The beauty of the earth

In the middle of an unstable air system the weather prophets proclaim gloomy days ahead... the sun pops out from a blanket of purple clouds in a blue sky.

Dew drips from blossoms trees while choirs of birds loudly sing hymns of praise.

Half of the plants on the Beloved Back Deck are blooming away, sprinkling purple and red flowers, around the naked sticks that may not have survived.

A Finch hovers over a petunia while Gypsy the cat wistfully stares through the screen door.

Puddles of pollen rest on the outdoor table which I'll clean shortly.

A sense of calm has settled in an unstable world full of gloomy economic forecasts, abdicated political leadership, egotistical religion, missing people and misplaced faith.

I'm feeling blessed.

The last several years saw seismic changes and virtually everything about the way I live has transformed.

A very unstable time is now comforting stable.

I don't worry about much though there's certainly much to worry about.

People I love are fighting cancers, economics, lost loves, dreams, hopes and faith.

Lately I've taken to prayerfully whispering their names at night when I can't sleep and they comfort me somehow because I'm lulled back into unconsciousness.

The unstable darkness becomes stable.

In the midst of a world gone crazy I watch flowers bloom, listen to birds sing, am baptized in sunshine and am kissed by an ocean breeze.

I find myself humming a tune and words raise themselves from the dead in my mind.

For the beauty of the earth
For the spacious of the skies
For the love which from our birth
over and around us lies ...

And this day starts with an Amen.  

Visiting with my Grandma

On a bitterly cold day my Grandma Carver and I are zipping in a Golf cart through the marsh near the sea.

She's bundled so tightly I can only see the water dripping out her eyes beneath her glasses.

We wanted some time alone and there were too many people at my folks house so we just disappeared.

I was in Seminary then, working as a "Professional Christian" at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, Kentucky and was home for the holidays.

My Grandmother had the incredible of laser focusing love so that you knew without a shadow of a doubt you were the most special person ever born.

She unleashed her focused love on nine children, 37 grandchildren and several thousand great-grandchildren and beyond.

Granddaddy and Grandma took the Bible seriously and then they read "go forth and multiply" ... they did!

If you asked each of us individually we'd all say they loved us the most.

They really knew how to love.

When Jesus said it's more blessed to give than receive, I think what he meant is the more love you give away ... the more you become.

I've always tried to follow my Grandparents example by giving a lot away.

I'm often told I shouldn't, at least for free, and I suppose its true though I fear I might be letting my Granddaddy and Grandma down somehow if I stopped.

Aside from tee shirts, I'm not much of a hoarder though I will stick things in the storage room and forget about them.

I don't know.

Grandma Carver's been talking to me a lot lately and, just like in that Golf cart on a brutal cold day with water streaming out of her eyes, she pats me on the leg and tells me she loves me.

Then she says how proud she and Granddaddy are of me.

"Keep doing what you're doing," I hear her plainly say sitting alone in the kitchen with Goddess fur rubbing my bare feet.

This is after she keep me up last night while I snuggled next to Sarah but Grandma's determined to tell me it's okay to stop being concerned about everybody else for a while.

"Love what you got," and I swear to God I feel her hand on top of mine resting on top of Sarah's.

"Stay focused on what you want," and I can see her eyes looking into mine.

"Give it your all," and then she takes her leave to visit my cousin Debbie, help Sheri clean a Chapel in Heaven, horseback with Ricky, fish with Uncle Fred or cut up with Uncle Bud and my Dad.

"Because that's how you get it all," and Grandma and Jesus and great crowd of others leave Sarah and I sleeping alone in what we got.

The Boy Is On Fire

"Can we walk outside for a moment," he says interrupting me, "you're filling up this room and I need to breath."

I don't know what to say and keep quiet as we walk out on the Beloved Back Deck.

Kyle places his hands on the railing, closes his eyes and takes deep breaths.

I plop in a chair to give him space.

It's a beautiful day with a bright sun, slight ocean breeze and everything is blooming brilliant blues, pinks, reds and whites. 

Taking my shirt off to work on my tan, I toss it on the table and watch him open his eyes and smile at the Palm Tree with the oyster eyes.

"Is that Fran?" he asks pointing at the wall of trees that canopy the privacy fence.

