ClydeStyle

Author: ClydeStyle Services Group

  • God – Pro Choice?

    Remember when life was a little easier?

    I mean long before we were frightened by the turn of the century – you remember the time I like to call the duck tape/water scandal. It’s as if someone hit the fear switch and that became the new method of control.

    Suddenly, we now had to be careful about what we said, what we saw and what we did.

    Even our words have changed.

    I’m old enough to remember the theme song to The Flintstones. When the lyrics said, “you’ll have a gay ole time,” no one had homosexual thoughts about it. The word gay had a different meaning then. It just meant happy. Now I guess it means happier.

    I remember when I could say that the word “ain’t” wasn’t in the dictionary! Well, it is now.

    Word usage is very important today.

    I say all this to point out that as we continue to change – and change is good – we need to be careful of what we choose to fight against. Many Christians end up on the wrong side of politics – meaning that sometimes we have to choose whether we’re going to be political or spiritual.

    I was having a conversation with a woman who felt that God hated abortion and that the people who participate in it will surely go to hell. I asked her if she was sure about that and she said definitely! She then proceeded to tell me that I shouldn’t be questioning her since I stand in a pulpit on Sunday mornings.

    I asked her if she wanted to have this conversation as members of a political party or as members of the body of Christ.

    She said, “Both.”

    I said “That’s impossible.”

    The reason is because of the definition of words.

    Words like “pro choice” and “socialism” (I will discuss socialism in another post) take on different meanings depending on the context of the conversation.

    This intrigued her.

    She said, “Since we’re both Christians, let’s talk about it as members of the body of Christ.”

    Great idea!

    Biblically, God wants us to use our intellect. We were created differently from the other animals for this purpose. All Christians agree that we were created in the image of God – everyone doesn’t understand how – but we agree that we are definitely created in His image (Gen. 1:26, 27).

    Being created in the very image of God gives us the right to choose – to make our own choices and to suffer the consequences for our mistakes – whether they’re good consequences or bad ones.

    Some people think it would have been easier for God to just omit the trees that He told Adam and Eve not to eat from. Being in the image of God necessitates the need to use the intellect we’ve been created with. God gave Adam and Eve an opportunity to use their intellect.

    That’s what choice is all about.

    What do you think happens when someone (people, the government, the schools – or anybody) takes that right away?

    How many people in the Bible were given choices by God?

    A better question might be: how many people from the Bible must I name who God gave choices to for you to believe that God is pro-choice?

    In fact, of the 66 books in the Bible, it would be quicker to name the people He didn’t give choices to.

    Can you name anyone in either of these groups?

  • There is no secret ingredient

    The movie Kung Fu Panda was on cable recently. It’s interesting how you can sit and watch some movies over and over again. This was a very cute movie – but I won’t give you a synopsis of it here.

    However, I will share with you the gold nugget buried in this movie it’s one that many struggling adults also need to hear. “There is no secret ingredient” is the key to unlocking the next level for whatever stage you are at in life.

    Some of us are simply “surviving” and are just thankful that we’re able to make ends meet – at least, most of the time.

    Others have reached the stage called “contentment.” We are just continuing to do what we are doing because life is easy and it makes sense for us at this stage. We know we haven’t reached our full potential – but hey, we’re happy.

    Some of us have reached the level where we actually begin to know that we are worth something. We may have thought we have some worth before, but situations and circumstances have happened to us – and we’ve seen some victories.  Now we think we have it all figured out.

    But this is where the frustration begins.

    At this level, we begin to assess where we are in life – and we see that we have the potential to be farther along than we are now. We’re frustrated because we want our current job to make that happen for us, but it doesn’t happen. We feel trapped because we have bills to pay and a family to support. We can’t just keep jumping around from job to job — we need stability!

    But at the same, we’re not sure we can handle the pressures that achieving the next level may bring. Oh, we talk tough when we’re angry—like when something happens on the job that makes us want to pack up and leave. But deep down, we know we can’t – because we’re trapped. The next stage is comfortable – which is just another form of contentment. After that comes (finally!) success – the real deal!

