Be Thankful For Seventeen-Seventy-six (1776)

 This is for Wednesday, November 22, 2023. But actually, it’s Thursday, Thanksgiving, and I’m down in the man cave.

 The really did start yesterday, though. On the movie rotation came “1776”, which is a musical rendering of the events culminating in the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and was produced a few years ahead of the Bicentennial of 1976. Last summer we celebrated the 247^th anniversary.

I admit to having discombobulated thoughts - I've been dealing with Social Security and Medicare and that's enough to drive a saner man than I straight out of his skull. Come six a.m. this morning, or ten minutes 'til, I finally gave  up and gave in to the need for sleep and went back to bed. Then I woke, and we did stuff, and now I'm finishing my thoughts of the day and the season.

Some people who think they can perfect Socialism want to convert a republic into a commune of three-hundred-thirty-odd million people, and all will work for the common good with only such reward as their new government may see fit to provide.

 Hogwash!

 So, find the movie (1776), it’s on Tubi, and also on YouTube movies. Watch it. Some of you of a certain age will see a familiar face or two.

Yeah, it’s long, not quite three hours, full of silly songs (and I like songs). But ignore all that seems silly, and hear the STORY!

It takes liberties with history, as all dramatizations do, but it sticks as close to the truth as it can without making it too dry.

 Make a bowl of popcorn, take a seventh inning stretch and make another bowl of popcorn, refill the Sprite and Fanta, and settle back to watch some history.

Pay special attention to the song sung by South Carolina’s representative regarding slavery (2:05:00), and see how close we came to failing to win a consensus to make the grand attempt. For if the Carolinas had not joined, the consensus would have been lost, and with no consensus, then our bold statement would not have been made, and without that bold statement of us taking our rightful place among the nations, …

 We wouldn’t have.

 What would we have had instead?

 A collection of colonies, subjects to the British crown.

Not free citizens.

And these people tempting us with ‘free stuff’ think they can buy their way into power and control using money stolen from the rich. Margaret Thatcher was correct: the only problem with Socialism is, eventually you run out of other people’s money.

 Good Heavens, people! Think of all that has been done to wrest this nation from careless hands to be held in our own careful hands. With freedom under the rule of law, with checks and balances arranged under the Constitution, with ..

 Did I say ‘our careful hands’?

 I daresay we have become as careless our parent nation ever was.

We spend money we do not have to gift to people who care little for us apart from what they can take from us. We have a segment of our populace who think that work is a four-letter word, who would rather be given bread and circuses than opportunity, and our rulers, eager for voters in their pockets, provide the same. We have a minority segment who would rather do away with free speech lest someone is offended by an improper pronoun.

 So-called ‘Hate’ speech is merely speech you do not like, and to certain people the paragraph above simply reeks of it.

Yet, I have not written a single hateful thing; I have merely stated obvious facts.

 We are a nation of laws, not of prior restraints. Or we were, once. 

We should be free to say what we mean, and mean what we say. If we say the wrong thing, let the right thing be said and have it argued out in the arena of ideas. We should be free to do all that we are able, to use what we can to bless our nation, and our culture, showing our willingness to be ‘E Pluribus Unum’, Of Many, One Unity.

That, our motto, is marked on our coinage and currency, lest we forget it. We are many people, of many ancestries, forming one unified whole. Despite our problems this whole, this body, this nation can be the best nation on earth again.

 Or we can settle, stare at our screens, eat another slice of microwave pizza.

Do we really want to settle?

 On this Thanksgiving we should respect and honor those who planted the seeds of a new nation, thank the peoples of this land who welcomed and supported us, as well as the spirit of the Divine that watched over our young sprout and sapling of a … well, what can we call it but a new community struggling to stand, making use of the resources provided by Providence itself, to form itself a new nation to stand among so many other powers of the globe.

 And this is what some of us in our nation wish to swap for ‘free stuff’?

 Remember those fifty-odd signers of our Declaration, men, no more, no less, who pledged, and I quote: “Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor.” Remember them, and thank them, on this Thanksgiving Day November 23^rd, 2023.

