Herding cats

 

I have heard a lot lately about “Being your true self” Who is that? I am not who I used to be. I am much less aggressive, I am more extroverted and I am less selfish. I still have a long way to go and in fact I am reacquiring some attributes that I previously owned. The more doubt I get out from under the more I start to get some of my mojo back.

                I was thinking about some of the times in my life where I unconsciously stepped up, in a big way. Running track for Manton against Forest Area and smoking everyone in the quarter mile. Mr. Harwick the track coach for Forest Area couldn’t believe it because I was better than his perception of me. The last football practice for Manton when Coach Lazowski had me stand on the 50 yard line and told the rest of the team “Live on Lowing” and I ran into the pack instead of running away from them. Standing in the middle of the ring after being pummeled from pillar to post by Jeff Shonavich and then I opened up and attacked his body and shut the home town crowd up.

                When Roy Jones Sr. got mad at me for missing training for three days after losing a fight because of a bad decision by an official. He told me “I am not going to fire you but I am not going to pay you any mind either. These other boys need sparring and you are going to be the meat” I did not like that but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of running me off. By the end of training that night I determined that if anyone was going to be the meat, it wasn’t going to be me. From that day on, I pushed myself past the point of normalcy. I was relentless. That is when learned what it took to be a winner.

Checking into BUD/s class 141 and the Master At Arms, Mike Bloom looked through my previous record from BUD/s Class 133 and saw all of the deficiency chits and started challenging me for even being allowed to go back into training. I just looked at him and said “I am just going to have to prove you wrong, now sign my check in sheet”. In Hell Week that second time getting into the water for surf torture and thinking “This isn’t so bad” and then 14 guys got up at once to ring the bell.

Getting off of the canvas after Tony Suggs dropped me with the first punch I hit him with and I got up and committed to going after him all out and that is what happened in a fight that people still talk about. Running full tilt up that runway in Panama carrying 110 lbs of bullets, water and radio while bullets were skipping across the ash fault in front of me. Standing up to my commanding officer, not letting him jump until he renewed his HAPS card, that was hard but I was right.              

Bill Cosby had a party record called “200 miles per hour” on the flip side he talked about how parents talk to their kids. He talks about walking into a grocery store and hearing a mother talking to her kid saying “I am going to beat you within an inch of your life' Imagine that, beating someone to death and stopping that far?” That which does not kill us only makes us stronger. Once you have experienced that thing which you fear the most and survive, anything less than that is nothing. That is who I really am and I like me.

Being congruent, walking a booby trap course, when every something starts taking you in a direction which you naturally wouldn’t go, you need to stop and look around and you will usually find the booby trap. The same thing works in life or dealing with people. When someone does something that doesn’t make sense or is different than what you are accustom to how they would normally act or talk. Something isn’t right. Some where they are compromising. People will always say “You need to compromise” Not on your values or in your beliefs. When that happens, there has been a break in their foundation. Something has changed. It might be good and you will know, when someone quits drinking of comes into a new and stronger faith but you will know too when they go the other direction.

There will be indictors, like a new association or a dramatic crisis in their life. We need to be aware and be available for them, encourage them, point out the right direction for them, give them the answers or at least investigate where they are going. That is what we do for the people we truly care about, leaders don’t just leave it to their flock to keep up and stay in line. In Luke 15:4 Christ said: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

                My Junior year of high-school, it was dear season and I didn’t have good enough grades to get a week off to go hunting. I was sitting in Mr. Diotte’s US History class and the snow was coming down heavy. There was about three feet of new snow. I saw a hunter come out to the woods with seven cats following him in a single file line. I was curious and amazed at why he had the cats with him and how he was able to get them to follow him in a single file line. Somebody told me that cats flush out deer but how he got them to follow him in single file still baffled me. Then someone suggested to me that following in the hunter’s footsteps might have been the easiest. That made total sense. Then while trying to build a sales team I would here other leaders describe it as “Herding cats”. It occurred to me that the only way to herd cats is, you have to lead from the front and there has to be no other option.

