Please Pray For Santa.

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Not me. I’m doing remarkably well in spite of a bad migraine the last two days. Nope, I need you to pray for Mr. & Mrs. Claus.

Honored to wear the Red Suit.

Honored to wear the Red Suit.

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Before you write this off as a joke, I need to assure you that it’s a legitimate prayer request. God knows exactly for whom we pray even if we don’t. What I mean to say is that God knows your intentions. Today, more than ever before in my life as a born-again Christian, I am asking for some prayers to go up. The short list follows:

For my brother Santa Claus and sister Mrs. Claus types. So many of them are in their upper years and suffer from a variety of ailments. Several of my friends in this venture are undergoing heart surgery or cancer treatment this month. I’m one of the youngest guys in a red suit at my level. I’m blessed to have started young (as many of my brothers did) and will have that health benefit going down the road. So please stop and pray for the whole bunch as a group. God will direct your efforts accordingly.

For my friend Steve. I wrote a lot about him this past winter when he was hospitalized. He’s doing relatively well now, amputation in his past and an artificial limb becoming more of a natural thing all the time. But there’s still some physical issues there and he would greatly benefit from all of you prayer warriors kicking it in gear again for him.

For the veterans of our nation. I belong to several on-line forums and the cries of despair and pain from my brothers and sisters seem to be rising of late. The anguish of Post Traumatic Stress and the sense of loss that many of us suffer from leaves them lonely, frightened, impoverished, and in need of prayer. Take a bit of time to kneel down and lift them up. They picked up a weapon and pledged their life to protect you, please reciprocate with a few minutes of time talking to God on their behalf.

For the addicted. Even when those with an addiction are sober, it’s a challenge at times to make it just one more day. Your prayers, encouragement, and love may make that difference for an addict in your life. To the addicts in my life: I want you to know that I pray for you regularly and I am there at the other end of the phone when you need me.

Finally, please lift up a prayer for the writers of Christian fiction. It’s not a big group, but if they are properly led by God, inspired in their choice of words, and fruitful in their labors, they can help lift others from their troubles.

Thanks. I knew I could count on this audience.

Sponsorship Sunday – A Request.

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Greetings. Each Sunday for the past several months I’ve been asking for support of the orphans at Grace Village. Healing Haiti is the organization that runs the orphanage and I’ve been there on a mission trip. I’m going again this winter.

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A reader had a valid point last week – what do we, the readers, know about this group and why should we trust them?

Excellent point. I am not an official representative of Healing Haiti. In full disclosure, I have met some of the leaders, broken bread with them, travelled to Haiti with them, and supported the organization financially and by means of using this blog as a sounding post. I don’t get anything from it except the satisfaction of knowing those children gain.

Today, just for a change, I am encouraging you to visit their website. Read about what they do and how they spend their money (An audited 2012 report is coming in the near future.) Don’t take my word for the good works – inspect, check, verify. I’m that confident of their good nature.

Next week we will resume the usual posts. Today, go look for yourself and see how a charity should be run.

Comfortable In Her Skin.

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By far the most popular topic on this blog is my Sheltie, Stormy. For those of you unfamiliar with the girl, she’s a rescue dog who joined our family 10 months ago.

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Stormy’s journey with us has not been an easy one. But in the months she’s been here her healing has been amazing. She’s gone from a frightened creature who avoided us unless we had a snack to a dog who’s pretty comfortable in her new home. The last few weeks have been wonderful. I’ve seen more unabashed joy and love in her behavior than I ever imagined when I first met the girl.

Stormy's Kingdom - The Bed.

Stormy’s Kingdom – The Bed.

I cannot tell you all of it, much of it is just a feeling you get when you look into the eyes of a dog. You know a lot about their wellness based on that look. Sometimes you see pain, sometimes joy. Lately it’s been joy. Joy and acceptance of the world around her.

