January 1, 1988

 Today is the start of a new year. It is true that I am somewhat nervous about making promises. My record of keeping promises I have made, especially New Year's promises, is not very good. Yet I am compelled to try to write something new everyday of this year. Mind you, I do not mean to keep a diary but rather to actually write something, anything, just so it is new and relates to God's love for me and my love for God. You see I truly believe that my God has called me to write and I must do my part. If I write everyday then I know God will take care of me and my family. It is a pact. While it could be argued that no matter if I keep my end of the deal or not, God will continue to love me in the same way, and I would not disagree. It is so important to me that through my actions I demonstrate my strong belief in what it is that God has called me to do. This is my way of doing that.

 I believe with all that is me, that all that, is now, was yesterday, and will be tomorrow, comes from and in fact is a part of a real God. This God that I believe in was, is, and will be love. There is nothing that comes from God that is not from, of, and part of love. Sometimes I am accused of trying to impose limits on my God. It is not so! There is no limit to love. There is no limit to God. There is no limit to God's love for all of creation in the whole and as individual creations. All creation came, comes from, and will come from God. It is the same as saying all things come from love.

 It is this understanding of God that I am called to share with my fellow man. I think God called me in a particular way to share this understanding. As with all men, I share who I am and what it is I believe through my actions and words. I am trying to do so. It is through the written words that I feel God's love of me and my understanding of a loving creator God is to be expressed. And so I am committed to trying to write what it is I feel and know; what it is that I think my God wants me to write. If indeed this is what God wants me to do, it will be done! Obviously anything I write of value to anyone comes directly from God. Just as obvious when what it is I have written makes no sense, well, you know who the author is.

 And so I have begun with this written promise to write everyday this year.

January 2, 1988

 I heard a man say today that there was no man on earth who had complete authority over everyone. He went on to say that Jesus Christ who was both man and God was the only human that ever lived that had such authority. The way Jesus exercised his divine authority was by calling man to account for his actions. 

To a point I agree. Because Jesus was God, become man, but still God, it is reasonable to say that Jesus was God had authority over man. At that point one must understand the nature of God. Now I have heard it said over and over that it is impossible for "mere" man to understand the nature of God. Baloney! You see or at least I hope you will see that God has only one nature. God has only one being. Indeed God has only one reason for existing. It is the single reason why man was created and why man continues to survive to this day. It is the reason why man will never cease to exist. The word is love.

 Now some of man will have great difficulty understanding just how true this is. The truth is most always simple. Now God's love is limitless and the power of God's love is also unlimited. God's being is therefore also limitless. That is why Jesus was the divine man. Love as just described is divine. Limitless love is divine. Devine love is God. Jesus was divine man or God become man.

 Man's love is not yet divine. Man's love has limits. Always those limits are self imposed.

 When God created man, God did not impose limits on man. Man was created in the image of God. Man was created with God's love, and remember God's love is unlimited. Man's love could be unlimited.

 Jesus called man to be accountable for man's actions. Jesus called man to love. In fact Jesus gave man only two simple laws by which to live. Jesus simplified life for man by calling man to love. Man was called to love his creator and his fellow man. That's all. Just live a life of love.

 I am trying to live my life in love. I get close to doing that and I fall flat on my face. It seems the harder I try to live in the image I was created, the deeper and harder it is when I fail. So maybe what I believe and have written could easily be said to be wrong. I know it is not! I know that there is an evil, ungod spirit that constantly fights God's love. This undivine spirit is powerful and knows my physical and mental needs. It is constantly trying to win me and you away from accepting the limitless love that we were created with and from. I will not give in to this spirit. I know of the power of unlimited love. I know of the power of my creator. I know Jesus Christ. I choose to believe what Jesus called me to do and I reject any other concept that would seem to meet any immediate physical or mental need I might be having at any particular moment!

 You see, I understand the nature of God. I want you to understand who your God is also.

January 3, 1988

 Love is accepting who you are and the responsibilities that accompany who you are. Love is understanding who, what, and where you are. Love is giving all that you are all the time for the good of not only yourself but the good of all you come into contact with. Love is doing! Love is doing whatever it takes to find the good that dwells within you and all persons. Love is not only finding that good but bringing it forth so that it may be shared. Love is not making excuses for when you have failed and fail you often will. Love is not just overlooking the faults of yourself and other but indeed loving yourself and other no matter that fault. Love is when I say to you that no matter what you do, say, or be, I accept you and will not turn away from you; and with all your heart, soul, and being and actions, mean it. Love is pulling tightly to you someone or something that not only has hurt you and turned away from you one time, but is likely to do so again and again. Love is being accountable for yourself. Love is never quiet. Love is always reaching out. Love is constantly being taken advantage of. Love is being open to being hurt. Love is not being afraid to make a fool of ones self. Love is constant yet never final. Love has no limits.

 God is love.

 Man was created by God and from God.

 Man can be love.

 It's scary to be love. It's awesome to be love. It's powerful to be love.

 Jesus Christ was man. Jesus Christ was God. Jesus Christ was God and man at the same time. Jesus was not afraid to be love. Jesus died because he was love. Jesus Christ was killed because he was love. Jesus Christ was powerful. His power was unlimited not only because he was God. His power was unlimited because as man Jesus allowed his love from within to dominate his outside. Jesus as man was love and his love was unlimited! Jesus was able to overcome death only because of love. Death could not dim nor halt in anyway the power of Jesus' love.

 Love is unlimited and limitless. God is love and Jesus is God and God dwells within every man. Every man can become love. Every man can choose to become God for God truly dwells within every person.

 The needs of the flesh along with the needs of the mind are the needs most open to the influence of the evil one. These needs are like a room with no windows and walls constantly closing in suffocating the very being of man. Man cannot conquer the evil one by himself. Man in order to survive must turn to within himself and find that special place where love dwells. Man must turn to God dwelling within in order to not only to survive but in order to love. In every man God is. In every man love dwells. Sooner or later each man must reach within and find that love or he must perish.

 That which dwells within each of us is love. That which dwells within each of us is God. God has power that created everything including the evil one. God's power is unlimited. God's love is unlimited and the love that dwells within each of us is God and is unlimited and is waiting to be claimed. It is in this love that salvation is to be gained. It is in this love that the necessary power to overcome evil will be found. This is the only place it can be found. There is no substitute. There is no substitute for God. There is no substitute for love.

 It is there in each of us.

 I know. You say it must be buried pretty deep because you can't find it. I say look harder. Even if you don't want it, even if you try to reject it over and over again; it is still there. You see you have no power to dismiss it. You cannot affect it. You cannot change it, indeed you can do nothing at all about it, you can do nothing but accept it. 

It will never desert you. The only decision you need make is that you want it. And please want it. Want it with all your being and give it a chance to spring forth in you. It will! It will!

 You got to be willing to want it.

 I want it and I know it is here for me and the more I have accepted it; the more difficult my life seems to have become. And yet I couldn't go back to where and what I was even if for one moment I tried to want to. You see that love which dwelled within me and I buried so deep for so long is finally trying to burst forth from me and I am glad about it.

 Lord God, now that your hand is upon me, I beg you please don't turn me loose! No matter how much I cry or beg or pled, don't turn me loose.

 For the first time in my life I am more concerned with my acceptance of the love of my God than I am with my physical and mental needs.

 I worry a great deal about taking care of my wife and daughters. I worry about the money I don't have and the things I want so very much to give them. I worry about their image of me. I spend still for too much time being discouraged and close to despair. I know that this is normal for any man, and husband and father.

 God's love had exploded within me and I know this love is limitless. I know this love is all powerful and I know that it is only through this love I can be. It is though this love that I will be and I choose to accept this love and God will take care of me and my family. Love is all powerful. There is nothing that can compare to love. There is nothing that can compare to God.

 God is love. Love is within me. Love is coming from me. Love is!

January 4, 1988

 Sometimes love is listening to a daughter excitedly telling you how she and her betrothed have found the perfect way to make tons of money. Sometimes love is listening patiently and not condemning the most outrageous of plans. Sometimes love is remembering that you have dreamed your share of strange dreams and even tried more than one; and met with failure each time. Love is wonderful in that although you have had so much experience, so much actual hurt, pain, and known a few successes; you cannot give that experience, hurt, pain, success to your daughter. She has to live her own life. She has to find out why and why not mostly on her own. She's more mature than you were about this idea in that she at least asked you for your advice and thoughts. I don't think she really wanted to hear your advice. She really wanted you to say what a grand idea, what imagination, how fantastic a plan. You didn't of course. Fathers never can. You see being a father means loving. Being a father means gently but firmly and logically giving her things to think about. It does not mean discouraging her, just giving her something to think about. Love and fatherhood go together.

 I wonder if that is how the Lord God is with his children. Does he let us ramble on and get excited about anything we want? I think he does. Does he ever interfere? I hope so. Most people would probably say he doesn't. I know better. God the father is always listening. God is always giving us help. Often we don't want his help. Often we reject his help. Can you imagine? We ask God the creator for help and then in our own sometimes not too subtle way tell God to take a flying leap.

 So what good is it for God to give us advice? What good does it do for any father to give a child advice? Until that time when the child is ready to not only listen but actually consider the advice, it doesn't do the child any good at all. It still is a most important way for the father to show love. Listening to a child is showing love. God always listens to you and me and is constantly showing us his love for each of us in this way.

 I enjoyed listening to my daughter tonight. I mean she called me and asked my advice. Wow! What an ego trip. The child that my wife and I united with a loving God created, even at age twenty one still wants my advice. You got to feel good. I'll feel much better if she takes it.

 

January 5, 1988

 If I say go, someone will say stop. If I say do, someone will say don't. Sometimes it seems that no matter what I say someone will say something opposite. You know what I am saying, don't you? You've been around when no matter what someone said, did; someone else would say or do the opposite.

 People are not always wrong. I know I am not always wrong and yet there are sure times when I think I can do nothing or say nothing right.

 If those times are often enough you can be sure I, just like anyone, will develop a complex about never being right. If you never allow me to be right then it is indeed more than just a complex. The truth is you become right all the time and I am wrong all the time.

 Are there any people in your life that you never allow to be right? About anything?

 You know if there is, then you are the only one who can do anything at all about it. What can you do? You can give that person self worth. Seems fair enough doesn't it? You took the self worth away by constantly insisting they were wrong all the time, every time! And that's exactly what you do to another person when you never allow them to be right. How do you know you are the right person all the time? When did you become perfect?

 People must be allowed some sense of self worth. It doesn't have to be a lot. But you got to have some. You do, I do, every person does. Every person in the whole of creation was born with self worth. There is something special about each of us. That something special has nothing to do with what we own, what we have, or what we have become. It has to do with the basic core value of human life. All human life is special. The only way for life not to be special is for it not to exist. The only way for life to cease to exist is for God to stop being. That cannot and will never be. God is, was, and always will be. God is life. God is love. All life has God within and all life has love within. That is what makes each life so unique and special.

 Since you cannot take the specialness away from any life, the only harm you can do is to take that value away from another person's humanity. When you insist a person is wrong all of the time you strip that person of all human value, all self worth. Now, hold on. It doesn't make that much of a difference even if the person is wrong all the time so that must mean that a person has to be right once in a while.

 If a person feels their value is gone and cannot be recovered ever, watch out, I believe that person will soon waste away and eventually die. Hey I know you might be just a little angry at me right about now. You can see where I am going. You could be responsible for the life of another person. You probably do not want that responsibility B I know I wouldn't. Steal a human of his self worth, his value and let me assure you, it doesn't matter in the least if you want that responsibility or not B my friend B you got it!

 So what can you do? Stop telling people they are wrong all the time. Try telling someone that you may be the one that is wrong. Consider another point of view. If you are right and you need to say you are right, try being gentle. Try saying something like this, "You may be right but I think we are going to do it this way because I have that responsibility of deciding and I feel strongly that we should do it this way." Leave that person with some self respect. You will not be sorry. There may come a time when you will need that person's input because they will have an answer you have not considered.

 The most important reason is simply out of respect and love for God.

 God respected you and me so much he gave us the right to be wrong. It comes with free will. If God can allow you to be wrong about so many important things, can you not allow someone else the same privilege? We are so set in our ways that it isn't easy to change. It is difficult and more than that, it means considering that we may be wrong yourself. Remember God allows each of us to be wrong. Can you allow yourself to be wrong? Can you allow yourself to be less than perfect?

January 6, 1988

 Love is not present unless it is reaching out. Love is never selfish. Love is always sharing.

