Let's Talk About Religion

My religion is one of peace. I won't force my religion on you, and I request that you don't force yours on me. ["Fighting for peace" is like "screwing for virginity"...perhaps George Carlin said that?] I wish to have power over no man, except myself; that is difficult enough a task for most days. And having reached this point, if I treat others as I would wish to be treated myself--offering a hand to those who need it, doing what I can to feed the hungry, and clothe and shelter the needy, to the degree that I am physically and financially able to do so--I would hope that by my example others would take up a similar way of life. 

IF there are any commandments in my religion, they are to treat others as we would wish to be treated, and to not infringe or attempt to impose my will on another. Does that make me better than anyone else? NO, not at all; it simply makes me different from the zealots of all faiths and denominations who feel the need to "recruit" others to their "way." And if others choose to also practice the same things I attempt to practice, they are not "followers" of my "way," but "brethren" [what's the comparable term in a feminine gender?...I know it's not "cistern"...] traveling a similar path. 

I try to live my life in such a way that my life itself is a witness to what I believe; and that as a witness, my life's testimony should not show my words and thoughts to be hypocrisy. Live, laugh, love...with that as my guideline, how could I condone war, or any shedding of blood over an idea, and not be a hypocrite? My fight is not with other men; my fight is within myself, to overcome the weaknesses of character that keep me from fully living as I believe I should.

I honestly believe this is the essence of what true Christianity, or any true religion, should be. As a Christian, I have hope of an afterlife, of a resurrection from the death of this frail body.  But I don't believe that it's something that can be earned, no matter how many good deeds I do in my life, or how well I treat others.  To me, that's akin to working for a paycheck, rather than working because you're doing something that you love.  You do what's decent and honest and honorable because it's decent and honest and honorable...NOT because Mommy promised you a sucker, or Daddy promised you a new car, or because Jesus promised you a home in Eternity.  It's a matter of changing what's in the heart, about going from "What's in it for me?" to "How can I be the best I can be?"

I think that was the essential lesson that Jesus came to teach us.

Happy Birthday, Andy

Thirty-four years ago tonight, I pulled an all-nighter.

OK, maybe I did sleep a couple of hours, but not all at once.

My wife Brenda--Duck, to her friends--and I were expecting our first child. The due date was supposed to have been July 14th, but that one came and went. I was working second shift at the old W. R. Grace fertilizer plant on Grant Line Road in New Albany, and living in a townhouse apartment in Clarksville, on Greentree Boulevard, just across from where the O'Reilly's Auto Parts store now stands. The site where the Grace plant stood then is part of the Wal-Mart, across from the National Guard armory.

I had worked second shift, and just got home. I looked around, and Duck was nowhere to be found downstairs. So I went upstairs, and saw the light on in the bedroom and also in the bathroom, with the bathroom door shut. There was a notebook next to the bed, and when I walked over and saw what was on it, I calmly turned around, went downstairs, and walked back out to our car. The notebook had times written down on it, and the times were 8 to 10 minutes apart. So, realizing it was gonna be a long night, I got back in the car, and drove to the nearby Convenient Food Mart. I bought a frozen pizza, brought it back to the apartment, preheated the oven and baked it...and then ate it. All of it. Long nights following a long shift at work require a lot of fuel, y'know.

Then I went back upstairs. Between trips to the bathroom, Duck had managed to write a few more times on the notebook. So I then made the mistake of asking her why she was spending so much time in the bathroom. She explained to me that one of her friends had told her that she could speed up her labor if she took an enema. So while I was at work, she gave herself an enema--a difficult task for a pregnant woman--by lying on the stairs. [I didn't ask for details...so I can only guess.] But when she decided that the enema wasn't working fast enough to suit her, she gave herself another enema. The second one worked...with a vengeance, apparently.

So finally she was able to stay out of the bathroom for minutes at a time. The pains were getting closer, so she called her OB doctor. [Turned out that HER doctor had decided to go on vacation that week, so his partner was on call.] At around 1 am the pains were close enough that we headed to the hospital, after getting ahold of the OB's partner. Due to my insurance, we had to go to Floyd Memorial Hospital...and in 1980, what we now call the "old section" of Floyd was ALL there was of Floyd.

Once we got to the 4th floor, I spent a lot of time in the waiting room. And of course, the first thing they did to Duck when she got to the hospital was to give her yet another enema. The nursing staff would only allow one person in the labor room with her at a time, so I split my time there with her sister Donna.

Friends, if you have never been involved with a woman going through labor, you have missed a huge slice of life. Sometime during the night, during one particularly rough labor pain, I was called things that no human being should ever be called. I was told that, if this is what having sex leads to, my sex life was over right here and now. And I was told things that I can't recall simply because I'd been up since early the previous morning.

