Author: Tom

  • Talking to God

    “Hello God, are you there? It’s me Margaret again..” that’s how I feel sometimes when I pray. The only difference is that instead of being a 12 year old girl asking for boobs, I’m a 52 year old man asking for wisdom and a little self-restraint in a diet that will hopefully (God willing?!?!) magically make my love handles disappear. My prayers are not always so petty. The other day after studying in Exodus and learning about Jehovah Rapha (The LORD who Heals), I prayed that He heal my achilles tendon that has been really bothering me lately. In case you are wondering, it’s still bugging me (oh, and my love handles are bigger than ever). Maybe I should pray to not be a little b*%@ (someone pray for my potty mouth).

    The Bible says a lot about prayer:

    The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

    Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Phillipians 4:6)

    But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father…(Matthew 6:6)

    pray continually. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

    The Bible’s critics say even more. I was reading a book recently where the author had terminal cancer. He was an atheist and he, (like I did as an agnostic), would get upset when people mentioned that they would pray for him. His thought was why are you wasting time to pray to a God who let this happen to begin with?

    I know that prayer has worked in my life. I also know I could do a much better job of talking to God. I try to make sure I sincerely pray when I say I’m going to pray for someone, but I’m sure I’ve added to the millions of good intentions that are offered without action. I know that I’ve offered many prayers with no real belief or faith that they’ll make a difference. I’ve also offered many, many prayers of gratitude for blessings in my life (see, I’m not always a whiny B).

    There is alway the concern about how to pray. What if I mess up my thee’s and thou’s? The good news is God understands us even when we were are so hurt or frustrated that we aren’t making sense or even don’t know what in the heck to pray for (we do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us–Romans 8:26), I heard recently that God doesn’t always answer our prayers because he knows that as soon as our prayers are answered, we’ll stop talking to him. He wants the relationship with us and a one-sided relationship isn’t a good one. Heck sometimes I’ve got to do a reality check on my prayers. This blog is a perfect example… am I really praying that HE will somehow be glorified through it, or my own ego will be satisified. Probably true, but I don’t have all the answers…so I’ll continue to pray. “Dear God, it’s me Margaret AGAIN, about these moobs you gave me…”

  • I quit!?!?

    Excuse me for a minute while I kid myself that at least I made it past quitter’s day. I mean those people are weak and should be ashamed of themselves, right? I made it two whole weeks past that and I should be proud of myself! It wasn’t a resolution or anything, but i gave myself a goal to write one blog post a week. It’s not that I want to quit, I’m just being realistic and thinking maybe I should pursue my other childhood dream as it seems more realistic.

    So from now on I am going to be working on becoming a professional basketball player. Sure I’m in my 50’s, am not particularly tall, have love handles that unfortunately do not defy gravity therefore limit my jumping ability to slightly less than two inches, oh… and I haven’t played basketball since about the seventh grade. Even with all of that, my chances of playing in the NBA are much higher than ever reaching even ten people with a blog geared at Christian men. Just like white men can’t jump, Christian men don’t read.

    Case in point: my wife and I host a small group with three other couples from our church. I figured that I’d just take the bull by the horns and pick a book for us to study. When I announced it, two of the other men immediately informed me that they don’t really read (and the other one wasn’t there). Of course all of this is a much easier excuse than just admitting I suck at writing and am not funny, so there’s that.

    But, I do think there is a need for what I had in mind. Well, not really a need per se, but I think there are a lot of guys out there who don’t want to be preached at. However those same guys could be encouraged by knowing there are other regular guys who are probably bigger sinners than themselves, who also love Jesus and appreciate knowing they are forgiven and saved by grace. Men struggle in silence and they struggle alone. I think guys need other men and I think they need to know that guy who looks like they might have their act together, is just as messed up as they are. Speaking of needs… I need to go work on my slam dunk!

  • Wheels Up!

