To Hell with ... Hell!

If Hell is as hot as it is right now I won't have any problem acclimating.

Besides I've already been to Hell and it's not all that.

I know ... I know ... my conservative friends are saying, "Oh you just wait till you die and really go to Hell! Then you'll know what it's really all about?"

Whatev's ...

It's funny when I write about religion because while lots of people read it, no one's really got much to say ... except ... that I'm going to Hell.

Nobody ever holds up a finger and yells, "GO TO HEAVEN!"

They stick up a particular finger yelling "GO TO HELL!"

When did Hell become so popular?

"Go to Heaven for the climate," Mark Twain quips. "Hell for the company."

"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the Saints," Bill Joel adds.

I resonate with both sentiments.

Besides I don't have to go to Hell.

It comes to me.

"Hell is portable," Guy Sayles once told me. "You don't have to go to it. It comes to you."

I think most people, even the conservative ones, can agree on that.

If others aren't putting us through Hell ... we're perfectly capable of doing it ourselves.

And the sad fact is ... WE DO!

Satan's got to have the easiest job in the world!

Well, I'm not having anything to do with it and as far as I'm concerned, Satan can go straight to Hell ... though I'm not sure that makes any sense.

The point is we're all pretty hard on ourselves ... and that makes no sense either!

Why in the Hell do we beat ourselves up when we'll really just doing the best we can?

So ... to Hell with Hell!

I'm going to enjoy the Hell out of today!

I'm not going to give myself Hell and, to the best of my ability, I'm not going to give anybody else Hell either.

I am just going to enjoy myself ... who I'm with ... where I'm at ... what I'm doing ... the temperature ... the absence of shoes ... or clothes ... the conviction God loves me ... flowers are blooming ... my friends are doing okay ... and I feel pretty good.

You know ... without Hell ... it's pretty heavenly.

What Good Are You?

I remember watching President Kennedy's funeral and Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed my Dad brought home a pamphlet titled "The Three greatest men in History". On the cover was Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and Dr. King.

I can still picture Robert Kennedy lying on the floor in a puddle of blood when he was shot several months later.

Howard Cosell told me John Lennon was murdered as I watched Monday Night Football.

On September 11, I was in the dining room where a television showed the planes crashing into the twin towers trying to calm down mentally ill people who were scared to death they were next.

More than I care to remember, I've witnessed people do cruel things to others with no care at all.

I've seen tsunamis, Hurricanes, Tornados, Flash Floods and all manners of weather kill people.

I've been inside crack houses trying to woo people out, held the hands of men dying from AIDS, was vilified for trying to help the mentally ill and have received enough "Hate Mail" to last the rest of my life.

I've seen all manner of evil ... not just spoken words ... but hideous actions.  

"We didn't start the fire," Billy Joel reminds us.

It's been burning since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Yet I still believe good always trumps evil, light drives away darkness, kindness is more powerful than cruelty and love reigns supreme.

I believe in Karma and eventually terrible things happen to bad people. Those struggling to do good things are eventually blessed with goodness.

I believe in second chances, Angels and most everyone I meet.

I seen Heaven and I've seen Hell in this life.

I don't believe we wait until death comes to experience either.

Life has an incredible ability to keep making itself over. I'm a much different person than I was a decade ago.  I'm calmer, happier, very much in love, content and at peace with most everything I've done so far.  I've been born again, reincarnated and evolved from what I was before.

I don't care what people say about my beliefs. I've heard it all before anyway. These things are the core of who I am now and I'm sure as hell not going backwards.

No, we didn't start the fire but I can use it for good things or for bad.

I choose good.
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There still time to register for "Doing the Right Things for you" my online class that begins in December. Just click to www.meellc.com/onlineclass

The Day my Life Began

I rarely tell this story, because honestly, it makes me look crazy.

But, here you go ...

It was a wonderful, sunny day on the Caribbean Island of St. Martin. I was alone, standing on the powder white sand of the beach, watching the waves break on the reef.

Taking a deep sigh, I tried to relax for the first time in hours.

I'd been working since 5 a.m. when the sun rose and hadn't stopped until now. It was 1:30 in the afternoon.

Hungry and tired, I needed to eat so I walked back to my tiny studio to get money and clothes and saw my phone buzzing.

Answering, it was the board chair, back in the states, making more demands of me.

He had already proven to be one of my life's major irritants. Regardless of what I did, he thought it wrong and said so. The only language he speaks is "criticism" and boy had he given me lots!

Professionally I was on top of the world, an internationally sought after expert, author, popular speaker and award winning business man.