Off and on, I was able to doze in the waiting room . The TV shows at 4 am on the cable channels in 1980 were bizarre...or at least that's how I remember them. I saw one religious show, where the man on the screen was explaining some prophecy, while wearing sunglasses. Then he removed the sunglasses...to reveal another pair of sunglasses under those. And a few minutes later, he removed THAT pair of sunglasses, and he had another pair under the second one. I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine that, but then sleep deprivation between "good old-fashioned cussin's" makes the mind wonder if it saw and heard what I thought I saw and heard.

Finally, around 10 o'clock that Wednesday morning, I was summoned to the delivery room. I put on the paper gown, the mask, the hat, and the funky shoe covers--a challenge for my size 13 feet--and then waited until I was given the OK to enter. What seemed like two minutes later, at 10:23 am on July 23, 1980, our son Mark Andrew Knight was born. I don't remember what he weighed or how long he was, I just remember he was healthy, and the ordeal phase was over.

Not counting the teenage years, of course.

But that's another story for another time.

Happy birthday, Andy!

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

The shootings in Las Vegas surely were the acts of mentally unstable people. But were those people not merely putting into practice what some folks preach on places like Facebook every day? The folks I'm talking about are the ones who hate our government, and want everyone else to hate our government just as badly as they do.

Truth be told, if some of these people preaching hate had their way, they would put a bullet in our President and never bat an eye. Well, facing facts, nobody with a gun is going to get anywhere near our President. So the folks who hear all this anti-government preaching and ranting decide to focus not on what they CAN'T do, but what they CAN do.

And the closest part of government, to most people, is the local police force. The two shooters in Las Vegas took out a pair of cops who were having lunch...and then covered their bodies in Gadsden flags, the yellow ones with the legend "DON'T TREAD ON ME." Apparently this indicates that these shooters took that hatred of government talk seriously...deadly seriously.

And I'd bet that the manner in which they died didn't bother them at all, either. My guess is, they considered themselves martyrs for the cause.

As folks kept repeating during the Bill Clinton "debate" over the meaning of the word "is," words DO have meaning. Apparently all that "take our country back" and hatred for government talk echoed within the souls of these two young people. And they acted upon it. Now, I'm sure all the "take our country back" and "hate the government" folks will disavow any connection to the actions of these two shooters; they have to. These shooters were over the edge, mentally. We all have to believe that.

Because that's a whole lot easier than going to the families of the dead officers and the dead civilian and saying, "We didn't really mean it." When you call people to action, never forget that words have meaning, and actions have consequences. And people WILL take your words literally, even if you meant them in a figurative sense. And once those words are said, they can never be unsaid.

The hatemongers who influenced these shooters are no less culpable in this case than the hippies in the '60's who preached "revolution" while never thinking that others would take THEM seriously and plant bombs that would kill innocent people.

That's my opinion on the subject. No doubt yours is quite different.

Never, EVER Settle...

Never, ever settle for less than you're worth, or for a result that's less than what you're worth.

In June, 1973, the band Aerosmith released the single "Dream On" from their self-titled album. The song peaked at #59 nationally. The song was re-issued in early 1976, debuting at #81 on the charts. This time, the song continued to climb, peaking at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1975, KISS released the studio version of "Rock And Roll All Night," from their album "Dressed To Kill," and the song peaked at #57 on the Billboard charts. But a live version, from their "Alive" album, was released in October of 1975, and that version reached #12 on the national charts.

These two bands COULD HAVE settled for the original result. But they believed in themselves, and they believed in the product...and eventually the public believed as well.

A good lesson for us all. Believe in yourself. Believe in what you're doing. If you can't believe in what you're doing, no one else will, either. If you can't believe in what you're doing, then CHANGE what you're doing, and change what you're doing to something you CAN believe in.

Thoughts On Getting Older

As morbid as this may sound, lately I've been thinking a lot about preparing more for the end of my life. I'm not so egotistical that I can't accept the fact that my life someday WILL end, nor do I presume that it will continue for a long time from now. But I find it frustrating that it seems my entire working life--from my years of auto parts, welding, and my training at IVY Tech--has all led me to where I feel confident that I can build my lifelong dream, my street rod pickup truck...but now that I have the experience, education, and training to do it, I find myself too broke to actually do it.

And now I'm experiencing the aches and pains that "traditionally" go with being my age. Before I turned 50, I could pretty much do all the stuff I did when I was 20. When I turned 55, the deterioration started for real. And now, as I'm in my 60th year, I'm finding I suffer from sore joints and muscles without the benefit of knowing what--if anything--I did to cause the pain.

But it's the combination of all these things that has me thinking that I need to make sure that loose ends are getting tied up, and that I begin to take on fewer, not more, responsibilities. I'll not be seeking any long-term financing for any projects, and I'm not seeing a "lifetime membership" in anything as a financially sound investment. I'm not depressed--other than the part about my truck--but every day, I find myself asking myself, "What are they [the folks who count on me to do things] going to do when I die? I realize that I'm no more indispensable than anyone else...but I'm already thinking that as one by one our pets make their way across that rainbow bridge, I can't consider replacing them, much less adding to their numbers...because I want to be able to adequately care for them, and the older I get, the harder it gets.