Think about it. Have you ever noticed a man and a woman who was truly and obviously in love? Do you remember how you knew? No, I am not talking about two people kissing and fondling each other in public. Remember how they B the two people that were really in love B seemed to glow. Remember how just being rear them, in their presence made you feel good, special. Sure you do. You remember how their love for each other jumped out from them and affected you.

 That is how love works. Even in the most intimate of moments, especially in the most intimate of physical caresses between man and woman; if love is truly present they are not alone. The Lord God is fully a part of them. The physical explosion of flesh that is so very wonderful and happens only during the climax of intercourse between man and woman is never complete without true love being present. Where there is love, there is God. For my friend never forget, God is Love!

 A very crude difference but a very real difference between man and animal is that animals couple with each other anytime, anyplace the urge is present. Man and woman have intercourse only when a special feeling of love is present. Man and woman have intercourse only when God is present. When they have intercourse at any other time they cease being man and woman, special creations in the image of God, and become animals.

 Of course God can be and is present between loving man and woman at times when no child, no new physical being is formed. But I think that anytime a man and woman are joined in loving fulfilling intercourse, and we have said God is present anytime love is present, well I think a new life fills each man and woman at this time. I think it is impossible for man and woman to join their bodies physically in the ultimate act of sharing love with each other and God not be present. It is also just as impossible for man and woman at such a time not to receive a new source of loving life from their God at such time!

 Although there are well meaning wonderful Christian churches that feel that the only purpose of the sexual act is to produce offspring, I must disagree! The main purpose of sexual union between man and woman is the sharing fully of love between man, woman, and God. Man, woman, and God united together as one with God supplying the most special kind of new life at such a time. This new life strengthens and binds even more fully the earthly union of husband and wife, and God and God's people. It is the main purpose of sexual union of man and woman and God, to produce this special new life.

 At times when a new life is formed from such a union, we tend to look back and say God was truly present. In the saying of that, aren't we saying that God must not be present any other time this union takes place? That is where I disagree. Certainly no life is ever begun under any circumstance without God being present. Certainly new life is formed under less than perfect loving situations. Certainly new life is formed under sometimes tragic and terrible conditions. Who knows when God decides to form new life. Only God knows why each of us, no matter the condition under which we are conceived, only God knows why we were created. The only thing for sure any of us know, the only thing actually every one of us knows, is that we were created from loveYnot the love of man and womanYbut we were created solely from and by the love of God. Now when my wife and I joined together and our daughters were formed, we would like to believe that God blessed us through our love for each other joined with our love for Him. Who knows, I'm not saying that our love for each other had nothing to do with the formation of new life resulting in the subsequent birth of our daughters. No indeed! I'm just saying that we joined together before and since their birth and God was present and renewed us each time with new life. This new life again I say is the purpose and must take place if love is really present. Anytime God is present with man and woman in loving sexual union this new life takes place.

 God is love, and he who lives in love, lives in God, and God in himYmost especially during the intimacy of man, woman and God joined in new life!

 

January 7, 1988

 Yesterday I wrote about the main purpose of sexual union between man/woman and God. I wrote that this main purpose was to give and receive new life. I went on to say that the new life I spoke of was not necessarily the formation of a new physical being. Indeed this new life must take place whether or not a new physical being is formed. This new life is an infusion of strength giving and complete love which is the ultimate source of all life which is God. This new life is the fullness of God present in man. I can see that the question of birth control is going to be important.

 I am fond of saying that the presence of "sin" is dependant on the "inner attitude of one's heart". I define "sin" as being the deliberate exclusion of God from a human beings actions and thoughts.

 Birth control means to me the deliberate with or without forethought, effort on one's part to exclude the possibility of life from being formed. Birth control also means to me the deliberate intervention on one's part in the attempt, successful or not, to prevent a life which has been conceived from being born.

 I have found it too easy to say the inner attitude of my heart is saying one thing while the actions of my body are doing another.

 Life can only be formed by God. The normal way in which life is formed by God is through the joining of a man and a woman physically. We say that it is God's presence at such a time that allows life to begin. God seems to be finding new and different ways to allow life to begin in today's and tomorrow's world. It seems to me that God must surely be blessing the scientists who are working on these new ways to develop life, or simply put, they would net be allowed to do what they are doing. I'm not talking now about man's intervention but very explicitly about God's presence. Let me once again assure you that no life under any circumstance ever can be without God being present. God is life. God is love. Life is an explosion of God's love for his people. Life is an explosion of the love of God in his people! One of the terms that has continually bothered me is the term birth control. The very thought that man can do anything to prevent life from starting is abhorrent to me. Man can do nothing to prevent life from being started because man cannot create life. Ever! Man is the means historically by which God has created the creator of life. God alone creates life. So often as to be common knowledge we read of women who have clearly for medical or other reasons had their bodies altered so that they were humanly physically unable to conceive a child and yet they have conceived and given birth. God alone decides when life is to take place.

 The way historically for new people to be formed is through the physical joining of man and woman. Just because there is more and different ways in which new humans are formed relates not at all to the value of human life, if there is life, there is God!

 Since I see clearly life as being the full presence of God then you have no problem understanding my point of view on birth control or any sort and abortion at any time. Right! Neither is permissible ever!

 When is sexual union between man and woman permitted? Hold on to your hats because the journey we are beginning now is an uncertain one at best.

 When is sexual union permitted is any time God is fully present in that man and woman. Any time a man and a woman enter into sexual intercourse without God being a total part of such a union, it is forbidden! There is no shame in sex. Sex is a pleasure and it was meant as a gift from a loving God to provide, in its pleasure, a means by which man and woman and God could physically become one. When the three are united new life always takes place.

 If a man and a woman make their sexual union a deliberate act in which rather than trying to achieve this special union with each other and God, but rather a deliberate act to avoid conception; what kind of act is it? Remember I defined sin as the deliberate attempt to exclude God from thought word or deed. Intercourse between man and woman solely to prevent conception is the same thing as deliberately excluding God, intercourse solely for sexual pleasure is the same thing. Intercourse without the physical possibility of being able to conceive a child is not always birth control. Sometimes it is definitely not birth control. Life is God. God is life. I believe this with all my being. Life, because it is God, is so precious that it must be preserved at all cost. There are women whom God has blessed with children. Some of these women if they continue to bear children risk great danger to their own life. I am not saying that it is ok for them to practice birth control in order to save their own life. I am not saying that at all. First of all keep in mind that you and I have no knowledge of when a new human is going to be conceived through intercourse. Only God knows. It is logical to me that God would want you to protect your life in order that you might live your life in God fully. It is logical to me that this is one of the reasons God has allowed man to develop medical ways to protect life. So many women feel such guilt because they can no longer bear children. The only time a woman should feel guilt about her sexuality is when she has sexual intercourse and no new life is present. New life as I have defined it is the fullness of the gift of love which renews and completes the bonding of man, woman, and God through sexual intercourse.  My dear lady, or man, if you have sexual intercourse without such new life being present, well then go ahead, feel guilty because sin more than likely was present!

 Abortion is much simpler. No! Once life has been started, from the moment of conception, it belongs to a new creation that was created by God and placed only in a human body for safekeeping. Since you did not create it, since it belongs in no way to you, since it is the presence of God in his fullness; well my friend, you can see life is not yours to give or take.

 Abortion is not just wrong. Abortion is the deliberate attempt on the part of a lovingly created human being to destroy his creator. Abortion is the deliberate attempt by man to kill God.

 Let's really understand what birth control is. Birth control is the attempted prevention of the physical birth of a life which has already been conceived by God and placed in the physical body of a woman for safekeeping.

 Sexual union without new life which is the presence of God in man and woman at intercourse is forbidden.

 Man and woman do not create life.

 God creates life!

 Abortion is birth control.

 The most perfect way in which new life can be present in intercourse between man and woman is when there is the full presence of marriage. Indeed it is the marriage, the complete union of man/woman, and God that allows new life to be present.

 New life has nothing to do with the physical start of a new human being.

 God is the only one who starts new human beings and once started under any and all circumstance, that life is real and precious to God for within it God surely dwells.

 Where there is life there is always God. Where there is God, there is always love. Love dwells within all life always.

January 8, 1988

 The last two days I have written about the specialness of the physical act of love that takes place between man, woman, and God. I have been very clear that when this act is consummated in the full presence of Christ a new life takes place. I have said that new life can and should take place anytime this act occurs. I also said the most perfect place for this to happen was when it happened in the fullness of marriage.

 It seems natural to me that marriage is the place to begin today. Let's hope the Lord agrees.

 Marriage is the joining of two human beings into one person, in the presence of God, with the community of man for support, in a continuing fashion for the rest of the earthly life of these two human beings.

 It is even more. Marriage is me taking you forever just like you are, no matter what you ever do to me for the rest of your life. Marriage is me knowing what I am promising and still agreeing to it. Marriage is one sided. Don't ever doubt it. I am the one getting married. I am the one making this promise. I am the one that is choosing to make this promise and I am the only one I should worry about keeping this promise.

 What you do is your business!

 Ok, wow! Can you see that if this is your understanding of marriage that you had better be sure that the person you are marrying has the same or at the very least a very close similar understanding of marriage. Can you see what a disaster marriage could be if you enter into marriage with this as your understanding and your partner for life has a somewhat different attitude toward marriage? You bet!

 What I think I just said was that I promised before God and with the approval and support of my community, to take my wife as my full equal partner for the rest of our human life even if she stopped loving me...even if she sleeps with someone else....even if she is a lousy cook...even if...in fact no matter what! Wow!

 Can you see you might want to make sure that the person you are pledging all this to has the same understanding of marriage that you do? Can you see that you might want that person to make the same commitment in the same way to you?

 Marriage is not something to be jumped into without proper consideration and preparation. Marriage is one of the few things in life that is forever.

 What makes a marriage valid?

 Well to start with it takes more than just you understanding what marriage is. To make a marriage valid both partners must share the same knowledge and vision of marriage. There can be no hidden secrets between two people before, after or during marriage.

 And still all this can take place and a marriage is not valid.

 Remember God historically since the beginning of time as long as we have knowledge of, made two different species of man, that is ,God made man and a woman. He made each one different and gave to each one a special part to assist God with the continuing creation of humanity. Man was given the ability to produce a seed that when placed inside of a woman with the presence of God and only when God the only creator was present and so willed, a new human being would be formed. To a woman's body was given the special ability to nurture the man's seed until it had grown in such a manner as to allow it to enter the world as another human being. To this man and this woman were given the special abilities to nurture and love and cherish this new human being until it could someday do the same. It is only when these special abilities and the understanding that needs to accompany such abilities is present that a valid marriage can be.

 This can only take place between a man and a woman of the human species.

 A man joining to another man does not now, nor has ever been able to produce another human being. If God so willed for man to join with man, I have no doubt that God could produce a new human being from such a joining. It does not seem ,at least in the known history of God, that this is what God wants. Man joining another man can be under some circumstance a loving act. Man joining man in the act of sexual intercourse does not and cannot form a marriage. Woman joining woman is the same as man joining man. The union can never be a marriage. It may be and in fact can be a strong loving lasting relationship. For some people that may be as close as they can allow themselves to get to God. God loves this group of people the same as God loves you and me. Their understanding of God in many ways may be the same, or stronger than yours or mine. Ultimately I think they are missing one of the most important purposes of the creation of man and woman. This purpose, which is the primary reason that God created two different species, man and woman, giving each a different function, is to be God's physical means of creation.

 Once again I want to bring out that even when no new human being is begun during the sexual act between man and woman only, if the Lord God's presence is a part of such an act, it cannot take place without a new life infusion. When the act of intercourse itself happens between man and woman with God present there is always new life. I don't know if this new life can be present between man and man, or woman and woman. I would think that it is possible. I don't understand such unions. I love people. God said that we are to love each other. I know God loves this group of people. If God loves them so can I. If love is a real presence in their relationship, then God must be present. God is love. Where there is love there is God.

 Marriage is not a part of this group of people's lives. This group of people may be able to form strong lasting relationships. Many marriages fail because they do not have this kind of strong permanent relationship. A marriage without this kind of relationship is not a marriage. I cannot condemn any relationship that includes God. While I do not approve or support homosexuality in any way, God was very clear that humans are to love each other. At the last check homosexuals are still humans

 I don't want to be seen as giving approval to homosexual relationships. I have stated very clearly that no marriage can take place in such a relationship. I do want to be just as clear that I love all people regardless of the kind of life or the way in which anyone chooses to live their life.

 I hold marriage in the highest of places. I value marriage in the highest of ways and I know that God gives special gifts to those that undertake marriage. These are special gifts that God chooses as God not to give to anyone else.

