Thoughts on Forgiveness

All of us have some things in our life for which we needed to ask forgiveness. We have hurt our friends, family, co-workers, etc... However, in the same vein we have all been harmed at one time or another and to one degree or another. While the extent of our harm varies we all share in that we are not perfect. We have both harmed, and been harmed. Hence the need for forgiveness.

It occurs to me that forgiveness is not for the person who has done the trespass. Forgiveness is for the person who has been harmed. Follow me for a moment here.

Have you ever been angry with someone for something they did to you? Did they know you were mad at them? If so, did they care? If they cared about your relationship perhaps they did, but what if they didn't. You could be angry and they would never know. You would sit up at night and they would sleep. You could let the harm shape the rest of your life, ruining relationships. You could even hate them. It won't matter. They'll sleep like a baby.

The only exception I see to this is when a person feeling guilt requests forgiveness. In that case however, the person asking for forgiveness often feels as thought they have harmed themselves while harming you. In the end whether you forgive them they must forgive themselves.

Do yourself a favor. Forgive the person who has hurt you the most because they aren't even thinking about you. Forgive yourself too. You deserve it.

Another Pregnant Man

The headline to the story reads "Another Pregnant Man". I remember when the first of these stories came out a while back, and my reaction is the same the second time around. THIS IS NOT A MAN.

For some reason the media promotes this as though it were a man who by some freak of nature was able to conceive a child and carry it to term I don't know somewhere in his urethra. That is obviously not the case here. Just like the first time around we have a woman who has been changed surgically to look like a man. Fine. I don't care what you want to do to your own body. If you want to add a third eyeball because you feel that you were supposed to be born a tri-clops, whatever, that is your business. But please then don't act as though you are doing something special.

You may look like a man, but so what, all your parts are still woman on the inside. I mean for goodness sake the lunch lady at the high school has a moustache and is well on the way to a beard. That doesn't make her a man either. For the record, no man has EVER given birth to a child, and they never will.

To add to the odd factor here, the partner is also a woman. So, we have two women who are both surgically altered to appear like men. They then couple up and date another woman who looks like a man.

For the sake of this child I really pray these parents can provide some sort of positive identity to this life they have created. This baby will have two mothers pretending to be fathers, and no one to actually be a mother or is that father. You see the dilemma.

Where does the meaning reside?

Is meaning in words, or people? This is a discussion my wife and I have repeated time and time again beginning shortly after we began dating. At the time she was in her second year of her undergraduate degree in communications. She was taking a class on interpersonal communications, and loving every minute of it. Today we find ourselves discussing it again as she prepares to begin teaching the very class next Tuesday.

One of the class discussions was whether words have meaning. The class teaches that they do not. According to the text words are simply tools which we use to communicate meaning to another individual using our background, history, education, etc. They will then use their background, history, education and so forth to interpret meaning. You can imagine the game of telephone where the meaning of what we say is open for interpretation.

I respectfully disagree. I believe words do in fact have meaning. We have a book dedicated to just that, a dictionary. It lines out in very unambiguous terms the meaning of each word. Should I choose a word incorrectly, or you interpret the word to mean something it does not. Then there is a failure in knowledge, and the words was used/interpreted incorrectly.

On the other hand we can all think of words that have come to mean other things through out the years; cool, hip, rad, groovy, mouse. I'm sure you can come up with many more. What do you think? Does the meaning reside in the words, or in people.

Same Sex Marriage Fails Again

Same sex marriage still has a zero percent passage rate when put to a vote by the people of ANY state. Zero percent. That isn't very good. Is it?

(photo from AP story)

Change Your Insurance Expectations

Lets think for a moment about insurance. What are things you pay to have insured? You want to make sure you have life insurance to protect against the unlikely event of your death. (assuming you are in good health. If not you couldn't afford the premiums.) You want to insure against the unlikely event that some natural disaster such as tornado or perhaps a fire destroys your home. So you need home owners or renters insurance. You insure your car against the unlikely event that you lose control of your vehicle and create a new drive through window at a local convenience store. Insurance is designed to protect you from liability should some unlikely, but financially devastating circumstance occur in your life.

Have you ever wondered why you don't buy tire insurance. Just pay the premiums and if your tires wear out you can just pay the co-pay. There will of course be a small deductible. You don't because it is not unlikely that your tires will wear out. In fact it is an absolute certainty that sooner or later you will need new tires.