Remember their gift two-hundred and forty-seven years ago of a nation of freedom and opportunity, where you can start from nothing and end up among the stars.

 With the help of Divine Providence (damn, I cannot help tearing up when that bell is rung),

 Yes, You CAN!

Coming Out Party/Homecoming Party Manifesto

I’m outing myself. 

I am a Christian.

This is ‘Old News’ to a lot of you.

Some of you now automatically hate me, thinking that I am a hateful person. Those who know me from work, please remember how I interacted with you. I am flawed. But am I hateful?

 I believe that Christ died for my (and your) sin, and conferred to each of us (who are willing to accept it) His righteousness.

As a Christian, I do my best to show you the love you deserve as a person. However, I cannot say that all choices are good choices and I may advise changes. You, of course, are allowed (in fact, expected) to give me feedback as well.

If you do choose Jesus’ salvation, He will start a conversation with you, personally, about what needs to change for you to become a healthier person, spiritually and physically.

As it is written: “There is now no condemnation for those who follow Christ.” If you are a follower, you know you are a sinner, but not condemned. You are free to heal and grow.

The above is the first Bible reference that I’ve used here; most people have been beaten about the head with other Bible verses, and I want to avoid that.

God loves you.

That, in a nutshell, is my manifesto.

As best as I can, as an imperfect person, I love you, too.

God hates sin. God will ask you to give up sin.

That doesn’t mean you have to toe the mark, first, to be accepted, because He already loves you. What it does mean is, if you accept this love, you are also allowing yourself to accept His help in getting you clean. He wants the best for you.

The best comparison I can come up with is this: say you have a friend or family member who is hooked on heroin or meth, and this addiction has seriously messed up their life. You, with the help of others, want to do an intervention. Your friend can still walk away and let themselves continue to spiral downward, even to the point of death. Or they can accept the assistance, and then get on with the program of getting clean and healthy.

That is what coming to Jesus is all about: being welcomed into the family, then getting healthy. He gives us the choice; He does not force us to choose the way He thinks is best. After all, a choice coerced is not a choice.

Another story: this from Jesus, paraphrased by yours truly:

A man had two sons. The older did everything right (you might know an older brother or sister like this), and stood to inherit his share. The younger had stars in his eyes and asked to have his share of his father’s inheritance now, so he could live life on his own terms.

You get the picture? Dad, know-it-all perfect Big Brother, and Little Brother who wants to be out from under Big Brother’s disapproving eye.

Well, Little Brother converts his cattle to cash, spends like a sailor on shore leave, buying drinks for his bar buddies, and such. Predictably, he runs out of cash, and since he has not properly learned a high-paying trade, he has to take the lowest of the low poor-paying jobs out there in order to get even a bit of something to eat (all of his bar-buddy friends having dropped him, since he’s not buying drinks for them anymore, y’see).

One day, while throwing out the trash and picking through it to find something remotely edible, he has a thought: “My dad’s hired hands live far better than this. I’ll go home and ask to be a hired hand. At least I’ll have three hots and a cot. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Little Brother hitches a ride with a trucker headed the right way (Eddie Rabbit’s “Drivin’ My Life Away!” pouring out of the truck’s radio), and gets dropped off in town. He starts the long walk toward home, and says to himself, “I’ll tell my dad that I’ve sinned against him and God both, and I’ll throw myself on his mercy and ask to be allowed to be, not a son, but a hired hand.”

But when he turns in at the lane to the ranch, his dad, who has been watching in the evenings for his son’s return, jumps out of the rocker and hoofs it down to where his second son is walking, and grabs him in a big daddy hug.

Younger Son kind of pushes him away and says his bit: “Dad, I’ve sinned against you and God. I don’t deserve to be your son, but can I, may I, be a hired hand?”