    So how do we reach success? What’s the secret? In the movie, we learn that the secret is: THERE IS NO SECRET! It is YOU!

    To succeed in anything, we must first believe we can do it. We can have all the skill, ability, talent, gifts – even a great smile – but the magic doesn’t start until we believe we can do it.

    Problems are like math. There is a process to them. No matter how difficult the problem, the process of solving them remains the same. If you can multiply 2×2, then you understand the process and can multiply 13,658 x 27,498. One takes a little more time than the other, but the process is still the same.

    If we were to take this approach to surmounting the obstacles we encounter in our lives, we would gain the confidence we need to tackle bigger problems.

    Then – before we know it – we can handle anything life throws at us!

    Case in point: Michael Jordan was probably one of the greatest basketball players ever to compete in the NBA. He always wanted to take the last shot and he thrived on high pressure situations. He would often hit the winning shot during the last few seconds of the game – devastating the hopes and confidence of the other team.

    We always hear about the end result – how he hit the game winning shot. But what we don’t hear about is why. The answer is always clouded with statements like, “Wow! He’s just the greatest!” and “Gosh, how can he do that?” and “Oh my! Did you see that shot!?!”

    If we could hit the slow-motion button just as Jordan is dribbling down the court to take the shot – and ask him WHY he is taking that shot, he would say, “Because I know I can make it.”

    I’ll never forget that last shot in Hoosiers when the movie’s character, Jimmy, is in the huddle. The coach calls a play that shocks the team. He proposes using Jimmy as a decoy so someone else can take the last shot. Seeing the looks of dismay on the players’ faces, the coach frantically asks the team “What’s wrong?” Jimmy looks at him and says what the rest of the team was thinking.

    “I’ll make it,” he said.

    I still get chills thinking about that line.

    I’ve made a few of those shots – both on and off the court. I hope you take away from this article the secret to the secret ingredient: YOU!

  • The Gospel of Love

    There is a lot of information written about love. If you type the word “love” into a Google search, 1.4 billion search results appear.

    I was reminded of a song when I graduated from high school entitled “What about love?” by the rock band Heart. The song is about a person who has been sending love to another and for some reason it’s not getting through. The person she is sending her love to is climbing the ladder of success and doing big things and she’s reminding him about love.

    The chorus says:
    What about love?
    Don’t you want someone to care about you?
    What about love?
    Don’t let it slip away.
    What about love?
    I only want to share it with you.

    Love expresses so many things about us – our needs, desires, wants and our vulnerability. This is a universal way that we can give a part of our essence to each other. Love, done the right way, is God’s greatest gift to mankind.

    What about love gone wrong?

    It’s hard to have a conversation about love and not talk about hate. It’s great and I thank God for free will and giving us a choice. The idea was as we learned better, we would do better.

    In one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs he says:
    So I’ve learned that love is not possession.
    And I’ve learned that love won’t wait.
    Now I’ve learned that love needs expression, but I’ve learned too late.

    I believe there are people in this world who need an enema in regards to their love. In other words their love is stopped up, trapped inside of them and they don’t know how to get it out.

    These hurt people, hurt people.

    Because of their hurt, they become damaged goods and they desire that everyone would feel hurt like they do. You may have met some of these people. Some of the best places to find them is at work and at church!

    You can tell they are hurt in the things they say, the way they look, how they dress and it’s even reflected in the number of true friends they have. Their love is constipated!

    There are three ways to fix constipation:
    1. Have someone unpack it for you. In the nursing business this is the quickest way to get it done. And they actually go up there and get it.
    2. Use medication. There are some really good products on the market that use all natural ingredients for this.
    3. Let it happen naturally. Your system will get so backed up that eventually it’s forced out (drink plenty of water with that one).