 In all things remember God is there for you. God is love and you were created from love and by love. You were created not by man and woman but by God. Man and woman are the treasured means by which God chose to place you physically on this earth.

January 9, 1988

 Today I heard a man say that you and I must become new creations in Christ Jesus.

 I could not help but think about what it meant to be a new creation...a new creation in Christ.

 To become something new would seem to me to mean that I would need to put something in my life aside. It would seem that I needed to change in some way so as to become different in a clean, fresh, first born way. How can you become something new and remain the same? I don't think it is possible.

 The subject the man was speaking on had to do with the baptism of Jesus. When Jesus was washed with water by John the Baptizer did he, Jesus who was man, who was God ,who was both creator and savior of the world, did he, Jesus become a new creation?

 While the nature of Jesus could never change, the baptism he underwent was very real. Jesus was baptized in order that what was written would be fulfilled. At the moment of his baptism, God the Father and God the Spirit , came and dwelled in and on and with Jesus. The Lord God confirmed to man what John the Baptizer had been saying, God confirmed God. A new world was opened to humanity through Jesus. His baptism showed us the way. His baptism pointed out to humanity that the Lord God had indeed come to dwell with mankind.

 Jesus went on to affirm to man that indeed he, Jesus, had come to both fulfill the old and bring the new. The new way that Jesus brought to mankind was at the same time a refreshing and cleansing new way for mankind and a clear clean new start. Jesus said that all man had to do was to love their God and to love each other. All other laws were subject to those two. Indeed those two laws were only one law for to love God would mean you had to love what was from and of God. All men were created by and from God and therefore as such must be loved. This was a new and fresh start for man. Man had been reborn in a very real sense. Humanity had been given a new start, humanity had become a new creation.

Each of us must become new creations. There is only one thing that is necessary for us to do in order for us to really have a fresh start. Can you imagine that? I mean you and I can be reborn in a very real way. You and I can become new. We can start over.

 It isn't easy. Don't let anyone kid you. Don't let anyone tell you different. It will be the most difficult thing you have ever attempted and the most important. So what's the catch? You are. You are the only one that can cause this thing to happen. No one can do it, buy it for you, cause it to happen to or for you, no one but you.

 You have to want it and desire it with all your being. You have to choose to let it happen to you. You have to be willing to take the pain that goes with being a new creation.

 All right having heard all that you still are determined to do it? If anyone can become a new creation, by golly, you're going to do it, so, how?

 Are you ready for this? Simple, accept Jesus Christ as your God. Believe in Jesus Christ and live by the law he gave you to live by. Love God with all your might, all your being, and all your actions. Oh yes, that includes loving your neighbor as yourself. By the way neighbor means any and all humans on the face of the earth.

 Like I said being a new creation isn't so easy. Maybe you'd rather just stay the way you are. Maybe that would be more honest...just do me one small favor...don't call yourself a Christian. The word Christian means believer and follower of Jesus Christ.

 God's love is there for you. All you have to do is the most difficult of all things, you have to choose to accept it. You have to choose to live in God. God already lives in you.

 Choosing to live in love isn't easy. I can attest to that. I don't do it all the time either! I wish I did. I try to most of the time.

 

January 10, 1988

 Did you ever feel that every time you get close to doing anything that you really want to do, anything that is really important to you, something is sure to happen? I mean just when you find the strength to go on, the strength to believe, the strength to pick yourself up and start fresh, well, you just get knocked flat on your ass once more. I mean how many times can you keep getting up? How many times can you keep starting over. When does the will run out? When is it so much you just can't face another moment? When do you quit?

 If God is so real and full of so much love and his love is so powerful, then I must have done something to cause God to hate me because if he loved me, it wouldn't be like this.

 You never felt this way? I have. More than once.

 Sometimes life can be so unfair, so wrong, so overwhelming that like others, not you I'm sure, well I have just wanted to quit. I wanted to run away from my wife sand my children. My presence just seemed to make their life more miserable. Every thing I touched seemed to turn to shit. I loved them so much I just knew that they would be better off without me.

 Well I didn't run away from them and God willing I never will.

 You see even in the deepest darkest recess of depression, even in the moments of total anger over situations that I had alone managed to screw up, even when tomorrow seemed sure to bring worse than today, I know that I was put here on this earth through the love of my God. I know that God isn't shitting on me. I know that God loves me very much and I have proof of that. First of all he hasn't deserted me. I still know God loves me. Sometimes I'm not sure how, or why... but, I know it. God didn't cause me all my problems. Indeed I caused quite a few of them and because I am loved by God whatever evil one there is in this world is certainly attracted to me. You see the more I know of God's love for me, the more this evil one is attracted to me and tries to turn me away from God. As long as I choose to accept my God's love, I can survive the evil one. Even if I turn away from God's love, God will not stop loving me. No matter if I deny God in any and every way, I know first hand God will not stop loving me!

 That, my friend is why I keep trying. I know I can be better than I am. In God's love is the answer.

 My wife and my children have not turned away from me despite my failures and continuing disasters. It seems they even cling tighter to me. It seems we have become closer even. Why? God knows the limits of my humanity and God has provided in my family the strength for me not to give up. I told you I have proof that God loves me.

 I even have today proof that God loves you. You see I love you and though we've never met, I know you. I care about you and I support you. You are worthwhile, you are more than worthwhile, yes, my dear friend, you are precious not only to Jesus as I'm sure you've been told, and it's true, but my friend, Jesus provided me on this earth right now for you. That's right. Me, right now, here, for you. I love you and I support you and I pray for you that you might have the strength not to give up, that you might have the strength to know that you are special, if I can do more for you I will. If you are lost, lonely, if you are a person in need and you see me, cry out to me-John, I need help if I hear you and I will be listening for you, whatever I have, whatever I can do to help you find yourself, I will do. I know you and I know what you feel. You see I love you, you see you have no control over that fact. You can do nothing about it. Shucks, I can't either. God loves me and I love you. You don't even have to love me. It's ok.

 Sometimes we need something to hold on to in order to get through the moment. If you have nothing else, if you can find no hope...well, take strength that a short fat man over 40 no less loves you. He loves you because God loves you and God loves him. If a man that you have never met and might never meet can love you, surely the God who created you must love you. Sometimes that knowledge is the only thing we have to see us through.

 There is always another moment, another tomorrow. But you have to want it. I want it. I want it for me and I want it for you. My wanting it for you will not bring you to wanting it. I cannot make you want it. You, my dear friend, you must want it, I know. I know sometimes and so many times it has seemed that even when you wanted it, even and especially when you have gone after it, it wasn't there. Tomorrow disappeared. I know because I too have felt like that. I am not going to lie to you. Getting up this time will be the hardest thing you ever have to do in your whole life, until you have to get up again. And you will. What am I saying to you, on the one hand I'm telling you to somehow, someway find the strength to set up and yes I'm saying you're going to have to get up again which means if you get up now you are going to fall again. O God yes, it's true. And at first it's harder each time. But if you get up enough, getting up will become a habit and it will become easier, and, unreal as it seems, you begin to stay up longer.

 You are so right when you say and I have heard you say this because I have said it, this isn't the way it should be. But it is. You don't have the strength to get up now and you certainly will not find the strength to get up by yourself, no man can! That strength comes only from the ever present and unending love of God. That strength is within you as it is within me. God is in each of us. But you got to reach for his love. You got to be willing to want his love. His love will be there for you as it was for me, even when you just don't want to acknowledge its presence, don't worry. You can't make it go away. You can't even affect it. All you can do is accept it. That may really be all you have left, and it is enough. It is more than enough. God's love is unlimited power and that love is inside of you. Want it and feel its power take over your life.

I don't know if you have the courage to want it. I pray you do. It is the answer. It is the only answer. It is a good new clean clear answer. Jump on it. Cling to it. Dwell in it. You are a special creation!

 There are so many words you could say, so many prayers, I am not going to attempt to write a prayer for you. Just talk to God. This is what I said: I need your love, Jesus now! Come into my heart and body and give me the strength I so desperately need! Now, I didn't even bother with please or thank you. I didn't have it in me.

 What I say now and sometimes I really would like to change it, but I've said it so often I guess I have come to believe it. O Lord God, do with me anything you want just don't turn me loose. Even if I beg you to turn me loose, don't do it. I want to be your servant!

 Now I can really tell you, God has heard and is answering both.

 God loves you and so do I.

January 11, 1988

 My wife and I recently visited an Indian mission in New Mexico just off of Interstate 40. We were visiting because we had always wanted to be of service to Native American Indians. I think in our own way we have always wanted to give something to the Indian people even if it was just ourselves. What we experienced and found in the community we visited left us dismayed and even angry and very unsure of what we could do if anything.

 We found a very small town where there was an Indian school run by the bureau of Indian Affairs. Next to this school was the local public school. The Catholic mission we were visiting also had a school. The Catholic school went 30-40 miles in opposite directions to pick up students from other much larger communities to bring in students. An immediate question was why was this necessary especially with the cost of running a school these days. We were told that in the local school and the local public schools the Indian child was always made to feel inferior. We were also told very proudly that the mission school was certified and the other two schools were not. Although we didn't voice the opinion it occurred to us that a more logical approach might be to work toward the certification of the other two schools which had far superior facilities and much more money. It also seemed that if the Indian children were truly not receiving a good education at these two schools, perhaps, the mission pastor should be working to rectify this problem. The mission school while doing a super incredible job with the very little it had just did not seem to be the answer.

 And that was just the beginning of our being troubled.

 The job that we were being asked to consider was to provide religious education for the mission school and the local parish community,

 We went out into the parish and talked with as many people as we could in a short time. The protestant and Mormon community - which were the other two significant church communities were open and friendly and welcomed us. The people who identified as being Catholic seemed almost reluctant to talk with us. It became very clear that the local people did not attend church in that community. It became very clear that the local Catholic community went elsewhere even 25-30 miles away rather than attend church locally^ one lady came right out and said that she felt like a second class citizen and doubted if we would be invited out because she felt the local pastor did not want anything to do with them.

 In the school community we found more than one teacher very reluctantly teaching religion. Most were very uncomfortable. The reason became apparent. After teaching and visiting several classes my wife and I understood some of their discomfort. In a class of 9 children for example, 3 might be nominally Catholic, 3 might be of the Navajo way, and the other 3 might be Mormon and Baptist. Of the three that were Catholic, perhaps one might have received first communion.

We talked to the pastor about what we had found. He too was very clear. He made it plain that he new he had neglected the parish community. When we mentioned one woman whom we had seen as being very hurt, he said he had made a pastoral decision that if she decided to leave, too bad but fine! In the school community he went on to say that he needed someone to come in and impose the Catholic religion" I'm saying impose, he just meant it. My wife and I felt we could not do that, oh no problem with loving or knowing our faith. We love and we know it and our life is given to sharing it. We also believe that these young Indian children need to learn about our Lord Jesus Christ. They need to know we respect their religious beliefs. We, my wife and 1 felt a very Christian approach was needed both in the school and in the community. We felt once Christianity had been clearly taught, our Catholic faith would be well received. We just new that our cherished Catholic faith would be readily accepted by the Indian people. We also just knew we could not start without understanding something of what the Indian believed.

 The pastor did not see it that way at all.

 Inside the volunteer community we found tremendous unrest. A young girl who had been hired as a replacement teacher for her very first teaching assignment was given the 9th through 11th grade to teach. She was given the same grades in religion to teach at the same time. We were told outright by the principal and the administrator that this young woman was going to be dismissed. It seems when she had arrived at the mission she, about 23, had been roomed with her principal( a habited 60+ year old sister), and another older lady. She had not hit it off well with either. Big surprise. We suggested to the pastor that the mission owed this young woman more than it had given her. We suggested she be given a different class schedule which was possible. We suggested if they fired her from her missionary position after such a short time, she might wonder if could succeed at anything. I mean come on, I couldn't even make it as a missionary less than a week after we left, she was let go without warning of any kind! Her first comment to our oldest daughter who is also teaching there, was, "I hope my family doesn't find out I failed at being a volunteer^" there is no way they new if or if not this young lady after two and a half months could make it as a teacher-especially under the conditions she was living and teaching under.

 I saw a picture of the ad the mission used to solicit donations. Under the picture I noticed that it said the pastor had been born in that city. Somewhat startled I asked Father if that was where he was from. The business manager quickly spoke up and said somewhat laughingly, don't worry about what the picture said. If the picture had run in another part of the country, that's where it would have said the pastor was born.

 So what is the point of all this?

People do many things, even worthwhile things in the name of the Lord. There can be no doubt that what that mission is doing in many ways, providing food, 'clothes, yes even the education-is wonderful.