    The only thing louder than the drunken college kids hooting and hollering, was the nurse yelling at them to get out of her hospital! We (yes, I was one of the drunks) were supposed to be supporting one of our buddies who had a new knot the size of a cantaloupe on his noggin due to St. Patrick’s day shenanigans, but instead we were distracted by unattended wheelchairs and decided that the halls of an emergency room would be the perfect place for drunken wheelchair races.

    Even though that was about 32 years ago, last week we had light-hearted texts about having more wheelchair races in support of our friend. Although this time, even if any of had been drinking, we were suddenly very sober. The word came across that our good friend was having uncontrollable seizures. They couldn’t get them to stop so they put him in a coma to try to figure out what was going on. Was he having some sort of heart failure? A stroke? Was he going to make it??? In our defense, only after he came back to consciousness and stopped having seizures (due to a sodium imbalance), did we resume any dumb jokes (and technically not until after he sent us a pic flipping us off to let us know he was still alive).

    Thank God that this is not a eulogy, so I don’t need to tell you what a great guy this friend is, but I wanted to share a small slice of his life. He and his wife loved to travel. Not like, “I’m going to sit on a beach” travel, but “we are going to summit some of the world’s largest peaks” travel. This all changed a couple of years ago when he was diagnosed with a rare disease that is basically shutting his body now. Now instead of climbing a mountain, he needs help getting out of a chair. There were no signs, no warnings, no family history that he should be on the lookout, nothing.

    It was quite a week. Besides my friend in a coma, two different family members discovered they had cancer. Again, no signs… no warnings, nothing to tell them that maybe something wasn’t quite right. Now just to be clear, all of them should be fine. You should be fine and I should be fine. But unfortunately, you don’t know and I don’t know. I still don’t believe they have found the person who on his deathbed has said, “I really wish I spent more time in the office!” Get out, take the trip, create some fun memories.

    I wish I could leave it at that, because with all my heart I do believe we should get busy living and not just go about life with each day bringing us closer to death. But the truth is, we all are going to die. As uncomfortable as it may be or even depressing as it may seem (thanks for the “funny” Tom), death awaits us all. That fact alone should make you want us very seriously ponder the words from Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Those are words from either a madman or the Son of God… only you can decide which but you at least owe it to yourself to research him, and make a decision and probably sooner rather than later because tomorrow is not promised to anyone.

    #WorstFunnyEver

  • Join 1 million teenage girls (and me) in mourning

    I don’t know about you, but I feel safer already. Yes, I’m typing this on a phone made in China but I’ll then transfer it to my laptop that was also made in China. If I type a product or brand name in either of those devices, I’m quickly marketed by that product. Siri and “Hey Google” will answer questions that I never even asked them. Facebook knows how many times I go to the bathroom, when I’m out of town, which of my family or friends might be sick or otherwise compromised. I’m okay with though, because I trust the Zuckster. But thank God, we finally banned the Chinese app.

  • The mind reader

    All of a sudden, I could read minds. I was just minding my own business trying to do some grocery shopping, when I could literally hear what people were thinking. The problem was the thoughts were coming at me fast and furious, and I couldn’t tell who was thinking what. I saw something like this on a movie one time, but that guy was getting thoughts like, “hey handsome!” I couldn’t even understand what language my thoughts were in. “Wait a minute,” I realized I wasn’t reading people’s minds, I had bionic hearing. I could hear all the way to China! I could hear EVERYTHING. I scanned the faces of the people walking towards me and none of them were making the sounds that I was hearing. It was crazy! Then I looked back, and about five feet behind me I saw (and definitely heard) a short, elderly, and very loud, Asian woman.

    That’s when I decided to officially embrace my geezerdom. Sure at first, I rejected the idea of ever wearing hearing aids, but I’ve come around. They were never mainstream and acceptable like eyeglasses and toupees, but with advances in technology, they have become dare I say hip (well as hip as the word “hip” is anyway)?

    Quick sidenote for a Lifehack: if you also want to become hip, go to Costco where you can get a pair of hearing aids for under $1500 bucks (vs. your not so friendly Ear Nose and Throat doctor’s office who will gladly charge you $6k per ear). Anyway, for probably the first time in my life I could hear people who were even behind me, so I was sold.

