Patience

I often wonder why lessons from God have to be repeated time after time. Usually this reflection comes in a moment of self pity, when the old "woe is me I thought we were passed this" kicks into high gear. In the midst of one such moment I suddenly realized that these are not lessons to be learned like endless repetition of the times tables in grade school, but skills to be used every moment of every day. The moments of testing are instead an opportunity for me to use the skills, skills which prepare me for more difficult days which lay ahead, the running with horses God promised Jeremiah, rather than mere speed bumps which lay between me and a life of spiritual ease. The latter is an illusion, a lie from the pit of hell itself, which tempts me to question God's wisdom, rather than applauding His grace. Patience is a virtue, a wise man once said. Perhaps. Yet I find that the more I ask God for patience, the more I realize that it is He who must exercise this most illusive virtue with me. Why are we so slow to learn, and so quick to forget?

Failure is an option

I've failed as a blogger. I don't know how else to assess my performance. My blog entries come so rarely, and even then I don't have much to say. I mean, come one, who really cares about my experiences with rental car agencies or my trip to the Super Bowl? So this is probably my last blog entry. Why keep trying? I am a failure of a blogger. The shame of it all is almost more than I can bear, or not. After all, I'm a writer, not a blogger. I never kept a journal, either, and that fact didn't keep me from getting published.

Rental car insanity

Friday night I booked a trip to Oklahoma. (My mom had surgery and I wanted to help her for a few days. ) To my shock, I found a cheap flight for the very next day. I do not understand airline logic, but for some reason, I saved four hundred dollars by booking a flight twelve hours in advance as opposed to booking it three days or a week in advance. Go figure. I also booked a rental car through one of the major rental car agencies. Apparently I hit the wrong button while making my rental car reservation because when I walked up to the rental car counter they had no record of my reservation, and neither did my computer. No harm no foul, I thought. Since I made the reservation the night before, I figured this major company had lots and lots of cars just waiting for me to rent. The rental car company had other ideas. "We're all out of cars," I was told, "except for minivans." I knew minivans were much more expensive than the compact car I'd reserved the night before, so I told the guy thanks, but no thanks. With five other rental car counters in the baggage claim area of the airport, I thought I could get a car from someone else. How wrong I was. Over the course of the next hour, I went from one counter to the next, and each one told me the same thing: We have no cars available to rent. Some big horse show was in town, which made all the cars disappear. After going back to the original rental car counter and asking the guy how much for one of his minvans (sixty-five dollars a day, way too much for me), I sulked over to a chair next to an abandoned baggage carousel and fumed over finding myself stuck in a hick airport. Then it hit me. I popped open my trusty Macbook, logged onto my Yahoo account, and clicked the "travel" tab. I then proceeded to reserve a rental car from one of the companies who had just informed me that the horses in town for a show had taken all of their cars away. Five minutes later I was behind the wheel of my midsize car (a free upgrade from the compact I reserved) on my way to my mother's house. The company that had no cars when I asked a human being if I could rent one, suddenly had anything and everything I wanted. What the human being could not produce, my trusty laptop did. The moral of the story, as far as I can tell, is this: The government must run rental car companies. I don't know how else to explain such a screwy, messed up, illogical way of doing business.

32 years and counting

I've always thought of myself as the creative type, the ready to try new things type, the never one to get stuck in the mud type. Now I have to rethink everything. On the day of the writing of this blog entry I am doing my best to concentrate on work, but all I can really think about is how excited I am about watching the Yankees play game one of the World Series tonight. And how did I get myself ready for the exciting Series action that promises to unfold on my television screen? By watching a replay of Game 6 of the 1977 Series last night on ESPN Classic, of course. I can still remember watching that game the first time, 32 years ago. My dog sat right next to me through every pitch. He barked whenever Reggie hit a home run, which, of course, Reggie did three times in that game. My current dog sat next to me during last night's rebroadcast. He didn't so much bark for Reggie as snore. My old dog cared more about baseball than the new one.

Once the rebroadcast of the game was over, I decided to listen to a little music. I pulled out my iPod and scrolled through the album covers, and, just like back in '77, one name dominated my music collection. That name hasn't changed since I picked up a copy of "Running on Empty" and found myself hooked. All my old lps and 8 tracks are long gone, replaced by cds and digital downloads, but the collection looks very much like it did back then.