Nodding my head I watch his smile broaden and he turns towards me. He is very tall with long wavy brown hair cascading his shoulders. The flowing white shirt he wears gives the impression he's the ghost of a Shaman because his skin is very pale.

"Whew," he smiles sitting down, "you have so much energy it was overwhelming me and I need more space.

"I'd rather be out here," I shrug.

His smile is beatific and there is a sweetness about the man. Sarah and I had agreed to help him if we could and he was asking for it now.

"So as I was saying, I've done music my whole life. I've never worked a 9-5 job but I got a nice house, food in the Fridge and cable television!"

The way he says it is filled with wonderment and pride so it makes me smile.

"But I want more. I'm tired of the bars. And I have this chance," he explains. "I've been asked to combine my music with speaking in Churches and workshops across several states."

That's why he's here. I'm coaching him on getting his story together, doing it right and building an arsenal of antidotes he can whip out whenever he needs it.

That was a couple of months ago but yesterday I received a message from him on Facebook with a link to his most recent speech.

"The boy is on fire," he wrote.

Clicking the link, I listened to his marvelous story perfectly delivered to a group in Greensville, South Carolina as I sat in the same chair on the same deck without a shirt on perfectly beautiful day.
His speech made me smile. (Check him out at https://soundcloud.com/thespiritcenter/kyle-shiver-sel-realization !)

"The boy has indeed come a very long way in a very short period of time," I wrote him. "I'm proud of you."

And I sat there and kept right on smiling.
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The best thing in life

I remember watching Liberace, the flamboyant incredibly talented pianist and showman, when I was a kid sitting on the floor in the Den with my family. Wearing a fur cape and brightly colored tuxedo, he'd stare straight into the camera, directly at us in TV land, never looking at the piano keys while playing beautifully.

The man was magic!

And he was gay.

No one in America seemed to care he was gay and Liberace himself shied away from the topic whenever it was brought up. For more than two decades he was the highest paid entertainer IN THE WORLD!

Sarah and I were watching the magnificent movie "Behind the Candelabra" when I'm reminded of Liberace's incredible talent, opulent lifestyle, incredible showmanship, life in the closet and ... for a second ... I was transported to another time ... another place.

Eight of us were gathered in the very opulent home of Jack Kersy, with flowing fountains, chandeliers, long dining room tables and statues of naked men. Four of us were clergy and four others gay ... some in the closet and some not.

We were the St. Jude's Guild.

St. Jude is the patron Saint of desperate cases and lost causes.

It was 1984 and AIDS was exploding across America. I was the 28 year old pastor of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, Kentucky and HIV infected people were begging me to give them a place to live. Their landlords were evicting them out of fear of catching the disease.

So the eight of us joined forces to do something because we didn't know what to do. Fred Schloemer and I were the babies of the bunch, the others being older, established, reputable and wealthy.

The result was Glade House, the nation's second housing program for people with AIDS (the first was in L.A.).

It was the first time I comprehended what it's like to live as a gay person. In those days, there was fear, hate, condemnation and prejudice. And AIDS made it all worse as a Holocaust was launched by the good and faithful folk of America.

Since then AIDS left its exclusive hold on one segment of people jumping to women and children as its favored mode of transmission.

I shared these things with Sarah as I rubbed her feet, sitting in the floor watching a movie on television.

"The best thing in life," Liberace explains, "is to just be yourself."

"Yep," we both say out loud at the same time.

Because why in hell would you want to be anything else?
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"Doing the things that are right for you" is the online journey beginning in December. Do something good for you and register now at http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/onlineclass/

The no longer sad little holy dock

It good be a good economic sign or a bad one.

I don't know yet.

But the sad little holy dock is now a gated community for no one.

Goddess was taking me on a stroll down our street to the marsh where we take a left. Half-a-block later we turn to the left again and there is the dock jutting out into the marsh.

It is not a fine dock by any stretch of the imagination with its warped boards that have pulled the nails out of the beams. The "T" at the end is shaky and sits low in the marsh. The planks are weatherworn and old. There is nothing ornate about it other than seagull droppings. You feel the whole thing will topple over at any moment.

There was a while when it suited me perfectly! Goddess and I would meander aimlessly around the island and end up sitting on the sad little holy dock for hours on end. We were lost in the marsh.

But things changed.

