The Good, Bad, And Ugly

The Good, Bad, and Ugly

 I’ve been thinking a lot lately… about myself. Maybe it’s because I have too much time on my hands or because I’m getting old. But I’ve been giving my life a hard look at what the future might look like. I’m beginning to get a little nervous about my finances, health, and the state of affairs at home. Whatever it is, and I’m not sure, I feel I’ll be better able to understand it all if I see it on paper.

So, what are my thoughts? What am I feeling right now? I’m thinking about everything that got me to where I am today. Where am I today? Worried, probably for nothing, but I guess I’ll see. Maybe a better word for it would be concerned or perhaps even a little confused. Since I got my diagnosis, it’s all I can think about. My choice of wanting to be one of the cool kids when I was fifteen, I decided to start smoking. All the cool kids were doing that, and I wanted to hang out with them. There was no peer pressure. There was only my desire to fit in. It was 1977, and smoking was no big deal. I should have realized it then, but I should have known better. What started out as a ploy to schmooze with kids who wouldn’t otherwise give me a second look ended with me having an incurable lung disease. Now, I am paying the price for my mistakes, at least in part.

 Being a Christian man and a firm believer in God, I have no legitimate reason to feel any anxiety in my life whatsoever, but I’m only human. Forty-eight years since I took that first puff, I am positive God has always been there for me, no matter what. I know that, and he always takes care of my needs. However, most of the time, what I think I need is far different from what he knows I need. I quit my nasty habit more than ten years ago, but by then, the damage was already done. It lay inside of me for years undetected until last year. Then, at the height of my life, when everything was going so well, that proverbial bottom fell out from under me. The problem is that he made me a man who has to live in a world that has corrupted itself into one big distraction from what’s really important in life, which is him. I’ve always believed in him, but I have to weave my way around way too many people from all walks of life who don’t seem to pay him the attention he deserves anymore. Nor do they give him respect or credit for all the gifts he gives each of us. I see it every day. Not many people use his name to give thanks and praise for something positive in their lives. Instead, they give themselves all the glory for some random accomplishment, especially the Hollywood types. During their award shows, they thank everyone from the producer to the catering crew on the set for being able to win such a prestigious award. Whoop-de-doo. But no one usually thanks God for their success. And it’s the same thing with the sports icons after they’ve won some big game. Is the name of God ever mentioned? Rarely. Most of the time, no (I stopped watching the award shows and sports a long time ago). Most of the time, in reality, his name is only invoked in vain, shouted in anger, or cried out in the middle of a robust carnal frolicking. In some circles, it’s almost taboo to speak the name of our creator. Someone might get offended. Oh, help me, Jesus.

Yet, when some of us get into trouble or hurt, God is one of the first things that come out of our mouths as we curse him or wonder why he wasn’t there for us. That tells me they know he’s out there somewhere in the cosmos but choose not to think about it until something goes wrong with our perfect little lives. Then, they either blame him or question why he allowed something bad to happen. Now, subconsciously, doesn’t that prove they know he exists as the supreme being and is ultimately in charge? Why else would they place blame on a deity they choose not to believe in for their troubles?

About thirty years ago, I used to attend AA meetings when I discovered I was an alcoholic (I've been sober ever since). One of the first things you learn in those meetings is the twelve steps. The second and third steps are to believe that a higher power greater than ourselves could restore us back to sanity. Most people know that higher power as God. Then, you must turn your will and life over to God as you understand him. And there it is, as you understand him. The God we all know doesn’t have to be God at all. Your higher power could be whatever you want it to be. Whatever works for you they’d say, as long as it keeps you from taking another drink. My first thought was that even AA is Woke long before Woke was a thing. But whatever, the program worked for me. One guy took out his Bic pen and showed it to me at a meeting one day. He noted that the pen was his higher power. Goofy, I thought, but whatever floats your boat, dude. But I had to wonder if that guy ever blamed Mr. Bich (pronounced Bic) for him getting his third DWI? Did he blame his pen for losing his job? Did he thank his pen for blessing him and his adoring wife with two healthy babies? Did his pen ever help him in his greatest hour of need?

In the years leading up to the truth about myself and my problem with alcohol, I served time in the Army and went to war. Unlike the guy with his trusty pen, the Army taught us guys that believing in God is the best idea you could have once you step foot on foreign soil in the middle of a war zone. Take my word for it when I say this, and you‘ve probably heard it before: there are no atheist’s in a foxhole. The unbelievers back then smartened up pretty fast when they realized there was no one there to protect them but God and the guy next to them. The same is true for people today. They don’t bother to thank him for all the good stuff but are all too ready to blame him for all the bad stuff. We love to assign all the blame on God, don’t we? I guess it keeps us from blaming ourselves for our own mistakes. But think about that for a minute. Does blaming God not show that even they know there is a higher power out there to consider?