    Being able to hear is nice, but the fact that my hearing aids are blue tooth enabled was the real kicker. Not only could I answer my phone calls directly to my hearing aids, but I could also watch videos, listen to podcasts, and get lost in social media without anyone even knowing. Except my wife, she ALWAYS knows.

    She would be there chatting away and pouring her heart out to her loving husband… who was secretly watching and listening to the latest viral trend on TikTok. She would want to talk to me, but I would be distracted by something else. Eventually, she would just wait and stop talking for if/when I stopped being distracted and actually listened to her. And for some crazy reason, these one sided conversations with me always being distracted, wasn’t good for our relationship.

    And so it goes with God. Even though I learned my hearing aid lesson after my wife beat it into me, I still can’t go five minutes in silence. TikTok, podcast, Audible, Spotify, sports, Netflix, cat video, ESPN, Facebook, background noise, something, ANYTHING… in my ears or in front of my eyes… and at all times. Never silence.

    They say God speaks to us in a whisper. God could be shouting to me through a megaphone, but I can’t hear Him because I can’t follow His simple instructions, “Be still and know that I am God.” Have you ever heard the devil’s greatest trick is to keep us distracted. Unfortunately, I am falling for his trick: hook, line, and sinker and I know that I’m not alone. I’m going to wrap up this Sunday’s Funny so I can simply shut everything down and spend some time with God. Talking to Him and actually listening to Him. I’ll be just Psalms 46:10’ing it up over here, being still and knowing that HE is God.

  • God’s Will Hunting

    It turns out, I have been doing it wrong all of these years #thatswhatshesaid. Not that, something even more intimate: prayer. I wish I could honestly say I prayed every day or that I spent 23 hours a day talking to God, but I don’t. However, when I have prayed about something important, it usually goes like this:

    Me: Dear God, it’s me Margaret. Just kidding, but this might be a good time to remind you that it was YOU who gave me this sense of “humor.” Anyhoo God, I’ve been thinking about something important and I thought I should let you know the plans. I’ve really been thinking that I should ____ (insert whatever my latest hair-brained scheme is). This is really important to me so I need you to bless these plans. Don’t mess this up.

    God: Why didn’t I smite you years ago? You are really fortunate that I am not done with you yet.

    Me: Oh yeah God, you know I’ve never been brave enough to pray for patience, so I really need this done today!

    Then I would go off feeling pretty good about myself considering I “prayed” about such an important decision. I remember a little over 20 years ago asking the guy who lead my Bible Study in Texas how I knew if something I was praying for was just something I wanted or if God was cool with what I wanted (I should really pray for shorter sentences). I thought he gave a good answer: “I’ve found that if God wants to bless something, he opens doors for it and things have a way of happening. If he doesn’t doors seem to close.” Hmmm… what do you think?

    Did you answer before I move on? It’s kind of worked as guidance for me for the past two decades. I do think just like we would with our kids, our Father would close doors on paths we are considering that He knows aren’t good for us. However, what I am learning lately is that if I am not asking the right questions, the answers don’t really matter.

    “God here is what I want…” or even something that seemed to send me into a mental tailspin over the past couple of years, “God, please reveal what your will is for MY life.” Basically I’m telling God it is all about me. It’s exactly how Jesus taught his followers to pray: “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, my kingdom come, my will be done…” Oh shoot!

    I just started a study with a small group from our church. The book is called Experiencing God and it points out that I should be seeking God’s will and asking how I could be used in it. Not even God’s will for my life or what I should be doing in certain areas. What is God’s will? What is he trying to do and although he definitely doesn’t need me, can I be used to help accomplish it? Oh and God, how in the heck am I supposed to know your will? Since that is an on-going dilemma, I’ll save it for a future post!

  • All aboard!

