IT'S BEEN ONE MONTH SINCE I LAST WROTE TO YOU -- and since November 25, 2010 since # 1 -- 74,000 times viewed since then

Luke 13:6-9 - Parable of the barren fig tree

I have the picture above as the symbol for this article.  I have made up my mind to cultivate this tree with more effort to increase its productivity over the next year.  With God's help,I can do it.

Hey, wanna see what I wrote then? Click here to see it. 

It was the evening of Thanksgiving.  This is the evening of Thanksgiving.  The thoughts do not fly quite so often these days for two reasons.  I have too many things on my plate, among which are two Bible studies, contract work with a translation company and various and sundry other projects that come and go.  One of them is regularly communicating with the Lay La Salette Missionaries around the world and organizing and heading pilgrimages to Israel and various places in Europe.  If I am not mistaken,I think I wrote a piece every day for about 450 days straight.  When I look back on it, I can't imagine how I did it.  And that is not all.  There are topics that I have judged are not what I want to discuss here, for reasons of my own.  But I do want to fulfill my dream of leaving autobiographical material to my sons and to those with enough sense to click and see what lies behind the dead guy who dared us "No Crying at my Funeral."  

  That is a blog that is tied to an online Catholic magazine "ParishWorld.net."

I do not produce weekly for that blog and when I do it is mainly to comment on spiritual and/or doctrinal material for my own sake or the sake of the publication for the good of the faithful readers.  It is a blog that has a religious personality and I compose it when I have something to connect to my general spiritual attitude. I can say, quite honestly that readers of that bog will not cry at my funeral.  They will raise their eyes to heaven and thank God that I have now become His face to face problem.

I have two other blogs that I maintain at varying levels of regularity.  One is quite narrowly focused on the activities and beliefs of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette  and the other is one that I save for my patented rants and that I do not "market" actively.  I simply take the chance that the thoughts that appear there may amuse whomever happens to trip over them by accident during a Google browsing session. That's why over 8 years only 4,000 pairs of eyes have been offended by the content.  

Now it is Thanksgiving again and everyone has gone home after a sumptuous meal of turkey, ham, Lebanese salad, Indian spicy cabbage with sausage, rice and bread, Camenbert following a bracing 1 ounce apéritif of "Makers 46" accompanied by vegetable "lumpia" made by genuine, pure blooded Filipino hands.  The Kentucky bourbon is in the midle of that multicultural pot-pourrit as a political comment.  Too bad that Mitch wasn't here.  (No, I am not a Democrat.  If you followed my blogs, you would know that I vote my mind so that I maintain the right to attack any politician, or all of them collectively.) This year is the first year ever that I voted a straight ticket --  Zero incumbents.

I have a fairly long list of ideas that I would like to unveil for you.  I have them all listed in a very visible part of my computer.  I am reminded of them every day, several times per day.  All I need is the discipline that I had four years ago and get them captured in a blog post for your enjoyment.  

Well,I am now falling victim to the el tryptophan syndrome, so I leave you with a hope and a prayer that you will have many things to thank God for in the coming year.

Oh, BTW, remember, "No Crying at my Funeral."

UNREQUITED LOVE -- SO FAR --

TEN YEARS AND COUNTING...

