Livin' Small

Walking up from my garage this morning elicited new thoughts. I haven’t moved for 27 years until a month ago. I have known for years the voice of God and also the open door principle.

I felt the urging some time ago to look at this house Lib and I are now in. I played with the thought for some time, but placed it off the table. Then mid-November the prodding came afresh. I told Lib to let’s take a closer look at this house. I called the agent and set up a showing. We found it had been built in 1973. It is brick and is solid. It had been mildly updated, but much updating is still needed in the kitchen, dining and hallway. The doors needed new knobs, but really the whole set of inside doors should be replaced. The flooring was done with a very cheap grade of laminate wood grain flooring. The baseboards, quarter round and door facings had been replaced by someone with just enough experience to cut a piece of wood. They didn’t know much about a measuring tape, though. The bathroom had been completely overhauled with a new tub and it was very fresh and with functional tub, toilet, cabinet and vanity. But the walls are not very likeable. The trim was amateurish. The flooring was not level and upon inspection we found sometime joists had been attacked by termites, but had been repaired and treated. There were other floor joists that needed new supports, which I had the owner repair before purchase. The previous owner had had new double pane windows installed, but two already had that foggy look and I had them fix those as well.

Sounds like I should have walked away from the needs this house has, but here’s what happened. Lib wanted the house and I did as well for the fact that it has a half-acre yard with a huge unattached garage and paved driveway. I later found the garage was once a welding shop business by the previous owner. He and his wife had passed on and the children were selling it as sort of an estate sale. They, being the owners then, were willing to sell at a giveaway price. It had been reduced by ten thousand dollars. All I will say is when I heard the selling price I was astounded to find it well under $100 grand.

Looking at the state of the house and the state of my previous home didn’t take much for Lib and I to agree to offer whatever the owners were asking. Problem was the day we looked at it we found there was another interested party. Problem one. Yet I felt to go ahead with the offer.

Later that day I was told to secure the offer I would need to get approved for the loan. That was not a problem. The next morning after church Lib and I went to a mortgage loan representative and were approved on the spot. We stopped by on the way back home to look at the inside of the garage and the realty agent told me then that the other prospective party had declined to place a bid. Now it was up to Lib and me.

Monday morning was a holiday from work, so I had gone out to get something to eat at the local Piggly Wiggly and decided to stop at my neighbor’s business across the street. When I asked him was he interested he looked at me like I was pulling his leg and it took several acknowledgements to get him to believe I wasn’t. He asked me how much and I told him. On the spot he offered to buy at the price I asked. Deal. I’d made an offer, gotten approved and sold my house in a span of three days. On the fourth day I was moving out of my house into this house.  I had told Libby when God moves He can move quickly so she should be prepared.

The provocation to look at this house again was God speaking to me. Once I looked and spoke what I was hearing, things happened so quickly Libby could not believe it. Doors opened left and right. We’ve been in this house paying rent to live here from the middle of November until closing and now for almost a month since closing.

Surprisingly I do not miss my two acres down the road seven tenths of a mile. I feel very much at home here. I’m sitting in my living room tapping this out on my laptop while the Contemporary Christian music channel plays on Pandora, feeling the blessing of God upon this house.

It’s the little things that count as well, which to some would seem not important and

Veteran’s Day Parade in Morehead City NC

material. I gave up a 1955 BelAir Chevy when I gave my heart to God in 1977 because I felt Him tell me it was my god. It was a true statement. Now all those years later I feel that owning the car I’d always wanted was a gift and now I have a garage to put it in and cover it up so I can take it out and drive it and enjoy it. And Libby and I do enjoy it with the top down breezing down the highway.

Still Libby has a nice car and I have yet an old beater of an S10 for hauling stuff around in. We both have wonderful jobs and I hope to retire the end of this year.

I know there are people who think they hurt me because I hurt them, but in reality I can’t be hurt. The love of God is strong on and in me. I have forgiven them. I release them to God. Libby and I are recognized for our love for each other in our church and we’ve developed new friends and we have become a part of the community of Richlands. In all the years I’ve lived here I’ve not felt that till we moved into this house just a month ago. Strange as it may seem, I’d never felt this way.