So now I sit here in the quiet of my office, pondering the fact that I have not evolved very much as a human being. I've changed, of course, and matured, thank goodness. But my essential likes and dislikes are very much like they were thirty years ago when I drove around the streets of Moore, Oklahoma, the top down on my 1966 Mustang convertible, Jackson Browne blaring from my car stereo, a Yankee ball cap on my head. Now if I could just find a way to replace my beat up old Mercury Mystique with another Mustang, the circle would be complete.

One of everything, please, and how dare you charge me for it!

While reading an article about the "tea party" movement, I came across the story of one of the protesters. She is upset, angry, on the verge of outrage. Her problem? The alleged socialist agenda of the current president, along with his desire to increase government control over everything. (She did not comment on how the previous resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue increased the size and scope of the federal government on a scale that makes FDR look like Ronald Reagan, even though the last president came from the supposed party of small government.) No, the object of her outrage is the current president along with his proposed changes on health care, energy, and everything else we Americans hold near and dear. "The government needs to back off and let capitalism work," she said. An interesting comment, since the thing that pushed over the edge into outrage was not healthcare, but the lack of help from the "someone" with her mortgage that she can no longer afford.

I think this is the reason why reasonable political discussion is nearly impossible. We live in a nation that wants the government to leave them alone, and to take care of our every problem. Yes, health care needs to be reformed, so the government should fix it by leaving it alone. We're sick of paying high property taxes, but we want world class schools. For that matter, we're sick of paying every kind of tax, and heads are going to roll down at city hall if someone doesn't get out here soon and fix that pot hole in the street in front of my house.

I thought of ending this post, my first since finishing my latest book, with a little sermonette of how we must live consistent lives, but I decided against it. Inconsistency in thought is the hall mark of the current age. We've grown so accustomed to holding onto mutually exclusive thoughts and beliefs as if they compliment, not contradict one another, that we cannot imagine life without them. In the words of the Brain, we want a world that is both flat and puffy. Now we have it. God help us.

Why posts are so few and far between

I am six weeks away from a book deadline, the memoirs of a past World Series of Poker champion, and poker is only one very small part of his story. My daughters enjoy this time in my life which they affectionately refer to as "deadline dad." Deadline dad alternates between zany and cranky. Deadline dad also has very little time to do much writing beyond the book whose timeline is rapidly counting down. That's why there hasn't been a blog post in a while, and probably won't be another until sometime after September 1. In the meantime, shameless plug ahead, read "How Can A Good God Let Bad Things Happen."

The price of fame

Another celebrity couple broke up this week, which shocked absolutely no one. Celebrity couples break up at an alarming rate, and they have since the day Cleopatra dumped Julius Caesar for Mark Anthony. Cleo and Jules didn't have a house full of children, which makes the latest case of celebrity divorce more tragic than the one immortalized by Hollywood a generation ago. Ironically, the latest and greatest couple to call it quits actually achieved fame because of their family life. Neither can act or sing or possesses any of the requisite skills earlier generations demanded before bestowing stardom. These people became famous by being themselves as the television cameras rolled, or more to the point, by being a couple joined together in the trials and travails of surviving parenthood. Now they've split up for the sake of the children. As a child of divorce I can honestly say that most children would prefer their parents learn to get along for their sake. Instead the celebs say they are going to go their separate ways, which, of course, is a nonsensical statement when you share eight children. Whether they like it or not, those eight little faces will keep the warring parents' lives intertwined for the rest of their lives.

As the news of this latest celebrity divorce takes its turn as the lead story in all the news outlets this morning, I can't help but wonder why the couple allows the television cameras to continue to invade their lives. They announced their split on their television show last night, with new episodes planned for the remainder of the summer season. "The show must go on," they said, as if the show really had to go on. At the risk of stating the obvious, couldn't they have pulled the plug a long time ago right around the moment they noticed their relationship had started to go south? What makes fame so alluring, so addictive, that they would rather cancel their marriage than their television contract? One of the two stated that their marriage would have ended whether they were on television or not. Perhaps. Yet I can't help but wonder why, if one's marriage is that shaky, you would willingly add the weight of celebrity on top of an already poor foundation. For that matter, I have trouble understanding why anyone would want the headaches and hassles of fame. I know a few famous people. They all say the same thing: being famous is a royal pain in the backside. It always has been, and always will be. Yet people will pay any price, make any sacrifice, to place themselves in the middle of the public eye. We want to be known. We want people to care about the most insignificant details of our lives. I don't understand why. Throwing away ten years of marriage and forcing eight children to become statistics seems an awfully high price to pay for celebrity. But then again, their show's ratings have never been higher. The custody fight episodes should prove to be quite the encore.