On The Verge Of...

Have you ever found yourself in the course of the day or maybe over a week or so in an emotional and physiological state where believe you are on the verge of some inappropriately extreme reaction? What I mean is, do you sometimes feel like you are just one teeny tiny step away from screaming, collapsing, exploding (metaphorically), punching someone (actually), quitting, or crying? I have. In fact, I have lately found myself in that state a little too often. Of course, being a man, I'm not specifically admitting that I have ever cried or think I'm on the verge of it. Come on, really.

Something happened several weeks back that awakened me to something about myself. Something that is not so good. I was at the early service at our church. I sat in my normal spot. Just as the service was about to begin, a married couple and their two friends rushed in and squeezed into the pew with me. By "squeeze" I mean I had to scoot to my right until I was just about three inches from the woman next to me, and that only left about three inches to the woman on my left who had just arrived. So, I'm no longer perfectly aligned with the center of the pulpit area, and have people to either side of me about 24 inches inside my personal space. I got tense. I got a little irritated. How am I supposed to worship my creator under these conditions?! So I sat there, elbows tightly tucked in, legs perfectly aligned in front of me, compressing myself into as small a space as possible, ready to worship my Lord and Savior. Yeah, I know.

As the service began I became aware that the woman to my left was giggling at almost everything, and outright guffawing at actual humor. I thought, "come on, its not all that funny." This continued for some time, and I realized that I was actually irritated by this person being so darned happy and giggly. It was not that she was being too loud, or distracting people in the service, I just found it irritating. Irritating, irritable. Hmmm, I started to detect a trend.

I am all too often on the verge of some kind of negative behavior. I have to restrain myself, then I commend myself for my restraint. It is good to have restraint. It is not so good to have to exercise it too often. This woman was obviously on the verge of uproarious laughter. She was filled to the point of overflowing with joy, happiness, contentment. Wow!, it hit me, she was not on the verge of despair or crying, she was at the opposite end of the spectrum. She was on the good end of the spectrum.

I suddenly felt ashamed, then a little jealous. Why was she so darned happy? She obviously lives here on earth like the rest of us, where bad things happen. Oh, maybe she is truly exercising the things I have been recently learning and trying to practice. Yes, that is it. She has become proficient in keeping her thoughts focused on all the good (and there really is plenty of good) rather than focusing on the bad. So, in the course of this service I went through the following phases: inconvenienced, irritated, perplexed, ashamed, jealous, humbled, enlightened, encouraged, then grateful. I was grateful that God had arranged another situation to help me. I've read "Learned Optimism" and "Every Day a Friday" and have been making progress in moving from pessimism to optimism, and I realize how critically important it is. But on that day, in that service, I saw the lightness and happiness and vitality that results from truly trusting the Lord and knowing that He has blessed us and truly works out even the bad things for good. She actually believes this stuff! Which, by the way, is the truth.

To put icing on the cake, and to provide me with another slice of humble pie (baked goods metaphors) at the end of the service this wonderfully cheerful woman turned to me and said something that both humbled and complimented me at the same time. She looked at my name tag, said my complete name, and said "have you ever considered being on the praise team." The praise team is the group of people standing on stage with the microphones, leading the singing. They have very, very good singing voices. She completed her statement with "...because standing here next to you, hearing you sing, was so good, such a blessing to me. I think others deserve to hear you too." So, there I stood trying to respond; the obessive-compulsive wound-too-tight idiot who was irritated by sitting too close to a wonderfully kind and considerate person with a cheerful and encouraging spirit. All I could say was "Thank you, I very much appreciate it, I may consider that." That was all I could come up with, because at that time I was on the verge of...well, you figure it out.

The photo at the top of the post is one taken by my daughter, Megan. She covered her school play last Friday, she is quite skilled at photography.

Field of Weeds

I drove up to our lake house to get away for a couple days, and to do the routine mowing, trimming, bug spraying, etc. I always look forward to my visits there. It is in a tiny town on a tiny private lake, very quiet, slow paced, and relaxing. When I arrived just an hour or so before sunset I looked across our yard and our adjoining property to see what could only be described as a “Field of Weeds.” I assume you have heard of the movie “Field of Dreams”, in which, Kevin Costner plays the role of a man with a vision to build a baseball field out in the middle of nowhere. This dream came to him when he is visited by Ray Liotta who plays the role of the late Babe Ruth (I think) who visits Kevin and tells him “if you build it, they will come.” By the way, Ray Liotta scares the heck out of me, especially when he laughs. There is something about the intensity in his eyes and the tension in his face, particularly when he laughs. Some people are scared of clowns, I’m scared of Ray Liotta. I’m straying from the point.

