Your Dying Spouse 548 - The Last Paradigm {FMF}

I wish that I could open one of these posts by saying anything except, well, it's worse.

But not today. It's worse, with new stuff happening that makes the expression, "This can't be good" sound positively Pollyannish. I won't describe it, 'cause just talking about that stuff makes me puke.

It's hard to stay out of the dark rooms of loneliness and despair, especially in this season. Turn on the TV and everyone's singing and shopping and...ugh...eating.

Uh, pardon me, I'mm be right baaaccckkk.....

There. Wow. Yuck.

Where was I...oh, right. How do you keep an even keel when you're in the vortex, circling the drain?

It's actually not hard. It jut involves some agility, in jumping from one defining paradigm to another, all the way to The End Of The Trail.

I think we all live our lives after a pattern; a pattern formed by relationship and media. We see people we admire, characters we admire, and we look to build a framework in our lives that allows a direct comparison, at least in our hearts.

No one lives a completely original life; at least, almost no one. Jesus, well, yeah. He did.

But for the rest of us there's John Wayne and Wonder Woman and Weird Uncle Ray, who got lost in the 60s and never quite found his way out. These are the names and contexts against which we measure ourselves.

And that is no bad thing, because left to ourselves, we can find definition impossible. It's like doing a diving exercise in a dark pool...which way is up?

I've run through a number of paradigms, from the wisecracking Butch and Sundance to the steely-eyed John Wayne to the inscrutable Katsumoto in The Last Samurai (and I bear more than a passing resemblance to Ken Watanabe).

But in the end...for it must surely come soon, given the symptoms, I've circled back to the paradigm that awaits at The End Of The Trail.

Me.

Butch and Sundance died in a hail of Bolivian bullet (or did they..?), The Duke rode off into the sunset, and Lord Katsumoto met the honourable death he craved in a hopeless cavalry charge.

And I go on. Shorn of any nobility (I did my best...sometimes), bereft of real charity (I gave at the office and at home, but a lot of the time I was looking out for me), and absent any spiritual depth (I thought for a long time that Judas had a pet lion, hence, 'Lion of Judah'), I'm a pretty normal screwup, an eightball, a square peg kicking and screaming against the round hole.

And that is precisely what God loves.

In the demolition of my Potemkin villages, I've found truth, and joy, and Love.

When I stopped watching movies, I could see God's hand, patiently waiting to take me the rest of the way on His Shoulder.

The view from up here, it's pretty good.

Music from Andrew Peterson, with You'll Find Your Way.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 547 - Cinematic Revelation

Things are kind of terrifyingly bad, so I am shamelessly recycling a comment I made on a Books & Such Literary Management blog post, Books Into Movies, written by Janet Grant.

"This afternoon, being far too ill to do anything else, I watched ‘Creed’, the penultimate film in Stallone’s ‘Rocky’ series. And part of it shook me to the core, for in the film, Rocky Balboa is diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (one of my uninvited guests), and refuses treatment.

"To hear a beloved film character saying almost word for word what I have said, including the dismissal of one’s own value in relationship, was excruciatingly hard to endure. Film, perhaps even more than books, can compellingly force one to come alongside oneself. It’s not always a pleasant experience, but for me this was a necessary one.

"My ending will not be as happy as that portrayed in the film; there are no resources beyond my own will to help me fight this. But it placed my flippancy and ‘hard’ attitude in full focus, and showed them for the puerile things they truly are. ‘Creed’ helped me grow up, just a little."

The music from Creed is unfortunately a bit pedestrian, so here's the immortal Gonna Fly Now from the original Rocky.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 546 - Despair Is OK

Despair isn't something you can avoid. Facing cancer, yeah, I despair.

But I'm in good company, because even Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, felt despair.

There's no shame in how you feel, because it's what you DO that counts.

I used to think that 'doing' was a ind of chest-beating ferocious opposition...if pain made fifty push-ups hard, I'd do a hundred. So there.

But it's far simpler than that.

Doing is simply this.

Thy will be done.

Just for fun, here are the Carpenters with For All We Now.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 545 - I'm Thankful For LFO {FMF}

This post was originally going to be something different, a hymn to the blessings in my daily life.

And then I heard that Devin Lima died of cancer at the age of 41. He left a wife and six kids.

He was part of the pop band LFO (Lite Funky Ones), along with Rich Cronin and Brad Fischetti.

Rich Cronin died of cancer in 2010, at the age of 35. Devin and Brad carried on as a duo, and now there is just one.

LFO is not Mozartt or Mahler; it isn't the Beatles.

It was simply a good-natured pop trio made up of decent family guys who put out cheerful, fun songs.

The sort of thing we need right now in America.

We all want to be great, and few of us are. But these guys, they did their best to entertain, and to show that life can be upbeat.

They showed that life can be goofy, and fun.

My thoughts and prayers are with the sole surviving member, Brad Fischetti; it's so hard to see friends taken, so soon.

Joy To The World is a rightly popular Christmas song; but in our own way, we can bring joy to the world.

Rich and Devin and Brad did just that, and I am thankful to have shared this place in time with them.

I hope you'll give a listen to what I think is their best song and video, Every Other Time. Yes, there are a lot of girls in bikinis. Yes, it's a full-out party. But it's fun, and it gives a short story with a happy and sweet ending. Please watch it, and enjoy.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 544 - Not My Way

I figure you're all familiar with the Frank Sinatra standard, My Way. And yes, you can click on the video below to hear it.

It's a nice song; both wistful and defiant, a summing-up of a life lived on one's own terms.

And it has nothing to do with my life.

Now, right here, I'd like to say, "I didn't live it my way; I lived life His way."

But I think God would look askance at that kind of tall tale. In places I tried, but I didn't live it His way, either.

I just lived, pretty well reacting to both obstacles and opportunities. I failed way more than I achieved, and there's a lot of places where there are no footprints on the sand of my life-path.

See, God was carrying me because I had both feet in my mouth.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.