 But consider a parish community that doesn't want anything to do with its pastor or the mission because they have been neglected by the pastor so often for the mission. Wasn't the parish community just as worthwhile? Consider imposing any religion on any people because they are hungry, poor, must attend that school to get an education. A sister who worked in the beginning to start the mission with this same pastor and will have nothing to do with it now, said if the Indians are so important to Father, don't you think he would have visited more than 3 hogans. Wouldn't he have at least a couple of Indian friends? At first I did not want to hear her much less believe her. Consider the vast number of turnover they have at the school. Why do you think this is? Is it just normal or is it just presented as normal.

 Consider what was accidentally revealed about how money is raised?

My wife and I believe that God is love and where love is, God is, we saw and felt much love there and we know God is there.

 There was no way we could have accepted an invitation to serve there. We were in tears and so hurt at the thought of turning that position down as we drove the 1,300 miles back to our home in my father's borrowed station wagon.

 How can something so important and done in the name of God be wrong? We were so uncomfortable with the attitude of the pastor. When they decided not to invite us we were not happy but indeed very sad.

 We believe there is a need for a mission. We believe that a mission and a parish could be a family. It isn't there and it doesn't look good for the future. We believe that the Indian people and their religion must be respected. We believe the Catholic religion could be well received by the Indian people. We believe you must first live in a Catholic way in order to share your faith.

 

 

There was much to learn about the Indian people. When we drove out on Meals on Wheels and spoke to each person, they always broke into such wonderful but real genuine smiles. We loved them and they understood and loved us back. My wife and I felt for sure we could live and love among such people. They had so much to give us and we had our wonderful faith to share with them. How would you feel though if someone came to love you and said to you, "you are really  wonderful. What you believe and has been handed down to you for centuries is fine. Now, however, we're going to give you the one true religion guess what? It's mine." We feel that would be the most un-Catholic, un-Christian, inhuman thing anyone could do to another person. We deeply object to that kind of attitude.

 

 

The Catholic religion is a way of life. It is a way of life that must be lived, loved, and shared. Not that way!

 

January 12, 1988

 

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth!

 

In the beginning, when God created the universe...

 

What was there in the beginning? I don't know how exactly I know this, that is, what I am about to write. But like everything else I have written I truly believe God has provided and will provide the right words.

 

You see God had no beginning. No creator created God. There was nothing before God. That is also to say at the same time that there never was nothing, for God always has existed. God always was and what God always was, is now and always will be, is love. In the beginning nothing existed that was not love. In the very first beginning there was only God. God was the all and everything. God was all that ever was needed and all that would ever be needed. God did not need. God did not want. God was, is, and always will be love. Love was the total of everything in the beginning.

This love had then and has now no limits. No limits in its reach, its power, its scope. Indeed this love was then and is now and always will be all powerful and unlimited. The Lord God is the Lord God of unlimited and unlimiting and all powerful love.

 

Love is never silent. Love is always reaching. Love exploded into more love and by and from and with this love life, as we both know it and have yet to discover came into being.

 

The life that first came from this was so full of love and so much like its loving Lord creator that the life that was created was indeed created in-the very image of God. Nothing was then or is created now or will ever be created that does not come from, by, and with this love. Everything that has been created or ever will be created is by, from, and a part of God. God is the center of everything. Love is the essential part of all creation.

 

Man seems to find it hard to live in love. To love each other would require that we treat every person with the respect and love we show to our creator God. God is in every life that exists. God is every life that exists. Now that would require that we love all life.

 

It seems too hard to love all life. All life doesn't love me back. I'm not going to love you if you don't love me. If you hurt me, I have no choice but to hurt you. How sad. How very sad that man chooses to live this way. There just doesn't seem to be any other way. This is the reality of the world we live in, isn't it?

 

Love is not demanding. Love is . I have to live my life. I cannot live your life for you. I cannot make you love me. I can only choose to love you.

 

How do you live your life? Is it even important to you? Should it be?

 

January 13, 1988

 "These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach man made rules as though they were my laws." Matthew 15:8-9

 

Is that you or me? Do you praise your God with word while your mind and possibly your heart is far away. Well the answer is no. Sure I am as guilty as the next person. In fact, because I know better, and I know of the love of my God, I am even more guilty. But the answer is still no. You see it is impossible for a person to give praise to God with words while the mind is elsewhere.

 

What about it? Are you going to tell me your mind has never wondered when you are praising God? Ok, so it's happened to you too. Probably it wasn't a deliberate thing on your part, I mean who would deliberately set out to offend God by on the one hand telling him you praised him while at the same time trying to figure out next week's lotto numbers? But you know how often you have entered into praising God without really considering what you were about to do? I think there is more than enough guilt there for all of us.

 

Where is your heart when you are worshiping God? Do you understand what it means to worship God? For so long I just resented the heck out of anyone who tried to suggest I didn't know how to worship God. Who did they think they were? So go ahead and think that about me. It's fine because I've been there.

 

When you praise God, you don't ask for anything. When you praise God you give your love to God. It's not ok just to praise God with words. It's not ok just to tell God you love him. I mean come on, if I say I love you God and I praise you ten times today, man I've got my praise in for the week. Right? Not so my friend.

 

If you really want to praise God you have to do something about it, and that's the rub. I mean, I just don't have time for anything but a quickie. Sounds like a sex act, doesn't it? My friend, God is a lot more than a quickie. You've got to decide if you really want to love God. Yeah, if you want to love God, guess what? You'll find the time and the ways in which you will praise him. In fact, you will not even have to look. In fact, you'll find you end up praising God every second of your life or at least trying. I agree. It can be a pain, I mean who wants to spend their whole life praising God? I do!

 

Words of praise are nothing without actions to accompany them. Now for the sake of argument, let's say you have decided you really do love this God we're talking about. You know, the one who from his unlimited love, gave you life. The second part of the Matthew verses I quoted talks about the fact that some would teach man made rules as though they were God's laws. So how do you know what is God's law? In fact the best way to praise God is to live by God's laws. What belongs to God and what is man made? Seems like a fair question to me. After all if you don't know God's laws, maybe you should learn them.

 

There are two laws that come from God. They are simple to learn and yet it would seem the most difficult to live by. All commandments, all rules, all church laws, all government rules, everything is subject to these two laws. There are no other laws than these two, so let's have them. Oh what's that? You say you know them and you're upset because you thought I was going to teach something brand new. Maybe what I am teaching is new. Maybe if you really understand what I am saying , just maybe, you will find the will to start now living your life in a new way.

 

Love the Lord God with all your thoughts, word, deeds, and being. Love every person on earth as you love yourself and your God.

 

Simple for sure. Now check out just how simple it is. Were you loving your neighbor as yourself when you put that two for one sticker on the item that wasn't on sale. Hey, I know the store will never know. I'm not going to tell , shucks I might want to steal from them myself sometime. Right? Check it out. Do you live by those two simple laws? I don't. At least I am aware of the laws and I can truthfully say I am trying to live by those two laws. I make a genuine effort to live by the laws of God. It ain't easy! I screw up all too often. I pick myself up and try harder the next time. I'm going to keep on trying until I get it right.

 

In all honesty friend, we both know that it takes effort to love and praise God. I make the effort because I have no other choice. You see, I have accepted God's love for me. I have accepted that I am precious to God. I have accepted that I am special to God. I cannot live my life the way I once did. I will not go back to being the person I was before I accepted God's love. The strange thing is that although my life has become much more difficult, I am finally somewhat at peace. I am even coming to like who I am, even though I have no material goods to speak of and I once had much, I am a rich man. I know, strange but true.

 

I cannot tell you what is right for you. I have told you that God loves you and I will tell you this, God is there for you. God loves you just as much as God loves me. You know that I love you for I have not only said it, but I have written of it and I am there for you.

 

In the love I have just spoken of, there is strength. The strength you will need to praise God is easy. You just have to decide if you really believe there is a God, and if you really love that God. While no one will make you do this, you should be aware that it is something you will want to decide as soon as you can. You are either missing out on the most wonderful of all wonderful ways of life or it is a big lie. You have to decide. Whatever you decide, know this: God is real. God is love. Where there is love, there is God. If you have ever felt, known, or thought you knew love, you have been close to God!

 

Choose to love God. Choose to praise God. Get serious and determined about it. Do it now!

 

January 14, 1988

 

What is truth? Is truth that which you want to hear? Are there some things that are true no matter what you think or want?

 

If I am living in a certain place I certainly am a resident of that place. Where I lived yesterday, I was also a resident. Where I live tomorrow I will be a resident. That certainly is true. Legally, according to the laws of a state, the above probably isn't true. So if you fill out a form asking for your state of residence you might truly put down the state you reside in; especially if that is the state you plan to reside in for the foreseeable future. You certainly would be telling the truth. On the other hand, you might well be breaking the law.

 

Is truth not always the truth?

 

Now there are other things that I hold as absolute truth. For me, there can be no doubt that indeed those things are absolute and true. Even if I tried to deny them they still would be true. I am not sure that those truths that are absolute for me are really absolutely true for you. I don't know that they need to be absolutely true for you. I may desire them to be absolute and true for you as they are for me. That doesn't make them so. I think at times this realization that what is absolutely true for me may not be absolutely true for you, is among the most difficult of things for any man to comprehend.

 

So how do you go about not speaking with a forked tongue to speak? Well the first thing is to consider just how important speaking truly is to you. The next thing is what I have the most difficulty with, that is, thinking before I speak. I almost think that stopping to think before speaking is an absolute necessity if one wants to speak the truth. The problem with that is that sometimes that doesn't even help, at least for some of us, oh well.

 

Truth is sometimes for the moment, sometimes truth is forever. Sometimes truth is anything but what you say or think. Seldom is truth the easiest or most pleasant of things. I guess when truth is most pleasing is when it benefits the situation.

 

January 15, 1988

 

When you are so depressed that you just can't move, you go to bed at 11 pm and you get up at 7 and take your daughter to school, and then you return home and sleep away the morning. This depression will kill you. I know. I do understand that it doesn't matter what job you seek, you are not going to be acceptable. I know that everything you try, have tried, and want to try has turned out impossible"

 

People just don't understand. They say they do, but the truth is they don't. It doesn't not matter what qualifications you have or wish you had. Even if you had them what difference would it make. The chances are you did not cause what has happened to you to happen. The chances are your contribution to all this was minor if any at all. Once things started happening, there was no other way to go. I mean everything closed. You are in a world with no windows, no doors, no air, and the more you struggled the faster the world closed in on you. Now you don't fight it so hard, now you just accept it and know there is nothing you can do. Your life is being controlled by a force much greater than you, so you've eased back. You are trying to conserve your energy. Sleep passes time away. Sleep is warm and sometimes it just gets you through the day. If you dream something that you feel guilty about, or just makes you uncomfortable, well; you wake up, eat, play some inane game, it's time then to pick up your child. You love her and rejoice in her for a few hours, eat and sleep again. Another day you've made it through.

 

What is the point of hope? You get up out of this deep and dark and endless depression and hope and try and get blasted away one more time.

 

You cling to your belief in a loving creator God and beg that God for any kind of help; and maybe, you are so tired that even if he has offered help, you don't know it. You would not know what to do with it even if you did recognize it as help.

 

You know that God helps those that try to help themselves. So once more you gather your strength and try. Once more you fail. You have gotten up so many times and been knocked down so many times that even if success came, you probably wouldn't know how to handle it. But O God would you give anything for the chance. O God would you give anything to go back to being the viable human being that you know you are.

 

Is there a way out of this depression? I hope so. I just know there is. I have to believe there is for I will not give up. I just can't! There is so much life in me that I know I am worthwhile, I know this at times insane ability to not give up must come from someone's love for me. Not even my wife could have that kind of love for me. This is an inner strength that will not allow me to quit trying, to quit altogether. I have gone from knowing I was ok, from believing in myself, to having such little confidence in who I am that sleep is my only recourse. Depression has given way to deadly sleep, to inertia. There seems to be no way out. I almost believe I am a total failure. Yet an inner strength will not allow me to give in to these untrue and morbid feelings.

 

I know and I know it beyond a doubt there is a God and this God loves me. This God sees my distress and knows of my unending belief in his love for me. This is where the strength to fight this windowless and wall closing world is coming from, there is nothing else that would be strong enough to combat this dark depressed state I am in. It must mean God is still with me. As long as God stays with me I will not quit! As long as God loves me I will not give up! God is my strength. With God's love I can be strong. In God's love for me I can make it. If I can make it, so can you. There is no place you have been that I have not also journeyed. I am making it. Not as well mind you as I would like, but, I am making it. God love me and I love God and God is the life that dwells within me. It is his life that will not give up. It is his life that will not quit. It is his life that will not remain in this depressed way.

