Happy Easter Dan

Dan,
I hope you are well. Just wanted to send you a short note here at Easter time wishing you a happy Easter.

I certainly hope that you’ve taken some time this past year to examine why you (singular) are so angry and that you (also singular) are starting to come to terms with it and get past it. It is in quiet time that in our heart that God shows us what is right is right and what is not right is not.

You are my brother and I love you and no amount of silence or distance or anger can change that. I hope and pray that someday hopefully sooner rather than later you will engage with me, us, and that we can sit down together and have some time to move beyond this.

Happy Easter,
Love,
Mike

This and that

So for a year, A YEAR, A LONG, LONG YEAR, health care reform has been on the front burner, on CNN, on MSNBC, everywhere and on the lips of every Tom, Dick and Nancy in Washington and outside of Washington who has an opinion, a bias an ax to grind and turf to protect.

So for a year, A YEAR, ok you get it, we have been subjected to this endless, ENDLESS bickering about how this will or won't work. The point that's missed well there are many but here's my point; we can spend trillions on war machines, we can spend trillions on highways, we already spend trillions on social medical programs; so then why, oh why are some thirty million American uninsured? And more importantly; WHY DO SOME OF YOU WHO HAVE POWER AND CONTROL AND MONEY, WHY DO YOU NOT CARE?

I'm insured, by the grace of God. I had a very good friend, ok former partner teach me how to work the system so that I could acquire insurance in spite of being self employed and in spite of a pre-existing condition. Of course I pay well over five hundred dollars a month for my insurance and well, sorry to say Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, it ain't all that great. If I contract cancer or some other catastrophic illness, it will destroy me financially if I decide to fight and live. Sad isn't it?

So to Congress, to Governors, to Attorney Generals in various states who PROMISE to sue should health care reform pass; you with your safe government SOCIALIZED medicine and one hundred percent coverage; I hope and pray for you that you'll never, NEVER find yourselves with a pre-existing condition and lacking coverage. I hope you find the grace, the courage, the nads to step up and pass a bill that albeit not perfect will at least afford thirty million of your country folk an opportunity for health care coverage.

I hope that you in power will think about these people when you next have to vote on billion dollar airplanes, highways and other ear mark bills. I hope you think about your country folk when you go to your doctor or to Bethesda Naval Hospital and you don't even have to make a co-pay and you are completely covered. I hope that you think about us when you have to have a CAT scan and you don't have to pay for it because, well, we pay for your health care.

Patience

Colossians 1:11 (NIV)
11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully

Sometimes it is really difficult to be patient; well of course; following Christ is difficult.

Today I received a call about a potential listing. I am typically very excited about listings and new business. In this instance though, I had a bit of a history with the gentleman phoning so my guard was up from the start; the conversation was pleasant, well for a bit.

I hadn't been to this home, I had seen it on line including pictures and the place is very pretty. It was terribly overpriced but very pretty. Well the man eventually turned to length of contract and I told him that I don't take less than six month contracts. He started to get animated and angry; much like our historical conversation so I nipped it in the bud; I wished him luck and hung up.

In rolling this over in my head I wonder if I was patient enough. I guess in time and in prayer I'll figure that out.

The quiet time

It seems that the minutes right before dawn are the most quiet. While sitting here this morning as the world started to lite and the birds began singing, my mind traveled back to sitting in a window; in a second floor attic bedroom; with my brother at my side as a young child.

Dan and I would often wake up early and sit in our window and look out on the world and what I remember seeing were grey mornings. I'm sure there were some sunny ones too, but I remember grey.

The memory is a good one.

Counting Blessings

I have had a weekend alone. Well not really; given my career I am never really alone; I see and meet and talk to lots of people every day. I sometimes feel very much alone and lonely. I think it is mostly due to the fact that as a young man I lost John my partner and I've never really been able to get used to that hole in my life. I've really just kind of learned to work around it; to cope with it.

So, this weekend, Ray, Angie and Michelle were in Greensboro for the ACC tournament. Rick is in Canada, Jen and Mary were in Pennsylvania and my folks are traveling. My countless other friends I didn't reach out too and my brother, well my brother wants nothing to do with me. So my weekend has been reflective and enjoyable. I did have dinner last night with clients who are more than clients; they are friends.

Today, the joy of the weekend became most apparent. I went to Imani MCC here in Durham. It is nice to be back with my community. As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, "The next time I go looking for my heart's content, I won't go any further than my own backyard."
Me too.

As I exit the car and make for the door of the church house, there is a familiar face. I face that I first came to know twenty five years ago during freshman orientation for college. It was Julie. Oh how I've thought about her all these years. How I've wondered what her life has been and where she's gone and then poof, here she is in Durham and she's treasurer of the church. The love I felt seeing this woman warmed my heart. God truly answered a prayer by her being there.
I am so blessed and so lucky to have so many different and talented and warm people in my life.