Yes, I admit my decisions hurt some people close to me, but I’ve found from other friends and family that their viewpoint was I was not a well man then. To me I was in a fight for my life. I knew I was dying and I had to get out of it. I made only one mistake. Not having done it sooner.

So my thought as I walked up from the garage this morning? It is that I’m “home” for the first time in a long time and I have the love of a woman who truly knows unconditional love and demands nothing of me, but to be myself. I ask nothing of her other than to not change who she is. She’s everything I pictured in my early teens when I asked God what my wife would be like. I can’t marry her as yet because of the liberality with which the judge meted out “punishment” on me in alimony to my previous relationship. Under the laws of the state of NC I am bound to that, but my heart is unbound in the realm of the spirit and I have all I ever wanted in life and cannot be brought down, not because of me, but by the help and blessings of God am I standing. That’s my thoughts this morning.

Christmas is a holiday that for years I have not celebrated. What?? I did a lot of research in history, Biblically and historically. I settled on one fact. If we cannot celebrate His birth everyday, we missed the need for his life. . . to die as a sacrifice for each one of us individually.

Libby has a problem with me on that. Of course He was born. It was well recorded in all aspects except one. When. Only by supposition do we get an idea of when. I chose to thank Him each day for His birth. I do enjoy the Christmas themes and such. I will even give gifts and enjoy family, such as it is this time of year. We have a blow-up snowman in our yard, wreath on the door. There’s a tree in one room with gifts under it.

My beliefs are mine. Yours are yours and I respect all who do celebrate Christmas. I’m coming around to some degree.

To the retail world though it’s their bread and butter so advertising starts now before Halloween and there’s Black Friday and now the Black Saturday, the week before Christmas. People fighting over gifts, news reports on sales and all for what? It’s all in the name of Christ’s birth. I feel alone sometimes in this belief of mine, but still I hold onto the need for people to know EVERY day is a fresh new day to know of His birth. . .and death.

I’ve had this thought running through my head for quite some time. Gray hairs in the sideburns is a memory that I have from back in my forties.

I was at work one day when I got up and wandered off to the bathroom or “head” as it’s called in the military. Oh, I work for and with the Navy in a medical facility. I did my business and proceeded to the sink to wash my hands. When I looked up into the mirror I saw the tell-tale sign of age. It was the dreaded gray hair. Just one, but that was all it took. In a sort of panic I reached up and grabbed it and pulled it out, returning my sideburn back to its only color. Whew! What a scare.

Of course, over time I found myself pulling more of them out realizing all the while I would either have no sideburns left or I would lose the battle and find no color left in those tufts of hair in front of my ears. True to form, the signs of age slowly overtook me and now years later I find that there is no other color than gray for my sideburns.

On another note, I’ve been bald since my late twenties and have only had one fleeting moment of fear of the lack of hair and surprising to me it occurred in the same bathroom at the hospital. That moment had me not wanting to go back into the hallway. For God’s sake I was bald and people would be looking at me. Then rationality came back. I’d been like this for almost twenty years and people already knew I was bald. So what.

I’m staying out of that bathroom, though. No telling what I might be struck with some future visit.

Here’s something people sometimes. . .well most of the time, don’t like. Change. It’s inevitable. Just by virtue of being alive creates change. I guess the real culprit of change is what changes. If it’s a good change, we’re okay with it, but some change isn’t so welcome.

Getting older doesn’t bode well for change in many lives. I have been very fortunate to have as few ills as can be expected by some. Oh, I’m dealing with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and general aches and pains associated with growing old, but overall, I’m feeling pretty decent.

I know some about my age, who are tremendously tried in one health issue or another. Heart, kidney, lungs infested with cancer and so on are not diseases I look at lightly. Any of these can be the early end of an otherwise productive life.

My middle brother died the day after my birthday a year ago this past week from lung cancer. He’d always been a hard working man. He lived life in a way that had people looking to him as a fill in dad, uncle or whatever they saw as a kind, caring and compassionate individual. He helped many by being a friend, confidant and took no judgmental thought to whoever they were. Mike could always be depended upon for help.