“None of that talk! Let’s get you cleaned up!" replies Dad, "Looks like you have more road on you that anything else! What you been doin', sloppin' hogs?” And his father walks him up to the house and the cook (who used to dote on him when he was a boy) exclaims, “You’re back! But, my goodness! Let’s clean you up! I want to see your handsome face without all that dirt on it! When you’re done I’m gonna make you your favorite meal!”

And Dad says, “Think bigger than that, Gertie! We’re gonna have us a barbecue! Have Lonnie find us a prime beeve to kill and prep for ribs and steaks and such, and get that pit hot for the roastin’! Can you make up a gallon or so of that sauce I like?” “Goodness, yes!" Gertie replies, "I’ll have it ready before that pit is hot and Lonnie is done with that beeve!”

So Little Brother gets a steaming hot bath (the first in many weeks), and when he’s toweled down a bit and shaved and other whatnot, his dad takes him into his own room, and pulls out HIS best shirt, HIS best suit, HIS best bolo tie, HIS best watch on a chain with the family signet on the other end, and the finest set of boots He has in HIS closet.

The Little Brother looks into the mirror, and sees a changed man, and doesn’t quite believe that it’s himself.

Dad asks, “Feeling better now, Son?”

The young man stands there speechless, but with a puzzled smile on his face.

“Is this how you see me, Dad?”

“This is how I’ve always seen you, Son.”

Side by side they leave the Father’s rooms and head back to the kitchen, and out to the back yard to a trestle table full of good things, including tea, lemonade, coleslaw, Texas potato salad, and sourdough bread, with space left over for the hot food take up station when it’s ready. Those not directly helping with setting up the party are saying things to the Little Brother like, “We’ve missed you! We’re so glad you’re back!”

About sundown the Dutch oven full of baked beans, a platter of short ribs, another of steaks, and another of shredded brisket (and of course Gert’s barbecue sauce) are brought out to the table. Father says the blessing and people line up to load up their plates. Somewhere there’s a fiddler playing ‘Saturday Waltz’ from Copeland’s ‘Rodeo’.

Just as the party is hitting its stride, Big Brother comes in, dusty from working the back forty.

“What’s all this?” he asks. Father answers, “Your brother’s back! We’re celebrating! Get yourself cleaned up and join us!”

“What do you mean, ‘my brother’s back!’? The son that took his inheritance and spent it on a riotous life? YOUR money?! And you’re throwing a party for HIM?! I’ve done EVERYTHING you’ve asked of me. You’ve never even let me take a goat from the herd so I could party with MY friends! This makes NO sense!”

His father replied, “My Son, you have been good and faithful, it’s true. Everything I have will be yours when you inherit. But your Little Brother! He was lost to the world, but now he is back home! Join me, join us, in the celebration of the fact your Little Brother was lost, but now has been found!”

But Big Brother, dignity insulted, would not join in.

The fiddler moved on to “Hoedown!” and those who’d finished their strawberry-rhubarb pie moved to the dancing area and started polka-ing and two-stepping.

And a great time was had by (almost!) all.

There’s the story (the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 15).

So many of us are the Little Brother in the story above, and so many ‘Proper Christians’ are the Big Brother, missing the point of love and forgiveness that the Father extended to his lost son. Remember, please, the Lost Son didn’t get cleaned up before he went back home; that happened afterward. Remember, also, that when the Father saw him coming home, he met his son half-way, and they walked in together.

Doubtless we Younger Brothers have faults and habits that need to be fixed. They will be fixed in time. The big thing, the important thing, is that our homecoming happened. And there was MUCH rejoicing!

And doubtless the unforgiving self-righteous Older Brother will continue to self-righteously proclaim their view from their moral high-ground. They will cut off their nose to spite their face, and stand in the path to block those who see the need to come home by saying: “You’re not clean enough!” forgetting that NO ONE is clean enough.

We all have sin in our lives, sin that makes us sick, sin that insists the best way to care for ourselves is to act a certain way, do certain things, live a certain life in order to be accepted by someone. Let me personalize this: I have sin in my life; I act in a certain way to be accepted, do some things, avoid other things, all to be able to fit into my community, my workplace, or even my church. Ultimately, instead of getting the help I need to be better, I cover up my sin in order to fit in.

