The Race In Malibu & In Our Nation

Ecclesiastes 9:11 "I returned, and I saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,...nor favor to the men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's another rant by yours truly!! Race day is in two days, and I'm nervous. Yes, I'm nervous. I'm nervous because I get nervous at times when it comes to running races. Anything can go wrong before you race and certainly when you're actually racing, and in some instances, after you've finished. For those of you that don't know, I sustained a low back disc injury in the aftermath of last year's run of the Malibu Half marathon. I was told by my neurosurgeon I was likely not going to walk normal again. He said that I was likely never going to run again if I didn't get surgery to remove a large chunk of the disc that broke off from my lowest lumbar disc and lodged itself in the outlet for one of the more important nerves used in walking and running. He even told me that I was going to have to come to grips with this new life status and find other things that could keep me healthy and consider transitioning into a different profession if it didn't get any better.

Well, I did not believe be him. I could not in good conscious just surrender to one man's opinion of me or even a panel of people (as having assembled in my past) to tell me what I could or would not be able to do with my life. This is why I became a doctor. So I too could have an opinion, and I'm just not the kind of man to accept a handicap carte blanche. With some doubt and an iron will, I worked on the very real problem facing me. Step by step, I worked on walking. Eventually, this led to some mild running. Nothing more than a few yards at a time, and eventually those yards grew to block lengths. Then a few blocks, and eventually a mile. I thought I was going to stop and be satisfied that I had proved that surgeon wrong, and maybe I should've been satisfied with what I was able to do. All I really wanted to do was run the Zuma beach stretch without stopping that I couldn't actually do for a number of months essentially losing a bet with myself that led to a different one; I would sign up for the very race nearly ended my running career if I could make it to 10 miles without too much trouble or keep growing my beard till I ran the race or however much of it I might complete. Like I mentioned after having run a number of full marathons in my life that anything could happen, but I bought the entry just in case because I am the kind of man that will show up come hell or high water and see what happens.

 I did this knowing that I would likely be running alone, but that's life. Sometimes the road you have to travel on is narrow and has to be run alone, and only you see that it's the way out of personal defeat. Only you understand that it is necessarily the way back up on to your 'feet' so you can start shaking the dust off of you.  As of today, I still have a largely white beard on my face, which means I did not make it up to a 10 mile training run.  Hopefully, Sunday is the day I get to shave it off! Who knows?! Right? I'm kind of enjoying people opening doors for me cause they think I'm super old or something! Hahahaha. With no real expectation, I hope to see some of you along the raceway.

There is another race being run this upcoming week leading up to this coming Tuesday. Namely, it is the mid-term election races. It's the race that will continue to help us as a nation define what kind of America we are or want to be. As I listen to the news coverage, and the number of issues facing our nation, I was reminded of a few speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr.  "Progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it is gained by the hard work of a dedicated few." MLK. I used to think that the dedicated few is the conservative Christian groups, which I'm happy to say I was apart of for a number of years into my early adulthood. I did this till it became more obvious that like everywhere else in society there is a class system in place. Incidentally, the people that were in leadership happened to be fair skinned, generally heard from the Almighty more directly than anyone else about everyone else but themselves. Yes, there need to be people in the pew as well as someone in the pulpit, and like our democratic system, it is the people in the pew that decide who it is that will fill the pulpit because they want that magical 10% of everything the Almighty has given you.

The message may come from the Almighty, but you better believe that the person preaching it is responsible to all the people that are wanting to listen to the message and not just the version of the message that the messenger wants us to hear! We've learned through history that some messengers want to keep people oppressed, divided, and it can be that the messenger is out of touch with the message itself or in denial of it because they also have to abide by what the message dictates, and it, the message, has to align itself with what the book says and the spirit of what the Almighty is trying to achieve. And whenever we think of God or the Almighty, we have envision a being that is working to bring the disconnected aspects of our reality together into a harmonious whole. Anything different than that should be subject to question and recall.

This is also true of the President, the constitution, and we the people. It's time to go back to the book and the constitution and bring it back to what the founding fathers intended for us as people to live by. I'm going to vote for the first time in California, and I hope all of you, where ever it is, take the time to exercise your American right to vote! God Bless America!! There it is.

Life Lessons While On A Run! Updated 8/17/18

Holly Molly! It's another Manic Monday, and after a couple of successful runs, I thought it was a good time to catch up with you all and bring you up to speed on how things are going. Yes. It's true that I was going to put out a blog post around my birthday a few months ago, but for any number of reasons, it didn't happen. It was turning into a story rather than a short blab. I wasn't sure it was conveying the right message because sometimes your current place in life can affect your perception of reality, and, so as to avoid an odd writing piece, I waited. One day I'll finish putting it together and you'll be able to read the whole thing with some detail. Today, however, please allow me to entertain you with a short catch up on where I'm at in my California Dreaming life. Without any further ado, let's see what you think! Hahahaha.