 

My friend, God lives in you too. God loves you just as much as he loves me. It is all I have to offer you and it is enough. I give you God's eternal all powerful love for you. Hang in there!

 

God's love is real and unending and God has not deserted you or me. God knows of our worthfulness for God created us. God does not have the power to create anything that does not have worth. God is love and love is always worthwhile. You and I were created from this worthiness from this love we were created from and by this love. This love is within each of us no matter how deep the world has buried it. No matter how dark everything is, and I said is, not how it seems but is; God's love is real and inside of us. It is only in that love that we can survive. I know you are ready to give up on God's love. I know you think God has deserted you. God has not. God has not gone away. God is with you. This, my friend is the ultimate test for you. Has the world so dominated and used and mistreated you that you can turn away and reject even the love that you were created from, the love of your God that came to you at the moment of your conception and remains with you forever, even now? No I do not think so. I cannot and if I cannot then neither can you. We are alike, you and me, we know that God is real. We know that God is alive inside of us and we know we can be better than we are.

 

So I try once more and I urge you to join me in trying. We need each other's support. You are not in this thing alone. I thought I was for the longest time. Now I know you are in this thing too. Lean on me. Together as brothers in Christ Jesus, leaning on each other, believing in the love of our God for us, we will make it!

 

January 16, 1988

 

What is an illegal alien? Sometimes I think all humans are illegal aliens. Sometimes I think an illegal alien is not a human being. They must not be one because we don't treat them like they are humans, do we?

 

I guess an alien is someone who is inside the limits of any country that he or she was not born in. You know I always thought of an alien as being some kind of life form from outer space. Looks like I was wrong. But you know the kind of alien I was thinking about was someone or something that was strange in appearance and had come into my world to do me harm. "It" wanted to hurt earth people usually. Sometimes "it" was big and green and sometimes "it" was slimy and always at the very least "it" wanted to take over the world. I never thought of an alien as a human being. I guess I was pretty warped in my thinking. Well, all those TV shows, old movies, you remember. The ones we used to go to get a good scare. The ones where we did not have to try to get too close to our girl or boy friends because with sometimes very little urging, they'd get a lot closer to us. Some how we were never really terrified in all those situations. In fact I kinda liked them because afterwards, after the earth was saved, well, I felt pretty good. Everyone really knew that the earth man could really take care of aliens.

 

I never thought about real people being aliens. I mean, people who came from foreign lands were always welcomed in the United States I lived in. I remember living with my parents in Oklahoma City and having students at the city college over for Sunday dinner. So what? Well they, it turns out, were aliens. I mean they were from the Philippines. That wasn't in the United States much less Oklahoma. But you know they were really nice humans. I'm almost sure they were humans, but now I know they were aliens, they sure were nice. They were not big and green or slimy. I remember them just being happy at having a home cooked meal.

 

In 1957 through 1960 when my air force dad was stationed in Japan and I lived with him there, I remember being treated as though I was an honored guest. Gosh , maybe they didn't know I was an alien. Shucks, I didn't know I was an alien.

 

Now an illegal alien is a human being who is in a country where she or he was not born, and does not have permission to be there. You know I've been in one or two places where I didn't have permission to be. I'm sure glad nobody wanted to kill me. What does that mean? Do I think we want to kill somebody who is in our country just because they are here without my (excuse me, our) permission. Well, let's just say when we send someone someplace where we think that there is a reasonable possibility that they will be killed when they get there, well, what do you think?

 

You know not too many of us here in the good ole USA can trace our own history back without having at least one ancestor that came here from somewhere else. You know, it used to be, the USA was the place in the world where you could go and be welcomed. If you had a need, maybe just to start over, maybe to escape going to prison, maybe just to be free; well, this country was where it was at.

 

Remember that law of God about loving each other, loving our neighbor. Well maybe it really means we should love everybody so long as they don't come here without my saying it's ok. Sure that's what God meant. Heck God better not show up without my permission. See it's getting it down.

And for sure no one gets in that has a need. I have trouble taking care of myself much less some needy person that I don't know and probably will not like! The INS put out a proposal, now maybe it was somebody else, but it did make the airwaves. It was a great idea. Our military pilots would get practice on real live targets and we'd cut down on dopers. You know the proposal, yeah that's the one. Let them shoot down planes that did not identify themselves properly or to their satisfaction. So what if we lose a few civilians. We got too many of them anyway and probably some of them are aliens. You know the border patrol could have machine guns along the Rio Grande and we could really cut down on some illegal aliens. I can just see the bodies flying. Then the navy could have submarines along the coast. Can you imagine a boat load of helpless aliens facing a torpedo? Wow! What fun!

 

This is anything but funny. How do we say I love you God and treat our fellow humans as we do? How do we look ourselves in the face each day and call ourselves Christians? I think maybe the word Christian is a lot like the word alien to us. I mean most of us did not think of our fellow human brothers and sisters as aliens until we were forced to learn that was what they are. Maybe most of us have forgotten what the word Christian means. Let me help you.

 

A Christian is one who believes in Jesus Christ. A Christian is one who believes that Christ is the son of God become man.

 

A Christian is one who follows the teaching of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ said there were only two laws: love God and love each other. I'm trying to be a Christian. As long as I try with all that I am, I can call myself a Christian. I don't know any humans that are aliens, legal or otherwise.

 

What do you call yourself? A Christian? I hope so.

January 17, 1988

 

Come Lord Jesus, I need your presence. Come Lord Jesus, help me overcome the turkey I try so hard to make of myself.

 

I don't really mind stepping into holes and falling flat on my face Lord. I just can't stand the hurt I bring to people I love so much when I am the one falling. You know I keep forgetting I am not an island. I mean everything I do affects not only me, but others. Usually the others around me are the ones I most love. Isn't that the truth for all of us. Do we surround ourselves with people we hate. No, most of us don't, most of us want to be in the presence of people we love and people that love us. So when we screw up who do we hurt? Yeah, right. Who else but the ones we love.

 

Now I do not think you or I would ever set out to hurt the people we most love. And after all we don't physically hurt them. I mean nobody ever gets hit. Oh sure we threaten and we yell and it's just words. Just words.

 

The problem with just words is that they never go away. Physical pain heals. I know words are supposed to be forgotten. Are they ever, really? How do you forget someone you love making you feel like you're shit? How do you forget making someone you love feel that way?

 

You see, Lord, that's what I mean when I fall as I often do, I seem to always try to hurt someone else. Sometimes things get so pent up inside I just need to explode and so I explode at the ones I most cherish and love in the whole world. Why Lord am I like this? Shucks, Lord Jesus, it doesn't matter why I am like this. Please change me. I cannot be that way any longer. I will not be that way any longer, I am a Christian! I will be a Christian! I will be!

 

I love them so much that in their love I will find strength to change. You gave me their love as a gift of strength from you to me. I accept. Between your love and theirs I will be better than I am. I will be what you created me to be.

 

I know there is a fair chance I will fail again. The longer I go between failures the stronger I am getting. Failures are becoming less frequent because I am trying so very hard not to fail and you are responding to my trying with additional gifts of loving strength. I will refuse to ever quit trying. I am a man. I am a loving creation of my God.

 

January 18, 1988

 

Have you ever noticed that some people manage to smile constantly? I mean even when they aren't physically smiling, you just know they are laughing inside. They never seem to be down. Now I know that these people must have bad days. Heck, I've had terminally bad years. Sometimes these people seem never to have had a bad moment.

 

I can't help but feel a little bit envious. I remember when I was a freshman at Georgia Southern College which was then a small college in far south Georgia. I remember arriving there with about $35 in my pocket and no paper work to support my claim that I had some kind of student loan waiting for me there. I thought it had all be taken care of. Well I got there and there was a room reserved in my name but I couldn't stay there because I was a week early. The Dean of Students could not believe I had actually come all the way from the air base in Michigan that my father was stationed at to attend college there. I told the Dean my father had stopped by about six months earlier to arrange for the loan. The Dean politely replied that he vaguely remembered someone with my last name stopping and talking briefly with him. He also informed me that as of that moment I had no prearranged loan. You see no papers had been filled out. Nothing had been followed up on. He said not to despair but to come see him on the first day of school.

 

Not to despair? Wow! I'm 18 years old and in a strange land with no place to stay and very little money in my pocket.

 

I walked over to the local Catholic church, being the good Catholic boy I was, and in an amazingly few minutes I am telling my problems to the pastor. He was a wonderful big jolly man. Father Loftus. Father as I later found out was a Glenmary priest. That meant he lived in the far south teaching about Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith. So what? Hey in 1963 Catholics in Georgia were sometimes as acceptable as black people never were, blacks were more acceptable in Georgia then because they at least knew their place. Upstart Catholics seemed to think they were human beings with rights. Father Loftus had built a small community and although it was a struggling community, I have never forgotten what that community shared with me.

 

Father Loftus was one of those happy people I spoke to you about earlier. He immediately got on my case. I was reminded not so gently that I had a place to sleep - at the mission there, I had plenty of food - at the mission, I still had my money-the $35, and most of all God loved me and would take care of me. Father Loftus said very clearly to me, John, stop worrying so much. You do your part. Let God take care of the rest. It has taken me all my life to understand what that beautiful happy man was saying. Then at age 18 I was scared to death. Even now at 43, I still haven't learned to accept the wisdom of what Father said that day to me.

 

I have to tell you very clearly that Father was right. On the first day of registration I went to the dean. Dean Holcomb, I think, said that I qualified for a national defense loan. I signed the papers and he sent them to Michigan to my parents for their signature. He advanced me the money until the paperwork was completed and I went to college.

 

The older I get the more difficult it seems for me to really believe God will take care of me. Yet when has God failed me? Now I'm not asking when have I failed God, you see, but, rather, when has God failed me. You and I, we fail God every time we reject God's love. We fail ourselves every time we don't give God the opportunity to love us. Every time we reject God's loving ability to care and take care of us, we are choosing to reject God's real presence in our life. God's presence in our life is real. God will take care of you and me. God will provide for our needs. You know the old saying, you gotta do your part. Well just what is your part? Boy have I given that some thought. What am I supposed to do? When have I completed my part?

 

When does God get to do his share. He sure has a lot more power than I do.

 

And that is the answer. God has more power than you and me, so what is our part? Well I think the most important part is to keep on trying. It's that simple and that hard. Simple because all we have to do is try to do the best we can all the time in every circumstance, and is that hard! Yeah and what's even worse, we never are finished doing our part. I have to tell. You we have to try from morning to night and night to morning of every day of our human life. The part is never finished. I guess we could substitute the word believing for trying because if we really believe, we really will try. God does his part no matter if we are believers or tryers. God does his part because God created us and dwells in each of us in the most personal of ways.

 

Sometimes we have to back off from trying so hard to allow God a chance to do. That is not to mean we quit trying and leave it all up to God. That is not what Father Loftus meant at all. What he was saying to me way back then was that I had done what I could. I had journeyed to Georgia in faith that somehow, someway money would be provided for my education. I had been provided with my immediate needs through the church. Now relax a moment and let God do something. I'm not sure I relaxed but God did do something and God had been doing things in my life ever since.

 

I met a Glenmary priest recently and he was one of those smilers. I mean this guy radiated happiness. You know, I'm sure glad there are people like that around.

 

January 19, 1988

 

Peace and justice have become important issues among a certain group of church workers. This particular group of people include protestant and Catholic ministers, Catholic sisters and some lay people who are active in various church ministries. Peace and justice have become almost their battle cry. Sometimes when an issue becomes a battle cry, it also becomes less clear, even sometimes distorted. Often the issue becomes more of a personal vendetta than the real and important issue it is.

 

I would like to offer some thoughts on peace and justice.

 

What does peace mean? Perhaps peace means living in a way that allows you to be yourself and still finds room for someone to live in a different manner as your neighbor. Perhaps peace means caring so much about yourself that you have no problem accepting others as they are. I think peace also means allowing others to be different from you even when you disagree with that difference. Peace is a way of living in harmony with one another. More than that true peace is a way of living in love with your fellow man.

 

You know accepting the way someone is does not mean that you must choose to live that way. Peace is not just someone else allowing you to be yourself. It is also not just you allowing them to be themselves. Peace is not an isolationist relationship. Peace is reaching out and helping yourself and your neighbor not only in times of need, but in ordinary situations.

 

You can clearly see that peace is not unlike love. True peace is real love. True peace is understanding and acknowledging God's law to love your neighbor as yourself.