    There I sat at almost 2am, still very drunk, cold and shivering, and trying to mean-mug the other homeless guys to let them know that, at least for the time being, this was my bench. Except it wasn’t my permanent residence, I wasn’t homeless. In fact, I just had quite a night! It was New Year’s Eve circa 1994ish, and I just spent all night partying in San Francisco.

    My friends and I took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Train over from where we were staying at a friend’s house in Walnut Creek to the city. Once we got there it was near impossible to not have a good time! There was loud music, festive crowds, drinking, dancing, and new acquaintances that would be soon forgot, but hopefully not before you got to kiss them at midnight. In all the revelry, my friends and I got split up. That was okay, because I remembered the very important instructions that I was given that night: the trains stopped running at 1am. I just had to wrap up my fun by 12:15 or so and head over to the train station and I would be fine.

    I did just that. By 12:20 I was on a train and by about 12:21, I had already passed out. At about 1am, I was shook awake, “hey buddy, get up it’s the last stop, you’ve got to get off this train!” I was very groggy, but managed to ask, “are we in Walnut Creek?” Once the guy stopped laughing, he hollered, “Walnut Creek?!? Your in Daly City!” Yep, I got on a train all right, but it took me to the exact opposite place of where I wanted to go. To make matters worse, I didn’t allow enough time to correct my mistake, and was stuck at the end of the road.

    That drunken train ride is our life. We are on it, we’re heading somewhere, and eventually this ride is going to come to a stop. When the train stops, we’re stuck at whatever location our actions take us to.

    I’m not going to lie, when I was agnostic, the conceit of Christians used to drive me nuts! “So you are saying out of the thousands of religions, yours is the right way?” Sure it is bubs! Even more annoying (excuse my French but it used to really piss me off) was their arrogance to tell me that me being a good person wasn’t enough to get me to Heaven if such a place even existed. I was probably a much better person than a lot of those hypocrites who told me that! Who did those jerks think they were and how did they know the way to Heaven?

    Years later I realized it wasn’t them, it was Jesus who said, “I am THE way, the truth, and the life.” He didn’t say he was “A” way. He said he was THE way. All religions lead to Heaven is about as true as saying all trains lead to Walnut Creek. The scary part is most of us are putting about as much preparation into their life train as I put into my drunk train. Part of the problem is that most of us are going to wake up tomorrow… and the next day… and the day after that. We are fooled into thinking we have all the time in the world to figure it out. Maybe someday we’ll get around to researching what we believe and why we believe it. For now though, let’s just enjoy the ride because what could go wrong?

    I’ve never been one to force my beliefs on anyone. In fact, having beliefs forced on me helped keep me away from God. However, I would strongly encourage you to do some research and decide on what you want to believe (even if it is just that you are going to be stuck in a box, worms will eat you, the end). I know it isn’t necessarily fun to think about, but this train ride IS coming to an end… are your heading in the right direction?

    Because this blog isn’t called Sunday’s serious, I’ll end with one of my dad’s favorite jokes,:

    Train conductor: Sir, I’m going to need to see your ticket.

    Man shakes his head.

    Train conductor (louder this time): MISTER, I’m going to need to see your ticket or I’m going to have to throw your luggage off this train.

    Man shakes his head more vigorously this time

    Train conductor notices they are on a bridge above water so he grabs a piece of the man’s luggage and tosses it into the river.

    Man (who had a Scottish accent for some reason): Hoot man, not only are you trying to jip me out of me fare, you’re trying to kill my son!

  • Don’t hit snooze on this one!