That's also why I'm committing to fewer and fewer promises, even with good friends. I'm just finding myself less and less able to deliver on such promises. And I don't make promises lightly. I wish I could do more for friends and family, sure...but my physical resources just don't allow for that as much as I'd like. I can't run on empty at all any more...not like I did when I was working 2 jobs, or 3 jobs including the weekends, when I was younger. Maybe I just used myself up over the years, but I don't have the reserves I did a few years ago. And it leaves me feeling bad for those around me, more than it leaves me feeling sorry for myself. I can't contribute as much to their lives as I'd like. And as much as I'd like to think I could "turn it around," at this age there's just not as much ability to "bounce back" as I used to have.

So I'm facing my own mortality, and realizing that , in my 60th year, it'll be here sooner rather than later. Now, I plan to put THAT off as long as I can...BET ON IT. But I'm enough of a realist that I can see it on the road ahead; I just don't have the depth of field yet to judge the distance involved. So If I turn you down when you ask something of me, PLEASE don't take it personally. It's not you...REALLY.

It's me.

Lessons Learned From A Pork Loin

These days, groceries are expensive. I usually shop for bargains, which are sometimes hard to find. Lately, I've been foregoing most beef products, because the price per pound would deplete the food budget too quickly. So I've been turning to other protein sources. And one of the less-expensive of these has recently been pork loin.

The loin is the part of the pig along the top of the rib cage, according to Wikipedia. I've recently been buying boneless pork loin for around $1.88 a pound, on sale. A 7 to 12 pound pork loin will yield a good number of pork chops, which is what sliced pork loin often becomes. Or a larger section of the loin can become a roast, which we usually cook in the crock pot with carrots, potatoes, and some various seasonings.

So when you strip it all down, a pork loin can be said to be "loin from a pig."

Now, when I was a kid, television was in its infancy. A lot of comedies were shown on TV, and it seems we got to see a lot of the old "movie shorts" featuring the Three Stooges. Curly, as we all know, spoke English with a distinctive accent...and words like "turn" became "toin," "burn" became "boin," and "learn" became "loin." [Some of you may already see where I'm going with this.]

So if pork loin can be called "loin from a pig"...putting this into Curly Howard's voice, just what CAN we "loin from a pig?"

First, pigs like mud. But the reason is, on those hot summer days, the water and the mud form an insulating layer around the pig's skin, helping to keep them cooler. If you've ever seen pigs in the mud, they lie down in it; they roll in it; they immerse themselves in it...often from their piggy snout all the way to their curly tail. So if there's one lesson we can "loin from a pig," that's to totally immerse ourselves in subjects that we love. Roll in it...enjoy it to the fullest. WHY? Because it's cool.

The second lesson we can "loin from a pig" has to do with breakfast. Ever hear the explanation of the difference in the terms "involvement" and "commitment"? When it comes to breakfast of ham and eggs, or bacon and eggs, or sausage and eggs...we can say that the chicken that lays the egg is INVOLVED in your breakfast...but the pig is COMMITTED. The chicken can, after all, walk away after breakfast; the pig cannot. So the second lesson we can "loin from a pig" is to always be fully committed to any projects we take on. We need to go at them "whole hog," as the saying goes, and be committed to their completion and to the perfection of the job at hand. Just being slightly involved, and then walking away...is just plain chicken.

Those are the words of wisdom I have to impart to you today. I hope that when you return to the grocery store and walk by the meat case, you'll be reminded of these lessons you can "loin from a pig" whenever you see the packages with pork loin on sale. I really hope that you'll "loin from a pig" and put these lessons to use in your daily lives as well.

Now...about that bacon that's "fully cured"...was it really sick to begin with?

Christmas 2013

So Christmas is here again...some folks are waxing nostalgic, some folks are waxing philosophical, and yet others are waxing areas I don't even want to talk or hear about. No matter which group you fall into...if you'd lighten up on the spiked eggnog, you wouldn't fall as fast or as hard. Many of you will claim that the fat man with the beard came to visit your homes while everyone was sleeping; the truth is, I never left the house after 7 pm...and I have witnesses.

May everyone who reads this have a wonderful day, no matter what you're celebrating. As for me, I'm going back to bed and hoping I sleep through the rest of the night. Morning will find many of you eating candy you found in your socks...which, any other time of the year, would be a quite disgusting concept. And if you don't end up getting what you want for Christmas, I'd like to ask everyone to focus instead upon all we have, and give thanks for that. Or simply give thanks for the negative things you DON'T have, such as cancer. Others--some of them friends--aren't quite as lucky. There, but for the grace of God, walk you and I.

Appreciate what you have; appreciate as well what you don't have. And may peace be in your life from this day forward.