I could go on about Danny or Timmy, who have both passed on. Jamie or “Tad” as we called him when he was young is still here and living in Hawaii. He feels life has given him a new home there and I understand. He’s not judged for who or what he lives by. That’s where he should be. He is the Omega of the five brothers. I am the Alpha.

What I’m really after is this. If I write about myself please bare with me. It’s how I adjust and view the changes in my life. It helps me to keep things in perspective.

For thirty-seven years I was married. By law I still am, but by the heart and Spirit of God I’m not. Please don’t be judgmental about this. We had a very liberal judge in our proceedings towards divorce who thought I should part with more of my income than is justifiable. Even the appellate attorney I consulted agrees the judge overstepped his bounds by denying me my Constitutional rights to pursue said divorce by taking so much of my rightful income making it so I am unable to financially subsist if I file for a final decree. The cost of fighting for my right was too prohibitive and lengthy for me to do so as well with the court of appeals. I made a statement that I committed adultery to cut costs as well, which was not supposed to be used in the finality of the trial, but was apparently used weightily against me. Remarks that were said by me were taken out of context by the judge without any questioning of me on the stand as to the veracity of what was said.

To put it mildly I was overly punished for what was done without any answers to my questions of what happened on the other side of the coin, so to speak. I hold no need for retribution, punishment or otherwise towards my ex-spouse or what she has had done to me. I have presented myself before God and man and I have been forgiven and I am justified to pursue life as it is. It is not my choice to live with the woman I love and care for in the manner we do. We are bound by the laws of the state to have to live this way until something changes. Change. That word again.

Okay, let’s “change” the subject. I had an epiphany this past week. It’s a change I knew was coming and toyed with it for the last two or three years, but now it’s going to become a reality. I picked up my retirement package this week. I have set a date of 31 December of next year. I have six months or so from now to acclimate to the next change. In July of next year the package will begin to move forward. Reality of this change is causing reassessment of who I am and what am I to do.

Another change has occurred as of yesterday. I’ve also toyed with this idea of my home and property. It is a two acre yard and I do enjoy working in it, but age is creeping up on me now and I’m not getting as much done anymore as quickly as I would like. I have to pace myself. Two acres is going to become too much for me to maintain. I must downsize.

There’s a brick home about a mile from here that’s for sale and Libby and I have been eyeing it for a few months now and yesterday we decided it was time to look at it closer. It’s a small three bedroom, one bath with carport home and a detached garage big enough for what we need. The yard is about a half acre with drainage around one side. It was very well maintained by the previous owner and appears to be in solid condition. The price is very reasonable, so we have as of this morning put in a bid on the home and have been preapproved. Moving to this home will give Libby and I something that we can call our very own, as the home I’m in now was from my previous life. This new home is perfect with good neighbors around us. Mary Ann and Roy Metts live right across the road and she was all over it when we told her a while back we were kind of interested in buying this house. It’s a very well maintained neighborhood as well. Very well manicured lawns and such by every owner along this road is par for the course. The church we attend is within walking distance and the new Walmart going up is just up on the end of the road across Hwy 258 from this house. And the biggest thing for me is that there is no HOA. I hate HOA’s.

The house payments you ask? Let’s say it’s half the average house payment for most people. The estimated payment is about the same as I’m paying now. That’s not bad.

Change is ultimately going to have to happen. No matter what we or anyone else has to say about the matter. What can happen is that we play a part in the change to the best of our ability.

One can easily look at my right middle finger next to the fingernail and deduce I use a pen or pencil a lot. But that doesn’t make me a writer. Writing stories and allegories, prose and poems, fiction and non-fiction come from the heart, mind and imagination. The fingers of my hand have been the instruments that have penned some of these things when my inspiration was active with life that was full of tumult, happiness and just plain curiosity.

In my youth I drew pictures of mostly sketches and cartoons. I tried painting, but could not get the hang of it. In my mid-twenties I began to form letters into words from the mind-art my soul wanted to paint. Drawing with stories is about as difficult sometimes as making an image of something you see.