    It’s all wrong! The manger scene is inaccurate. Yes, there might have been sheep and shepherds. There was probably even a donkey and that ass was probably very tempted to kick the kid with the drum set. What about the wise men who let everyone know that they were so “wise” that they didn’t need to ask for directions (and showed up a couple of years later)? Sure, let’s throw them in. Mary, Joseph, and little baby Jesus, yep all there (although the real 8lb six ounce baby Jesus with his golden fleece diapers probably had a better tan than the baby in my manger)! So what’s the issue you ask? The lie of the manger scene is that everyone is awake! Let me present you three incontrovertible real life examples that prove this could not have happened:

    Numero Uno

    One of my favorite childhood Christmas memories was our Christmas Eve tradition. As kids we got to open one gift before the big day. My default was to always grab the biggest present with my name on it. The only thing bigger than the present was my excited eyes…until inevitably the present I chose to open was replaced along with a strong suggestion from my Mom of, “why don’t you open THIS one instead.” It was, of course, another lame sweater that I had to wear that night because didn’t I want to look nice to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus? Of course I did, but did Jesus really want me to be itchy all night? All I really cared about was getting over to my aunt and uncle’s house for a big ham dinner, Christmas music, and to see how many See’s candies I had to bite into (and then put back in the box- cherries… gross!) until I found one I liked. Anyway we’d play games, tell jokes, and have fun until late in the night and then just like that, we had to rush off to the dreaded midnight mass (note to any Catholics who read this, please don’t be offended as I was a kid up way past his bedtime in an itchy sweater and Santa wouldn’t come until I sat through a church service at midnight). There was a technicality though, I just had to be there, nobody said I had to stay awake. I slept through EVERY ONE OF THEM. Which was fine as a little kid, but before I move on let me tell you about my older brother Paul. One time when staying at a hotel he got a call in the middle of the night, “hey buddy, I’m sorry to bug you, but I’m in the room next to you and I have a really important day tomorrow. Is there any way you could turn over, put a pillow over your face, or something? Anything??? Your snoring is awful!” Through the wall and in a completely different hotel room. Yeah… so that brother Paul would be as excited about the midnight mass as me, and he would spend the whole service snoring along with me.

    Numero Dos

    Another brother and more preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus (well technically, for the arrival of Santa…and we were going to catch him this year)! My brothers and I had the bright idea of sleeping in the living room so we could catch Santa as he came down the chimney. As I was struggling to stay awake, I decided to sneak into the kitchen to check to see if there were any new presents under the tree. Holy smokes! There was a brand new bicycle that hadn’t been there when I went to bed. I was so excited and couldn’t believe I was getting a new bike until I saw my little brother’s name on it. “Maybe I interrupted Santa in the act and if I just went back to bed, there would be one for me too” I thought. Sure enough, not five minutes later I heard what could only have been the sound of air going into a tire. Yes! I waited what felt like an hour but was probably about two minutes for Santa to finish putting the air into my new bike. I couldn’t wait anymore so I tiptoed back into the kitchen to see that same stupid bike with my stupid little brother’s name on it. I was so confused but then realized that I just heard the air sound again. I followed my ears to find my brother Michael sound asleep and snoring away. So that noise could only have been the air going into a tire OR air coming out of my sound asleep brother!

    Numero Tres

    “If you fall asleep, I will kill you!” This was what was called a credible threat. Those words were said to me by my own wife, who is usually kind and loving, but at that moment was in labor and exhausted. She just wanted to get a little rest before the birth of our last daughter and did NOT want me to fall asleep before she did to ensure my snoring wouldn’t keep her awake. What??? I was insulted even as she reminded me that was exactly what happened with the others. How dare she??? I mean, what kind of man did she think zzz…

    I rest my case. Literally. We are asleep. The manger needs to be updated. We are celebrating the arrival of our Savior and we are out of it. God doesn’t change. That little baby who left his Kingdom in Heaven to be born among the barn animals, still wants to have a relationship with us. Instead of really preparing for the celebration of his birth, we are still out of it. Sure maybe our eyes open and we aren’t snoring, but we are definitely not awake. We are on our phones. We are glued to our TV’s. “What God you want to spend time with me? Just a second while I watch one more TikTok video. ” We still have four more days to prepare our hearts for the baby whose birth changed history, let’s wake up!

    Which one would be more accurate?

