Don't Be A Mr. Bill (OHH NOOO!)

This past Sunday, I had the smile-full joy of listening to our priest, one exceptionally cool Father Kevin - deliver his homily using the old-school SNL cartoon, Mr. Bill, as the fodder for his message. To Father Kevin's immense credit, it was masterful. (For the record, I'm not trying to get extra credit with Father Kevin, although God only knows I can use all the help I can get.)

To paraphrase Father Kevin - its important that we all live and work from reality (with props to awareness and active learning) - so as to avoid the infamous Mr. Bill proclamation:

OHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ...

Which would inevitably be howled by Mr. Bill himself, just before his squishy pulverization (he was made of clay, you see) by Mr. Hands or Slugo. Sadly, the show always ended the same. Mr. Bill never made it. Nope. And therefore, he never learned his lesson.

Indeed, Mr. Bill had a (painful) propensity to always find himself in an "OHH NOOO" situation - even though he was mutilated over, and over, and over again. Why didn't he learn?! Now while this was, and still is for that matter, a silly, whimsical cartoon - it sadly parallels some of us in real life. The fact of the matter is, most of us (including me for sure) have our own "why won't we ever learn" convenient memory forgetfulness. You know, the kind of stuff that we should know by now, yet we continue to ignore them, and in our own way - get the Mr Bill treatment; albeit hopefully not as painful.

So the next time we have an "OHH NOOO" moment (out loud or in our conscience) - lets make sure not to repeat that same mistake again. To help with that, maybe we should visualize how it would feel to be pummeled by a pair of hands and a fire extinguisher ten times our size. (For those playing at home, that was one of the preferred punishments for poor Mr. Bill.)

Take it from Mr. Bill - it's best to stay whole.

OHH NOO is Bad.

UnAnswered Prayers (And Props to Garth)

So the other morning, I'm driving to the office: slowing up/slowing down; flipping through the radio; looking at the blackberry; juggling my coffee; flipping through the radio; thinking hard/hardly thinking; changing lanes; flipping through the radio; when BAM - it hits me:

No, not another car or anything like that; but impactful none the less. Believe it or not, I had happened upon the bitter-sweet Garth Brooks ballad, Unanswered Prayers. And man, I listened to the song, and lyrics, like I never listened to it before. Brought a lump to my throat; moisture to my eyes.

Yea, I know what your saying: "What What!? Dude, that's kinda lame, and like, not even old-school, retro cool." Whatever; I still liked it. And mostly I liked it because it made me think about how true that expression is -and how it applied to my life. Don't know what it was about that song at that moment, but I really personalized it to my life as it is now.

You see, right before I met my wife, I was going to join the CIA, and with any luck, be stationed in Europe, where I did most of my growing up. No kidding, I pined/yearned/romanced/longed-for, and literally prayed for a CIA gig where I could be one part Abbott, one part Bond (neither shaken nor stirred). True Story.

Well, suffice it to say, my prayers went unanswered; thankfully. Now, rather than being a cool, secret agent spy man, living in exotic locations, saving the world and getting all the babes - I'm now a cool (if i say so myself), visibly active family man, working for a loving, living in a suburb, with one smokin' babe (uh yea, that would be my wife), two fantastic kids, a dog, a cat, two frogs, and a hamster. Truly ... I'm one happy, blessed guy. And I still get to live vicariously as a spy through the movies. Talk about a package deal.

So you see gang, sometimes, unanswered prayers are good. Even better, is that genuine, heartfelt, compassionate, others-oriented prayers can and should be asked, and hopefully get answered. Pretty neat how that works out.

Prayers Are Good (Even the unanswered).

The PorchLights Cause

As a friend of "The PorchLights Cause” ... which is to help young adults, as well as families, schools, employers, and communities - enjoy more happiness, compassion, and success, at work and life … we’d like to ask for your help.

You see, given the ginormous challenges and opportunities of today, it’s important that we do our best to live happy, balanced lives that respect, appreciate, and fulfill: good work, good business, good faith, good family, good caring, good community, good love, good learning, good money, good spirituality, good life, for good living. Oh yea, and whenever possible, to get up and dance (that's actually what I'm doing in the picture above; just don't laugh).

In other words – its important that we strive to THRIVE and PROSPER.

With that in mind, The PorchLights Group is asking for your support to help us achieve our goal for “books in hands” in 2009, which is 100,000; we have about 87,000 to go. (NP, right ;)

So please, keep doing what you can to help pass on our heartfelt purpose - to anyone and everyone who can help bring the book, and more important, the PorchLights Cause, into families, high schools, colleges, vocational schools, not-for-profits, philanthropic organizations/foundations, and progressive companies. We really do need, and appreciate, your support. In addition to using this blog and our website http://www.pocketporchlights.com/, to help promote our cause - feel free to forward this new YouTube video as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hWxm4nM4qY

Thanks again for your friendship and support.

Friendship and Support Are Good.