It was early November of 2017, and I was running the Malibu Half Marathon. I had trained for it...mostly. It was a race that I thought was an appropriate return to running. It was in the town that works in and knew as most of my California experience through my transition back from Minnesota. For those of you that know me, my return to Minnesota in 2013 was prolonged to clean up any lingering cancer-related health issues. It shortly thereafter turned into a job for an old graduate school friend of mine. When I finally had what I needed to leave Minnesota for California, I began working in Malibu in 2015 within six months of my return. It was the first race after my LA Marathon run that earned me my worst marathon time ever! It was a bittersweet memory of a race and my life at the time. So, I figured it was a good time to start running races again. I ran it. I apparently missed a friend of mine in both directions (It won't happen the second race.), which still doesn't make sense to me, but you can easily miss people when you're running and trying to stay on track!

Somewhere in the aftermath and may be due to some work activities, I managed to sheer a large chunk of my lowest lumbar disc off that free-floated and eventually got lodged in the nerve outlet tunnel. This essentially cut off the nerve supply to my left foot dorsiflexor. Yes. This can actually happen to you, and it happened to me! I didn't know this was the case because I didn't really have any pain with the event--discs do not have pain sensory. Well, not the kind you might expect. I had the normal kind of low back tightness one gets from running a race and doing a lot of work-out related stuff but not low back pain at all.

A few days later, I woke up and tripped over because I wasn't able to move my left foot! Again, I didn't have any real pain, so I wasn't sure what was happening. It didn't take long before my doctor mode kicked in. Within a couple of days, I had an MRI that informed me of this giant piece of sequestered disc. As one should, I saw one of the local neurosurgeons that more or less said I had a super big piece of disc blocking the nerve, or one of them leading to the diagnosis I already came to foot drop. It was 'severe foot drop' that normally leads to surgery within a couple of days if you have severe pain. Fortunately, I didn't have pain or any of the emergency items that would've convinced me I needed the surgery.

When you're a chiropractor and you're not in pain, it gives you a few moments to think about what is happening and why. I had to decide to go along with my own knowledge on the matter and postpone the surgery...that, and I had sky-high blood pressure readings that more or less would've prevented me from getting surgery till it came down. It was the alternative route that happened. This involved a super rigorous chiropractic treatment series that included nerve retraining or at least stimulation, muscle rehab and wasting prevention, disc decompression therapy, and an iron-clad will to stick with the plan. It was risky because I could've lost more of my ability to walk if the chunk of disc moved further down. I may have lost my ability to control my urination or even worse, my ability to just do normal sex-related stuff. If either started to present signs, I was going to pay that 40K and get that disc fragment removed cause it can be a permanent problem in either of those scenarios. Fortunately, none of the later was happening, and I worked my way through rehab. Slowly. Painfully at times. But, I stuck to the plan till it started to work again-motor control of my left foot. (NOTE: I would say to you not to use my story as a reason to avoid surgery if you really need it due to a disc matter, but explore all your options before getting cut open. I'm an actual doctor will all of the tools and knowledge needed to do rehab.) It important to have a plan and stick to it even when there are few signs of success when it comes to your health.

All that said, I had a supportive dating partner and close friends that were keeping me encouraged. I'm sad to say, I was not likely the best company most of the time, but they stuck it out with me when they could. It's good to be surrounded by people when you're down with a real-life problem, and the quality of their character is in those testy moments, made obvious. Thank you to all those people and LEC.

Here we are today... nine months later. It was just yesterday that I ran the better part of three miles. It wasn't a big distance, but considering I could only walk 15-20 feet nine months ago, it was an accomplishment. It was an emotional experience, to say the least considering I wasn't supposed to run again. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that I ran marathons, half marathons, and the local 5-10 miler without really thinking about it. For sure I'd train for them. Maybe not to the actual recommended number of miles every race so one can have a great race, but I trained for them by and large. Most of the training I did in my earlier years was with the friends I had made while sweating it out in the high humidity while learning how to run. This is different than just running around for your health. Ya know. The regular 3-5 miles people do a couple of times a week so they feel good about eating or drinking the extra calories at the Fair or something. Running marathons takes time, energy, and a high level of determination and dedication.

The group of people I ran with were from all walks of life and lived in different parts of the city. There were a few bankers, a couple of baristas, nurses, college students, etc. etc,. At the time, I was the property manager and just starting graduate work leading into chiropractic school. We came from all different walks of life and lived in different places, but we had one common activity and goal: we enjoyed running and we trained to run a marathon (26.2 miles).

We met once a week for a running club meeting and ran whatever the distance of the day was after some person talked about shoes, methods, or whatever the topic was that one night a week, but we ran. Most of us ran a second day with the team for long mile runs. It was the same. We met. We'd talk about whatever as we ran, and we logged in the miles. We got to know every person's story, our familiarity with each other grew, and we eventually became our own support network. It was the running that brought us together, and it was the camaraderie that helped keep most us focused and accountable to the other for showing up. This is where I learned that having a group of people around you with the same goal or goals is important because they can keep you on task especially if you start missing runs.

Missing scheduled runs, especially longer runs (14 miles plus), could ruin your chance of running a good race or even completing it. Missing miles from your training schedule for sure can increase your chance of injury before the race and definitely during a race, which might ultimately end up in no race medal--this is bad. As most of you runners know, most of the fee you pay to run these things is for the medal and the bib number! If you don't finish the race, you do get to claim the medal. You do, on the other hand, have a bib that tells you that something went wrong. Anything could get in the way of you showing up for a run. Your dog. Your friends wanting to go out the night before. You not watching your diet or health, and every now and then, the occasional significant other complaints that you're spending too much time on the road running than with them!