When the cat’s stray it’s because the path they are on is too long and they are looking for a faster way and we need to be there when they get lost or we will lose them. Sometimes you have to be uncompromising and extremely brave to in order to bring them back. I am thanking God that he made me that way.

 

 

 

 

I don’t need to lose weight this year

               

                This is one resolution I don’t need to put on my list this year. I have lost 44 lbs since this time last year. When I do my workouts in the morning it doesn’t take much effort. I no longer have that dread when I get out of bed in the morning. Part of me wants to do more but I have over done it many times and I don’t want to go backwards but I do feel a desire to take on a physical challenge or utilize my enhanced conditioning towards something meaningful.

                I do have my Trail Life boys. I think back on other young boys I have influenced over the years. I remember Roy Jones Jr. trying to keep up with me doing arm circles, push-ups and leg lifts. Then before you know it, he surpassed me. Then I ran into Jonathan, I used to train him and his best friend Ryan McDonald in boxing before I went to BUD/s training in class 141. I was in Panama and working out on the heavy bag in my garage and this Marine PFC stopped at my house on the way to his guard station and it was him. Then when I went to Free Fall Jump Master School in Fort Bragg North Carolina we got a four day weekend for Veteran’s day and I went to Virginia Beach and worked out with SEAL Team Eight and this tall red headed kid comes up to me and it was Shane Riley, he was a kid who hung out by the pool when I was a life guard getting ready to go to BUD/s in class 133. I trained him in boxing a few times. There were others whom I might have had influence with that make me proud seeing how they turned out.

                I can’t take much credit, I wasn’t there directing them or counseling them to get where they are today but there is one who I know for sure that I have influence in his life and that is my son Devin. There are so many examples I can think of where his character was developing. In the boxing ring at 10 years old sparring with 14 year olds and he was looking for me to intervene and I refused and told the older boy sparring with him “Go ahead and knock him out. Put him to sleep and make it easy on him.” I didn’t realize it but that older boy eased up on him and Devin stepped it up and the same time (Which is what my intent was) and the tide turned. After that Devin always assumed that it was within his power to take matters into his own hands and turn things around. As a Junior life guard he would get all excited when the instructors made the do push-ups. Now he is one of the top performers for Tesla Solar in San Diego and he calls me all of the time giving e his sales progress report.

                I had one of the pastors at the church tell me that I need to be who God wants me to be, not what anyone else wants me to be. When I become what God wants me to be, it will be enough for those that I want it to matter with. He was going over our gifts, mine were service and faith but I had taken his survey before and Teaching also came up as one of my gifts. I like teaching. I earned the designation as a Master Training Specialist in the Navy and it was awarded to me while I was going through BUD/s training in class 141. Mike Bixler had me in front of the whole class, standing on the tables in parade rest with my head against the wall. I thought I was in trouble and then he made a big speech and awarded me the certificate.

                Every time I have mentored young men, they always surpass me. It is funny how that makes me feel good.

Jesus Christ in Relation to God the Father

               

                When I first came into my walk of faith I didn’t make a distinction between the Lord God and Jesus Christ. To me they had to be one in the same, because anyone could send their lackey to deliver a message and suffer the consequences of it. Then around the ninth time of reading the bible I caught something. Jesus Christ talks of God and to God, not to himself. Then in the book of Numbers God is having a conversation with Moses and he is so upset with the Jews, he is about to turn them into a pile of smoldering ashes. Only when Moses has the courage to point out that the Egyptians are watching and if God couldn’t deliver his people to the promise land and killed them and left them in the desert, no one would ever follow him again. That is when I realized the significance of Jesus Christ.

                  Over and over again God’s people take his gifts and blessings and the turn away from him or lose faith.  Even Elijah ran away in fear of Jezebel. God couldn’t depend upon anyone. I read a story once of a veteran who had his foot blown off by a land mine during WWII who interviewed for a job and he was given a task to retrieve a rare vase. He found it and sent for it but it was broken during shipping. He pawned his watch which was given him for retirement and flew to the Middle East to buy the only other vase to replace the one which had been destroyed. When he raced to deliver it on time the people at the company who tasked him were amazed to the lengths length which this guy went to accomplish the task. In return for his efforts they made him president of the company.