Insurance should be treated the same way. You know with absolute certainty that you and your family are going to need to see the doctor for minor cases of bumps, bruises, coughs and colds. Yet for some reason we want to purchase insurance to cover the costs. It doesn't make financial sense. Let me break it down for you.

Seeing the doctor = x
If you see the doctor and pay the bill yourself :

Your Bill = x.

If you buy insurance to pay for routine office visits you will pay the insurance company via your premiums:

premiums = x+administrative costs+profits.

Face it insurance companies are not in the business of loosing money. They are in the business of making money. If they are going to pay for your routine office visits which you KNOW are going to occur, you will pay more than if you paid them on your own.

The obvious flaw here is that the doctors' offices agree to take a smaller percentage of payment from the insurance companies for a visit and for certain procedures in exchange for guaranteed payment. However, You can do that on your own. Doctors offices are willing to take less if you ask. But you have to ask, then make payment in full. Start a health savings account to pay for routine office visits for you and your family. Then purchase a catastrophic health insurance plan to insure you against the UNLIKELY event that someone in your family be diagnosed with something as costly as cancer.

If you buy your own insurance this will save you money. Do the math. Even if you have a broken arm it is still cheaper to pay for it on your own than pay the huge costs associated with the "pay-for-everything insurance plans".

Uncle Sam Doesn't Trust Me

I am currently fighting to restrain an all too familiar feeling. I have had this feeling while sitting in the DMV office, post office, or pretty much any other pathetically run government agency.

A few weeks back my wife and I applied for our passports. We both went to the post office, the only place to take care of this in our county. We both presented birth certificates along with drivers licenses as proof of identification and citizenship.

Today we checked the mail to discover that while my wife received her passport no problem, I get a letter from the field office in Seattle. It reads, and I quote, "Unfortunately the identification you provided is not sufficient for passport purposes."

WHAT? Actually it must be, otherwise you wouldn't have issued my wife's passport. Or it isn't actually enough, and you issued hers anyway. Either way I have deemed your office inept.

Well, that is what I would like to say to them when I call tomorrow, but I won't. I'll call the office to see exactly what I can do to resolve this matter. I will do so in a polite and courteous manner. I will jump through all their hoops until they have deemed my lack of an Egyptian accent sufficient to be rewarded with a passport.

A Life All In

The first mission trip my wife ever took was to Mexico. Sponsoring that trip were Chris and Jackie Leggett. This was a transformational trip for my wife. Instrumental in that change were Chris and Jackie who truly exemplified living the life of a Christian.

Chris and Jackie were missionaries to Mauritania, Africa. Where they gave micro-business loans to locals to help build their economy, as well as teach the women trades such as sewing.

In addition whenever the opportunity arose they would share their faith in Christ with the people of this Muslim nation. As with most Muslim countries Christian proselytizing is strictly prohibited.

After marrying, my wife introduced me to the work of this couple, and suggested we support them financially whenever we could. A couple years ago they visited us in our home and spoke at our church. I’m sure we never told them, but they were a greater blessing to us in those few days than we were ever to them.

Chis was killed this June while arriving at his office in Mauritania. Apparently he was shot during an attempted kidnapping. Chris leaves behind a wife and 4 kids. Al Qaida has claimed responsibility.

Chris Leggett lived a life All In. He will be missed.

What REALLY happened

For those of you reading our facebook you are likely to think that my wife had to have a leg and half an arm amputated after our recent ATV accident. I'll clear the air. Yes we, or I, rolled it with her on the back. After reading her accounts you are likely to think we (read I) rolled this 4 wheel drive vehicle at a speed of roughly 75 miles per hour, causing us to be flung from the "vehicle of death" headlong until we collided with the ground causing injuries requiring immediate hospitalization.

Perhaps we remember this incident a bit differently as I ended up with no visible injuries, and she ended up with a couple bruises and a scraped arm. Here is how I would describe the incident.

From a complete stop we began to spin around in a donut. As we reached a 180 degree turn the vehicle began to tip. Unable to stop the momentum we fell off the side of the ATV from a height of approx. 3 feet. As we landed the vehicle continued to tumble and for a brief moment trapped my wife's leg under the metal roll bar. Which she easily pulled out from under vehicle. I was easily able to flip the ATV back onto it's wheels and we were motoring on in a matter of moments.