When you run a race, you're forced to make some decisions about how you will manage your time so you can actually run. You will decide who you really need to be spending time with; you begin to understand your body's needs to perform, recover, and get back on the road the next day. Running a race is really making a commitment to yourself and others in your life because training for a race is a way of life. It's a different approach to life than likely most of your friends will be able to appreciate. They may not like you for it. Others will be jealous of your discipline, and most people will not understand why you can't just eat whenever and go out however late you want. Racing will change the people you keep in your life and how you will live it. So it's important to find people or keep people in your world that will be supportive of you during in the challenge of the days leading up to your race. There is the very real matter of dealing with yourself in all of this running and changing your social network. Lesson 2: Date a person or have friends that run or are at least supportive of you racing. Hahahaha.

The biggest roadblock and race killer I've come up against is myself. The person that you have to look at in the mirror the night before is the same person you have to look at the next morning. He or she will tell you very different things from one end of the day to the next. The same person that tells you, "You got this. You totally have all your gear in place, and you're getting enough sleep tonight so you can be ready tomorrow," is also the same person that will challenge you. "Are you sure that mild leg pain is not going to get worse?" "Are you sure you have enough time to do this with all those work projects?" You will ask yourself the most insignificant things that will seem like big obstacles at the time because there is a guilt that comes with running miles and races that have their root in self-worth. "Am I being too selfish with my time, my energy, and not taking into consideration what others in my world are having to deal with in order for me to have this one extra experience? Did I train enough?" There is a mental struggle that ensues on whether or not you should run the race at all or finish the race and get that medal. Do you deserve to put yourself above the needs and wants of other people, your job, or even the significant other you care about? The answer is yes!

"Why?" You might ask. You forget that you've dedicated all that time to run all those miles. You forget about all the sacrifices that not only you had to make but also those sacrifices that the people that care about you succeeding had to make. You forget that there were days that you didn't want to get out of bed because you had pain, or you were tired from the work week, or your significant other felt you left them for a group of strangers, but they believed in you so that you could show up and run by pushing you out of bed.  The mental discipline of running and living your life is likely the hardest part of running races, but there is something to be said about putting one foot in front of the other that brings you out of your head and into your body and into the very present moment. It is the race and the clarity it brings you and others into the reality of living life and not just existing in it; this makes all of it worth it. Sometimes you get a medal at the end to remind you that you can do what you set your mind to do, but sometimes its a raise in your job. Maybe it's a better job on the whole or even a completely different way of living life that is more healthy, meaningful, and fulfilling. Race day is always coming somewhere in your life, and it's the everyday practice of putting one foot in front of the other that brings us closer to the finish line. But, it starts with you showing up!

We all run for different reasons, and those reasons changed with every race and even sometimes while training for the same race. Running can help you managed your health. It may give a better grip on some personal issue like anxiety. It can give another person a sense of belonging. Running can be the tool you use to get clarity on life before you make big life decisions. For me, running has been my way of feeling I'm still in control of my life. "If I can do this than I can do that." In the later years of my racing, I wasn't sure I was going to finish chiro school. I wasn't sure. To help improve my decision-making process, a former administrator directly told me that he didn't think I had what it took be a chiropractor. As it turned out, I was in the middle of training for a third pass at the Twin Cities Marathon sometimes call "The Beautiful,"  as I was processing the various events of my life. As some of you know, the road I've run along to success was bumpy and not always clear as it was unfolding. There were a few valleys that I got to run through, and I was in the middle of another one. Like most, I had a plan that I was working to make the unforeseeable future happen, and I ran to keep it all in perspective.

Things can get in the way of you finishing your race, and for sure things in life can hinder you from showing up for the race at all. In the end, I continue to practice the art of showing up! Yes, this is true. You may not have run all the miles you should have. You may not have stuck to the eating plan. You may have turmoil happening in your life that requires your mental attention, but in the end or even middle, you need to show up with whatever you've got and start the race. You for sure can't finish the race if you don't start it, and you can't start it if you don't show up. You have to show up as ready as you can be, all things considered, and race. One foot in front of the other as far as you can go because it will be further than not having started at all. Lesson #3: Show up for the race of life with whatever you've got.

I often ask myself these days if I've arrived at the place where I dreamed I might actually be if I managed to finish chiropractic school. I say this is because I wasn't sure I was going to finish! I doubted myself because of that college administrator. I almost believed him. If I were more honest, in the time that followed, I wasn't sure what to believe because I had forgotten how much I had achieved in life before getting to that next milestone. I worked at a number of places to make ends meet trying to understand if I had made a mistake choosing that school or profession. I continued to run and train for the upcoming race.  I went back into the nightlife industry which was the same reason I decided to go to school--to get out of it, but when you're between a rock and a hard place, you gotta make hay in the moonlight. All these things happening around me eventually pushed me to decide what to do next. Ya know life can give you a number of obstacles to overcome for your own personal development and growth that can determine if you're worthy of the gift of life. I ran to keep moving forward, and while I ran I kept up a little hope that dreams can happen with some dedication and planning. I often wondered if that was it. "Is this the life I'm supposed to live?" Fast forward to the present, I ask myself the same number of questions because like then the life I am living now, like the one I was living before I became a doc, could've easily worked out into some kind of normal life. But, was it the life I wanted was and still is the question. I chose to leave one day, and that brought me here to the land of milk and honey again.