Personally, I was recently divorced, lived alone with my dog and hated the smell of my plush office because it just made me tired. That's why I was in St. Martin, trying to get away from the sad things in my life.

"You should quit," he said when I answered the phone.

"I resign," I replied and hung up.

And my life started over that day.

Strolling back to the beach with a beer in my hand, I made a promise to myself.

"I will be happy. And I will help others be happy too. I'll do what I want. And I'll help others do what they really want too."

Let me tell you what's happened since then.

I'm married to the love of my life! Our work is helping people enjoys theirs too! We worked hard helping others to build happy lives, doing what they want and ENJOYING what they have.

It works!

Thousands of people follow the stories and are remaking their lives too!

I'm not telling you this to make you think I'm awesome or great but I want you to realize the steps I took from being a very unhappy survivor of life to make it crank now!

If you're ready to have the happy life you want, I am here, willing to pull back the curtain and show you exactly how to get there!

We've turned it into a system that gets you from where you are to where you really want to be in a very short period of time!

But there are some ground rules.

1. I'll be completely honest with you about my shit and expect you to be honest about yours. Honestly saying where you're at and honestly knowing where you want to be is the first steps to happiness. I'm here with you for each step. You got anybody else pledging you honesty?

2. I worked hard to get here. You will have to work hard too. You know the saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." It's the same here. I'm ready to work with you, be your partner and get you there but you have to want it AND in the end YOU HAVE TO DO IT!

Ready to get started?

Let's pull the curtain back and this journey begins! I'll show you how to get where you really want to be at www.meellc.com/onlineclass

Kissing Paradise Goodbye

And you can see them there, on Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about, what it's like up there
They call it Paradise, I don't know why
Call someplace Paradise, kiss it goodbye

I'd listen to "the Eagles" every Sunday morning before leaving the Pastor's Office for the Sanctuary ready to deliver God's message to those who came.

We were a rag-tag congregation of little old ladies, homeless people, prisoners, idealistic Seminary Students, kids from the Projects and the occasional normal person.

The students were a talented and giving bunch bringing good music, enthusiasm, commitment and joy balancing the sadness of the homeless people and the prisoners. The kids brought a greedy lust for snacks and a better place to play. The little old ladies watched it all suspiciously believing the house of cards would fall at any moment.

I was their Minister, having taken the job because no else wanted it and I liked the little old ladies and they liked me.

My first sermon was a "fire and brimstone" affair extolling my flock that we were going to do great things together. Resembling a coach's halftime speech when his team's losing badly, I let faith fly in the face of facts. The ladies quietly smiled having heard it all before.

Over time the place was reborn. A tired old building became a sanctuary where Sunday School rooms turned into apartments and the Baptismal Pool a bathtub. The "Fellowship Hall" morphed into the neighborhood's living room and the institutional kitchen became a "Coffee Shop" that never closed. The roof became a gathering place where we'd sit under the stars breathing the smell of death from the nearby stockyards and listening to the city cry.

The only time we resembled an actual church was during the Sunday morning service when I delivered the message. I grew fond of telling stories rather than preach which seemed to go over well. And I learned how to pray because people were constantly asking me to and I didn't want to say "No."

I was there for eight years and for a while it was a magical, holy, place of joy in one of the seediest parts of the city.

Towards the end, I had a hard time holding it all together. While the little old ladies were in Sunday School, the homeless people and prisoners sadly heard the "Good News" from enthusiastic Seminarians and the kids stuffed their mouths and pockets with everything they could ... I'd sit in my office listening to "The Eagles."

For a while, it really was Paradise.

I'm preaching today for the first time in a long while and it's got me thinking about old things. Under a tent on an island surrounded by vacationing Pirates and real life Beach Bums, I'll deliver God's message. They'll be good music, enthusiastic believers and those recovering from last night's celebrations. It'll be Paradise, at least for a little while.
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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/

Summer's gone

The Government has shut down because the idiots we've elected are self serving ideologues.

It says as much about us as it does them.

Having said that ... the skies an incredible deep blue. A brilliant yellow sun blazes on a glassy ocean reflecting white light in every direction. My toes dig in the cool sand and a crisp breeze blows from the north which I don't care for yet it's a pleasant morning. Seagulls squawk Hymns of praise, sand crabs dart into holes and a pod of Dolphins smile as they glide by me. I smile back.

Summer's gone ...

I've read somewhere that your favorite season is when you were born.

It's true for me.

My birthday is July and I love summer with everything in me!

September is a mixed bag full of college football and airplanes crashing into buildings. October is a cozy fire in the Chiminea and ghosts wandering the streets. Thanksgiving bleeds into Christmas, Chanukah or Ramadan throwing us into the New Year which is cold and dark. In the dead of winter we go searching for our hearts again.