The world is a big place. The military took me places I’d never expected to see. States and countries out there in this world have such different colors of people and culture. We, as a people, paint this world with what comes from our being. Some paint pastels of compassion. Some paint sharp intrusive colors of their will upon others. There are people who paint bright slick colors of happiness, yet we will still have some who paint the world with flat colors of depression and gloom.

When I got to my fifties I began to paint a mishmash of images from my mind. Some were flat colors, some were glossy. There were mountainous stories, but when you have mountains in your life, you also have lush valleys. Greens, yellows and blues of all hues stretched out across that decade of my life. Unfortunately there were some dark greys, reds and a smattering of black. I found life didn’t necessarily have the defined lines of color, but more like a splash of color thrown against life mixing together to make a blend of life I had not expected.

I gave up life as it was and put up a new canvas. The old painting I’d worked on for all my life till that time now sits in the dark corner of the room away from the light upon a new canvas. The sun shines brightly on it as my mind imagines the new images I’ve painted. Life and love have new meaning.

What colors do you use to paint the world around you?

I lay awake this morning thinking. Sometimes I can’t help but run over some thoughts of the previous day and analyze things I have read. An interesting term caught my eye on Facebook yesterday.
“Keyboard Patriots” is new to me, but rings a very clear bell. It was used to describe a certain genre of people who can post entries of their patriotism, yet lack the testicular fortitude to back it up. They are apt to be called “sheeple”. This is another term which I relate to cattle going to slaughter. I picture two cows in the line with one asking of the other where they were going. The other says they don’t know, but let’s go since nothing appears to be happening anyway.
But, things ARE happening. As I’ve said before I’m no conspiracy theorist and don’t purport in any fashion to be. I’m a realist. I have to know my enemy. My enemy is not an uneducated individual or group. They appear to be backward yet in my best estimation are a demon-possessed group of people driven to kill any and all who defy their religion. Oh, but you say, that’s hogwash. Have you studied the Middle East? Do you know their mind-set?
The worst of the keyboard patriots call themselves Christians. Do we know we are the key target of this people’s rage? They kill Christians because they represent the promise of Abraham that was taken from them thousands of years ago. Ishmael, of whom they descended from, is the father of these zealots of Islam. They are so jealous of the promise of Abraham that they have taken the Christian God and made him their god. They have switched out Jesus for Mohammed and turned the one true God of Abraham into a militant god they call Allah. To carry this even further a notch, women are less than animals. People, these warriors of Allah, wipe their butts with their bare left hand. They have sex with goats, because they consider it an alternative to women. They are filthy people.
If we were to drop off any who read this right now today in the middle of a country they control you would likely be the target of a beheading for the glory of Allah. Folks, this isn’t some joke or far-fetched reality. It’s happening right now.
The comment I read came from a video stating that ISIS (just another term for these people) are already in Mexico and likely crossing into our unprotected southern border. This is a real threat. How long has it been that causes us to forget these same people by another name came to American airports just over a decade ago and commandeered passenger airliners and rammed them into two of the largest symbolic buildings of free trade in the United States and also the symbolic heart of our military might? They want us dead. As many of you as possible gone from the face of the earth is their goal.
I’m no keyboard patriot. I have served time in the military. I know the sacrifices that have been made by my fellow soldiers in Vietnam. A lot of us died there. In fact some fifty-eight thousand young men and women died for a politically motivated war that the French left behind in their own defeat. We don’t need another needless war. It tore our country apart. And it’s been unraveling ever since.
No. I will not be a keyboard patriot. The time will come that we will be forced to take up arms again to defend our land. I don’t think we will be overcome by our enemy, because I don’t think for a minute that true Americans will sit idly by and let an enemy invade this country. The military might of this country still surpasses any enemy’s invasion, but it will be the common everyday man and woman who takes up arms that will be the most effective of all. We’re not like countries that have been disarmed by its government making us unarmed targets with no way to defend ourselves. We will not sit idly by and be civilian casualties. We will become warriors of defense in our nation. Stand up now or you may be a victim on a video of a beheading. They mean what they say. Do you?