Nine years ago, I graduated from chiro school and walked out having finished to the Verve's "Bitter Sweet" performed by string instrument quartet. I now work out of a boutique chiropractic office in Malibu where the famous, the wealthy, the powerful, and everyone in between come to get adjusted. I write this with the highest level of humility because I've learned that some things in life can be taken from you just as easily as you've received them. I've also learned that while you're in it, or you have them, whatever place or thing you've received, you have to enjoy them full-on and share when you can.  I have personally gotten to put my hands on my favorite movie stars and musicians, and even the children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  It was from studying Dr. King's various speeches and sermons that I learned the core of my philosophical approaches to mankind and the various solutions to the troubles of his day and seemingly ours now. Lesson #4: Believe in yourself and not what other people want you to believe about you.

I ask the Almighty if this was the reason He kept me alive through all of the things I've experienced thus far in life. Maybe he put me in a position to ask people like Dr. King's children to bring back the discussion of his time to our nation today. I'm not sure, but I do ask all of these people what they think and feel about the current state of our country because I know that with a stroke of their finger, issues can be addressed worldwide. They have the authority financially or socially to walk up to our nation's leaders and ask them, "WTH?!" You never know where you will end up and with whom you will have the privilege of entertaining when you show up and start your race. Remember, one foot in front of the other.

Well, folks... that's it. I started this blog blab wanting to tell you that I'm running again and that I'm still working as a chiropractor and dreaming of what's next. The Universe seems to be telling me the winds of change are coming, and as you know, I have a bad/good habit of showing up! Till next time.   #GetAdjustedToTheGoodLife #Allthingsareone #MNMAN

Sunday: New Year's Day 2017

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! It's a Sunday, and I'm hoping you're in the middle of a three-day weekend! Yes. The holiday seasons have turned into a series of three-day weekends, and it's nice. I hope you're off and are relaxing from whatever holiday celebrations you got your self into (and hopefully out of) last night!!! It's a Special Edition of Rants From A Midwest guy in the land of milk and honey. Yesss! It's special because we get to take a brief look back over what happened or didn't happen in 2016 decide if it was good, bad or other, and figure out what to look forward to this new year of 2017. 

The sun is out!! And the streets are still freshly coated from last night's rain. There have been more clouds in the sky than I can remember in the last couple of years of my travel to and from SoCal. It's a gentle reminder of the Homeland and the ever changing weather patterns, and I love it but not more than actually being in the Homeland when I can visit. Hahahaha. 


Like most people in the world, we want better things, more richness in our experiences, and strive to connect with our loved ones, friends, and maybe even ourselves. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was getting on a plane headed back to the promised land from a week of the cold and snow. As is the case most of my visits, I was greeted by family and warm familiar friends to keep me in the moment every day of my stay last year. The drive home from LAX was drab but the beginning of a new optimistic as I drove by what was becaming my place of practice and growth--Malibu Chiropractic & Wellness.

Well, it's been a year now. I've grown to appreciate a mantra I repeated to myself time and again ever more deeply.. all things are one and written by the same hand. Everything that was supposed to happen, happens..and for reasons that we may not clearly see or understand as our lives unfold (Sometimes they happen because you just made a choice-good or bad). It's difficult to see the emerging new picture of your life when you're still focused on the old one or the details. I made some new friends. I've refined some of my old friendships, and continue to have a great new job. My physical person continues to be a work-in-progress that dubs as my 'part-time' job of going to the gym or 'gyming-it' as I say. I had a list of things I didn't do the year before last, and the list of things I plan to do this year include returning to the world stage of travel and adventure (maybe checking off a few other things in the process). I've experienced just over 40 other countries and their respective cultures, and I think I may return to a few but definitely want to see a couple more.

Last year when I wrote this blog for this holiday, I mentioned in the list of things I did that, "I dared greatly and let myself be vulnerable to the pursuit of a dream that I could have the life ( a normal life) I want to have win or lose." The life that I have now is part of that dare; it was part of my personal development strategy, which should also be on your list of things to do--self-improvement.

The year had definitely went more smooth than my last. Most of this I attribute to an old principle a couple of my Bible school friends would talk about, and that is finding the peace in life. I often make reference to my friend Jon Gannon when I mention the idea of peace or "finding the peace" as we often spoke about it. My almost instant life besty I met in college. He was witty, funny, and easy-going but firm in his convictions about God, salvation, and his life's mission. He grew up in Israel and has since our college days been around the world fighting the good fight as he knows it promoting Jesus and the need for salvation. We were trained the same, by and large, but we now stand in opposite ends of the salvation story, and in it we still are close friends. 

Now, much like our college days, we continue to speak about finding 'inner peace' in our lives. Finding the inner kind of peace that makes sense to us even if it doesn't make sense to other people observing our lives. Finding it, the inner peace, isn't always in the most peaceful environments or situations. We understood it as a deeper kind of peace that we are 100% invested in with 100% of our being because in it the ultimate expression of our person can be reached, experienced, and expressed. That kind of peace in our lives gives us strength and the ability to travail into and out of difficult times when they come to us. I don't know about you, but I think we as a nation have some difficult days ahead of us, and every single one of us may need to become better at finding that kind of inner peace; we may have to do some daring with ourselves, what we believe to be right and wrong, and stand up for those convictions when necessary. Maybe it's time.  

