The Valentines Day Resentment

A few years ago I was doing an exercise where I was listing my resentments down on paper. This exercise was part of a program of Spiritual development. At first I was listing people mostly and then it was pointed out that I could identify institutions or other things or entities. My first thoughts went to the IRS which made it first on the paper.  But then I remembered Valentines Day.

On the surface the reader might or could think, the writer - me,  has no heart. (No pun intended). To this day I can remember standing in a florist shop on Valentines Day in 1983.  It was early afternoon, on lunch break actually, and here I was standing in front of a reach-in cooler staring at various flower arrangements.  I can't even remember the lady I was dating at the time. I do remember though the two guys who were standing next to me; one on my right and one on my left. This situation could have been an episode of the "The Three Stooges".

My recollection was that the guy on the right had beads of sweat on his forehead and the guy on the left had veins popping out on his temples. Both had glassy eyes and a deer in the headlights look of "How did I get here?" It occurred to me that there were no women in there looking for a gift for their boyfriends and to this day I have always felt that this commercially driven date on the calendar is mostly directed one way. All one has to do is study the advertisements to substantiate this premise.

All humor and sarcasm aside, my true belief is that if we love and love fully and totally; If we love everyday those we are close to and those we meet in passing, we do not need to designate one day to show Love.. We do not have to do something special just once a year for the folks in our lives to know we love them. Each moment of each day we love with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our minds, with all our strength.  If we love ourselves first then we can love our neighbors as ourselves!

'There is no fear in Love..."
1John 4:18

Foxhole Prayer

Writer's note: The following post was written a couple months ago when familiarity with the entire "blogging" process was still very dim. So I thought I had posted it already and it turns out I had not. I also had referenced this text in a subsequent post ( "What goes around... on 2/17). Well here goes and the reader can be sure there will be more written about my experiences with Dale.

Foxhole Prayer

Back in the early eighties when I was involved in the sport of motor racing as a PR and Marketing consultant. I was working with a company  in Atlanta called the Championship Group. During this time a young motorcycle road racer from Dalton, Georgia contacted us to help find him a ride on four wheels instead of two.  He had much success in his two wheel career and in a three year stretch 1979-1981 won the prestigious Daytona 200 twice and finished second once as a privateer. Earlier in his career he had been nicknamed "Pig Farmer" by the California -surfer boy- contingent in the sport because of his southern twang accent.  One day we were traveling together and he told me the story about how the promoter of the infamous Isle of Man motorcycle race had called him after one of his Daytona victories to ask him to run his race.  The Isle of Man is considered in most circles as the most dangerous motorcycle race on planet earth. Dale said that he really did not want to race there so he gave the promoter an astronomical appearance fee figuring he would say no.  Well the promoter said yes and Dale, being a man of integrity, entered the race. Dale described a point in the competition where low light and misty fog prevented clear vision and he could tell when he would hit a puddle because the tachometer would spike with wheel spin engine rev. He said a foxhole prayer, "Lord if you get me out of here alive, I will never make a decision like this again."

Mark 11:24

A Carnivore's Paradise

  (Writer’s Note: In my upcoming book “ Angel Food Cake” A Forty Day Devotional for an Upside/Down World, there are stories referencing ange...

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