However, not wanting a good crisis to go to waste my wife is getting some really good "guilt mileage" out of the incident. Examples include; waking in the middle of the night, then waking me, pointing at the barely scratched elbow, making a pout face, and saying oh so sweetly, "will YOU get me a drink of water, It hurts too bad to get up."

... and my wife thinks it's funny.

I will keep this post short as it requires very little explanation.

Mother buys underwear in a roll from Wal-mart.
Gets them home unrolls them. Doesn't like them.

My wife takes them... AND IS WEARING THEM!

I am NOT ok with this. Sure my mother never wore them, But she did own them.

Saturday evening my wife and I called some friends following a week long excursion working the county fair. Although we were a bit tired from working late each evening and a tad sluggish from all the corn dogs and funnel cakes, we were excited about spending time with our friends.
Upon calling them we found that they were out in the hills just outside of town shooting. I'll admit I was a bit excited at this point, knowing my friend had recently purchased an AR-15. You can see a picture of one above. For those of you unfamiliar with this weapon, it is the quintessential assault rifle for home defense, or in our case defending the outskirts of our small town from watermelons that had somehow infiltrated our security. Town residents can sleep well at night knowing that there were 4 of us on the case. We were armed to the teeth with a semi-automatic .22 hand gun, .22 rifle, 20 gauge shotgun, .40 caliber handgun and of course the AR-15. The assault rifle made light work of the invaders. This weapon has only a slight recoil, but the compression is amazing. Standing 10 feet away I could feel the air compression from the explosion of the rounds.

It was a fun evening. I had always wanted to shoot one of these guns. Imagine we shot all those rounds and not a single liquor store was held up, and no one was killed. Weird.

Racism.... Yee Haw!

This past weekend my wife and I held another fundraiser to help us gather the 30 thousand dollars we'll need to adopt a pair of kids from Ethiopia. It was a garage sale held at our church. On Friday evening we brought our goodies for the sale. My mother also came along with a number of great garage sale items including a small portion of her magnificent doll collection. (I was a little sad to see her selling these, but I also knew she would rather ad her 7th and 8th grand kids to the foll than continue to look at dolls gathering dust). Then suddenly trailers began arriving from parishioners, loaded down with items to donate to our sale.

I will say I hate garage sales, no really, I hate them. This on the other hand looked more like a swap meet. I believe I counted 6 televisions and 4 stereos. There were 2 dining tables, 1 couch, 3 recliners, 2 complete dish sets, and hoards of other pieces of merchandises strategically marked down to garage sale prices, including a small increase to create the necessary room for bartering.

It was about 4 hours into the sale which opened at 6 am when I met an old codger we'll just call Hank. Hank approached us with a rack of some kind in one hand and a shiny new quarter in the other, Hoping I'm sure to work us off our 50 cent price tag.

Hank was wearing a US Navy Ball cap. I instantly thought I'd like this old guy. Then he asked why we were holding this sale. Promptly my mother holds up the donation can and explains that we are raising money to adopt from Ethiopia.

Immediately I see the old mans nose begin to curl.Perhaps I was wrong about liking this guy. Then from his mouth comes a word that sounded as though it had come from somewhere deep in his bowls. "You mean there gonna be "BLIICCK"." I think he meant black. After wiping the old man's spittle from my eye, I attempted to explain to him the orphan situation in Ethiopia. My attempt was for naught as he immediately interrupted me to launch into his tirade about having worked in law enforcement in the south. Where he had apparently "locked up" many-a-bliicck.

I've come to some of this with our interracial adoption, and the potential response from the ignorant, but experiencing it first hand was new.

All said it was a great yard sale. We raised over $1300. It was definitely more than I had anticipated. Tainted only by one old ignorant hack.

It was a good day.

Ahh... To be a Man

We were rushing out the door this past Sunday as we were meeting the rest of our family 30 miles away to attend the baptism of a long time friend. My wife's father is also in town. He's been here roughly 3 weeks. It has been a blast and I'm sad to say he is leaving next Sunday. But I digress.

We had gotten moving a little later than we should have and Naomi was scrounging around the kitchen for something to eat on the way. Finally we gave up and decided to grab something on the way. We hopped in our pickup and took off down the road. Naomi had jumped int he back seat to give her taller father more room in the front seat. I enjoyed this as I could make eye contact with my good looking wife in the rear view mirror.

