So my wife tells me frequently, that I am the most oblivious man on the planet.  And in my more lucid moments, I have to admit that she's right.  The best example of this happened awhile back...  My family was at Red Lobster for a meal.  The kids were excited and having fun talking about the shrimp they were going to get to eat, and the conversation was going well.  Only I wasn't engaged in it.  I was busy texting with someone about potential job openings here or there, and it took my focus completely.

In the midst of the engrossing thought process I was having, my mind was racing a million miles an hour.  I had questions to ask, and things that needed considering.  I simply wasn't there at the table, beyond the physical manifestation of my being.  I was lost, wrapped up in my own little world. 

Until I got a text from my wife, sitting across the table.  The text read...

Hello...  Is anyone in there?  Pay attention to us.

The text broke me out of my funk.  I was reminded that the best part of my life was sitting right there in front of me and I was absolutely missing it.  I turned my phone off, and focused on the moment in which I was physically present.  It was much better than anything else I could have been doing...  I wish I could say that I don't do that anymore, because I know I do, but sometimes the little reminders help to draw me back to where my attention should be focused.

One of the single most simple yet most profound statements in the entirety of the ministry of Jesus ca be found in one simple statement, "Where you heart is, there your treasure will be".  It speaks to us over the intervening millenia, as if it were spoken a few minutes ago.  It sounds as if it just came off the chapped lips of a bronze-skinned Galilean only scant seconds ago.  The statement pierces me at the core of my being and reminds me that I am a creature of my choices, and the sum of my choices creates the sum of the treasure that is my life.  It reminds me that where is choose to place my heart is where I choose to reap my reward.

I have heard a lot of pastors preach this statement as a form of judgement and condemnation on our culture and how the church opts to spend its time.  Everything from Rock and Roll, to drugs, to promiscuity has been crammed into the context of this passage, and honestly, I have abhorred most of these sermons.  Most of these repent or be sent trash sermons weren't even worth the time it took to organize them, much less be spoken or considered thoughtfully by the audience.  The reason is simple, in the context of the passage, Jesus isn't speaking judgement.  He isn't condemning anyone.

He isn't angry.  I don't think the tone or pitch of his voice went up as he delivered these words.  Jesus is just stating rather matter of factly that where your heart is allowed to reside there you will lay up your treasure.  In short, the overall context is talking about which master you serve and the inability to serve two at the same time.  It is reminding us that we can't live and dwell fully in the house of two seperate and distinct masters.  We have to choose.  And we have to live with that choice. 

We must soberly and rationally select to bow down before the master we serve.  We must place our heart there.  And we must live from the residence of our heart.  It is from this residence that we will live, thrive, and survive.  We must choose wisely.

Thus endeth the rant...

What follows is a short snippet of a science fiction piece that I have been working on for awhile called Orgy of Death.  Please let me know what you think...
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          Staff Sergeant Michael Olsen knew he was rapidly running out of time and options.  The seven man squad of which he was the senior enlisted member was as its breaking point.  A routine walking patrol along the southern rim of Param city had turned into a nightmarish ambush.  After 2nd Lieutenant Adams had been killed gruesomely with a twenty millimeter M.a.s.t., (Magnetically Assisted Slug Thrower), round that eviscerated his skull.  The squad took cover by forcing their way into an abandoned taxi stand.  Their enemy had launched a heavy assault on the position.  Given the sheer amount of direct fire the stand had taken, Sergeant Olsen figured this building would be condemned when this fight was over regardless of the outcome.

            The rebel force was making life absolutely miserable for the squad with a variety of M.a.s.t. and A.P.C. (accelerated particle cannon) fire.  The squad was however hitting the enemy force back as firing opportunities presented themselves.  If his estimates were right, the rebels had taken massive losses, and yet they continued to pour men and equipment into the engagement.  He roughly guessed his team had taken out more than forty hostiles and yet they were still seriously outgunned and outnumbered.

            One frustrating thing was that each time they made progress in taking a heavy weapon position or a cannon emplacement out a new one would pop up.  The men of 1st squad’s morale were low as a result.  They did however have much in which they could take pride.  They had even staved off two human wave assaults on the front of the taxi stand.  And despite the long odds the men had remained disciplined.  They had maintained their squad roles effectively and managed to put down witheringly accurate return fire.  As their Sergeant, he couldn’t have asked for more from them.  If anyone survived the encounter, he planned to insist on commendations for all of them.  Especially Lance Corporal Ngyun, as he had braved the rebel fire to recover the body of Lieutenant and his equipment.

            Sergeant Olsen would love it if he could say that the corporal acted out of purely altruistic motives.  He knew however that to do so would not be entirely true.  Mr. Adams in an effort to build morale and camaraderie about six months ago started carrying the team’s support rucksack.  The tactic worked, as the men responded to him a lot more knowing that he at least pretended to care about the burden the men he led bore on a daily basis.  The rucksack included all of the squad’s support items.  Things like extra barrels for the team’s Virtex 730 heavy M.a.s.t.  machine gun, spare batteries for the comm. Units, extra detonators for the demo kit, and a smattering of other support items were all in there.

