They Walk Funny, Them's That Hate Us

I saw this blessing during the holidays and thought I'd share it.

May those who love us, love us.
Those who don't love us, may the Lord turn their hearts.
And if the Lord cannot turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
so we may know them by their limping...

It's a good kind of sore...

There were three tests held today at North Texas Aikido. After a full hour of spirited tanken-dori, the students were lined up in order of rank and two of the test-candidates and their ukes were called forward to perform the required techniques and weapons excercises required for their new rank of Gokkyu. Sitting on the sidelines, I found myself discretely trying to keep my muscles from cooling off from the prior excercise in preperation to serve as uke for our Sankyu candidate's test, which was to immediately follow.

Even though I wasn't the person testing, I found myself getting a charge out of the energy and excitement that always permeates the testing environment. We frequently claim that Sankyu is the first of the "big" tests at the dojo, and the training and preparations involved can literally take months before a candidate is ready to test. I was thrown down in some form or another 30 to 40 times before it was time to demonstrate weapons excercises (and give me a break from bouncing off the mat). The candidate performed well, and with few hiccoughs in technique, so the test proceeded as quickly as the comprehensive list of requirements could allow.

Sore? You betcha! But it's the kind of productive pain that remains after achievement. After the "runner's high" subsides, there's always that pleasant soreness that reminds you of the miles behind you and beckons you toward those to come. Individual accomplishments strengthen the dojo just as surely as excercise strengthens a muscle. In this case, the accomplishment was not my own, but a boon for the dojo as a whole, regardless.

Freedom From Want

I was considering the concept of Thanksgiving and how it truly has little to do with our current circumstances, but rather our attitudes toward them in contrast with what we already have, when the following gem appeared in my inbox. I subscribe to the Steve Troxel's "God's Daily Word" and receive a daily devotional message from his ministry each morning.

I think he says it all far better than anything I could have written this morning, and so I share it with you in its entirety. (Emphasis mine)

Freedom From Want

On January 6th, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his State of the Union speech to Congress and articulated four freedoms which he said were fundamental American values. These freedoms were, Freedom of Worship, Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want. Norman Rockwell, made a series of paintings to correspond with these four freedoms, and these paintings were circulated in the Saturday Evening Post from February to March 1943. The most famous of the four paintings was the one titled Freedom from Want. In this famous painting a large family is gathered around a dinner table. The picture is full of happy faces and lots and lots of food. But the focus of the picture is an elderly woman setting down a cooked turkey which is big enough to feed a small village. Mr. Rockwell is a wonderful painter but I believe he gravely missed the point in his depiction of the freedom from want. He would even later say of his work that the painting better depicted overabundance - or perhaps overindulgence.

Today is called Thanksgiving in the United States. The origins of this holiday go back to the founding of our country but today it is a time when people gather together, eat too much food, watch too much television, and some actually try to reflect on reasons to be thankful. The idea of a time of thanksgiving would be a great worldwide time of reflection - but we need to have a much better concept of thankfulness and what it really means to have freedom from want. 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Giving thanks should never be dependent on our circumstances - never based on what we have, how full our table or bank account. This is a true freedom which only comes by understanding the gift of Salvation, the joy of eternal glory, and who we are in Christ as we live the rest of our days as a child of God. Paul expressed this thankfulness best in his letter to the Philippians: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:12-13). Let's learn the secret of a thankful heart by learning that thankfulness is not dependent on what we see. True and lasting thanksgiving is only obtained through faith in Jesus Christ and God's free gift of Salvation - and then by living with an understanding of what this gift implies. Freedom from want is not obtained through having more, it is obtained by understanding what we already have. Let's begin today to live with a true Freedom From Want.

A Slice of Crunklenut

The late fall sun, rising over beloved Crunklenut, Texas, finds the sleepy little town reluctantly casting off the night's hopeful dreams and stretching into full wakefulness.

Down on the corner of 1st and Elm, at the Fallon's Full-Service Gas-n-Go, the smell of coffee drifts through the doorway of the back office and intertwines with the everpresent scent of old oil and stale gasoline. "Tweed" Fallon, feeling even older than usual this morning swings his bare feet over the edge of the sagging military-surplus cot and recoils, sucking in his breath and coming fully awake as they touch the frigid concrete floor. He massages his tightly-clenched eyes with stained fingers that long ago stopped coming fully clean and tries to recapture some of the previous night's dream. There was warm sunlight and youth, flowers and the soft smile of a young french woman whose face he couldn't quite make out. All the other details were quickly evaporating in the crystalline morning insinuating itself through the gap in the tattered blinds. Dust dances in the narrow beam, as it falls on stacks of old papers, oil-stained boxes of used engine parts and the collected miscellany of the past six decades. Sighing, he rises slowly from his lonley bed, straightens out his rumpled bed-clothes, and shuffles with another new and unfamiliar ache to the pot of coffee that awaits him on the automatic burner.