 

It is always from peace that justice must come. Justice forced on someone is not justice. Justice that forces peace is not justice. True justice must always come from peace.

 

Justice is choosing to do, say, and be what is right. What is right is not that which sometimes pacifies the situation. What is right is that which takes into account the love of God for God's people.

 

My wife and I are in the position of applying for a job in the church. We were asked by a pastor to apply for a certain position. Before even talking about what the job entailed in detail, before we had time to consider if we were comfortable with applying for this position, the pastor rather nervously told us that the position paid $16,000 per year. I think this is a good place to try and explain justice. This position that we were being asked to apply for was in south central Florida in a high cost of living area. The church had at least 1,750 families and was growing steadily. The average weekly income as reported in the Sunday bulletin was around $5,300. Now our last position in the church had been a similar one only at a church in mid-state New York with 1,100 families. That church had a weekly income of around $3,500 and was located in a high unemployment area with a similar cost of living. Our salary there had been $101,000, should the salary in both places be the same?

 

Now they way we look at it is that the salary has nothing to do with our decision to accept the position. You see, the amount of money that is to be paid to us is the employer's problem, not ours. I can hear the protests coming. Hold on and check out what I'm saying. Now we are looking at a job in the church. I would like to think that the pastor is a just man. If he/she is, then quite clearly it is his/her responsibility to provide an adequate salary for us. The pastor knows what it cost to live in that area. The pastor knows what the income of the church is. The pastor knows what the expenses are, what the job entails, what the church can afford. Who better to trust than the pastor ? Our decision is clear. If this where God wants us to be? A secondary question might be, is this pastor a just man?

 

Now it is another thing entirely to deliberately accept a position that you know cannot afford to pay you a just wage. My wife and I once worked a whole year on $110/month salary each. That particular church as it turns out, not only could have afforded more, but did not appreciate the volunteers they did have. The point is, we accepted the offer to work there for a certain salary. We were reasonably aware of what we were doing. We expected to be loved once we got there and it hurt more than we could ever voice to be treated by the church members there as not only we were, but all of the volunteers there were, no volunteer in that parish was loved or treated with love. The way the volunteers were treated there certainly was anything but just. The wage was just. It was just because we knew what it was and still we chose to accept the position.

 

If there was a place that offered us the opportunity to minister and could afford only to provide us with room, board and maybe hospitalization; as long as we felt God wanted us to be there, we would go. If that was the case, the offer would certainly be just.

 

Now there is no question of the parish in Florida having a need. There is no question the Florida parish will be able to find someone for $16,000 to minister to their need. It may even be us. There is still a question of a just salary. Perhaps the salary in New York was unjustly high, we didn't think so at the time. It was right at the average wage for the average working person in that town.

 

Recently I heard of a man whose legs were cut off by a train as he lay on the tracks in front of the train. He was lying there to protest what the train represented and what the train was carrying. The train was carrying a nuclear weapon. He was aware that this terrible thing or worse might happen to him. Afterwards he returned to the scene to show I think that nothing, even the loss of his legs was going to deter his protest. I'm positive this good man had good intent. If a person believes that by sacrificing his/her body physically for a just cause, does that make the action right? Well I don't think does. It is an especially wrong decision when by sacrificing a part of your body, you are putting in jeopardy your God given gift and ability to earn a just living and provide for your family. I guess the real question is to what extent are you ready to go in order to pursue justice. When does the pursuit become as important as the reason for the pursuit? When the results of your actions would seem to have little or no effect on the outcome, no matter what you do, sacrifice, or no matter how well prepared you are, I think it is time to question the action. This man's sacrifice of his legs made some headlines. It did not stop the train. It did not stop the train from carrying nuclear weapons. It did not deter the weapons maker from making the weapon. Now, very sadly, less than a year from the time this took place, the public in general isn't really interested in what happened, in fact, viewed by many well meaning people as one of those peace and justice advocates.

 

If you really want peace and justice, then there are many things you can do that will show the true intent of your being. There are many actions that require only your love that would reveal your true intent. This is where you find real justice. This is where real peace is. Loving your neighbor as yourself. It's that simple and, as I have said before, it is just that hard.

 

True peace comes only when you are willing to reach out with your love and allow the love of your neighbor to come bursting forth. True peace comes from caring for the people that no one else cares about. Justice is opening your home to the homeless. Justice is finding ways to help people with AIDS. True peace comes from doing what you can effectively do even when it costs you money and "friends". Justice is providing for the needs of your family and the needs of your neighbor. Peace comes only when an individual is willing to risk taking meaningful action-that can result in justice. I don't think we should spend so much time worrying about the causes of injustice. I think we should be so busy doing things to correct unjust situations that we will not have the time or energy to worry about why it exists. I think it is in the correct and just and loving way we handle the so called little things, like providing food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, jobs for those willing to work, the things that are all around us and do not get headlines, caring for people with AIDS, and more; it is in the doing of these things that true peace and justice will come about.

 

Peace and justice do go together. It's just that peace only comes from love and, justice comes only from peace. Both come from loving God enough to love your neighbor as yourself" remember just as love is doing, peace is doing and justice is the result of peace!

 

January 20, 1988

 

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, so goes the song. It takes only a very small thing to make me happy. I don't even know what that thing is. I only know whatever it is, it comes to me when I most need it. It comes upon me when I least expect it. Sometimes it happens when I want it to, but most of the time when it happens I am very surprised.

 

This morning I was depressed and tired. I have been that way so much lately, not without some real cause. This morning my wife was angry, depression makes anger easy. This morning as my wife and I worshiped our God at the celebration of the Eucharist, there was present a woman whose mind was so troubled so as to make her seem tormented. After mass, I returned home and I put on my daughter's headset and turned the radio on. I was not seeking God's happiness or anything other than distraction.

 

January 21, 1988

 

Jesus Christ was a man, fully and in every way a man. Jesus Christ was the son of God, completely God become flesh and blood. Jesus did not have to prove anything to anyone. Jesus chose freely to come and live as man among men. Much has been written of his God being. I'd like to offer some observations from this man about that man.

 

People seemed almost compelled to be with him. Grown adult men changed their life on the spot, instantly for him. Often he did not even need to ask men to follow min and yet men and women came and followed Jesus. Consider Peter must certainly have had a family. He made his living by fishing. Peter dropped everything in his life to follow Jesus. Later on Matthew did the same.

 

Jesus associated with all kinds of people. He visited and ate with the very wealthy; yet, Jesus seemed most at home with the ordinary fellow, the guy who worked for a living. Jesus was very much at ease among the poorest of the poor. He numbered among his friends, prostitutes, fishermen, tax collectors, and just plain people.

 

Even though Jesus did not marry, he did seem to like the ladies. Mary Magdalene certainly seemed to be a special friend of our Lord the man. I think Jesus really liked Martha. I think Jesus was a man that liked having women around. On the other hand, I don't see Jesus as a women's libber simply because Jesus the man liked everyone and would never have considered discriminating against anyone.

 

It is said that Jesus loved John. I imagine he did. John was known to have had a special love and devotion to Jesus. Jesus loved everyone no matter if they loved him or not. I find no wrong in the fact that it was known that Jesus loved John. I mean I have a tendency to have a special love in my heart for people who openly love me. To look for something ugly in any relationship is abhorrent to me. Jesus the man could never have any kind of a relationship with anyone ever that did not fully exist in love.

 

You see Jesus the man was the perfect man, Jesus was God become flesh. Jesus was God. God is love. Jesus was true and perfect and limitless love become flesh.

 

Jesus had a flesh and blood mother and father. His mother carried him in her body for the same amount of time and in the same way that you and I were carried by our mothers. His father as with most of our fathers stayed in the background and let Jesus be who he was. I suspect that Jesus learned to be a carpenter because his earthly father was a carpenter. A carpenter was then as now, a working man.

 

Jesus the man was real. He did not tell dirty jokes or get drunk. He did not do drugs. As with any real man, it simply wasn't necessary. Jesus knew who he was and why he was here. He never lost sight of why he became man.

 

I love Jesus the man. I love Jesus the God. I cannot separate the two. I am so glad that he was a man. I am glad I am a man.

January 22, 1988

 

Money is a god. I hope it isn't my god anymore. I'm sorry to admit money was once my god. I used to get down on my knees and pray to my "real" God for money. Sometimes I still do. Not nearly as often, thank God. Money, just think how important it is to you. Would you have food without money? What would you have without money? Clothing? Car? Stereo? Sex? Just what exactly would you do without it?

 

Maybe like many other people, I do not have the answer. I do have some questions.

 

What church can do without money? Do you know anyone who lives just on the love of God? Doesn't everyone need money? Isn't money the most important thing in the world?

 

Look at the people that do have money. Who do you know that has money that is giving it away? What church can you tell me about that after it has paid its operating bills gives the rest of its "surplus" money away? I know, show me a church that has surplus money. You know, I bet I could.

 

 

If money isn't so important, why do we need it so? Why do churches not give away money to those who have none? If people are more important than money, then, why are there hungry, homeless, and deeply in debt people? If people were really that important, then other people would put them first. I mean people and people's needs would come before money. I don't think that happens often.

 

 

What about the so called charitable organizations? St. Vincent DePaul Society and other "Christian" organizations exist solely to help others. Don't they? Do they give everything away when they see a need? Of course not. That's stupid because then they wouldn't have enough saved to meet someone else's need. So the person they help is grateful because whatever they were given was more than they had. The fact that there basic need was not met and they ended up not much better seems to be of no consequence.

 

Well, I can see that you don't have the same understanding of money that I have. I mean you take care of your needs and do what you can for other people. You work hard for your money and you have a right to spend it any way you wish. It's not your problem there are hungry, homeless people. If you give all you have away then you'd be hungry and homeless too. What's more you resent what I have said. There are jobs for people who want them. If we hadn't created the welfare system we have now in this country, well, maybe the problem wouldn't be so bad. What can you do about it anyway? One person can't make a difference. Besides we've all heard this before.

 

Well my friends, the love of God is much more important than money. If I have to prove it to you, I can't. If you need it proved to you, maybe you need to consider what you are. What you are, my friend , is a creation of and by the love of God. Without that love you would not exist. Money cannot buy that love. Money cannot buy creation. Never, ever does any life begin unless the loving Lord God is present and wills that life into existence. Doesn't matter if that life is begun through the union of a man and a woman or in the test tubes of a scientist.

 

The question of money is absolutely vital. We do need money to exist. I wish it were otherwise, but, it is not. Money is like the fingers of a person's hand. What a person does with those fingers can be wonderful and have far reaching effect. It can also be vile and ugly and have far reaching effect. The fingers on our hand were part of our human creation. They are good and have usefulness. Can you say the same for the money you have?

 

Even when I had money I did not use it properly. Now properly doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to you as it now does to me. Some people would say, did you save your money? Some would ask, did you invest your money in a good home, a good car, a good education, a good stock? The better question would be did you share your money with those less fortunate than yourself? Not only did you share, but did you do so because you loved and cared for that human being? Was the little you shared given only because you felt an obligation to share something? Did you always look after yourself and your family first? Do you pride yourself on that fact? Do you think it would have done your family harm to one have done without so that another family might have had? Let me ask you again, did or do you use your money properly?

 

Jesus Christ said love your neighbor as yourself. I have searched and searched and nowhere can I find Jesus saying look after yourself first.

 

As strange as it seems to us "Christians", that is not just the law that Jesus brought to us. It was the law of God from the beginning of time. Nowhere does God say look after yourself first.

 

Sometimes I am torn apart trying to understand how God could expect me to love you when God doesn't seem to have provided me with the means to even take care of my own. Poppycock! God gave me you. God gave me to you, for you to take care of, when I am in need. Period! God gave you to me, to take care of, when you are in need! Period! That is the bottom line. I think that you and I have to take full responsibility for the hungry, needy, homeless of the world. If we do our part, there will not be hungry homeless people. They will be eating our food, sleeping in our home and if they do end up with more than you and I have B so what. It will be just their turn to love us.

 

Hey I hear you. You try living like I am suggesting and no lie, the world will fall on you and you will be buried so deep you might never find your way back. I know. I speak from first hand experience.

 

Money is not God. There is one God. God is love and you were created by and from God. God is part of you and you are a part of God. You do not owe God, and no, God doesn't owe you. You were created in love and from love and that love remains with you forever. It is in that love you can find the answer to money in your life. You need to start by accepting that love. You can do nothing about money or anything else until you accept God's loving presence in your being.

 

Well, I hope I have given you something to think about. Even if you don't want to, even if you don't like what I have said. What part does money play in your life? Do you worship money? Do you worship God?