    Of course, I’m referring to a literal case of bowel obstruction, but for love the answers are on the same line of thinking.

    Let’s take the last one first.

    Method Number Three has a few drawbacks. For love to eventually build up and flow out will happen in a sea of tears. Unfortunately, by this time, the person who was trying to love you has given up. This third method describes a condition where circumstances have made this person break down to a very lowly state.

    Some people never recover from this.

    They become depressed and may succeed at suicide. A person in this state needs to feel the love immediately and know that their show of vulnerability is not an embarrassment, but an improvement.

    Method Number Two is just good old-fashioned therapy. We all need therapy from time to time – it’s not that we’re crazy. Occasionally, we need to take something that will help get us back on track. Good therapy does just that.

    Method Number One has to be performed by someone who has a very close relationship with the person whose love is constipated. This person has to reach in and grab it. That means the constipated person must be confronted in love regarding their attitude, behavior or actions. The person who cares enough to confront them must not give up and be willing to fight the good fight of faith and to believe that the relationship can survive. And it can, because love covers a multitude of sins!

    This is the “good news” of LOVE.

  • Absolute Truth

    I remember in the 70s and 80s watching the “In Search of …” series on TV.

    I recall thinking to myself how these people had chosen an impossible task. They were looking for things like “Big Foot”, “The Loch Ness Monster” and “Noah’s Ark”.

    It wasn’t going to happen.

    They were not going to find those things – and I knew that at age 10.

    And I wondered how long it would take them before they got tired of searching and began to manufacture truth to prove a point.

    You know what I mean – coming up with evidence that may not point toward whatever they were looking for, but could be used for such.

    They would use it to justify what they were doing and – as long as we watched – they could keep going with their creation of truth.

    It seems today that too many people believe that truth is just that – manufactured.

    I wonder how many of us, in whatever we are searching for, are really searching for absolute truth?

    Not absolute truth according to me, TV or this scholar or that scholar – I mean good old-fashioned universal undisputed Truth with a capital ‘T’.

    Today, Webster’s dictionary defines truth as: “a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true … actuality.”

    About 50 years ago, Webster’s dictionary defined truth as “agreement with reality; external principle of right or law of order.”

    It seems in these two changing definitions we have clearly lost some things over the last 50 years.

    Two things in particular:
    1. Truth now has to be accepted as such – whether it’s real truth or not. If enough people believe it, then it will be accepted as truth
    2. Truth no longer has to agree with reality or what is – as the latter definition states. We have made reality relative to us. Is that legal?

    Have you ever put your trust in something (or someone) only later to find out that it was all a lie? The truth you thought you had then was eventually trumped by reality.

    It hurt like hell, didn’t it?

    You are not alone.

    There have been many who were presented with information that was bogus – from pyramid marketing scams to information about your partner – we somehow found out the real truth – and discovered we had been had!

    To add insult to injury, some of us even try and keep the lie going once we discover the error for fear of looking like a fool – or because we’ve invested too much in the situation.

    This happened to us with the war in Iraq.

    Whether the Bush administration or Congress knew prior or not, we went to war because we were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

    That lie got us over there and then we needed another lie to keep us there.

    Our government gave us three:
    1. Saddam was a bad person and a threat to us.
    2. The Iraqi people needed to be liberated.
    3. Being in Iraq would make us safer because we would then be fighting the war on Terrorism on the terrorists’ turf.

    But the question remains: What about the WMD?

    The problem is that no one will discuss is how we were lied to and how our sacred trust in our government was violated.

    Even with a new administration, we are still fighting under these same false pretenses. We don’t need to be saved from terrorists – we need to be saved from ourselves.

    Absolute truth is just that.

    It doesn’t need to be rationalized or require a lot of explanation.

    It’s truth.

    God created it that way so we wouldn’t struggle to find the source – which is God Himself.

    This is why Proverbs 4:7 says: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

    I encourage you in whatever the field of study, whatever the circumstance, keep searching for absolute truth.