  • Forgive me Father for I have sinned…

    Even though it was over 40 years ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. I went back and forth between trying to remember my lines, to thinking of a better excuse for why I couldn’t do it as “I’m pretty sure I’m having a heart attack” wasn’t too believable for an eight year old, and praying that my profusive sweating wasn’t going to be mistaken for soiling my Toughskin Jeans. A door opened and an elderly man walked out of what looked like a wooden box. He stepped out an old woman stepped in (what in the heck could she have to confess, did she burn some oatmeal raisin cookies?!?). My time was running out…

    Forgive me father for I have sinned…

    It was my first confession, and I wanted to run out of that church as fast and as far as I could. The only problem is that if I did, my dad would ensure that sitting on my bottom was no longer an option so I would be forced to kneel wherever I went. My dad was the pope. Maybe not the real one at the Vatican, but I was convinced that he was secretly the Californian one who lived at my house. He wasn’t Catholic, he was SUPER Catholic. Which meant as a young boy, I was going to be Catholic as well. And as a young boy of non-voting age and non-pope status, it was time for me to make my Sacrament of Reconcilation.

    It has been…wait… I mean, this if my first confession.

    I had already made my first communion a few years earlier, and I almost cried at that too (looking back, I guess I was a real cry-baby as a kid). At least at that milestone, I wasn’t alone as my whole Catechism class was taking their first communion on the same day. That was part of the problem though as they were all doing it the same way. The way our catechism teacher taught us: you have the priest put the communion wafer in your hand, and then you put it in your mouth. My dad insisted that some of the changes the church made in the past couple of decades were wrong, and that the priest had to put the communion directly in my mouth. It doesn’t sound like much, but to a five year old being asked to be different from his whole class and ignore the instructions from his teacher, I was sure that I was going to die from embarrassment.

    The door opened again, and just like that, the old lady was on her way out. There was nobody left to delay me from my pending death sentence. GULP. I slowly stepped in, closed the door, and sat on a small wooden bench facing the door. The room was empty but separating it from an identical closet sized room, was a small window sized curtain. “You may begin when you are ready,” the priest in the adjoining room encouraged.

    “I… uh… fought with my brothers.”

    “I stole a little plastic army guy at 7-11 and feel really bad about it…”

    “And uhhhh…”

    The priest tried to help me keep moving, “Anything else?”

    “Well…uh… you see I have a brother whose name rhymes with Fat and…” I proceeded to tell him how me and some other brothers spent an afternoon saying nothing but, “Fat Pat, Fat Pat, Fat Pat!” “But” I continued, “both my dad and brother already gave me a whoopin’ so God doesn’t have to punish me for that one!”

    “I see,” the priest calmly said from his side of the curtain. “Can you tell me something good you have done?” Oh crud, the priest was playing some sort of Jedi mind trick on me! I couldn’t think of a single good thing I had ever done in my eight years of life. “Uhhh…”

    “Have you ever helped your parents with the chores?” he asked.

    “I sometimes take out the trash.” I said excitedly.

    “Great, have you ever helped your mom with dinner?” I did, I did…all of a sudden I was Tweety Bird. More importantly, I was surviving my first confession. The priest explained that God wasn’t interested in punishing me, but offering me forgiveness for my sins. He reminded me of what I already learned in catechism class, that Jesus died for me so I could go to heaven. Then he told me say three Hail Mary’s and politely kicked me out of his wooden closet.

    Do you know what I remember almost as much as the fear walking into that confessional? How good, and how light… yes, light… I felt walking out of it. Every bad thing I had done in my life wasn’t forgotten, but was forgiven.

    “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins

    and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

    A lot has happened in the 44 years or so since that first confession. I went from being a forced Catholic, to an agnostic living like an atheist, to someone who chooses to try to (and does a very poor job of) follow Jesus. I no longer believe that I need to confess my sins to a priest, but I should still be confessing them (and if I’m honest, I need to be doing it a lot more often than I do). There’s no time like the present so here goes nothing…

    Forgive me reader for I have sinned, it’s been over 40 years since my last confession… you might want to get comfortable!