January 23, 1998

 

I don't really care. How often we say that. How often we say it when we most care. It's like a defense that we hide behind. A big solid wall to hide our hurt, our anger, our frustration. I don't really care.

 

Sometimes we care so much we could explode. Sometimes when we care so much, it really does not seem like we can do anything about what we care about. So much seems to be beyond our immediate control. Is it really for our good? I mean, haven't you heard the saying, it's for your good. I want to be the one to determine what is for my good. I want to have some say about what is good for me. I don't care what is good for me. I just want to have some say in my destination.

 

I have tried everything that is in my power to do what I can do to be a good person. It doesn't seem to matter. I am not qualified for anything, most especially for anything I want to do. I cannot even get qualified. I have a horrible past, a miserable present, and no future. What is worse is that I am dragging the ones I love along with me. I seem to be caught in the middle of a suffocating snowball halfway down a mountain that does not have a bottom.

 

What do I have to do? I accepted that I have screwed up in the past. I have tried to put the past behind me. I accept who I am today and I am doing the best I can right now. Today, this moment, I am trying to be what I think God has called me to be and it is not working. I know of God's infinite and unlimited love. I know his love has no limits to its power. I know God is in me and I know love is a big part of my being. It does not seem to be enough!

 

Something has got to give. I am ready to burst open. I am getting sick watching my life go past. I want to stop watching it and get back to being a part of it. I do not know how. I do not know how. What can I do?

 

I keep praying the same prayer. Please God, don't turn me loose. Do with me anything you wantYBut God, I need for you to do it, whatever it is, just get on with it. I read about lamenting. I heard the story of Hannah who lamented to her God that she had certain needs and you, God, knew her and needed to help her. I too have specific needs and I too have lamented to my God. I love you, God! I love you, God! I know you have heard my plea. I know you see me trying and trying and failing. I know you know me and I am positive of your love.

 

Please forgive this outburst, Lord. I am trying to hold on. Please help me and my family.

 

January 24, 1988

 

My wife is depressed and tired and hurting this day. I have so little I can offer her. My love seems so inadequate.

 

It is the wrong time of the month. Her allergies are running rampant. She is beginning to feel hopeless and inadequate as a mother, wife, and more important as a person. You see she has urged me, her husband, to do what we both believe our God wants us to do. It does not seem to be working, we do not have a job. Our rent is due. We agreed to try to supplement our income by doing something neither one of us wants to do but it seemed like it was our best hope to provide for our needs until we could do what God has called us to do. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe we are trying to do what we think God has called us to do and what we are trying to do is not what God wants us to do. But if that is true, then what is it we are to do?

 

What does God want us to do? Somehow we must be provided with a way to earn a living for ourselves. Somehow we must be provided with the means to live. We are willing to do what it is that God wants us to do, we are willing to go in any direction God wants us to. We just are not willing to continue as we are. We are vegetating. We are becoming lifeless and hopeless. We have already become observers of life rather than partakers in life. We so much want to become livers once again. Trust in the Lord. Listen to what God says. We have, we are, we do! Either we are blind, deaf, and totally ignorant, or God is willing for us to live through this time as a preparation for what we will be asked to do in the future.

 

We have no question as to the nature of God. We know of God's nature, we know and accept God's love. That love has been and is the only thing that has allowed us to maintain our sanity. That love keeps on lifting us up and giving us hope. When will that hope be realized? When will that hope become a reality?

 

Our spirit is at a very low ebb. My wife can barely lift herself much less support me. Her support has been so important to me. There were times when without her I could not have continued. Maybe I should not have continued. I keep screwing up. The point is through her love for me I did continue, I did survive, I did gain the hope and courage I needed for that moment. She did and does this for me all the time. I need to be there now for her. I want to be there now for her. I love her so much. I know she is the greatest gift God ever gave me and she was given to me as a visible gift of God's always present love for me. She has to let me be her gift of love and support. I feel I have failed her so often. She gets angry when I say this because she say's that is my point of view, not hers. It is true. I have failed her so often and yet I would do anything for her, ever.

 

Lord God, surely you must see and hear that we are trying to put old ways aside and become new people in you. Surely you must know how difficult it is to leave the old and become new. We are trying so very hard to be what you want us to be. Maybe our trying is enough for you, but, Lord; it is not enough for us. Please understand and help us.

 

Lift up my wife and in the lifting up of her I too will be lifted up. We love you and we accept your love. Amen!

January 25, 1988

 

November 22, 1963, I was a freshman student at Georgia Southern College in Statesboro, Georgia. Statesboro was in far south Georgia and like so many other people I remember exactly what I was doing and the experience I had on the day President John Kennedy was shot and murdered.

 

I didn't fit in at Georgia Southern. Although I was born at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, my father was a career Air Force sergeant. I lived everywhere from Oklahoma to Mississippi to Japan and back to Michigan. I really did not think people were different. I always attended Catholic schools where available and we had black neighbors on the air base we lived on. I heard black jokes, but I guess I just didn't pay attention to them. I was very naive.

 

Georgia Southern was a party school. Everybody left for the weekend to go to Augusta or Savannah. Certain clothes were in. You can imagine how a young Catholic man with no money and a Yankee sounding voice fit in. I didn't. My first roommate went to the dorm mother less than a week after meeting me and got permission to change rooms because I just wasn't from the same background as he was. You see Georgia people have their own peculiar sense of what make a person acceptable. Whatever it was, I didn't have it.

 

The second week of school or so, I stood up to answer a question from a professor. After everyone finished laughing at my ignorance for standing up, the teacher said, "you must be Catholic Mr. Flakes." It seems only those students that had attended Catholic schools and therefore were Catholic, stood up to answer questions. I replied I was very much Catholic and was proud of my religion. After another round of derisive laughter, the teacher went on calmly to inform me that he would straighten me out before the end of the semester. Funny thing, that teacher was the only teacher I ever respected from that college. He was honest and he cared.

 

I remember the only blacks allowed on campus were the cleaning women and janitors, and one more. An old "nigger" man who brought pork bar-b-cue and sold it at night.

 

I absolutely hate and abhor the word, "nigger." I used it because there were no black people in Statesboro Georgia. There were no negroes in Statesboro, Georgia. There were only "niggers."

 

I did not understand it then and I was so very uncomfortable with it and I guess I thought I would grow to understand it. I did not and I pray God I will never.

 

Even then I saw people as people. A person was a person. It was how a person treated you that determined how you treated them. I thought people were basically equal. There were signs in Statesboro, Georgia that told black people what side of the street they could walk on. There were places where they could go and I could go and they were not the same. Even the bathrooms were different. I questioned that once and my classmate explained that if you drank after one of them you probably would catch a serious disease. If you sat on the same toilet, well, you were sure to catch the most serious venereal disease of the time, he went on to tell me just what use black women were. He described in every detail how a black woman could make a white boy so very happy. I never spoke to him again after that day.

I remember getting on a public bus in Savannah, Georgia and just because it was empty, going to the back of the bus and sitting down. There was silence. The bus stopped and pulled over to the side of the road. The bus driver walked slowly back to me and said "Yankee boy, you must be visiting down here. White folks sit in the front on my bus, that's the law. So get your ass up front or get off right now." I moved up front conscious of all the stares from black passengers and white, sure enough I looked up and there was a sign that clearly said "niggers in the back".

 

I never really cared much for John Kennedy. At least not in 1963. I was a Richard Nixon man. But once Mr. Kennedy was elected, he was the President. I mean I did not think of him any other way. I liked Jackie because she was young and beautiful. I thought it was pretty neat that a man of my religion was president. Never once did I imagine that his being a Catholic would interfere with his being president. To this day I don't think it would have or did interfere. Since his death I have read just about everything I could about John Kennedy. I believe that through his death he accomplished more for his country that he ever could have in living. I am still deeply saddened by his death. Like most Americans, I hope, I was completely taken unawares that such a thing could happen. American presidents did not get murdered. I was so naive that I believed that America was one country made up of one people. After the black and white experiences I have described to you, I know you must wonder how I remained so naive. I think I wanted to be that way.

 

On that terrible morning I went to the shoe repair shop in downtown Statesboro to pick up a pair of shoes I had left to get repaired. I walked downtown and I was feeling fine. Inside the shop, an old black man, with a face I have never forgotten, stood there. I asked him for my shoes. He did not respond. I asked once more. I suddenly looked at him. As strange as it sounds white people didn't ever look at a black person. We talked to them and used their services but we didn't look at them. I think that is because if we did look at them, we would have to acknowledge that they were indeed a human being. When he did not answer me, I was compelled to look at him. There was a timeless anguish on his face and tears were streaming down from both eyes. There was such controlled anger and so much uncontrolled sorrow. "They killed my president." I could not understand and I did not want to hear, yet I knew what he said was true and I was overwhelmed with reality. I looked at the clock on the wall. Until now it never occurred to me the meaning of why the time stuck in my mind as it has. The clock said it was just 12 noon. Later I would know that no one knew for sure in Statesboro, Georgia at 12 noon if the president was dead. That man knew Mr. Kennedy was dead and I knew he was dead.

 

I turned in a crying stupor and began to walk back to the campus. I was in shock that any president would have been killed in America. The significance of this president being killed was brought home to me in a hurry.

 

"Thank God. They finally killed that nigger loving son of a bitch, about time." I looked up not believing what I heard. The gas station owner went on loudly, "One less nigger loving Catholic to worry about, praise God! The world would be a lot better place if we got rid of all of them." A tall man in a suit stood listening and approving. I heard him say something about Catholics, Jews and niggers being the ruination of America. I ran crying and stumbling back to the campus. I sat in a day room and watched the events of the next few days unfold. I sat quietly and kept my views to myself. I was afraid that they might want to get rid of me. I was a Catholic. I was so very much aware I was Catholic. I had always loved and been so proud of my religion. Now I was afraid. In retrospect I had no real reason to be afraid. Yet I know now I was afraid that if the people of Statesboro were so glad our Catholic nigger loving president had been killed; they might want to kill me. Not very rational but very real fear was what I felt. I was so stunned and sorry that a president, any president could be killed; and, I for the first time in my life was afraid because of what I believed. Even then I was proud to be a Catholic, scared and not understanding, but proud of my religion. Proud of what I believed and angry at where I was. I made a promise to myself to never go back and to never forget. I have gone back. I have never forgotten.

 

The tributes and processions on the school campus that took place, were almost mandatory. It was expected. They took place and I was a part of them. I could not understand how they could publicly stand up and praise Mr. Kennedy and express outrage publicly about his dream; yet as soon as the ceremony was over laugh about how the world was better off with one less nigger loving Catholic. I remember with horror at recognizing the tall man leading the candlelight memorial for Mr. Kennedy as the same man listening and approving what the gas station owner was proclaiming. The same man who complained about all the damn niggers, Jews, and Catholics.

 

Years later in 1986 to be exact, my wife and two of my daughters had occasion to stop at a motel in south Georgia. It was a hot day and we went swimming. We were the only ones in the pool. My youngest daughter, Jamie who was about 8 then, saw some young children in bathing suits holding towels and standing on the motel balcony watching us. She yelled to one of the kids, a little black girl I imagine was about the same age, come on in, the little girl did not respond. As soon as we got out of the pool, the black family got in. My family was offended. We could not understand why they had not joined us. You see the black father explained to me, it just wasn't done in South Georgia. He asked me not to make a scene because you see he lived there or close by and we were just passing through. Just go along with the customs.

 

I guess some things and some places never change. I guess I am still naive. You see, I still believe in the equality of man and woman and race to me just means the Indianapolis 500. Yes we do have different skin colors and we do have different heritages. I guess maybe I just think I am trying to be a Christian. Christ said "love your neighbor as yourself." Maybe he meant so long as they were of the same race. I don't think so.

 

January 26, 1988

 

I prepared an income tax return for a young self employed couple today. I came away deeply discouraged.

 

This young man and wife were trying to earn their living and make their fortune working for themselves. Forty one cents on every dollar they earned went to pay interest on their indebtedness. They owed a large sum for the previous years' taxes and an even larger sum for this year's tax. They were almost a year behind on their real estate tax, and they chose me to prepare their tax returns because I was the least expensive preparer they could find.

 

I know I should just fill out the forms with their figures and not give any advice, yet, I found myself compelled to offer them strong advice on how to get out of debt. You see, the wife told me they had a plan. They would borrow more to pay what they owed.

 

I know that this is what they will end up doing.

 

What do you say to such a young family?

What would you say that they would listen to? Looking back you wish someone would have talked to you they way you talked to them. I don't think I would have listened and I know I would not have liked what I heard.