    It’s there. You have to first desire it.

  • Who’s really to blame?

    It seems as though our laws and legal system are missing the grade as each relates to being a deterrent to crime. We make laws and those laws are broken. We set up a court system and it gets overcrowded and has more repeat offenders than a Cedar Point ride.

    Is there a way that we could set up a system that would really work: Be a deterrent to crime and not overcrowd our court system and jails?

    I’ve taken a therapeutic approach to this solution.

    What if everyone had to have a family tree? And with the family tree — that would always go back two generations – all the members of the family would be responsible and accountable for their own family.

    This would mean that if my son went to jail, not only would my dad and I get fined because of it, but our family would have to pay to have him housed in jail or prison until he gets out. So if he was there for 30 days, it would be our collective family’s responsibility to make sure he gets three hots and a cot or reimburse the jail or prison system for providing it. If he was in prison for 10 years, then we would have to provide the same.

    I wonder if this was the law, would people do better at raising their children? It seems like my system would work in a number of areas. What if my son had children out of wedlock and didn’t (or couldn’t) take care of them? Then my dad and I would have to fit the bill for that. What if my kid was cited for bullying kids at school more than three times? What if the fines doubled with each offense with the starting offense being $100? That would mean with the third citation we would owe $400 (in addition to the $300 we paid for the previous two). Is that enough to make parents raise their children properly?

    I believe that because of the great depression, subsequent parents afterward were frightened into making sure that food, clothing and shelter were priorities. This meant that our physical needs in most cases would be taken care of. Television shows from the 50s and 60s bear witness to the classic family model of a stay at home mother and a father that was the “bread winner”. The parents’ roles were designed to meet the physical needs, but what about emotional, mental, spiritual needs?

    Today, simply providing for the physical needs of your children is the same thing we do for pets. Something has to thrust us into the lives of our children. Kids today are missing the unconditional love that comes from BOTH parents.

    A boy needs to know what it’s like for a man to love him and be intimate with him without shame. A daughter needs to know and feel the security that comes from having the first man she ever loved tell her that she is beautiful, intelligent and can do anything she puts her mind to. Both children need to see their dad love their mom and sacrifice for the whole family. On that same line, the children need to know and feel a mother’s nurturing and love, unconditionally. A boy needs to have respect for his mother and sisters and see other females the same way he sees them. This is the governor of his hormones for there would definitely be something wrong if a boy tried to put a move on his mother or sister.

    The whole point of this is that we need to get back to the things that are most important – the family. And it just seems that in America the only way to get people to understand the magnitude of this problem is to hold them financially responsible for the actions of their offspring.

  • Understanding God?

    Clyde D. Mayberry

    The Bible tells us in John 4:23, 24 that “… God is Spirit and they that worship him must do it in spirit and in truth …” Many interpretations have devoured his passage and all it has done is caused confusion.

    As far as religion goes we have allowed someone else to define it for us, instruct us in it thus determining the nature of our relationship with the Almighty.

    In other arenas this is not so.

    In the medical field a doctor’s first prognosis is challenged with a second and sometimes third opinion. In the areas of finance, advisors are challenged daily with our current economy and many have lost their practices because they didn’t perform in the best interest of their clients. When you go before a judge you have the right to appeal his decision. If you don’t like your haircut, you’re free to choose another barber. Even at a fancy restaurant, if you don’t like your meal, you can send it back.

    Why do we not take the same liberty with religion?

    Religion seems to operate on a first disclosure basis – meaning the first person who teaches you gets your loyalty. So if your parents were Baptists, in most cases you will be Baptist. If your parents were Catholic you will be too. No fuss. No fight. We just accept.

    Then it gets worse. Once we get caught up in the WAY the faith tradition is done, we lose sight of building a relationship with God. So instead of knowing Him spiritually, we try to know Him physically (i.e. going to what is considered His house to worship Him); mentally (i.e., practicing forms of worship, festivals and holidays); or emotionally (i.e., trying to feel God or draw closer to Him through music, listening to preaching or chanting) Now, I must say, I am not against these things. In their proper place, they won’t do any harm. When they become a replacement for knowing God spiritually, this is where I take issue.