Getting back to our lake property, as I looked across the property I see that the entire one acre area is covered with what I call “speargrass”. The speargrass is waist high so walking anywhere on the property results in collecting multiple “spears” in my clothing. When I was young, my friends and I would remove the spears and throw them at each other, which was fun because they flew very straight and stuck in the target easily. We could never get them to stick into someone’s skin, it would just stick to clothing. Okay, I’m straying again.


As I unloaded the car and surveyed the “field” I concluded that I would be spending more time than expected doing the mowing. Speargrass is difficult to mow. It is wiry and tough, and tends to just get bent over. To make sure I’m actually cutting it rather than bending it over, I have to set the transmission to a lower speed so the blades have more time to cut. If I run at the normal speeds I just end up flattening all the weeds, which is great when I’m making crop circles but not when I’m mowing the property. It was no “Field of Dreams,” and I knew that if I mowed them, they would come…back.


Mowing, particularly when using the lawn tractor, is actually pretty relaxing “work.” While mowing I tend to think, mull things over, and philosophy. As I make two and three passes over certain sections to finally cut the weeds down I’m thinking, “weeds happen” deal with them, but don’t agonize and fret and complain. This is a problem I have suffered with for most of my life, not actual weeds, but the “weeds” that show up in my life. The weeds I’m referring to are conflicts in the workplace, harmful and hurtful actions done to me by others, difficulties in relationships, unfulfilled needs and desires, unrealistic expectations placed upon me by others and myself, tiring and seemingly endless work to pay the bills, and stuff just wearing out and breaking. I probably don’t have any more “weeds” in my life than most people, in fact, my “weeds” are nothing compared to what many people in the world have to deal with. My problem is with my focus. I focus and fret and agonize over the weeds when I should be focusing on the dreams (vision) that God has placed in my mind and heart.

I work hard at everything, and I put a lot of energy into pursuing the dreams I have of serving God through a full time media ministry, and actually creating the ministry rather than just working in one. My focus has been detrimental to this pursuit. My focus all my life has been on the weeds, the negatives, and that has resulted in an unhealthy level of pessimism and cynicism. A little of those “isms” is beneficial because it instills some necessary caution, but too much drains my energy, steals my joy, diminishes my vigor, damages my health, and so on. Based on some feedback I have had over the years I think that my focus on the weeds and the resulting pessimism has mutated the natural drive, energy and enthusiasm into an intensity and tension that makes me difficult to be around; and maybe a little scary. But not as scary as Ray Liotta! I’m in my early 50;s, but it was only about 8-10 months ago that I realized this. Unbelievable! I read the book “Learned Optimism” and it was eye-opening. I also read “Every Day a Friday” and “How to be a Winner” and they each helped me to understand my struggles. So, for the last several months I have been re-programming my thinking. I only give the weeds the time needed to attend to them, then I spend as much mental energy as possible on the positive side of life. When I am realistic about it, and when I recall the truth in Romans 8:28, even the weeds and the time I spend “weeding” results in something good. I have a ways to go with the re-programming, because old habits die hard (and die hard 2-die harder, and die-hard 3). I have again strayed from the point. My point is, I'm seeing benefits of the re-programming, though it is not 100% complete.


I love it when I hit a patch of wild onions with the lawn tractor and the whole area is filled with an aroma similar to an Italian kitchen. I’ve strayed again. To conclude this long-winded rambling blog, I want to simply share something that is probably so obvious and automatic to many people, but not to me. There is so much more good stuff in my life, and good stuff to be done, than the difficulties I have to deal with. Dealing with the difficulties is actually “good” because God uses those to improve me and others in my life. And, if I keep my focus away from weeds, I will have the joy, the energy, and the drive to do the good stuff that God has planned for me, see Ephesians 2:10.

Okay, I’ve mowed and trimmed and used the blower to clean all the walkways, and I’ve finished this blog. Now its time sit back, relax, enjoy the beautiful weather; or maybe I’ll go make some crop circles.