 

This young family was missing something. I tried to figure out what it was. Once the answer came to me, I still did not know how to bring it up. What was missing from their hope was God. They had not included God in their plans. They were so very nice and seemed to be such good parents. It was their second marriage and they seemed to be working so very hard to make everything succeed. I could not help but think that if they were a part of a Christian community, there would be strong support for them. Then it occurred to me that indeed they were supposed to living in the greatest of all Christian communities, the brotherhood of man.

 

I helped them prepare an honest return. I spoke openly and honestly to them about their financial problems and I acted in a Christian manner toward them.

 

And still I felt I had not done enough.

 

What would you do? If you were me, what would you do? How would you act? My family needs money to pay our rent and the money from this return will go far toward that end. I charged them fairly and I treated them honestly . Did I do enough?

 

January 27, 1988

 

Dreams are so very important to each of us. In a special way, dreams are an important part of what makes each of us unique. You see, your dreams are very real to you. Your dreams offer you something special that only you know about and hope for. Your most private and special dreams are those which you have shared only with the God who created you. They may be far out, unrealistic, and even impossible in the quote real world to attain; but they are real and possible to you.

 

It is a sad and unfortunate thing when a dream is shattered into the reality of never. Special dreams die hard. It takes a special person to dream a special dream. When that special dream is broken into reality, a special person loses something unique and special to his or her being.

 

Some people will. Say when this happens, it is about time. These people often say that you need to live in the real world and come down out of the clouds.

 

When you take away the dreams of a dreamer, I think you destroy a most vital portion of that human's ability to live.

 

You see every person on earth needs to be able to dream. I think this is why the loving Lord Creator God gave each and everyone of us this special ability. And be sure, each of us have this ability° 0 I know, some of us seem to have forgotten how to dream" sometimes it seems some of us have even forgotten that we ever had a dream. But it is a truth that each of us have had our share of dreams.

 

And just what is a dream? Easier to know than to explain , a dream is that special hope that each of us has felt when there was no reason to hope. A dream is that special vision that filled our being and allowed us to escape from the very real and sometimes hurtful and almost always binding world we live in. A dream is the vehicle by which we looked into our future and what we saw made us not want to return to our present. A true dream is what we hope so very much will happen while knowing the chances are it will not. A dream lifts you up and fills you with hope and makes you feel so good and so special that you just know nothing else in the whole world could make you feel that way. A dream is all I have said and still more. Perhaps you alone know what the more is.

 

One of the most wonderful feelings one can ever have is when a dream comes true. And as I have said, when a dream is shattered, there are no feelings quite as low or desperate.

 

We are God's dream. When we finally accept God's love for us, God's dream comes true. We can never be God's shattered dream for God never stops loving us. In God's always continuing love for each of us is God's continuing dream. This continuing dream is that each or us will someway ,sometime, somehow, on our own, find our way to accept God's love for us.

 

God is the ultimate dreamer for none of God's dreams are ever shattered. You see, even when we reject our Lord God, we are never rejected by our Lord God!

 

If you think you cannot dream again because all your dreams have faded into broken reality, think again" you see, you were created by and from the loving Lord God. The creator God is the essence and core of each of us" as long as God's love is a part of our being, which is as long as our being is, we have the ability to dream" you my friend can dream. I know it takes courage to allow yourself to dream. I know your dreams have all been broken and ruined. I know for you it is time for a new dream, a better dream, and I encourage you to let it happen.

 

 

So don't be afraid to dream. Close your eyes and lift your spirits to the heavens and let the impossible become possible. Relish in enjoying what you alone have the vision to see" soar away to a world that hold happiness and hope for you.

 

When you come back down to earth, I promise, everything though still the same will somehow be different. The difference will be that though the world is not different, you will be different" the knowledge that 8 special dream is there just for you can be more than enough to help you through the reality of today.

 

January 28, 1988

 

AIDS is the most terrifying word in the whole vocabulary of man. There is no one who is not afraid of AIDS. It seems to be an incurable disease. Complete and total celibacy is the only absolute way to avoid AIDS and even that may not be enough. You can be born with it. You can contract it by inadvertently getting the AIDS virus through someone else's blood simply by having a cut on yourself and accidentally rubbing up against someone with AIDS and a bleeding cut. There is no way to know if your partner has AIDS. Even people who try not to spread this horrible disease may spread it inadvertently because they do not know they have the disease.

 

Who indeed even wants to find out if they have it. Even the testing procedure is not foolproof. One day you can test negative and the next day you might test positively.

 

At first AIDS was thought to be the exclusive disease between homosexual men. Then we learned it can be contracted by sharing needles. We learned it can spread through the transfusion of AIDS infected blood. A man who once in his life may have slipped through unaccustomed use of alcohol and violated his marriage vows with a prostitute, may have contracted AIDS and gives it to his unsuspecting wife who passes it on to their unborn child. It seems AIDS knows no boundaries.

 

Most of us are scared. We are haunted by indiscretions of many years ago and every time our wife or our self shows any sign of any sickness, we are scared to death of AIDS. What if because of a stupid interlude I have regretted ever since, I contracted AIDS?

 

Because of the fear of AIDS, casual sex is on the decline. It is not on the decline because of a new and better understanding of the marriage commitment. It is not on the decline because of a new Christian attitude. It is on the decline because of the real fear of contracting AIDS.

 

There seems to be some proof that the wearing of a condom or rubber shield during the sex act offers some protection against AIDS. Nobody for sure knows just how much or how little protection it offers. If it offers any protection at all it seems to me that those who decide to partake in sex should have this knowledge. Sex is going to happen. Sex is a vital part of the makeup of man and woman. It is too pleasurable and too psychologically satisfying, yes, too physically satisfying to ever be completely eliminated. It does not seem likely that sex will ever be confined to one man and one woman joined together in marriage.

 

We are not talking about what is right or wrong, just what is. In today's world this means AIDS is going to continue to spread. Anything that offers any protection against this terrible disease must be used and made available.

 

The major obstacle to the spread of the use of "rubbers", is the stance rightly taken by the Roman Catholic Church. This position is that the use of condoms prevents the conception of life from happening during the sexual act between man and woman. The rubber shield can and often does prevent the man's sperm from joining the woman's body. In that case no conception is going to take place.

 

I am a Roman Catholic and I love and respect my church. I understand her position. I offer the following personal observations.

 

Man and woman do not create life. God is the only one that creates life. If God does not will it, no life will take place under any circumstance. Often conception will take place no matter the form of life prevention used by the people involved. Women having intercourse with men using condoms sometimes, fairly frequently conceive. New condoms break. This may be why they are not fool proof against AIDS.

 

Women with their tubes tied or cut entirely in two have had babies. There are fertile men and women who have sex at the quote right time every day for ten years and do not conceive. The same woman may be raped in the middle of her monthly period and conceive. God alone knows when life is to happen.

 

God did not create AIDS to punish man. There is nothing in the whole of creation that the loving Lord God did not create. If God created it, there must be good in it. Because of AIDS, men and women are examining their attitudes toward marriage and yes sex. Maybe because of this new attitude forced on mankind by AIDS, family will once more become central to mankind. Perhaps marriage will once again be held in the high esteem that it once was.

 

Maybe man will have no choice but to accept God's all powerful and infinite love. Maybe because of AIDS, man will finally turn to God. It seems right now at least, man may end up with no one else to turn to.

 

Now I know that this isn't what God envisioned when man was first created. I guarantee it is not what man would seem to want to do normally. Probably it is the quote wrong reason for man to turn to God and throw himself on God's mercy.

 

The one consolation is that whenever and for what ever reason man finally turns to God it will not matter. You see, God will be there then as he is now, with arms open wide and love outpouring. Maybe the answer to AIDS is for man to skip being driven to no choice by AIDS. Perhaps if man quickly and wholeheartedly accepted God's love unconditionally and right now, just maybe, in God's loving mercy would be found the answer man is so desperate to find. Maybe the answer to AIDS is to be found in the unlimited love and mercy of God.

 

January 29, 1988

 

Dear God, it is 11:50 pm and I am tired. I promised to write each day this year and so I am writing. I have just finished preparing an exhausting income tax return for a young couple who is seriously in debt.

 

I have gone out of my way to treat them in a most fair way. That is of course, only what I am supposed to do.

 

Maybe through me they can learn something of you. I hope so.

 

Well as you know , we are worried about getting a job. Please find one for us.

 

We love you and thank you for hanging on to us. Please don't turn us loose.

 

Your friend,

 

John

January 30, 1988

 

I was privileged to be the song leader at the 4:30 mass today. I really felt like a minister. I guess I mean that because people openly responded to my song leading, I felt I had made a contribution to the success of the service.

 

Now I know that bread would have become the body and blood of Christ if I had not been there. I think what I mean is that in order for the fullness of Christ's presence to be felt; it is necessary for the whole celebrating community to actively take part in the praising of God. Because the people that were at this mass responded to my song leading by singing strongly, I was aware of their participation in the mass. The people became a core part of the celebration. Along with the principal celebrant, the priest; the other ministers such as myself, the Eucharistic ministers etc.; the community itself took an active part in the celebration.

 

In reality this is what should happen each and every time the mass is celebrated. I think this is why church law is that in order for a priest to celebrate the Eucharist, the community or a part of the community must be present. Priest, community, and the presence of God make for the finest of all combinations of love.

 

Always aware that some people may decide to listen to me sing rather than take an active personal role in the singing. I try to stand as still as possible and I try to use a minimum of gestures. The reason for standing still is so I will not accidentally detract from what is taking place on the altar. The same thing with the gestures. You see I am not the star of the show. There is only one star and it is of course, our Lord! I also try to begin each song as surely and strongly as I dare, after the song has begun I can then moderate my voice and try to sing with the people.

 

This day I was able to be a song leader at the beginning of each song. The quieter I got the more I heard so many people singing. It gave me chills listening to the people sing. Usually people do respond to my song leader abilities, but today was special. Hearing the people of God singing God's praises made me feel very special. I thank God for the privilege.

 

January 31, 1988

 

Well, one month has past since I began this collection of written thoughts. Why not just call it what it is, a journal? Well, in many ways it is much more than one person's journey. You see I believe God has chosen me to write special things down on paper. Now, I can give no reason for God choosing me to do this thing. Frankly, I would seem to be a most unlikely candidate to do this. I certainly have no formal training and my abilities seem to be fair at best. There can be no doubt though, this is what God has asked me to do. In general I have been most reluctant to do what I think God wants. Usually I will try to do anything but what God wants. This one time in my life, I am determined to do God's will no matter what. One twelfth of the way. Eleven more months to go.

 

The Super Bowl was on today. I watched the complete game, with some pizza and a cone. After the game was over and Washington had won, I saw some most interesting things. The Washington quarterback was a black man who had come into the NFL about ten years previously. He had played for an expansion team that like all expansion teams lost more games than it won. The team he played for was in Florida, the deep south. When his team lost ten years ago, this young talented man suffered much verbal abuse. Quite a bit of that abuse was centered on the color of his skin. A most common comment was that black quarterbacks did not have the mental ability to direct a winning football team. You see black people in general and black quarterbacks specifically were not as smart as white people and especially white quarterbacks. After winning this Super Bowl and in the process being selected most valuable player of the game, Doug Williams, black quarterback, was asked how it felt to be the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl. Doug answered in words similar to these. He said, when I came to Washington, I came as a quarterback; not a black or white quarterback, but as a quarterback. Well Doug, you probably did. But if you did, then you were very much ,excuse the pun, in the minority. You see Washington is a northern city made up mostly of black people. Those black people with their white neighbors really support the Washington Redskin team you play for. Those black people, mostly black working people, were pulling not only for their team to win, but also for their quarterback to do well. And he did, Doug.

 

You know, my father and sister, whom I love and respect so very much are in their way, racist. I accept them. I love them. I do not understand how they can be the way they are. You see, Doug, if you were driving your car and you broke down in front of them, I really believe my dad would stop and offer to help you. As soon as he finished helping you, he'd lean over to me and assure me that he was not a racist because he'd just helped you a poor colored boy who was in trouble. Today, my dad and my sister was pulling for you to have a good game. You see they live in Florida across the peninsula from Tampa. The fact that you were a black quarterback did not seem to matter. The fact that they probably were among your biggest detractors, although they deny it now, did not matter. They were for you. They were not for Washington. They were for Doug Williams because he used to play down there.

 

Me, I was for John Elway and the Broncos. Sorry, Doug. I did not care if you were black or white, I just thought Elway was good enough to take you guys on and get job done.