    The problem I have is this: When trials and tribulations come in your life, you will need God the spirit not a form of godliness. The music won’t be loud enough to stop your pain, forms of worship won’t satisfy tribulation and in most cases the lion’s share of the people that go to the same building you do on Sunday won’t or can’t help you with your trial. You will need to KNOW God for yourself – and that means spiritually. How do you do that you might ask? This is a huge subject that can not be explained or digested in one post, but for now I offer these three things:

    1) Pray to God and tell Him that you want to know Him spiritually and to put you on the path.
    2) Read a multiple translation of the Bible daily – this is a Bible that will have at least four different translations like the King James Version, New American Standard Version, New International Version and the Amplified Version.
    3) Start judging people by what they do and not what they say. A person that is spiritually sound lives the life. Surround yourself with these folks and they will guide you. Spoiler: These people will really know and have an understanding of the Bible and you will be able to tell by the way they act.

  • Sharing expectations

    I am working with a particular couple that can’t seem to communicate or understand each other very well. The guy thinks everything is fine and claims he has no idea why they are seeing me. The lady, on the other hand, is on the verge of leaving him because she feels their relationship is too robotic. She says her husband does things out of “obligation to the paper” (their marriage certificate) and not because of how he feels about her. She says he often jokes about marriage that she’s his ball and chain and not his loving wife that he admires.

    The problem here is three fold: One, this woman is not honest to her spouse about her feelings and expectations; two, she is hesitant to say how she really feels because of the possible rejection of him not feeling the same way; and three, her two basic psychological needs are not being met.

    Everyone has two basic psychological needs: We want to be loved and give love back and we want to have a sense of self worth and feel that someone else thinks the same thing – that we have value. We go through life searching in our relationships for these two basic needs. Psychotherapy attempts to put people on the path to achieve these two things. These two basic needs complete us as humans.

    The lesson this couple is learning is that honesty still is the best policy. Before entering holy matrimony the single most important commodity in a relationship is honesty with the ability to freely communicate with each other. A marriage and family therapist worth his weight will help engaged couples reach this point. After the fact, you just simple need a mediator (MFT) to facilitate confidential discussions with the couple to connect the line of communication. Once connected and the rules of engagement are explained (i.e. the importance of honesty, truthfulness spoken in love) then the couple will be well on their way to being free with one another and eventually – best friends.

    Are there things you have not told your spouse or mate? Have you been holding back because of fears of hurt feelings or retaliation? A failure to communicate works like cancer in the body. It spreads throughout and eventually affects everything. You start off holding back personal feelings and next you have secrets. Once secrets become commonplace, your partner can never be your “best” friend. At this point you are sacrificing intimacy for your personal hang ups – very bad practice.

  • Why write a blog?

    This has been a long time coming. I probably should have done this a long time ago.

    But I guess better late than never.

    I am trying hard not to have “expectations” for this blog. After all, I’m not trying to solve world peace – or find Osama Bin Laden.

    Just trying to create a safe place where we can share information and insights. A place where you can read something that makes you think, laugh, or even cry – and tell someone else about what you learned.

    I want this blog to be a special retreat – a refuge where you can take a few moments at the start of your hectic week – and meditate on something worthwhile.

    Some of the posts will be spiritual. Some will be therapeutic. Some will just be me being me – and doing things ClydeStyle.

    I want to extend a warm welcome to everyone – and invite you to share what’s on your mind. Please join the discussion – and share something that will help someone else.

    Some people will need to hear what I have to say. Others will benefit greatly by what you have to say.

    Let’s see how much of the world we can change – together.

    Thank you for sharing this moment in time with me.

    “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and see realized. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”  — Nelson Mandela