we to becoming better disciples? 2) People whose hearts are geared for obedience to God and mission work seem to steer clear of most of the petty bickering that myself and others are constantly drawn into.
My wife, daughters, and oldest son are away in the Dominican Republic on a mission trip this week. One day, their group worked along side a mission organization painting the very modest homes of people that struggled to find their next meal or clean water. My wife posted pictures on Facebook. One picture caught my eye and brought a tear to my eye…..my youngest daughter standing beside a young girl with hand-painted flowers on the side of their home. I noticed the flowers in other pictures on other homes. I’m guessing my girls had something to do with at least some of those personal loving touches.
Just a sobering reminder to their cynical father. Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Love. Serve. Trust God. Become the best disciple you can be. Those are the kinds of changes that Christians really need to concern themselves with making. Just a little more paint, I guess.

Karrick Dyer's avatarJust A Dad

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“Raising Strong Daughters”,

That was going to be the name of this post.
But the thoughts and reflections have spun out of control.
What started out as four or five little points grows daily (over ten now).
I guess it’s not a coincidence that my oldest daughter turns 18 and leaves for college tomorrow.
It wouldn’t be correct to say that my life is flashing before my eyes.
But I do find myself drifting back to the day she was born (and all points in between). That wild combination of joy and fear. The realization that I was now responsible for the direction of the life of another person. A new awareness of dependence on God.
Eighteen years later……..I wouldn’t enter her in a dishwasher loading contest.
And she struggles with the concept of turning out lights in unoccupied rooms.
But for all those times I uttered that prayer,
“Lord…

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You Can Keep Your Political Correctness & I’ll Keep Raising Racist Kids

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Kal the rebel

I knew I was in trouble when I bought Kal his rebel flag Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt.  Big sister, a high school junior, just looked at me with a puzzled expression, “Dad, is that the only kind they had?”

I had carefully selected this shirt, trying to pick something appropriate for a 9 year-old.  “No Maddie, they had others, but most of them were black with whiskey bottles or skull & crossbones.”  But I knew what she was getting at.  Apparently political correctness had already dug deep into our youth at our local high schools.  She had been infiltrated with the belief that the Confederate flag was a symbol of evil, hatred, racism, or whatever label folks have wanted to apply to it in recent years in an attempt to revise history.

It seems like a lot of things these days boil down to folks pretending to do something good when they’re really not……when they really can’t.  And all they really do is make things worse.  Stir the pot.  Worry about a squeaky door on a house that’s burning down.

In the name of political correctness, we have plenty of helpful souls spreading the word, telling everybody else what they SHOULD be offended by.  I don’t imagine the American Indians were up in arms 25 years ago about the name of an NFL franchise mascot.  It’s a darn good thing some people came along to let them know how offensive it is.  Now they can be properly “up in arms” about such an injustice that will surely wreck their lives.

We have become the most easily offended nation in the world.  We create problems where there are none.  Mountains out of molehills.  We deflect blame in the most ridiculous ways.

Those who loudly champion political correctness are the same ones who have systematically driven out society’s  moral codes and cast blame in moronic directions when the inevitable decay appears.

Racism is certainly alive today.  But it lives in a much different form than it did 40 years ago.  Different even than it was 20 years ago.  Systematic racism is dying.  True racism today lingers on today in the hearts and lives of those who simply make a choice to hate their fellow man.  Whites who hate blacks.  Blacks who hate whites.  Whites who hate Asians.  To listen to liberal news and a misguided president, one could easily be fooled into believing that whites are the only racists in the United States.

Obama has set racial harmony back 25 years with constant claims of systematic shortcomings and speaking only of white racism.

He has a gift for magnifying the ways that groups are different but insisting that the groups agree (with him of course).  His message continues to be, “the system (white men) is holding you back, and the government is gonna pick you up.”   Blame the cops.  Blame the whites.  Blame the system.  Do anything besides challenge people to take responsibility for the course of their own future.

It may be that we just have evolved into having too darn many people thinking about changing the past.  Let’s keep white America feeling eternally guilty for events they had nothing to do with 150 years ago.  Let’s shamefully convince large groups of people that everything that happens is somebody else’s fault.  Let’s create a nation of victims.  Debt and debtors. Dividing lines created.  Wallowing in the past instead of grasping the future.  Symbolic worthless apologies.  Lives cursed by dead-end excuses shamefully planted in their path.