I will end this edition by quoting last year's blog because it still makes sense. "Dare Greatly. The Creator is waiting and the universe is cheering you and me forward into 2017! You just have to do your part and step forward and show up owning the moments you are given. The sun has not set on you forever if you can still breath, and now is a good time to take action. Thank you everyone for everything small and great. Spoken and unspoken. Happy New Year!! God Bless America. 
#Allthingsareone #Mnman #Mnstrong #Californiadreaming #GetAdjustedToTheGoodLife

Sunday: A Knock At Midnight: The Sermon Conclusion. Updated: 4:50 PM PST

It's Sunday morning, and the sun is out. The sky is clearing up, and I'm at a new Starbuck's getting acclimated to the store. I'm moving this week to a new place, and it may very well be the Starbuck's I come to in the mornings. It's been a while since I started the journey of revamping or contemporizing an old Dr. Martin Luther King sermon titled, "A Knock At Midnight." In it, the Bible passage from which the parable is taken tells the story of a man that has some unexpected guess show up at his door, and he was in need, as was customary in his time, to provide them with some sustenance or bread as it was. And in his 'importunity,' he was forced to go to his neighbor and wake him in the Midnight hour only to be rejected at first; it turned out that it was his persistence at knocking that he got what he needed.

So, let me attempt to bring about the end of that sermon with some comtemporised ideas in it to help bring about an understanding of what was happening in the world then and how we find that not much has change now for the role of the 'church'.

As in the parable, so in our world today, the deep darkness of midnight is interrupted by the sound of a knock. On the door of the church millions of people are knocking. In this country and in many across the world through tele-evangelist like the preacher like Joel Ostein or not so long ago, Billy Graham, the number of church 'presence' members is higher than ever before but in decline. More than a one billion people are at least affiliated with one kind of church or another or synagogue.

This size growth of the church should not be its point of attraction. We should not confuse spiritual power or awareness and large numbers. Just because a church has three Sunday morning services does not mean it is more fulfilling it's mission than the church that is only holding one service. We cannot be judge a churches' Spiritual' in-fillment with the quality or the quantity of the worship team. I have found that being spirit-filled is really a matter of how good the worship service sounded and got people singing and clapping versus people seeking spiritual guidance and personal repentance. Being "spiritual" as many people qualify themselves, is a loosely all-inclusive standard for measuring a persons's consciousness of eternity within any church community or out side of any. These types of 'spiritual' church people are not the same as the ones that evoke positive community effects by being on their hands and knees. An increase in quantity inclusive of 'spiritually aware' people does not automatically bring an increase in quality of people but rather an indicator of its socially relative appeal and sense of "feel-goodism". A larger membership does not necessarily represent a correspondingly increased commitment to have good will to others or even follow Judeo Christian principles. Historically, it has always been the work of a few dedicated peoples that has made the world better.

And although a numerical growth in church membership does not necessarily reflect an increase in ethical commitment, millions of people do feel that the church  or being 'spiritual' provides an answer to the deep confusion that encompasses their lives and the outcome of this year's election. The 'church' is still the one familiar landmark where the weary go to in the Midnight hour. It's the one place of 'solas' which stands where it has always stood, the house to which the man travelling at midnight either comes or refuses to come. Some decide not to come. But the many who come and knock are desperately seeking a little something to help sustain them till the journey or episode of calamity in their life is over.

The traveler in the parable asks for three loaves of bread. Although he may not know it, he wants the bread of faith. In a time of so many upsets and even the disappointment of many in the past election, men and women have lost faith in God, faith in man, and faith in the future. The  blatant disregard for human life infects our police forces around the country. And what is their job, "To Protect & Serve". The last time I checked, many of our uniformed personnel are doing their best to uphold the law, to protect the citizens that gave them the power to govern and police over them, and provide service to those in need. And like in any group of people that have power, there are always a few that fail to appreciate the depth of their responsibility and that they have a responsibility to be humane, and it has lead to violence against people they don't like or to put it differently, 'violence or even indifference to the people they feel are not like them.' It's true, and we know this because the Black Lives Matter movement would not exist otherwise.

There is a deep longing for the bread of hope. Dr. King points out in his original sermon that the early years of our nation, many people did not hunger for this bread largely because they were caught up in progress. They believed that every new scientific achievement lifted man to higher levels of perfection. But as series of tragic developments, the on-going threat of terror, and the revealing of the selfishness and corruption of man only reminded them that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This continues to be a real and traggic discovery that has led to various social trends of pessimism. Many concluded then as they are today that life has no meaning especially among our youth. Dr. King was right in reminding us of historic theme played out in our culture. The philosopher Schopenhauer said that life is an endless pain with a painful end, and that life is a tragicomedy played over and over again with only slight changes in costume and scenery. Shakespeare’s Macbeth believed that life is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. But even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in the night light they seek the bread of hope.

You don't have to walk very far or flip through too many Instragram or Face Book posts before you come across an old-fashioned notion of the bread of love. Everybody wishes to love and be loved. Anyone who feels that they are not loved feel that they do not count. Much has happened in our millennial time to keep people in touch but not connected. Living in a world which has become oppressively impersonal, many of us have come to feel that we are little more than a Face book friend or a foller of some one else's IG account. Bewildered by the tendency to be reduced to a card in a vast index of 'friends and family, People are desperately seeking the bread of love.