                God, put this child with Marry in the line of succession of his people who had the closest relationship with him from the beginning. He was given to Marry and Joseph to raise with the fear of God and a relationship with him so close that actually communicating with him was second nature. I think of Roy Jones Jr. who had his first fight at eight years old. His hands were trained before he knew how he learned to use them. Most of us when we read the 10 commandments see them as impossible to adhere to. We fail to realize, there is no mountain for a climber.

                God had been waiting on someone whom he could depend on, without exception, to the point of death. Just like the Veteran who retrieved the vase and was trusted to run the company. Jesus, because he resisted all temptation and trusted the Lord God to take care of hum even to the point of death. He was given all of the authority of God. “For what?” You might ask. Because he died on the cross, knowing that he was taking the punishment meant for us. From the beginning God had to be stern, uncompromising. If he said it, he had to honor it. When he promised to give blessings he had to give blessings and when he promised punishment he had to give punishment. Because Jesus Christ adhered to the law, down to the letter, he earned the right to be sacrificed.

                It is like making it through Navy SEAL Hell Week gives you the right to finish the remaining 22 weeks of BUD/s training and once you finish six more months of advanced tactical training you will be awarded your Trident insignia and can deploy with a platoon and be in the line of fire.                                                                
                So because Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and took the punishment meant for us, God the Father agreed to honor Christ’s requests. So when we pray to Jesus our prayers had his endorsement on them. This is like the military chain of command. You might talk to the commanding officer about a request and he might even like your idea but you are going to have to put your request officially through your LPO, your Chief, your platoon officers, the operations Officer, the XO all before it gets to the Commanding Officer and if the commanding Officer doesn’t really want to approve your request but the rest of the chain of command approves it for you, it makes it hard for him to say “No”.

                Now when you have good leadership, they will either have you reword your request to make it easier for it to be approved or they will personally endorse your request. Praying to Jesus gives him the opportunity to either present your petition to the father or under circumstances where he is given the authority he can grant it himself. God the Father made it so Christ wasn’t offended by our human shortcomings. None of it was a surprise to him. He treats us like we are two year olds, who don’t understand between right and wrong and get really angry when they don’t get their way but their anger only lasts until something with enough appeal distracts them from their rage and then all is forgotten. That is his grace.  

                That is why we honor him and pray to him. He earned the right to be our advocate.

Turn the other cheek

Stand on faith!

Interview with Eli Lara talking about Trail, F3 and more

Talking about Trail Life and F3

Talking about my baptism

 

 

Talking about what the Flag means to me

 

 



My Baptism

I was baptized today. Last Thursday at New Life church they showed pictures of people getting baptized and I thought “I need to do that”. I was confirmed and baptized as Catholic Easter 1992 in Panama but that was just sprinkling and more administrative. Then I had my faith experience February 1994, that was the day I realized that God was real. I started reading my bible for the first time. I have since read the complete bible at least none times.

                Then today when I walked into Church one of the pastors, Terry Westerman was hustling around getting ready to do some baptisms after the regular service. I told him that I had never been fully baptized and he told me to run home and get my swimming trunks and a T-shirt. As I was driving home I had a talk with the Holy Spirit and committed to follow him.

                Then all during the service I was thinking about how I followed Roy Jones Sr. in boxing and my mentors in the SEAL Teams when it came to shooting and tactics. I was feeling like I was getting ready to get in the boxing ring for a fight. I thought about how when I fought Anthony Suggs Sr. and he dropped me with the first punch he hit me with, I got up and committed to go all out. He knows that I did. Then the Spirit gave me a message “You have been relying on yourself, going back and pulling from your past to solve challenges and deal with situations. Now you need to rely on me, in the word and prayer”

                It was as clear as crystal. I am totally committed to serve the Lord.