My dear friend Mitch Wesley is a Celtic at heart and believes things take root in the cold hard ground. Growth begins in the dark times. Light burst out of emptiness, stones are rolled away and new lives are embraced. It starts when we embrace the darkness and you go from there.

I like the idea but hate the experience.

Give me miles and miles of clear blue skies, rum on ice, lazy days in a Paradise of white sand, aqua water and laundry neatly folded and put away. Days linger into warm nights with blazing stars and a moon dancing across the sky. Fireflies, Dragonflies and Butterflies are Angels spreading happiness and hope.

The Government has initiated the beginning of the dark period ... again. The Church will follow suit. Those who haven't taken sides yet will. Wars and the rumor of wars will increase. Hell will come on earth as it is in ... Hell. Heaven's just a wish for a warm heart on Valentine's Day when the world is cold and bitter.

 But ... today the sun shines down on me, the house is full of love as I work on things I love in bare feet. Dark things are happening but I refuse to be part of them. I love the Sun dancing on green leaves and casting white diamonds on the Sea. I love Home, the cicada songs, squirrels playing in Palm Trees and Pelicans diving into the ocean.

These are the things I will dwell on today.

The Government, the Church and the Powers that be can dwell on other things because I'm not going to be part of that world.

I'm staying where it's always summer.

Off the well worn roads

I seem to be getting further and further from life's well traveled roads.

Sometimes I'm a little shocked at the distance between my life and societal norms.

My career path did a U-turn, the days of being constantly available to everyone else ended, and I took time to indulge me. "I don't go to church and I don't cut my hair" and I rarely think about the way it used to be.

Were my financial advisor, minister, Guardian Angel or parole officer to conduct a SWOT analysis of me, they would likely scream in unison, "Just what in God's name are you doing?"

My answer would likely be, "Beats the hell out of me!"

Honestly though, the answer is two fold. First, everything I've lived through so far has been to get me to this point and, second, I'm not always sure where I'm going but there's certainly no going back.

The question makes me feel OK because what I'm doing these days is entirely in God's name.

My faith journey is the biggest, baddest, freaking scare-the-living-daylights out of you Roller Coaster ride EVER!

I feel I'm elite company!

Francis of Assisi and Claire, Che Guevara, Frederick Buechner, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Clarence Jordan, Jesus of Nazareth, John, Ringo, Paul and George!

These are my people!

Making it all the more exhilarating and wonderfully frightening is that I have a partner! Sarah dove head first into this faith journey and she's never looks back either!

We're hell on wheels driving recklessly towards the Promised Land.

That's what faith is right? 

If it's genuine, to blatantly steal from Guy Sayles (America's greatest minister) "it will move us and we will move with it. The movement is often into unknown places in the heart and mind."

I got that part down!

Sarah and I are definitely in unchartered waters but we're enjoying the hell out of the ride.

Then once we get the hell out, we're really going to settle down and enjoy wherever it is we end up.

Everybody else thinks we should have a better idea of where that is.

We don't.

But we've come this far and we're not going back.

We can see the Promised Land from here.

It's right over there.
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Interested in more? Check out http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/indepthclasses/

Watching Friends Die

I learned yesterday Michael Sullivan died.

That sucks!

We liked each other. He managed the news and I often gave him some.

I'd show up at the TV station for "Live at 6" and we'd sit in his tiny little office and crack jokes or wax crazy philosophy like that in  A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ... which makes perfect sense if you've been drinking ... which we did on occasion ... on Tybee Island where we both lived ... making it worse was Chicago Bob and Johnny O were part of this circle meaning we were never quite sure which Galaxy we were actually hitchhiking to or from.

We also serious stuff together and he was always supportive of anything I was doing.

Mostly though, I'd stroll to the Pier when Dean still ran it for The Bored Meeting with Johnny O, Chicago Bob, Whitely Reynolds, Trolley Joe, O Johnny (not to be confused with Johnny O) and Michael Sullivan.

Sitting on the beloved back deck, I can't help but think to myself and say to God. "Holy Shit! Another friend has died."

Chicago Bob went first. Trolley Joe second. Some have claimed that Whitley died but nobody ever told him so he keeps doing the same stuff.

I get to thinking about it and it starts adding up. My Dad died a few years ago. My sweet cousin Sheri Baker died last year. Rick Donnelly, also my cousin, was the same age as me, left two years ago. Dean who ran the Pier and made us our own VIP section at the bar one night while the Tams played.

It sucks.