I was out doing some housework this morning.  I actually did accomplish something, if not the things that neither you nor the Voice from the Kitchen would guess.  Or maybe, you did guess because of the feature photo.  No, I did not throw them out.  No, I did not package them and ear-mark them for some poor, inner city orphan.  I figured that if I could trundle them around with me for ten years already, if I am going to package them for anything, it's going to be for the cremation oven.  I figure that if I don't build them, no one else will.  So there.  I know that I should not have that kind of attitude.  I know that somewhere out there sits some poor young man or girl [wait!  Girl?  Hmmm... You sure?] OK, I won't erase it.  ...I say, some young man or girl who could be kept off the streets and/or out of the hookah bar if I taught them how to enjoy the process of constructing model airplanes.  But then if I did that, what would you do in the morning when the best e-mail of your life would not arrive?  You'd go nuts, is what you would do.  I know it.  Even if you don't read it, you at least know that I am alive.  For some of you, that's a good thing.  We won't mention the others.
Frankly, I decided to throw this thought out on the table for you all.  It is a real thought.  I am quite sure that you've read me saying it before, but hey, if it's good, you'll enjoy it twice, right?  You'd better.  You know that there's a Latin saying that says just that.  So if it was good enough for Cicero, it should be good enough for you, right?  So back to the real thought thingy.  I truly have been dreaming for many, many years now of building the Stearman bi-plane.  I even bought this kit for the outrageous sum of $27.00.  Then some unforeseen things started to happen.  I moved away from my work bench to be with my wife.  You know, HER.  Life has never been the same since that fateful day.  Six years ago, I did the same thing, except that there was no work bench to move away from.  But I still had my model kits and my tools, oh yeah.  So there they sit.  
In the meantime, a guy by the name of www.ParishWorld,net caught me by the scruff of the neck and really tapped into a deeper part of my soul than even the Stearman bi-plane had been able to reach.  He needed someone who knows how to pray, and knows why he prays and is not afraid to say it out loud.  He also needed someone with my educational background to help him avoid the doctrinal mistakes that could get him in trouble with the Vatican CIA, otherwise known as the guy sitting next to you in church.  So, I was hooked.  Old missionaries never die.  They just wish they would.  It's the only way a missionary ever gets to take a rest.  Don't believe me?  Ask my 88 year old missionary brother down the street.
Anyway, I start reading and writing.  I start one blog and I share it with him.  Before long I get to wanting to vent more freely, so I start another blog, all my own.  Six years later I now have direct and real time influence over four blogs and I mess around with others just for kicks.  Given this depth of passion, I have no time for Mr. Stearman nor for Mr. Mitsubishi.  So my life has changed.  I'm enjoying myself, somewhat.  I won't tell you what the "somewhat" is all about, so don't ask.  So there you have it.  I love what I do, but I still haven't got to kiss the girl yet.  I think of it more than I let on.  Oh, by the way, I hit the California Lotto last night.  $1.00.  I'm retiring in about an hour...for the night. :-) 

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY?

I suppose that it is because it is impossible to know where to start and you don't know where it will end.  I sure as the devil do not remember when it all started.  Do you?  I can't tell you what it feels like to be in an environment where you don't have to breathe.  I can't tell you what I was thinking when I first saw the light of day. Or was that a klieg light and it wasn't day at all?  There's no one alive who knows any more.  So here I am stuck with a resolution that is now some 20 plus years old to write my autobiography and not too much to show for  it.  Believe it or not, I have an outline.  I have a great innovative and creative idea to not have the story progress over time, but rather meander through the four seasons of the temperate zone in which I was born and grew up.  It's a great idea.  It really does turn out pretty well.  It has some great stories in it.  The nice part about it is that they are all true.  The bad part about it is that I don't give it the time I should to get it done.  I have no idea who in this world does have the time.  I also don't have the resources to hire an amanuensis to do the work for me.  So here I sit with a bunch of blog posts, none of which follow the super creative plan that I worked out a couple of decades ago for my infamous autobiography.
Perhaps the most revelatory posts are to be found in http://fourinchdevil.blogspot.com/, called CRUSTY KURMUJJIN for one.  That one's a little bit edgy.  I let myself go in this one.  I have another one that is quite spiritual and actually has the title that I have in mind for the autobiography, http://nocryingatmyfuneral.blogspot.com/, NO CRYING AT MY FUNERAL.  You can look these up, if you have the time and the inclination.  They are both rather serious productions.  No Crying at my Funeral is really intended for the Church and can be found in the online weekly Catholic Life Style magazine, www/ParishWorld.net
It is really a well focused look into the depth of who I am.So now you know why I don't have time to follow the neat plan meant to support the creation of my autobiography.  I suppose if anybody reads enough of me on the Internet, they'll come to know me and they'll never know all the neat stuff about me like where and when I was born, etc.  So, I have the thought, I have the plan, I just don't have the treasure of affordable time to get it done...So instead I do this...Wow!  What a waste!  Trouble is, I like this, devil take the hindmost, and the autobiography too.