Jesus was a Beach Bum

Nicodemus asks Jesus, "So you’re telling me I can be born though I’m obviously already born or I wouldn’t be here to ask you this question?”

Jesus smiles, nods and says, “You got it Nick!”

Nick shakes his head signifying he doesn’t get it and asks, “There’s no way I’m crawling back inside my Mom’s vagina to do it again? Or can I?"

Jesus yells "HEY!” then looks at Nick like he can’t believe the stupid ass question so he yells it again.

“HEY! LISTEN you moron … you gotta get wet … then you catch the Spirit …after that you can hang out with God.

“No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit …” Jesus says according to John, the youngest and weirdest of the Apostles.

Water mixing with Spirit is … heavenly.

Biblical commentaries speculate that Jesus is talking about Baptisms but I have a difficult time following their logic since it has nothing to do with this particular conversation.

So Jesus was baptized by John.

It’s got nothing to do with the convo with Nick.

Jesus starts with water.

I like that.

Of course Sarah and I live beside the ocean so water is big to me … literally.

That means we live at the beach where the Spirit is easily found.

They go together.

Jesus was a beach bum.

To kick off his ministry he got baptized.

The first thing he did after being raised from the dead (no small feat) was host a fish fry on the beach.

It’s hard not to love Jesus.

I believe when he walked on water Jesus invented paddle boarding.

When he recruited Disciples his pitch was they could be fishers of men and women.

Jesus liked boats and often took sailing trips to crazy places like the “Region of the Gerasenes” hang out in graveyards with crazy people and eat bootleg Bar-b-Que (Jewish law forbade pork)!

Even when he was being crucified Jesus kept a positive attitude and probably thought something like, “At least I’m working on my tan.”

Many take issue with such depictions of the Messiah but the Gospels can certainly be read from a Beach Bum perspective.

And I swear to God when I’m standing on the beach watching God throw diamonds on the ocean, silhouettes of crippled people walking on the water, Pelicans diving and dolphins smiling, it’s just like being born again.

That’s why everybody needs some beach time.

Water and Spirit go together.

Find yours again in the water.

Happy Easter!

Surf's Up!

 

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!"
_____________________________________________

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/

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.

Praying the Blues

"When you least feel like praying is when you really need to."

The Gospel according to Hooker Man.

Sarah and I met Hooker and his beautiful wife Levy last year in St. Martin, though I'd heard about them previously from our friend Hugh.

Hooker and Levy are musicians who reside in Coleman, Michigan. He wears glasses over a nose that floats above a long gray beard and you just know he played Woodstock. Wearing overalls and sandals, he stands lost in the sounds wailing from his guitar.

Levy's hair falls over her shoulders but her large captivating smile is what affects you. Her smile throws warmth your way. Her voice soothes. A gifted story teller, her eyes work the crowd then shares devilish delight with Hooker's as they make the music of angels.

On a hot Tropical night in St. Martin, Hooker and Levy performed an impromptu concert on the patio of their Garden Chalet. Our friend Marty joined in wailing on his harps. Perhaps thirty of us stood under the moonlit Palm Trees with the waves crashing on the reef serving as percussion.

"In spite of ourselves," Levy sang while Hooker played, "we'll end up a sittin' on a rainbow."

The lyrics to the John Prine song were our wedding vows when Sarah and I married under a full moon on the beach at Tybee. We smiled and danced as Hooker and Levy re-gifted our vows to us.

Michigan is a long way from Tybee Island but through the magic and wonder of Facebook, we all keep up with each other. Isn't it wonderful that once one time meetings that became distant memories are now ongoing friendships where we can immediately touch over distance and time?

At 3:00 in the morning Hooker posted that when you least feel like praying is when you need to. I don't know if he played last night, he could have just gotten home from work and was sitting there having the days last cigarette and washing it down with a beer. Levy might have been rubbing his shoulders. Or he could have been laying there, trying to sleep before saying "To hell with it!" and sitting before the computer thinking about prayer.

I don't know.

I do know that a friend of Hooker's was hurt really bad yesterday. Great musicians think with their hearts and Hooker's was troubled. Sometimes prayers are really the blues, our way of saying to God, "This just ain't right."

And that's alright. Sometimes life just isn't right and we have every right in the world to tell God and everybody else it ain't! Bad things happen. Incredible life's are cut short. Friends hurt themselves. Lover's disappear.  Loneliness is found. Hunger of all sorts happens.

I believe that God prefers listening to the blues. It's far purer than choirs of Angels singing Hymns. It's far more substantive than the Gospel songs of praise heard in church. It's much more honest than anything in the Hymnal.

At 3:00 in the morning, without his guitar, Hooker was praying the blues.

And I heard you man.

And I'm praying them with you.

When it all goes wrong

"Will you just give me a break," she exclaims in exasperation, "I think I've lost my boyfriend and my job."

She was much too thin, greasy black hair, vacant brown eyes that were misted over, a white tank top with pink bra straps slipping over her shoulders, and cut off blue jeans. A tattoo of Celtic letters were painted in black on the base of her neck matching a circle of them around her left arm. A trampy Olive Oil, chain smoking, was doing everything wrong and someone had called her out on it.

Sarah and I had stumbled in for something to eat after attending the Savannah Singer Songwriter Series on the island.

"Will you please just leave?" she begs her customer and he does.

Everything she does seems to keep getting worse. After giving up rewriting the menu board, she grabs a dollar from the cash register and plays a sad song, very loudly, on the juke box. This ran off another customer.

When the song's over, the only other person in the bar besides us walks to the juke box and feeds it money. Country music blares over the basketball game that's on the television. We watch because there was no way we can hear anything that's said.

The greasy Olive Oil lights another cigarette and cries as she stares into place.

She took our order but never gave it to the cook. When the songs finally finished we tell her.

Everybody has those kind of days. Everything just seems to turn to shit. The harder you try, the worse it gets. Your roof may as well leak, your house have fleas and your car won't start. Broken hearts break a little more, loneliness grows, your best of friends give stupid advice and you just want to cry.

Our food arrives and Sarah asks for napkins.

She rushes, apologetic for the tardiness of our meal, grabs one a Coca-Cola napkin dispensers and places it before Sarah. It's empty.

We leave her a nice tip. There isn't anything else really to do.

And we both throw her prayers. We've had those kind of days.

The prayers may not help.

They sure as hell couldn't hurt.