But I'm a minister and am supposed to make sense of it somehow. All I know is that life's a gift that none of us asked for yet each of us share. None of us know how long we got it ... or how much we have one another in our lives ... all we know is this is what we got or this is who we've had.

A lot of people are glass-half-empty people (like politicians, preachers and news reporters). They look at the dying that goes on around us and lament, "Well, this just sucks and it's going to happen to me one day too ... AND THAT SUCKS MORE!"

Like Michael, Chicago Bob, Johnny O, O Johnny but most definitely Trolley Joe, I look at it all a little differently.

It's great to be alive today!

It's wonderful having the people I have in my life right now!

It was incredible having the people I've had in my life because I don't know what I would have done without them!

So Michael, the party goes on, just as I know you would have insisted. It's a little different than what it would be if were still here but you're not.

But your spirit is. Your influence remains. Some of the laughter sounds like yours. Some of the crying does too.

Or to put it in the words of the Major Prophets John, Paul, George and Ringo ... "O-blah-dee, O-blah-dah, life goes on! BRAH!"
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Interested in enhancing your discussions with God and taking them to a deeper level? If you are don't miss the chance to learn more at http://www.meellc.com/wordpress/august-class/ — with Micheal Elliott.

What's wrong with the Church.

The purpose of church is so people can get together and remind themselves to think about something other than themselves.

Most churches fail miserably!

We take ourselves to church often knowing what we want to get out of it before we get there.

We want God to do this or that ... heal something we can't manage ourselves ... forgive us when we can't forgive ourselves and curse those we can't forgive ... we seek refuge from guilt, fear and loneliness.

Or we come for the entertainment!

We want good music ... funny sermons that can also make you cry ... great people watching ... wonderful gossip ... fervent political rhetoric ... opportunities to pass judgment ... to be part of a mob.

We go to church with so much agenda!

God help the clergy because most try to deliver on all of these things. They script the service with the precision of a Broadway musical or a military campaign. They ensure their people have the latest popular trend in worship ... excellent sound systems, large flat head television screens so everyone can see, elegant robes and mood lighting. They steal blindly from their peers for the best material. Some even orchestrate valet parking.

Often the result resembles an addiction. The junkies want their fixes and the minister is happy to serve them as the dealer.

Lenny Bruce, of all people, once quipped, "Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God."

It's little wonder.

Love God like you love yourself. And love others like you love yourself.

That's what it's suppose to be about.

It's a shame its about so many other things.

Snipers on the High Road

"He's the biggest Son-of-a-bitch I've ever met," I angrily said.

"He says the same thing about you," was the quick reply.

Peter Doliber and I were having lunch, talking about things we'd done and people we'd worked with back when we did a lot of work together. For several years our friendship grew, based on common work and compatible personalities, and we were truly fond of each other. Then Peter moved onto other work and I did too. There's not much of a relationship anymore. Over lunch we were reaching into the past but not making it very far.

Our conversation focused on things that had gone wrong. Though we had accomplished groundbreaking things together in health care, housing and mental health services we both focused on scars we still have, unresolved anger that still eats away.

By nature, I am not an angry person. I rarely get mad figuring the anger is one of the Seven Deadly Sins for a reason. It is true however there are a few people who hurt me beyond my ability to understand why, leaving me wounded. While I can still name them, I choose to not think about them. They no longer merit my energies. I'd rather focus on other, happier, things.

Sometimes at night, these people and the things we did to one another, scurry on the fringes of my dreams but when I awake I dismiss them quickly. There are too many good things I prefer to think about.

I'm a contemplative soul by nature, enjoying sitting on the beloved back deck with my feet propped up on the rail, music in my ear, watching the stars and smelling the ocean. Occasionally the angry people kidnap my prayers and as soon as I am conscious that I'm giving them room in my life, I cast them out like demons.

I write about the past a lot but I certainly don't live in it. That was then. This is now. I delight in my three grown children and live with three little girls. My resume is full of things I'm proud of but I'm much more excited about the things I do now. While I still have scars from old wounds, I've survived them and enjoy my life.  I live with and love my best friend who happens to be incredibly lovely.

These are the things I give myself to now because its where I find joy. It's where love reigns; where laughter falls frequently; where contentment comes easy; and where happiness is achieved.

I know there are bad people in the world and I've met my fair share. They are angry people, snipers on the high roads of life, not giving a damn about anyone other than themselves. It's best to shy away from such people, in person as well as in my thoughts and dreams.

If there is a hell, it's made by the angry people who don't wait to die before going there.

Likewise, I'm not waiting for heaven either.

It's here now for the taking.