Sarah and I began taking walks and held hands on the sad little holy dock. Sitting with our feet dangling above the green grass and black mud, we shared dreams, kisses and more.

Now when Sarah's girls and I walk the dogs they love to sit on the dock and tell me about school, boyfriends, problems or what's for dinner.

The truth is I no longer visit the dock like I used to because I'm in a hurry to get back home.

Yet it's with interest that I see the gate with a chain blocking entrance to the sad little holy dock.

Personally, I hope Shirley is turning it into a tourist attraction!

God knows I've written enough about it! People want to see it when they visit us.

"Is that the sad little holy dock," they ask?

"Well it was," I answer, "but its not anymore."

It's just an old relic of a past that's no more.
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 There is still time to register for my Writing Workshop beginning in November! Let the stories you're holding inside come to the light of day and share them with the world. Register at http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/writingworkshop/

Life's Greatest Lessons

Mostly I am a teacher.

I'm a non-conventional, anti-institutional, radical free thinking, rebellious spiritual educator but, nevertheless, I teach.

I've gone through lots of indurations, from a playing football coach at the Baptist Student Union to the "Professional Christian" of an inner city church; a corporate CEO, writer, speaker, wonderful father, spiritual renegade, guitar playing beach bum, doting husband and step-less father of three little girls ("I'm your friend and you can tell me anything and I promise not to tell your Mom. I'll make you tell her. It's funnier that way.")

Each of these steps made me a better teacher.

These days people from around the world figuratively come to the beloved back deck for help living the life they really want.

They log on to my website, register for online classes, read blogs, books, instant message, call or show up knocking when I'm not home and my beautiful wife Sarah's just shut the bathroom door for some well deserved ... "quiet time."

If anyone reviews my professional educator curriculum vita they are horrified to find:

• As a grad assistant at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I taught God was closer to saving America during the 1960s than at any other time in history but we chose to enter the 70's and God hates Disco as much as the rest of us. The seminary never invited me back.
• As an adjunct professor teaching how to raise money at Savannah State University, I instructed the class to develop their own idea to raise bucks. They devised a Topless Carwash. Girls in bikinis held signs, cars lined up and the students washed everything except the top of the cars. I gave them all "A's". The university dropped me when the class ended.
• Savannah State University fired the president, got a new one who invited me to again teach. The class was "Social Advocacy" so I asked the students which social ill needed attacking? They replied on-campus student housing so we went to war with the university. I gave them all "A's", the president fired me, then the president got fired but the students got new housing.

I finally figured out I'm a much better teacher away from academic environments.

I'm also a much better minister independent from the church and organized religion.

Many see these as a contradiction but I don't.

It's coloring outside the lines or painting without instruction, creating a masterpiece. The greatest journeys are often without destinations, fun is born in boredom, inspiration hits when its least expected, forsaken plans yield great results and we find ourselves strong at the broken places. Love conquers just when we've sworn it off once and for all.

I believe these are life's greatest lessons.

They happen outside the classroom, away from the campus, far from the church, when the book is closed, once the pen's put down and the computer is in sleep mode.

That's when we can finally talk to ourselves and listen to what we have to say.

"I come down and talk to me, when is coast is clear," is how Jimmy Buffett puts it.

But then we need someone else to share with; a confidant, interpreter, encourager and sustainer of dreams. A help-mate is the way old crazy people describe it, someone to pull us along when we forget where we were going.

That's the teaching that I do.

The first questions in today's class of life are "Where are you going?" and "Do you have any idea of how you're going to get there?"
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In-depth 28 day classes allow you to join others (at your own comfortable level of participation) in a private online supportive environment. Through three 45-minute teleseminars with Micheal (recorded and distributed to you in case you miss the live one), with a coordinating workbook and weekly discussions you delve deeper into your own life. Class is 100% online. Invest in yourself for just $42 per class.

Doing the Right Things for you starts  December 2013. Register now at http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/onlineclass/

You are Great!

The eight year old boy shuffles into the kitchen wiping snot from his nose and crying. He'd been playing in the vacant lot when a fight broke out and he ended up on the wrong side of the bigger boys who knocked him to the ground and kicked him.

"What's wrong?" his mother asks, dropping the dish rag she's holding in front of the kitchen sink. Dropping to one knee, she embraces him at his level, blue eyes blazing into his wet ones.