When the man in the parable knocked on his friend’s door and asked for the three loaves of bread, he received the impatient retort, "Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything." How often have people experienced a similar disappointment when at midnight they knock on the door of the church. Millions of Africans and other immigrants are patiently, or like the Black Live matter movement-impatiently, knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never.

Millions of American people are starving for the want of the bread of freedom, have knocked again and again on the door of so-called "churches", but have usually been greeted by a cold indifference or a blatant hypocrisy. Even the white religious leaders, who have real empathy desire to open the door and provide the bread, are often more cautious than courageous and more prone to follow the expedient to please the 'donating' members than the ethical path of accommodation. One of the shameful tragedies of history is that the very institution which should remove man from the midnight of racial injustice participates in creating and perpetuating the midnight many are trying to escape.

We, in the ever-growing midnight of war,  have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed us. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war? In a world gone mad with terrorism, chauvinistic passions, misogynistic approaches to women, and imperialistic exploitation of the working class, the church has either endorsed these activities or remained appallingly silent!! It's true. During the last war on terror, national churches even functioned as the ready prayer supporters of the state, offering prayers up for our mighty armies in singing, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." A weary world, pleading desperately for peace, has often found the church morally sanctioning war.

And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic privation. Such is the fate of every ecclesiastical organization that allies itself with things-as-they-are unable to ride the politic from the pulpit.

The church must be reminded that it is not a the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic purpose, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority; it will be "Spiritual." If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will loose the loyalty of millions in the generations coming of age, and cause men everywhere to say that it has exhausted it's desire to do right. But, if the church will free itself from the status quo, and recover its historic mission and speak fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will ignite the imagination of mankind and reboot the souls of men, reviving them with love for truth, justice, and peace. People all around will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travellers at midnight.

While speaking of the laxity of the church, I must not overlook the fact that the so-called Negro church has also left men disappointed at midnight. I say so-called Negro church because ideally there can be no Negro or white church. It is to their everlasting shame that white Christians developed a system of racial segregation within the church, and inflicted so many indignities upon its Negro worshipers that they had to organize their own churches.

In the parable we notice that after the man’s initial disappointment, he continued to knock on his friend’s door. Because of his his persistence he finally persuaded his friend to open the door. Many men continue to knock on the door of the church at midnight, even after the church has so bitterly disappointed them, because they know the bread of life is there somewhere. The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems. Many will continue to come in quest of answers to life’s problems. Many young people who knock on the door are perplexed by the uncertainties of life, confused by daily disappointments, and disillusioned by the ambiguities of history.  We must provide them with the fresh bread of hope and infuse them with the conviction that God has the power to bring good out of evil. Some who come are tortured by a nagging guilt resulting from their wandering in the midnight of ethical relativism and their surrender to the doctrine of self-expression. We must lead them to Christ who will offer them the fresh bread of forgiveness. Some who knock are tormented by the fear of death as they move toward the evening of life. We must provide them with the bread of faith in immortality, so that they may realize that this earthly life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening.

Midnight is a confusing hour when it is difficult to be faithful. The most inspiring word that the church must speak is that no midnight long remains. The weary traveller by midnight who asks for bread is really seeking the dawn. Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come. Our disenfranchised parents realized this. 

Faith in the dawn arises from the faith that God is good and just. When one believes this, he knows that the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate. He can walk through the dark night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for good for those that love God. Even the most starless midnight may herald the dawn of some great fulfillment.

MLK and moderately con-temporized by yours truly.

Thursday: A Knock At Midnight..The Social Order...Continued from 10/19/16

It's been a crazy couple of weeks of official "casual" conversations with Minnesota officials, the rain fell in SoCal, my CPA forgot to file an extension for my business taxes that magically led to a penalty, and I had to find CE credits from 2014 audit. Yes, it was a lot of administrative stuff, and trying to remember things and classes from two years ago required going to the gym to de-stress when and as much as possible. Hahaha.


I mentioned the rain because it brought a nice and welcome change to the weather. I know. I know. My people in Minnesota are rolling their eyes at me because it's been non-stop rain and declining temperatures there, but here in SoCal, the rain is nice. The smell of  it. The sensation that it might be "OK" to stay in bed just a little longer came over most people I met with for coffee on those days, which is my second favorite thing to do when it rains. I mean grabbing a hot coffee or chocolate and listening to the rain come down from somewhere warm is a small joy for people like me. It made me think a little more about the passage that MLK went into in his sermon titled 'A Knock At Midnight," and I think I'm going to going into it some more today...at least one of the three components: the social order, the moral order, and the psychological order as Dr. King presented them.

I left off at the Bible passage that Dr. King presents as basis from which the sermon would be built upon.

Luke 11:5-8. It reads:

(NIV)5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity[a] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

Dr. King points out that it is midnight in the parable, and it serves as a basis for his thought concerning many contemporary problems of his day and even our own today. It is midnight in the parable; it is also midnight in our world then and now, and the darkness is so thick that we can hardly see where it ends or begins. It's midnight. 