            He knew that the corporal had braved the fire as much to recover the rucksack as much as he did for their fallen leader’s body.  The practical needs of the squad were at least important as their leader’s corpse.  The team only had the one heavy weapon and each man knew that keeping it up and running was their only chance at survival.  The weapon did a poor job at managing the dissipation of heat.  And as such the barrel would have to be replaced with every 5,000 rounds.  Thankfully this task was easy and his men could get it done in an average of five and a half seconds.

            The bind the team was in was apparent to the sergeant.  The squad was facing a numerically superior force in a good ambush position.  They were cut off and from the looks of it, encircled.  Any breakout attempt would fail in miserable fashion.  The squad’s ammo supply even with disciplined use was about halfway spent.  How much longer they could holdout he wasn’t sure, but he knew it wasn’t long.

            The key for the team’s survival lie in reinforcement, re-supply, or extraction.  The nearest base had ruled out extraction as the situation was too hot for it.  Reinforcement would more than likely take too long to reach them.  And re-supply was out for the same reason as extraction.  So he knew the situation was a grim one.  He tried his best not to let on to the men how bad the situation was.  He knew they were bright, skilled warriors and that they would figure it out soon enough if they hadn’t already.  He was just hoping not to dampen their spirits by being fatalistic with them.  The squad would remain a disciplined cohesive force longer that way.

            The only bright spot in the situation was that Firebase Goliad, the nearest Imperial Facility was providing excellent indirect fire support.  His men would paint the targets with the designators attached to their rifles and Goliad’s artillery would blast it to smithereens.  The firebase had devoted their entire compliment of indirect fire tools to their cause, and it had been effective.  In fact, the last human wave assault was repelled largely by a barrage of 30 millimeter White Phosphorous High Explosive Shredder rounds.

 

 

 

The most unique thing about the path I have walked the last few months is, simplicity.  It has been a blessed and uncomplicated period in which I have found a clarity and peace, despite the forboding future.  I have been able to relax and let the past be washed off of me.  My creator has been able to cleanse me of the deep and painful scars that my failures have left on, my older than I would like to admit to most mornings, frame.

I have found peace and joy in the midst of these trying circumstances.  It has been amazing.  I have forged a deep connection with my family.  I am closer to my wife and children than ever before in my life.  When something is wrong, I usually know what the deal is as well as the history of the problem, and can extrapolate an appropriate course to fix it.  (In other words, my wife hasn't had to give me a history lesson on the problem to get me up to speed, so I can talk intelligently with her about it.)

I have been able to more effectively live in the moment than at any other time in my life.  This has enabled me to more readily relish my connection with my family, my friends, and my faith, (though not necessarily in that order).  It has enabled me to be less busy and more connected to my humble abode.  It has reminded me that despite all of the uncertainty, I am the gratefuly recipient of God's cheesed, or loving-kindnes.  This time has been a blessing, and I have been the richer for it.

My only hope as this season looks like it might be drawing to a close is that I learn what the African proverb means when it says, 'When the Gods wish to punish us, they asnwer our prayers'.  The proverb speaks a deep message and one that I hope to have inclucated into my life.  A message of abiding in the divine providence and moving only as directed by the divine without whining, complaining, or making outrageous requests.  I am by no means perfect at this, but I hope I have scratched the surface in understanding it.

It is my fervent hope, that whatever comes next, comes not because I have demanded it from the hand of God almight, but rather because God deemed it important for me to experience it next,  and because in his providencial wisdom it is what is necessary to be experienced.

I have learned during this period that I am a very blessed man.  It is my fervent hope that I will never forget this period in my life.  And that I will carry the lessons of this period with me always.

I am not by nature a political junkie, and prefer not to write about these issues normally, as they are typically best reviewed by more astute and patient observers.  That having been said, I simply feel compelled to comment on the Nuclear Policy review that caused a firestorm last week, largely within the Beltway in DC.

The manner in which this review was carried out, and the goals and assertions of the final document was and remains flawed.  Defining in concrete terms when you will and when you won't use nuclear weapons in the dangerous world in which we reside is at best a foolish exercise, and at worst a dangerous errand into the land of folly.  Any policy on this subject will be out of date by the time it is complete, and will surely fail to meet the challenges we face in the quagmire of a post-super power world in which we now reside.  The definitions in the report will fail to be applicable to the context of almost any circumstance going forward.  They will largely be an albatros that constrains our national ability to cajole our enemies to see things our way as well as fail to reassure our friends of our ability to aid them under the most dire of possible outcomes.

To put it another way, diagraming on paper when we will and when we won't use nuclear weapons to return our enemies to the stone age, will only lead to more aggression.  It will, and as some have argued already has, weakened our position in our negotiations with the regime in Iran, and with other rogue states around the globe.  It doesn't lead to an outbreak of unprecedented peace the globe over as some would contend, but rather it reinforces the notion that some of our enemies hold that we are a weak, paper tiger incapable of the resolve necessary to see anything through to completion.