Eventually, he explains and blames himself for being too small, not smart enough nor quick enough to outrun them.

She picks him up and sets him on the kitchen table, dirty bare feet dangling in the air. Cupping his face in her hands, staring fiercely in his eyes so he has no choice but to stare back, she says, "You are going to be great? Do you understand that? You are the greatest!"

He stops crying, sucks snot back up his nose and nods his head.

"You are going to be great," she repeats before hugging him and cleaning his face.

In the years that follow, she does it again and again. They were always alone and she grabs him setting him on the kitchen table, cups his chin with blue eyes blazing into blue eyes, "You ... are ... going to be ... great!"

After a while, he knew it to be true.

And I went on to do great things having a long career selling homelessness, AIDS, addiction and health care to those who could afford to eradicate such things. I raised millions of dollars from people and Governments who really didn't care about homeless people, people with AIDS, addicts and the uninsured. I became an award winning author, sought after speaker and renown expert.

I also learned to blow my nose without help.

Many people think I've retired and am living the good life at the beach with Sarah my wife.

It's true Sarah and I are living a good life at the beach but we're also working hard doing the things I've always done. Instead of exclusively giving hope and success to the sick and the poor, I'm now helping everyone! I write daily blogs that inspire, books that challenge, online classes transform lives and personally coach helping to meet goals and achieve dreams.

"I would have never left had it not been for you," a retired teacher says. "I'd settled for a life I didn't want with a man I didn't love. Now I'm doing what I want and loving it!"

"One month in your class," a minister writes, "was more productive than paying for years in therapy."

"Thanks for helping me become a speaker and writer," a successful musician explains. "I had to get out the bars! Now I'm playing and speaking throughout the southeast in places I really want to be."

I'm too busy to retire because right now I'm looking you in the eye ... my blue eyes on you ... affirming the things you desire ... and I have something to tell you ... "You're great! Do you understand that? You're the greatest!"
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You can register for upcoming on line classes at  http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/onlineclass/

Order your copy of my new book at http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/newbook/

Navigating Change

My life is filled with people who are navigating change in their lives. Having already sailed through those sometimes treacherous waters, I sit on the beach, back against a Palm Tree, sipping on a boat drink, with one arm around Sarah and watched how my friends are doing.

Mitch started it all when he told the Southern Baptist to go save themselves and took an early retirement. He'd given them everything he had but they were demanding more. So in the most loving and Christian way possible, he said, "Blow me!" and he left. Frightened at first, he panicked over how he would make it, but his incredible gift of compassion and understanding landed him at Hospice where he's now helping others through rough waters.

Mark was blindsided unexpectedly and found himself wondering what he was going to do. Life was good and he didn't want to disrupt it but the company didn't and cut him loose. Like everyone he was worried being in uncharted Seas where he and his family could go under. But he's so good at what he does that another company gave him new sails and another rudder and he's sailed to a new place and all is good.

Dedra dove in head first to change and immediately liked the calm waters. After years of giving herself away to others, she'd finally found herself. The past has a long reach though and jerked her back to then and she lost a year trying to fix what was. Just when everyone thought they had her, she dove back in more determined than ever to calmly stroll the beach on Baby bear kind of days.

An island is populated by only two kinds of people ... those running to something and those running from ... something. Most fall into later category, knowing what they don't want while desperately hoping they can find the things they need by the Sea. It's the ultimate change of location, though as Guy Sayles, America's greatest minister, once said, "Hell is portable. You take it with you wherever you go."  So I was very pleased a few weeks ago to read our friend Robin was finally running to something and now has a launch to kayak anytime she wants.

The Carnival of Friends have all reached safe ports after a couple of years helping each other through storm tossed Seas. Holding one another tender in our hearts, we wave as our ships and occasionally dock at the same pier to celebrate where we are and bury where we were.

New boats sale pass and we wave at Sean and Wen, Glenn and Vickie, Jimmy and Steven.

The kids have all set sail to new places having just embarked on their journeys and there is all of the streamers, cheers and corks of Champaign popping. With a hand on the starboard bow, they wave and smile knowing the best is yet to come.

Sarah clinks her glass to mine. We toast them all and say a prayer to God. "Give them all a lovely cruise. When rough waters come, help them choose. Take them to calm seas with a light breeze; let the rest of their lives be at ease. Amen."