The meaning of the rebel flag truly has evolved.  Maybe it really does need to go away.  Unfortunately, what may have once been a symbol of southern heritage and pride has been twisted into a symbol of evil.  Perception has been methodically changed.  That’s how political correctness works.  Strange things get demonized (I found out it’s not ok to continue to call a man by his birth name if he becomes a woman at some point in life).

Certain few receive the right to change the rules and sway public perception as the game goes on (liberal media and Hollywood).  Strangely enough, those who stick to the same set of standards (some call them morals) are portrayed as fools.

Shame on me……if I continue to cling to my right to flaunt it when I find it is truly hurtful to someone. (as long as they decided on their own it was hurtful).

Shame on you……if you choose to live your life as victim, easily offended by everything that somebody tells you to be offended by.

And the ultimate shame on you…….if you go around telling others what they should be offended by.

Bottom line is that I think it’s a complete nonsensical dang shame that it’s just a matter of weeks before my son could be assumed to be a racist if he wears his Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt.  How did that happen?  And are the people that are causing that shift really making anything better?

No, they are just shifting.  Blaming.  Sending thoughts and energy in the wrong direction.  Removing flags are empty gestures.  It doesn’t change the past.  Doesn’t take away slavery……rebel flags don’t glorify slavery as this movement would have us believe.

Most importantly, none of this nonsense really changes people.

Love or hate?

God or no God?

Personally responsible or blaming /dependency?

The answers to these simple questions will determine the course of our country’s future.

We’ll most likely continue to wear rebel flag Skynyrd shirts in my house.  I’ll probably buy a few more while I still can.  And we’ll also keep loving people.  I think that’s better than apologizing for stuff we didn’t do.

And Kal doesn’t know what racism is.  He only knows that we all are precious in God’s sight.  So shame on anyone who dares to shame him for wearing his favorite shirt!!

Wait Until Your Father Gets Home

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stuck truck

My foot shot out from under me at the speed of sound.  My tailbone found the slushy cold pavement with a thud.  There’s a good possibility that some salty language escaped my lips as I fell.

When I spoke to my wife before leaving work that day she suggested that maybe I shouldn’t buy a whole truckload of groceries, since I may not be able to navigate my truck up our slick, steep hill in the snow (it had been scraped when the photo was taken).  “Oh, I can get up the hill.”

So, with massive quantities of groceries on board, I failed miserably at conquering our hill.  After much tire burning, ditch cleaning, and backward sliding, I gave up.  I walked to the top of the driveway to get a shovel, just so I could dig out enough to get my truck out of the middle of the driveway.  As I walked back toward my truck, my frustration was compounded by the fact that none of my family (most notably my teen daughter and son) had appeared to help me tote groceries into the house.

And then I fell……into a dose of perspective.  As I finished my Yosemite Sam grumbling and returned to my feet, I heard footsteps coming behind me.  My faithful 9 year-old son Kal approached cheerfully, “Need some help?”  Of course I did.  He was wearing basketball shoes and no socks in the deep snow.  I told him over and over how much I appreciated his help as we made multiple trips up the hill carrying groceries (I may or may not have pointed out those who didn’t show up to help).

When we finished putting groceries away, I noticed a very important detail.  An open curtain that normally stays closed.

The reason he was the only one to offer help was that he was the only one in my family that was anxiously waiting and watching for my arrival.

Standing at the door.  Looking out of the window.  Waiting for dad to get home.

Kal is almost 10 now.  That will probably be the last time he ever stands at the window waiting for me to get home.  I think it’s one of the most important things for a father of young children to understand; it IS a big deal when you come home.  And it’s a big deal when you leave.

It’s likely that your kids are the only people on earth that will ever eagerly watch for your arrival.  They are the only ones that will beg to go with you when you leave.  Cherish these moments while they last and make the most of them.

Show excitement for coming home.  Show excitement for BEING home.  When they say, “Daddy, can I go?”, find a way to make the answer “yes”.   They won’t always want to be with you.  They won’t always want to talk to you.

Someone will guide them.  Something will influence them.  Let it be you.  Consistently.

Don’t worry yourself with trying to impress people that don’t matter.  Guide and influence the lives that do matter.  Be the best dad you can be….today and every day.

And if “daddy’s home” is still a big deal to somebody in your home……then it better be a big deal to daddy.