We were making eyes at one another as we were driving through town when suddenly her entire demeanor had changed. Something was wrong. Normally it doesn't take long for me to figure out what the problem happens to be, for usually it was something that I or someone else had said. But instead the vehicle was quiet when the change occurred. I was genuinely perplexed, and attempted to make eye contact with my wife, she was having none of it.

As we arrived in the Cody where we were meeting up with my folks for the final 30 mile drive, I finally caught her eye. She was saying something. Mouthing it voicelessly. I was excited that I now had an opportunity to resolve this obvious misunderstanding, but I could not make out what she was trying to say. I asked her to repeat it. She did. I still couldn't understand. I knew this was obviously something she wanted to keep between us, so I smiled as sweetly as I could to her in the mirror and shook my head yes. This obviously didn't alleviate the problem.

A few miles later as we were pulling into the parking lot where we were meeting it suddenly came to me like a pile of bricks falling from a multi-story building. My wife was hungry. I promised her we would stop somewhere in town before we left, but instead I drove right on by each restaurant. Then as we approached the next restaurant she looked at me in the mirror and mouthed the words, "Am I too fat?"

I was replaying it in my mind and yes.... I had shaken my head yes, all the while grinning like a dope.

Not good.

Quick Adoption Update

Today while I was working my wife headed to Billings for an all church garage sale to benefit those adopting from Ethiopia. We had been under the impression that it would take a LONG time to get a placement from the agency we are working with. As it turns out, that has not been the case for a few other families.

Just as soon as they turned in their cash to the agency they were given placements. What does that mean? Well, we may be able to have pictures of our kids soon. Of course we are not exactly swimming in cash, so it may take us a bit longer than some of the other families, but we are still very excited about this news.

I don't normally use this as place to talk about our adoption, but well, I'm excited. So deal with it.

Yellowstone on the Holiday Weekend

This is a small lake just south of Yellowstone lake. Most of Yellowstone lake was frozen over. This lake on the other hand was created when magma and water combined under the surface of the earth... exploded from the steam pressure and is constantly refilled from the underground stream..... or so the info describing the lake claimed.

This is taken right on the edge of Yellowstone lake. One of the few spots of the lake not completely frozen over at this point. I'm not sure what kind of bird/duck this is. It has webbed feet like a duck, but a beak like a bird. Any help here...

See... I told you it was still frozen over. And you didn't believe me.

Elk. Taken near one of the many steam pots.

Obligatory shot of a bison. They are in abundance in Yellowstone. This was about 15 feet from the side of our vehicle.

This picture of a moose was not taken inside Yellowstone but about 30 miles outside the park. About an hours drive from our place.

This is a picture of my wife attacking me completely unprovoked, with a big ball of snow and ice. She would like you to believe I had thrown a snowball at her first. She is not to be believed. She lies... a lot.

My Friend Val a Long Time Coming

A friend of mine Val Geissler called to tell me this week that he couldn't run from a relationship with God any longer. I love this man, but had wondered if I would ever see this day. I could not have more joy than this news gave me.

Val is a charactor and America's Favorite Cowboy Entertainer. Val has since given up the show circuit but still puts on a funny show. If you have a few moments check out this link. It is about 15 minutes, but you won't regret it. It's the cremation of Sam McGee.

Not About Starbucks... just a story.

We pulled up to the drive through and ordered our food. We were on our way home from a great mothers day weekend with my mom. Our stomachs could not endure the wait, so Dairy Queen it was.

I like Dairy Queen. They are all that is good about America, burgers, fries, ice cream; What more could a person want. Sorry, back to the story.

So, we ordered our food. I ordered a burger. My wife orders the chicken strips. As we are unable to decipher the words coming out of the magical box we confirm our order on the screen. Looks great. We pull forward.

In less than a minute we were at the window and quickly paid our tab, receiving our drink. It was a coke. We also received our desert. A medium sized blizzard with Reese's peanut butter cups blended inside. Ah what a great country.

Surely the remaining food will be out in a moment. We wait. I take a drink of soda. We wait. Naomi begins to nibble on our desert. We wait. They must be making fresh fries. I take a bite of ice cream. We wait. We waited about 10 minutes. Suddenly the window flies open and there is our food. Fresh, hot and warm. I'm excited.

Naomi leans across me to see the gal in the window. Shakes her now empty soda so that you can hear the ice shaking liquidless on the inside. "Can I get a refill?"