Or, I cover up my affiliation with an institution that has gotten (some of it well-deserved, but not all of it) criticism as being unfriendly at best, hateful at worst.

For better or worse, I am uncovering that affiliation.

If you wish to unfriend me, I understand. For as long as I am alive, I’ll still be here. My door will always be open.

In any case have a good life.

God has done all the truly hard stuff, all we need to do, all I needed to do, is decide to walk through the door He has opened into a richer life.

Come home, be forgiven, and get cleaned up. The party is starting soon! :)

 

Yes, You CAN!

Remember The Things You Did Right!

 There will be days where everything goes to hell in a hand-basket. And it will either because you did something wrong, or despite you correctly doing everything you can control.

Look at what happened. Be honest with yourself. See what needs to be fixed, certainly. But be sure to see what you did right, because you likely did a lot of things right.

Keeping your eyes on your goals, and working your plan will get you there. But life has a way of upsetting the best plans, and the world is changing day by day, hour by hour, even minute by minute. You will need to adjust your plan to match an ever changing environment.

 And sometimes that environment changes incredibly quickly. You will get it wrong sometimes. Remember the lessons and hit it again.

I feel like I'm repeating myself. So, enough of that. 

Now, this is a steal from Dean Ing’s book, Systemic Shock, where a drill instructor is having a voluntold recruit try to disarm him (the DI) in a combat situation in order to get some badly needed gear. The recruit was tricky, and almost ‘died’ in the exercise, but –But in the after action analysis, the DI summed up the exercise by saying:

“Never mind all the things he did wrong, remember everything he did RIGHT!

Yes, You Can!

"My Son" a song to live by

 

I’ve become addicted to the ‘shorts’ that come over the smart phone.

I’ve got to do something about that. Not today, though.

Fortunately, I try to feed the algorithm information for its selection of good stuff. And it works. Occasionally I get something good.

Yesterday, I heard a song with the title of, I think, ‘The Other WayAround’; the guy was singing to his son about how much the boy looks up to him, that the (the dad) is his whole world, and the dad tells him, ‘it’s the other way around’. The boy is saying, “Don’t say that. It makes me cry. I’m crying ‘Happy Tears’. I know what he means. I hate crying, even 'happy tears'.

I can’t find the song on YouTube anywhere; I find a lot of 'other way around's, just not the right one. So if you find it, please send me the link. It'll have the lyric: "He thinks I hung the moon somehow ..." Thanks.

It did remind me of another song I’d added to one of my many playlists, and I spent much of last night trying to find it (the reason for ‘many playlists’ is to categorize and keep each individual list short. Well, shorter. It doesn’t work, and I have a long list of playlists. But I digress …). The list it was in was ‘Crazy Country’, and I found a lot of other things along the way: stuff by Home Free (a great a cappella group, btw), Cotton Pickin’ Kids, Homer & Jethro.

And Elvie Shane.

This is the long way ‘round to get to my point. The song: ‘My Son’ kinda says everything about what foster/adoption is all about. It’s not just about helping the children. It’s about filling a hole in your (my) own soul.

How do I explain this without sounding selfish? I can’t, I guess. But the making of one small person’s life as whole as you can has the benefit of making one’s own life whole as well. It’s unavoidable.

Explaining this to people can difficult.

Questions: “Which one is your real child?” They are all my real children. “Well, you know what I mean.” Yes I do. And your question is impertinent. They are all my children. You are only looking for gossip material. “Bless you for the good work you do.” Depending on the source, this one perplexes me. My wife and I are not doing this for ‘stars in our crowns’. We see a need we can meet and we are meeting it. Though people on the outside see this as charity work, it’s not. Or the statement: “I don’t understand how you can love someone who is not your blood kin.” Well, I love my wife, and she’s not my blood kin. “But that’s different!” It is, and it isn’t. But how do I help people understand this?