The review's authors and many proponents of the review both in the Pentagon and in other places in the executive branch fail to grasp the most fundamental truth of the world in which we reside.  We live in a world that for all of its history, has been governed not by the good intentions of well-meaning politicians, but rather its governed by the aggressive use of force.  It is a sad statement of truth, but it is true nonetheless.  The nuclear policy review failed miserably, because its flawed misunderstanding on this p.  We cannot and we should not count on the goodwill of the world at large on this issue.

We have to operate from the understanding that someday we will confront a circumstance that requires a nuclear response.  It is only in planning for the worst, that the genie that is nuclear armageddon stays in the bottle.  Weakening our stance, or clearly defining our policy for the aggressors and would-be enemies the world over does not ensure peace.  It removes from their mind the possibility that a mushroom cloud could be coming to a venue near them and soon.

The policy smacks of the type of appeasment that Chamberlin tried with the Nazis in the 1930's.  It smacks of weakness and smells like a putrid recipe for failure.  Chamberlinian appeasment has failed every time it has been tried.  The plethora of nuclear arms treaties that were hammered out in the 1960's and 1970's did nothing to deter aggression from the Soviet Union.  The merely locked into place a misguided arrangement of numerical superiority for the Soviets.  The treaties reeked of indecision and incompetance and our foreign policy efforts were constrained as a direct result of them.

The only thing that has ever or will ever work in this arena is a peace through strength approach.  By that, I mean making America as strong as possible is the only method of deterring future aggression on the part of rogue nations and bad actors the world over.

What Obama should have done in this area is simple.  He should have classified our nation's nuclear response policy top secret.  He should have told everyone that our nation's interests are best served when our enemies have no clue as to how we might respond in any given circumstance.  As someone who has ridden the tip of the nuclear deterrence spear on a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, I can assure you that the policy I am articulating here is the only one that has ever or will ever work.  It kept the peace throughout the cold war, and in our less secure turbulent and turgid world that seems to getting crazier by the minute, its the only policy stance that stands a chance of working now.

Life, as I have come to grasp it, is all about the simple pleasures.  I didn't used to think like this.  I used to think life was about the grandiose and big picture items.  I used to think that they were what defined me.  Things like, what profession employs me, how well I am doing in that profession, what kind of house I have, where I live, what kind of car I drive, etc. 

I have come to understand, much like the writer of the book of Ecclesiates did, that these are nothing.  They are a chasing after the wind.  In essence, they are nothing more than the wind rushing through your ears as you are chasing hard after some mirage in the distance.  They have no substance, no weight, no mass that can be measured or quantified in real terms.  They don't matter, and they don't last.

What I have come to understand that has value are the little things.  Taking pleasure in a simple moment.  Enjoying the company of my wife on a nice spring day outside on our patio for instance.  Taking my daughters to the park and letting them play until they are too tired to complain about anything.  Enjoying a single cigar for the plenary pleasure that it is.

Unlike the big and the grandiose that are like chaff in the wind, these simple pleasures matter.  They last, they abide in your spirit in ways that cannot be fully understood in the mortal coil.  No person at the end of life is ever going to regret not spending more time at work, or pursuing their career more aggressively.  Not  taking pleasure in the little things will form these regrets.

So my advice is this... relish the little things, and revel in them.  Understand that the moment in which you reside will not ever come this way again exactly like this.  Hold those in your in your life close to you and never let them go...  Have a good weekend.

Many people have been jumping and down of late about Fox News.  They argue vehemently about bias, half-truths, and distortions.  On some level, they do have a point.  And there was a time in my life when this sort of thing would have gotten me worked up.  For good or for ill, that time in my life has passed.  I suppose its what happens when you live enough life to have seen these cycles run their course numerous times.

The truth, as I see it, boils down like this...  There is not a single media outlet that does not exercise some degree of editorial discretion.  And there is not one that doesn't allow the outside views of the editors, producers, and ownership from finding its way into print copy, or onto air transmission.  The news media is not innocent on this issue, and never has been.  And rarely back in the day, when Walter Cronkite signed off with, "And that's that way it was..." was it ever totally true.

Bias is just a simple fact of the 24hour news cycle that's been created, and every owner of these outlets from Ted Turner, to Les Monves, to Rupert Murdoch, and beyond are all guilty of engaging in it.  Its a fact of life in our post-modern world, and we should get used to it.  We should become more informed, and more saavy consumers of news from the outlets we chose to consume news from.  We should spend time weighing the opinions we hear against those from other sources.  Anything less is just wanton stupidity.

We live in a free society that allows anyone to say just about anything.  Its the beauty of the republic we reside in.  Its the wonder of our democracy.  Its the freedom that multitudes of people fight and die to get here to partake in every day.  The United States does not have an official state news media like say Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, or North Korea.  We don't have to accept the version of events, or the spin on the truth being presented to us.  Its our virtuous right, its our glorious priviledge, its downright American in every sense of the word.

In order to get this started, let me begin by describing what you the reader can expect here.  The best description comes from my friend Russ who called it, "Toddism, random musings, and the like".  Russ was prophetic.  I intend to provide the random thoughts, and musings I might have on a broad array of topics, mostly related to my writing.