I was working on the computer the other morning at 0300 (my day off – still a vampire) and I couldn’t find her in any of her usual spots. I went into the living room and found her sacked out on the couch. When I sat down next to her she didn’t leap off like she would have a short time ago. Instead, and to my immense satisfaction, she just gave me a glance, let out a deep sigh, and went back to snoozing. I was no longer a threat.

She’s doing another thing that’s cute but I may have to put a foot down to avoid conflict. She hides on my bed. While I’m in the bed. My wife comes to get her to put her outside before bedtime, and if I’m already asleep Stormy leaps up, snuggles in next to me, and refuses to acknowledge my wife’s summons. The wife or the dog… the wife. But it is nice to know that Stormy views my side as her safe haven.

She still nibbles, still flinches on occasion, and still lays down with her back to us on the rug. She’s a dog of solitude in many ways. But she’s also the imp on the bed. And a joy in my heart.

On Such Things A Life Turns.

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Thirty years ago this week I was trying to enlist in the United States Navy. I’d graduated college and finished the 999th interview with a corporation that wanted me to do some really rotten job that held as much interest as – well, you get the picture. Anyway, the Navy had what I wanted – I wanted to be a Cryptologic Technician. The Navy? Not so much. After all, who needs some clown that speaks Arabic.

The October 23rd bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut changed the picture. The morning after the bombing a recruiter I’d been working with called me and said, “So, let me get this right, you speak Arabic?” Yes. And the race was on to get me in and get me enlisted. I’d gone from a candidate of no interest to the hottest commodity in the universe in the span of 24 hours. USMC_logo

The reason for their disdain was simple: The Soviets were the main threat. Arabs and Arabic were a sideshow at best. I didn’t want to take Russian so they wouldn’t take me and send me through the schools. When the Marines were killed that all changed.

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The blasts (the French were hit the same day, 10 minutes later) were among the first really big terror attacks against the west by Iranian suicide bombers and their cousins from the factions in Lebanon. There is a strong debate to this day about the merits and wisdom of putting Marines in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, but that is not the point of today’s blog.

Today I ask you to pray for our military around the world. Offer up a prayer for the victims of Beirut. And remember those who not only gave their lives that day but survived the blast. I had the honor of serving with some of the survivors. Fine men. Brave men. Men who wanted payback for their Marine brothers who died in the blast. I understand. I think many of you will as well.

But today, simply pray.

Flash Fiction Rides Again.

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Two weeks ago we (the royal “we”) had our first Flash Fiction release on the blog. It went well. Good feedback, lots of fun to write. So this week we’re doing it again.

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I changed the rules. I simply asked a coworker for three pieces of information: an object, a place, a movie. They gave me handgun, San Francisco, The Matrix.

Forty-one minutes later we had the story. Here are the first three paragraphs. If you’d like to read the whole thing, be a subscriber no later than Wednesday at noon. The email with all of the story will go out only to subscribers on Thursday. Subscription is free, sign up on the right – and please make sure you hit your email and confirm that you wish to subscribe. Unless you reply to my email you will not be getting the fiction starting next week.

Thanks for reading.

Eunice stood her ground. The sounds of ABBA singing Ring Ring filled her head. She knew it was a trick to get her to lose her focus. The men, at least they looked like men, were just at the edge of her vision. They were trying to distract her and make her drop the .357 she held clutched in her left hand.

Fog swirled around her in a gentle embrace. The temperature was lower than she’d anticipated when she’d parked her car at the Presidio Park and walked up to the Golden Gate Bridge. It had to be twenty degrees colder out over the open water of the bay. She felt stupid for not remembering that – but the controllers made her forget things all the time. That seemed to be their job in this corner of the game. Make her do stupid things, hurt her, and make mistakes that called attention to her behavior.

Oh, they were clever. They’d cost her the last job with their plots. Her coworkers had complained to the owners about her conversations with them. How they missed what was going on baffled her at the time. Then it became clear: the controllers didn’t just control her; they were working on her coworkers and turning them against her.

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