I think the most hurtful are the statements made by family.

After the funeral for my father-in-law another family member sat with his wife and started listing the grandkids. And left our adopted kids off the list. (I don’t think the person realized I was sitting there.)

That hurt.

I didn’t call attention to it at the time; like I said, this was the day of the funeral for my father-in-law. Nothing would have been served by my mentioning this person's omission at the time, no matter how low-key I voiced it. Mom-in-law knew the truth in any case, as one of my daughter’s children had been living in the home as sort of supercargo while my wife had been helping dad-in-law take care of mom-in-law. It’s all water under the bridge at this point.

However, that child, my grandchild, is now eighteen  and will graduate High School in thirteen days. Scary. She makes me proud.

Yeah, we fight, but we make up. I scold her, encourage her to do better. Take her to task. She takes me to task sometimes.

 Later today I’ll most likely be helping her with one last Physics assignment, and the teacher that I am, I won’t be letting her slide through it. I’ll be helping her understand how this relates to the real world around her.

And, like the arrows in the hand of a mighty man, I will help launch one more child into the world.

World, you have been warned, here comes another Hansen!

And you, child-now-grown, fly straight and true. Know that I love you, and you have added as much and more to our lives as we have given to you.

That’s the nature of generosity: as you help someone else, you build strength in yourself.

I don’t understand it; I only can state from experience that it is true.

Be Generous. Take a kid under your wing.  

Yes, You Can!

No Excuses!

New books, new ideas:

I recently found an audiobook, No Excuses; by Brian Tracy, and it spurred me to finish the update, proofreading, editing, and cover artwork for my own book. 

This is pretty much done; I still need to run the whole thing past other eyes to catch glaring and not so glaring errors. 

And add this essay.

First off, and credit where it is due, The above mentioned book by Mr. Tracy reminded me of this basic essential: I need to do the work. I am responsible. So are you.

The whole point of my book, of course is to affirm your ability. But, even more importantly, to get you off the dime and moving. So.

For on example, if you are in the artillery, you get your orders from your commander, and your sighting information from your forward observer. Then you aim, fire, evaluate, adjust your aim, fire again, repeat as necessary until the target is hit & destroyed.

Achieving your own aims is just like that: choose the goal, make the plan, work the plan, focus on the objective or outcome. Correct as needed, evaluate the progress, re-evaluate the goal. Ready, Aim, Fire! Evaluate, Make ready again, Aim, Fire! Repeat as necessary to achieve your goal.

No matter what, you are responsible. No matter if the cause of failure was at someone else’s hands, no matter if it was a (so-called) Act of God, you are responsible. If nothing else, you are responsible for your reaction to the circumstance. No excuses!

That said, I AM a good one for excuses. Even if I have ‘good’ excuses, they only get in my way. Too bad, so sad. I should pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again!

I lost my job some months ago, and ultimately deserved to. Never mind the reason; I was not performing to specifications. Anyone from the old shop who reads this, please understand, I do not blame my former work place. They did their best to keep me on, as the things I was doing right and well, I was doing very well indeed. However, I couldn’t keep my call times short.

I am slowing down, and that contributed to the loss of my former position. Again, not their fault. I was unable to find a strategy that allowed me to complete my call tasks on average in the time limit required of me.

I am responsible for that.

So, when I found Mr. Tracy’s book, and listened to it, it resonated. Maybe I didn’t like to hear the message, but the message was important, and I was open to it.

And here we are. 

I will give you a glimpse of my most recent vision:

In my immediate area we have a food desert. A thrift grocery that had been the source of food for the  area closed, and the building razed (as well as the buildings around it). Now, someone is setting to build a McDonald’s in a corner of the block. Considering the location, it should be a success. However …

What I wanted to do, and still want to do, is create a destination business, something that people not from the immediate area would want to visit. A business that, in and of itself, draws people (and their dollars) to it. Tentative project name: Nate’s Bistro and Dinner Theater.