I have to wonder about some of these people; what do they think about the concept of creation? Where do they think the world, the entire universe for that matter, and everything in it came from? Do they think we actually evolved from apes, as some people have claimed? Okay, then, what about it? When and where did the first apes come from? Did they evolve from fish? If that’s what they believe, when and how did the fish get here? There has to have been a beginning somewhere, right? That theory doesn’t make any sense unless a higher power, greater than ourselves, started it all, and I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with a Bic pen. Only an honest atheist could believe we must have been formed out of thin air. They’d be wrong, of course; maybe because they choose not to think deeply enough. There was a beginning. There is a creator, and his name is God. The case for his existence is overwhelming. You might say, there is a there there. It's real, and it's compelling. As much as they tell us there is no scientific evidence for his existence, there is nothing they can say to disprove it, either.

Everyone has good, bad, and ugly events in their life, and none of them happen by accident. God has a master plan for all of us, and nothing happens without a reason. Even what are seen as accidents, some random event that just occurred in our life, are, in fact, accidents in our understanding and allow us to believe. But in God’s world there are no accidents; it is beyond our understanding for whatever reason. Everything happens for a reason. We shouldn’t even try to figure out why because we’ll never get it. Later on, we might conclude why this or that happened to us, but only after future events point directly to the past. Sometimes, we will never get it because we’re not meant to. So, we have to move on, turn the page, learn our lessons, and try not to repeat the dumb stuff we do. Could it be just a matter of listening to our inner voice and intuition to help us make good choices?

Is it so far-fetched to think that when something terrible happens to us, and we survive it, it gives us wisdom? Then, we can pass down that knowledge to the next generation of people with a similar fate. Who else could provide us with that ability but our creator-in-chief? Is that not precisely what software engineers do with the programs they code? Every line of code is there for a reason, and the program does just what it’s supposed to do. It’s just like our bodies when we’re born. When the end user engages with the interface, it is led by our choices and does what it’s meant to do because that’s how it was created. The engineer designed the program that we interact with, much like God created us to interact in the world. There may be a learning curve involved, there always is. Mistakes will be made, much as in real life. Then, we pass down our knowledge to the next user so they don’t make the same mistakes we did.

I’ve had many things happen to me in the last sixty-odd years. Some have been good, some bad, and others, unfortunately, have been ugly. But as a whole, the sum of what happens to us is a mere ten percent of our life. The remaining ninety percent is our reaction to the other ten. We all have the free will to make choices no matter what happens to us. We can choose dignity and maturity as a response or words and behaviors that could make things worse. Now, add your memories into the mix. Is there a relationship between any of them? Is there any correlation between what we remember, say, think, and do that affects what happens to us in our everyday lives? I say yes, probably. Does God’s plan ever reveal itself in bits and pieces through any one of our choices or a combination of them? I guess, maybe. God’s plan is a matter of interpretation. But as we navigate the world, we collect a series of memories from a well-lived life, for better or worse. Then, we base our decisions in the future on our own experiences, right or wrong. It’s funny sometimes, the things you remember, you know? Some things stick, and others simply slip away. What a person remembers, and their recollection of events says something about them. It shines a light on who the person is and where they are in their head. In some cases, it reflects where they are in their heart.

If you were to do an exercise to remember your life, what would you remember most vividly? What could we recall at will and at a moment’s notice, using nothing but our senses and experiences with each one? There’s no rhyme or reason for the ranking by which they’ll show themselves except to show a state of mind possibly. Where are we? The depth given for each memory may have a few contributing factors. They can go from none whatsoever, to a bit fuzzy, to Oh yeah, I remember that, to I remember that like it was yesterday. What kind of detail would we want to discuss openly about our memories in a room full of strangers? What kind of wisdom could we impart to others so they may choose to live a better life based on what happened to us? I might tell them never to touch a cigarette or to quit today. They’re poison, and they will do you harm, if not kill you, slowly. I might tell them to enjoy life because it’s too short to worry about the small stuff. Have fun while you can because you never know when you might have to grow up in a hurry. Work hard for what you want because no one is going to give it to you. No one owes you anything, so get that through your head. Take care of your family; they’re all you have. Treasure every moment, and don’t put anything off till tomorrow, what you can do today.

Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Find a way to serve your country. It’s the best place in the world, and it’s your home. Take care of it. Most important of all, believe in something and be smart about it. If you don’t believe in something, you may fall for anything. Don’t fall into that trap. If you don’t know who God is, you're just being foolish. If you do know God, trust him. Believe in him and have faith that he will take care of you when you need it most. When everything else fails, he’ll be there.