My Blog Family

Sometimes as I'm reading the collection of blogs that I frequent I can't help but get the feeling that we are all just one big family. No not the kind with crooked DNA, but more of just a regular, run of the mill dysfunctional family. So, in honor of this very random train of thought I have put together who in this hypothetical dysfunctional family you represent to me.

Shirley - Matriarch. Grandmother. Yours is the first blog I can ever remember reading, then afterwards feeling that I must post a response. Yes, I'm blaming you for this addiction. You are the Grandmother of my blogging family. Your words always seem thoughtful and wise. I have never seen a harsh word flow from your fingertips.

Helen - The Aunt who used to be normal, but moved off to Berkley and drank the cool-aid. Whenever she comes over for Sunday dinner you are sure to get a lecture on why the spoon is keeping the black man down. Sure her views seem a little wacky, but she has a great sense of humor and never fails to make me chuckle.

Mookie - Ah Mookie, The middle child. Always attempting to stir up the pot. Loves to get the tempers flaring and then sits back, sips his ginger ale, and marvels at the master piece he has created.

RGuy - Cousin, but much older. Nobody in the family knows how but RGuy is much more refined that the rest of us. He enjoys the finer things of life. For some reason he wears a sports jacket to the family dinner when everyone else is in flip flops and wife beaters. That doesn't mean however that he doesn't have his redneck vice. Pro wrestling.

Scott Erb - Older Brother. Always the most accomplished of the brothers Scott is intrigued by mystery. He investigates even mundane daily activities with the same Joe Friday flare for "just the facts ma'am". He always has the answer and if he doesn't, he'll make it up. Don't worry, he'll use enough "big" words that you'll simply take what he says at face value. After all he's always been smarter than you.

Jesurgislac - Step-parent. Because I will not agree with anything you say even if it sounds like something that would have come out of my own mouth. I wouldn't give you the satisfaction of having agreed with me. Sure, we kids act like we can't stand you, but in the end we are glad to have you around.

Godfather - Brother. Actually we don't hear from you that much anymore accept for a post card now and again from strange places on the planet. After all when you joined the motorcycle gang it just didn't seem right to bring the girl on the back home to meet mom.

American Elephant - Uncle. But more importantly, insurance salesman. You never miss a chance to tell us the value of a whole life insurance policy. I mean after all isn't protecting those you care about the most important thing to us all. And I can hook you up with a great deal.

We all get together for family meals and yes there may be a food fight or two, (likely to have been started by the Godfather), but we are all glad to be there and wouldn't want it any other way.

I'm sure I forgot some of our family. So feel free to add them, make corrections, and if you must include me as well. Thanks for being a good sport. I hope no one is offended, but even if you are... it's okay... we're family.

Firing the Cable Company

As of yesterday afternoon my wife and I no longer subscribe to cable television. When we were first married we went with out cable for the first year. During that time we read, I worked in my wood shop, and we found other things to do as well.

Our cable bill went up to 120 dollars this past month and finally we said enough already. It isn't that TV is the devil or anything, it is just a time killer. Here are the shows I will continue to watch on-line.

House

Hell's Kitchen

Lie to Me

I will miss out on American Idol...but will watch football with my folks when the season picks up again this fall. In the mean time I will save $1440 a year. All while still able to watch my favorite shows with no commercials. Why didn't I do this sooner. That will be an additional $1440 to go towards our adoption.

The line item veto, your best friend when doing the family budget.

Garage Sale Phenomenon

I don't know if it is a chemical found somewhere in the recesses of the female brain, or simply a symptom of cabin fever, but just as quickly as the first few days of spring hit the garage sale signs begin to appear. It's almost as if they spring right up out of the ground as a result of the spring showers.

These garage sales I mention are a great love for my wife. I on the other hand loath them. I shouldn't. My wife is the queen of the garage sale and can sniff out a bargain from many blocks away. She gets that look in her eye and God help me if I'm in the car, for surely I will be her hostage until she has satisfied her addiction to the beast.

It isn't that I don't see the value of the garage sale. I can see their purpose, and the value associated. I just don't care for digging through the debris to find the possible treasure at the bottom.

Adoption Blog

My wife had asked me if I'd want to simply use my existing blog to become our adoption blog. Well the answer is no. I am far to indulgent to give up my home of political and religious rants to give this one up.

So, in light of that fact, Here is the link to our new blog where you can follow our adoption process, and find out a little bit more about us.