Nearby, there would be a grocery store that would provide foodstuffs a notch above what the dollar store carries, but not so expensive as to be a hardship for the folks around to purchase. It would be good for it to have a specialty of some sort, like (for instance) a specialty bakery. This would be one more draw to bring people from outside the immediate area to our corner of the world.

And just for the fun of it, a bookstore and newsstand.

The bistro could have open mike ‘sing for your supper’ event, the theater would provide real world opportunities for the school of music and school of theater of the local university. The theater would also provide future sound and light designers opportunities to get real-world experience, and the back-stage scene shop would give makers of all sorts opportunities to make something big, as well as craft ‘show-specific’ mementos as one-of-a-kind keepsakes for whatever show being presented; these items  could be sold at Nate’s or as point-of-sale items at the bookstore.

The theater would become the primary destination, providing traffic to the bistro, and vice versa, giving exposure to the nifty little grocery, as well as an interesting brick-and-mortar bookstore for things you cannot get at the A-to-Z store online.

The nearby motels would benefit from the extra traffic, as would as the other businesses in the immediate area. As visualized, the convenience store would generally keep their clientele for the kinds of things the dollar store does best, the Gas & Go place would be the same. The in-coming Mickey Dee would not see the restaurant cut into the fast-food flow, or perhaps a little, as some would just want to sit down and take a load off their feet and dine comfortably instead of being in a rush.

All in all, making a destination dinner theater/bistro (with associated businesses) would be a good thing.

But, to achieve this, I need to have some financial resources to build on.

Hence, I need to get off the dime and be responsible. No Excuses!

Yes I Can!

So Can You!

I Share the Rock Biter’s Despair

This morning, as I sat on the edge of my bed, I found myself looking into my empty hands, cupped in my lap, and I thought: “They look like good, strong hands.”

And immediately I was taken back to the movie, ‘The Neverending Story’. But before the movie, came the book by the same title, written by Michael Ende. I read it before I saw the movie. Interestingly, it was NOT in the children’s section of the library, but in the adult section. Having read it, I agree. Even though the protagonist was a child of about sixth grade or so, and it follows him on a road to self-discovery, it is not a coming-of-age book in the normal sense of the phrase.

But I digress.

The point I’m trying to make is, in spite of all my efforts, I feel all my accomplishments slipping away from me, just as the Rock Biter could not hold on to his friends against the pull of the ‘Nothing’.

I feel that all my efforts to hang on to the good that I have done, and the good that I’m trying to do, it is all being stripped away by forces outside of my control.

In Bastian Balthazar Bux’ universe, it is reborn by his renaming of the Childlike Empress, then populated by his imagination.

The book gets deeper about this, which is why this is an adult novel, not a children’s novel. But the first movie pretty much ends at that point, and doesn’t get into the cosmic verities that Mr Ende was trying to explore.

And this rounds us back to the Rock Biter.

The Rock Biter was a large, clumsy, fearful-looking person who ate rocks for food. But he had a gentle demeanor. And he made friends easily; it was usually those to whom he was trying to befriend that had the problem.

But friends he made, and he was loyal to them to the last.

In Real Life, I am looking at how to finish out my days, and get everything accomplished: making sure I leave a legacy to keep my wife and children doing well, my wife especially. I, too, am trying to be loyal to them to the last.

In the immediate economy it’s not easy. At this stage of my life I’m trying to come up with something that will put money in our pockets, to ‘give back what the locust destroyed’. It’s not easy, and the things to do are so very different from the things I would do if this was thirty years ago.

It is very hard to say, ‘Yes, I Can’, right now. But, I can’t blame the economy, though I’d like to. I can’t blame the ‘gimme, gimme’ people, though they do their best to get in the way of those of us who have a mission to be generous by creating and assisting opportunities, to give a hand up assist to those who need that steadying hand to those who need it.

I can’t blame anyone; the only one I can hold accountable is myself.

As the sign at my desk implies, it is all about attitude.

So when you find it hard to say, ‘Yes I Can’, know that I’m right there with you.

But:

Yes, We CAN!