It is midnight within the social order. On the international horizon nations are engaged in a colossal and bitter contest for supremacy. It's nothing new. Russia's President Putin invaded the Ukraine in what the news critics have call a move to re-establish the old Russian empire or resurrect the 'Iron Curtain'.  Syria's President Assad has murdered thousands of his own people in a bloody civil war to which neighboring countries sat  and watched only to do nothing. I guess they hoped someone else would do something. China is literally dumping tons of sand and dirt into the ocean to further expand its 'rightful territory', and North Korea continues to exercise its growing ability to detonate nuclear devises. Why?

It goes back to the vary nature of mankind-a deeply rooted need to feel or be supreme. We as America have fought two wars in the last decade in the name of terrorism and have been involved in two world wars there were fought just one generation ago, and the clouds of another war are in the air. New dictators now have the atomic and nuclear weapons that could within seconds completely destroy any major cities of the world. Yet, the arms race, although promoted as nuclear disarmament, continues and nuclear tests still explode in the atmosphere over the Red Sea with the grim prospect that the very air we breathe will be poisoned by radioactive fallout. It was true in Dr. King's time, and it continues to be true in our time. And the question we have to ask ourselves as we approach another Presidential election only a week away is, "Who do we want to be in the position of power that with only the push of button can bring about our very end?" Who will it be?!

Dr. King pointed out that our science has helped us in the past with coping with midnight in the social order. As was the case then and now, science has saved us. When we were in the midnight of geographic limitation and material inconvenience, science lifted us to the bright morning of globalization and shared material comfort. Cars, medicine, planes, vaccinations, food science, and health science have prolonged our lives even more than we thought possible with people living into their 100s.

 We moved from the crippling ignorance and superstition of not only the church but also our mixed cultures. Science brought us to the daybreak of being free and open minded..kinda. We have virtually irradiated plagues and diseases around the world. It's natural that we turn to science in a day when the problems of the world are so complex and interconnected because we have technology. The technological advancement of man has made great distances but a short airplane ride. We can talk to anyone anywhere in the world from the convenience of our own hand without ever having to physically see them contributing to an ever growing disconnected contentedness.  

As was true in Dr. King's time, it continues to be midnight in man’s external collective, and it is paralleled by midnight in his internal individual life. It's midnight within the psychological order. Everywhere paralyzing anxiety cripple people by day and haunt them in their sleep at night. Deep clouds of depression are part of many people's every day horizon. More people are emotionally disturbed today than at any other time of human history. The psychopathic wards of our hospitals are crowded, and the jails full. The most popular psychologists then and now are the Cognitive therapist. Bestsellers in psychology are books such as How To Be Happy, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Hidden Brain. The popular preachers of the day are on TV and teach us soothing sermons on "How to Be Happy" and "How to Relax," or give us Biblical tips to live by like Joel Olstein. Some have been tempted to revise Jesus’ command to read, "Go ye into all the world, keep your racism to yourself, and, lo, I will make you a well-adjusted citizen of society or the church." All of this is indicative that it is midnight within the inner lives of men and women.

It's also midnight within the moral order. It at  midnight that colors lose their distinctiveness and become various shades of grey. Moral principles have lost their definition. For men and women then and now, absolute right and wrong are a matter of what the majority is doing. Right and wrong are relative to likes and dislikes they get on Instagram or Facebook, and the customs of a particular social group to which they belong. Einstein’s theory of relativity, which properly described the physical universe has been applied to the moral and ethical realm of every day life.

Midnight is the hour when men and women alike are desperately seeking to obey the eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not get caught." The ethic of midnight hour is to indulge one's self in the cardinal sin of "just getting by." It is all right to misrepresent the truth as long as you do it with a little finesse. It's OK to steal, if one is so dignified that, if caught, the charge becomes fraud and not robbery. It is permissible even to hate as long as one dresses his or her hating is covered in the garments of love that hating appears to be loving. "The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest." MLK. This mentality has perpetuated the gradual erosion of moral standards, and the midnight of moral degeneration deepens.

To Be Continued........

Saturday: A Knock At Midnight Revisited...

 

It's an early Saturday morning. The days have been progressively getting shorter delaying the break of the morning light till 7:00ish or so. With the delay of light comes the extended darkness. It's dark out earlier at night, and it's staying dark later in the morning. On top of it, the temperature is cooling; it's the sign that Fall is here in California even though the temps in the day time, when the sun is out, have been in the mid 70's and 80's. What does that have to do with anything?! It means more sleepy mornings! Hahaha! That being the case, it is why I decided to take to the keyboard this morning, but it's part of the reason why I should. With more sleep comes more time to dream, and if we're not careful, we could sleep through a period of great change.  A shift in or nation's history is happening and all of the events transpiring in present day is a sign of it. 

More and more, the reports are coming in that this year's presidential election is no longer about economic differences that usually come up as the main theme in candidate platforms.  No, it is something different this year. This year people say the election is about race and necessarily racism, and that's really the underpinning of economic inequalities in America. For a while, some people were trying to promote that we had solved the race problem evident by having a black president. What people seem to no see or acknowledge that although there were enough people that voted for Obama, it was only by a few percentage points over the number of voters that voted for McCain. It was not a 90% vote for Obama--that would've been more an indicator that racism might have been almost worked out of us as a nation. But it was more like a 52/48% vote that really says that every other person said, "No, not that guy." 

It made me think back to my days in the church where everyone one has an equal chance as "salvation" because God, in theory, is an equal opportunity employer, but in actuality, there was and continues to be a class based system even within the church. The missionaries (mostly white people), the pastors (mostly white people but more diversity), everybody else that is saved. Think about that one later. It wasn't too long ago that I was sitting in my two-seater Toyota pick-up truck in my hometown of Minneapolis. As was the case during the early morning hours of this exact season, Fall, I would sit and wait a few minutes for my truck's engine to warm up so that, in turn, I could use the heater and warm myself up from the bitter cold just outside my window. These were the days of my early college years. I worked at 6:00 AM and usually had to leave half past 5:00 AM to get there on-time. It was dark out, and in Minnesota the temps would often get down to freezing. So if your coffee in the morning didn't wake you up enough, the cold air would smacking you in the face certainly did. Hahaha.

In those minutes between warming my truck and driving to work, I listened to MLK sermon's and speeches on cassette tape. Yes. I had an Alpine stereo that played tapes in those days. As was the case, I was taking in one MLK's sermons and tying to understand it for what it meant to me in those days. Of course, I was in a missions training facility, and all of what we learned had something to do with reaching out to the masses but also how we should conduct ourselves with each other as 'God's people.' One of the sermons  I listened to over the course of a few mornings. It was titled, "A Knock At Midnight." It was long as many of Dr. King's sermons were. I guess you can do that when you're the leader of the Civil Right's movement and still have people waiting for the next word to come out of ya even after an hour of preaching. The sermon began with the following passage from the Gospel according to Luke 11:5-8. It reads:

(NIV)

5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity[a] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Sunday: Thoughts from Lake Wobegon...kinda.

The morning air is cool, and the sun light is just starting to clear up the early morning darkness...the twilight. It's the level of light that begins to bring back the lines and colors that the distant buildings and hill foliage from the night's blurring moon light. It's early...5:43 AM. As is the case as of late, I worked my way out of bed attempting to not move my head too much; my neck was tight and its grip on my head had already began a what will be come a mild headache.

I reach for them with my fingers mildly rubbing my thumb against the other finger tips reviving them for a short task--finding the muscles buried deep in the base of my skull and neck. A mild attempt to coax the muscles into releasing just enough to avoid a headache. I know which ones to get to, and I think I know why they are going ballistic today, but it doesn't matter why more than how do I get to them and get them to let go before the day goes to waste. I know the answer, but I'm just to physically tired from yesterday's activities and my own therapeutic method of anxiety reduction. What's funny is I help people with the same problem, headache, everyday. I guess my own experience of them, headache and migraine, help me understand what people experience, and necessarily, how to 'fix' them.

After a few moments of hitting the right trigger points, I get up and begin to look for my clothes. Trying to go back to sleep was futile at that point. I had an agenda I wasn't sure I'm was going to do anything about, but I want to. I want to everyday that I wake up in my own bed and even other beds, but I don't. I stick to the plan: Eat. Get out the door. Coffee. Start typing. Watch the sunlight come through the window if it's not already up. Relax...hopefully. Tell myself that everything is fine. Gym.

This is all true. It's the ritual I go through some mornings more than others because I apparently suffer from anxiety (self-diagnosed). What should be a normal enjoyment of a good day often leaves me mildly anxious about what's around the corner. That could be the Catholicism ingrained into my psychology having been raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. In St. Paul, most of the population is Irish Catholic and feel that they're constantly in a balancing act between the good things in life and what "God" dictates as necessary cyclical punishment so as to not enjoy life too much because we might forget that there is a hell. Hahahaha. I didn't even hear that on a Prairie Home Companion, but it sounds about right as I think about all the stories of Lake Wobagon.

The coffee is smooth. The sun is cutting into the room, and from where I'm sat, I can see the cars go North and South. I smile. A few people come into the place with the look of wonderment on whether they came into the right place or not. I guess they were looking for something other than coffee at a few minutes to 7:00 AM. I go back to minding my screen. A few of the old men that I sit with from time to time stumble into the place and into their respective seats; they're early. Soo early that their minds hadn't quite turned on but their bodies brought them there on auto-pilot from all the years of doing the same thing. "Morn'n Doc. How ya doing?" Joe asks but looking at one of the two girls in the line. His mind may not be on but his 'young-girl' radar' was. LOL. "Fine. Fine," I say while holding up my cup of Joe to him. "Funny they're both named Joe," I think to myself.

I look through my phone picture gallery. I see a number of pictures from yesterday's events. A small girl and her mom that I've been getting to know. I think of how really blonde she is and her green eyes and wonder how she got those features considering her dark haired mom and lighter browned haired father, but there she was..almost an alien making faces at me. I guess at 6.5 years of age, the run-time on the energy battery has a half-life of 24 hours a day. I see pictures I took of the ocean, a few random selfies, and a misplaced picture of me and a different blonde girl with green eyes, and I stop to focus on it for a moment. I just saw her yesterday. We would've run smack into each other had I not stepped aside to let another couple walk by me at the gym. I smile and keep looking through other pictures of the week wondering which one to put into my blog if I get motivated enough to write one. I should. I'm over-due. I look out the window again to see if I see anyone or thing that will give me a clue on what to do next. I guess it's gym time.
There it is.